From Crimea to the Carpathians: A Political Geography of Ukrainian Identity

Ukraine is not just a country at war or a territory in contest; she is a vast, layered civilisation stitched together across mountains, steppe, rivers and coastlines. Her political geography—spanning the Carpathian Highlands in the west to the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula in the south—has played a defining role in shaping Ukrainian identity. The state’s territorial boundaries have changed repeatedly across the centuries, yet its people have carried with them a persistent aspiration: to forge unity out of diversity, and to define Ukraine not just as a space, but as a national idea.

We are writing to exploreshow the varied regions of Ukraine—from Hutsul villages in the west to Crimean Tatar settlements in the south—contribute to a broader understanding of Ukrainian identity. We also wish to examine how the war has reinforced national consciousness across these disparate geographies, transforming a fragmented past into a shared political future.

A Historical Tapestry of Borderlands

To understand Ukraine’s political geography is to understand her as a borderland—a krai—shaped by overlapping empires and competing sovereignties. The Kyivan Rus’, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and Tsarist Russia have all claimed and shaped parts of the territory that now comprises modern Ukraine.

• Western Ukraine, including Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Uzhhorod, was historically under Habsburg rule. These regions developed strong civic traditions and were among the first to embrace Ukrainian nationalism in the 19th century.

  
  

• Central Ukraine, anchored by Kyiv, is the heartland of Ukrainian language, culture, and political power. It is here that the Maidan revolutions—2004 and 2013–14—ignited national transformation.

  
  

• Southern and Eastern Ukraine, including Odesa, Donbas, and Crimea, have longer histories of Russian imperial influence. Industrialisation, Russification policies, and complex ethnic compositions have given these regions distinctive linguistic and political dynamics.

Despite these differences, Ukraine’s geography has never determined her destiny. Instead identity has been forged through resistance: to empire, to occupation, and most recently, to foreign invasion.

Crimea: A Symbol of Loss and Resistance

The Crimean Peninsula, annexed illegally by Russia in 2014, remains both an open wound and a symbol of enduring Ukrainian identity. Home to indigenous Crimean Tatars, ethnic Ukrainians and Russian settlers, Crimea is a microcosm of Ukraine’s multiculturalism.

Following annexation, the region underwent intense repression. Crimean Tatar activists were arrested, Ukrainian-language schooling was eliminated, and pro-Ukrainian journalists disappeared. Yet in exile and silence, Crimean civil society persists—broadcasting to the peninsula from Kyiv, maintaining cultural memory in diaspora, and reminding Ukrainians that Crimea remains part of the whole.

Crimea, more than a territory, has become a national mythos: a place that symbolises unfinished sovereignty and the persistence of hope.

The Donbas and the Eastern Frontier

The war in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, ongoing since 2014 and intensified after 2022, has paradoxically clarified Ukrainian identity. Where once loyalties were ambiguous, the brutality of occupation has polarised the population.

Before the war, Donbas was often characterised as ‘Russophone’ and ambivalent about Kyiv’s authority. But Russian attempts at conquest have discredited their own narrative. Cities like Sloviansk, Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk—formerly industrial hubs—have become front-line fortresses of Ukrainian patriotism.

The east now contributes not only soldiers but a renewed vision of being krainian—one less reliant on language and heritage, and more grounded in shared struggle and civic belonging.

The Carpathians and the Hutsul Heart

In contrast, western Ukraine—with its pine-covered mountains and wooden churches—is the cradle of Ukrainian ethnonationalism. Here, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, suppressed under Soviet rule, remains influential. Folkloric traditions, embroidery, music, and the Hutsul highland aesthetic form an identity resolutely distinct from Russian cultural hegemony.

But the west is not merely symbolic. During wartime, regions like Lviv, Ternopil and Zakarpattia have functioned as logistical hubs, safe havens for displaced civilians, and spiritual anchors for national resilience.

Even within western Ukraine, regionalism exists: Zakarpattia’s Rusyns, for instance, maintain a unique dialect and heritage. Yet these identities coexist within a broader Ukrainian patriotism, strengthened rather than diminished by diversity.

Odesa and the Southern Mosaic

Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, centred on the city of Odesa, presents another face of Ukrainian identity: cosmopolitan, maritime, multilingual. Odesa, long associated with humour, Jewish heritage and Mediterranean openness, has gradually embraced Ukrainian nationhood.

Prior to the war, some feared southern Ukraine might fall under Russian influence. But the invasion sparked a redefinition of southern Ukrainian identity. Odesa residents organised civil defence, preserved cultural landmarks, and suffered bombardment with stoic defiance.

In Mykolaiv and Kherson—cities that suffered brutal attacks and partial occupation—language proved secondary. Ukrainian patriotism emerged not from ethnolinguistic homogeneity but from the collective act of resistance.

Kyiv: The Nerve Centre

Kyiv is not only the capital but the epicentre in which Ukrainian political identity is tested and remade. A city of revolution, martyrdom, and reinvention, it has served as the focal point of every national awakening of Ukrainian identity. The Maidan, now sacred ground, represents the people’s capacity to demand democracy against odds.

The capital’s resilience under threat—particularly during the 2022 siege—cemented its mythic role. But Kyiv is not merely symbolic. It is a living city, coordinating national logistics, welcoming refugees, and housing wartime innovation hubs.

It is also where east meets west, and where Ukrainian identity—religious, linguistic, political—is negotiated anew every day.

Language and Identity Across Geography

Ukraine is home to both Ukrainian and Russian speakers, and numerous minority languages. The war has prompted a linguistic shift: many Russophones have adopted Ukrainian as an act of solidarity. Yet the state has sought to avoid coercive language policies, recognising that language does not determine loyalty.

Ukrainian identity is becoming more civic than ethnic. It is being forged across front lines, through collective sacrifice, rather than ancient bloodlines. Political geography is not erasing cultural distinctions—it is reframing them as part of a shared national project.

Borders and Belonging

One of the ironies of Ukraine’s political geography is that war has helped solidify the nation’s borders in the minds of her citizens. Prior to 2014 national identity was fluid, sometimes ambivalent. But since the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, Ukraine’s territorial boundaries have become sacred. Occupied regions are not forgotten—they are integrated into the national imagination as spaces to be reclaimed, restored and reintegrated.

From the forests of Volyn to the plains of Zaporizhzhia, a sense of belonging has grown. Not imposed, but earned—in the bomb shelters, the train stations, the field kitchens, and the trenches.

Toward a Unified Civic Nation

The war has accelerated Ukraine’s transformation from a post-Soviet republic into a modern civic state. Geography once divided Ukraine; now it unites. The contrast between regions remains, but it has ceased to be divisive.

The Crimean Tatar, the Hutsul shepherd, the Odesa sailor, the Donetsk miner, and the Lviv professor all now see themselves not just as citizens of Ukraine, but as stewards of her future. Their identities are multiple but converging.

This pluralism is Ukraine’s strength. The attempt to erase her geography—by flattening her cities and occupying her lands—has only deepened her people’s connection to place and to one another.

A Nation Shaped by Her Map

Ukraine’s map is not just a collection of oblasts. It is a political geography of meaning, memory, and resistance. From the peaks of the Carpathians to the coastlines of Crimea, the idea of Ukraine is now larger than her parts.

As the war continues, and as the world watches her struggle, one truth becomes clear: Ukrainian identity is not imposed by the state but drawn across the land—inked in trenches, stitched in vyshyvankas, and whispered in languages old and new.

It is a map that lives. And every inch of it matters.