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156-536: The Reichskommissariat Ukraine ( RKU ; lit.   ' Reich Commissariat of Ukraine ' ) was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II . It was the civilian occupation regime of much of Nazi German -occupied Ukraine (it also included adjacent areas of the Byelorussian SSR , Russian SFSR , and pre-war Second Polish Republic ). It was governed by the Reich Ministry for

312-701: A coup d'état led by Pavlo Skoropadskyi , which yielded the Ukrainian State under the German protectorate, and the attempt to restore the UNR under the Directorate ultimately failed as the Ukrainian army was regularly overrun by other forces. The short-lived West Ukrainian People's Republic and Hutsul Republic also failed to join the rest of Ukraine. The result of the conflict was a partial victory for

468-587: A famine known as the Holodomor or the "Great Famine", which was recognized by some countries as an act of genocide perpetrated by Joseph Stalin and other Soviet notables. Following on the Russian Civil War and collectivisation, the Great Purge , while killing Stalin's perceived political enemies, resulted in a profound loss of a new generation of Ukrainian intelligentsia , known today as

624-723: A master race , which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population here." On 14 December 1941, Rosenberg discussed with Hitler various administrative issues regarding the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. On 28 July 1944, the Soviet army occupied the last part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, known as Brest. RKU was liquidated on 10 November 1944. The Reichskommissariat Ukraine excluded several parts of present-day Ukraine , and included some territories outside of its modern borders. It extended in

780-494: A European leader in industrial production and an important centre of the Soviet arms industry and high-tech research, though heavy industry still had an outsided influence. The Soviet government invested in hydroelectric and nuclear power projects to cater to the energy demand that the development carried. On 26 April 1986, however, a reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded, resulting in

936-680: A German "ethnical state", especially after the Napoleonic wars . Ideal for this state was the Holy Roman Empire; the legend arose that Germany were "un-defeated when unified", especially after the Franco-Prussian War ( Deutsch-Französischer Krieg , lit. "German-French war"). Before that, the German question ruptured this "German unity" after the 1848 Revolution before it was achieved, however; Austria-Hungary as

1092-521: A cultural trend toward romantic nationalism , a Ukrainian intelligentsia committed to national rebirth and social justice emerged. The serf-turned-national-poet Taras Shevchenko (1814–1861) and political theorist Mykhailo Drahomanov (1841–1895) led the growing nationalist movement. While conditions for its development in Austrian Galicia under the Habsburgs were relatively lenient,

1248-453: A final resurgence under the rule of Vladimir II Monomakh (1113–1125) and his son Mstislav (1125–1132), Kievan Rus' finally disintegrated into separate principalities following Mstislav's death, though ownership of Kyiv would still carry great prestige for decades. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the nomadic confederacy of the Turkic -speaking Cumans and Kipchaks was the dominant force in

1404-595: A full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Since the outbreak of war with Russia , Ukraine has continued to seek closer ties with the United States , European Union , and NATO . Ukraine is a unitary state and its system of government is a semi-presidential republic . A developing country , it is the poorest country in Europe by nominal GDP per capita and corruption remains a significant issue. However, due to its extensive fertile land , pre-war Ukraine

1560-519: A further blow to Moscow's influence in Ukraine. Finally, amid a full-scale war with Russia, Ukraine was granted candidate status to the European Union on 23 June 2022. A broad anti-corruption drive began in early 2023 with the resignations of several deputy ministers and regional heads during a reshuffle of the government. Ukraine is the second-largest European country , after Russia, and

1716-529: A historical aberration, contemptuously referring to it as " the System ". In the summer of 1939, the Nazis themselves actually banned the continued use of the term in the press, ordering it to use expressions such as Nationalsozialistisches Deutschland ("National Socialist Germany"), Großdeutsches Reich (" Greater German Reich "), or simply Deutsches Reich ( German Reich ) to refer to the German state instead. It

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1872-463: A kingdom), but in a modern sense, the term is used in a much more figurative sense (e.g. Die Hemelse Ryk (the heavenly kingdom, China)), as the sphere under one's control or influencas: As in German, the adjective rijk / ryk also means "rich". Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe . It is the second-largest European country after Russia , which borders it to

2028-595: A multinational state could not become part of the new "German empire", and nationality conflicts in Prussia with the Prussian Poles arose ("We can never be Germans – Prussians, every time!"). The advent of national feeling and the movement to create an ethnically German Empire did lead directly to nationalism in 1871. Ethnic minorities declined since the beginning of the modern age; the Polabs , Sorbs and even

2184-509: A part of the broader Russian Civil War , devastated the whole of the former Russian Empire , including eastern and central Ukraine. The fighting left over 1.5 million people dead and hundreds of thousands homeless in the former Russian Empire's territory. The eastern provinces were additionally impacted by a famine in 1921 . During the inter-war period, in Poland , Marshal Józef Piłsudski sought Ukrainian support by offering local autonomy as

2340-534: A policy of Russification , suppressing the use of the Ukrainian language and curtailing the Ukrainian national identity. The western part of present-day Ukraine was subsequently split between Russia and Habsburg -ruled Austria after the fall of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795. The 19th century saw the rise of Ukrainian nationalism. With growing urbanization and modernization and

2496-568: A population of 16,910,008 people. The 1926 Soviet official census recorded the urban population as 5,373,553 and the rural population as 23,669,381 – a total of 29,042,934, however the borders of the administrative region of the Soviet Ukrainian SSR were noticeably different from those of the Reichskommissariat. In 1939, a new census reported the Ukrainian urban population as 11,195,620 and rural population as 19,764,601 –

2652-516: A sort of frozen state until the early hours of 24 February 2022, when Russia proceeded with an ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Russian troops control about 17% of Ukraine's internationally recognized territory, which constitutes 94% of Luhansk Oblast , 73% of Kherson Oblast , 72% of Zaporizhzhia Oblast , 54% of Donetsk Oblast and all of Crimea, though Russia failed with its initial plan, with Ukrainian troops recapturing some territory in counteroffensives. The military conflict with Russia shifted

2808-421: A steady wood supply and efficient railroad and water transportation. The Reichskommissariat's administrative capital was at Rivne, and it was divided into six Generalbezirke (general districts), called Generalkommissariate (general commissariats) in the pre-Barbarossa planning. This administrative structure was in turn subdivided into 114 Kreisgebiete , and further into 443 Parteien . Each "Generalbezirk"

2964-591: A term for this period of German history. The common contemporary Latin legal term used in documents of the Holy Roman Empire was for a long time regnum ("rule, domain, empire", such as in Regnum Francorum for the Frankish Kingdom ) before imperium was in fact adopted, the latter first attested in 1157, whereas the parallel use of regnum never fell out of use during the Middle Ages. At

3120-689: A threat from Germany's eastern borders and allow for the colonization of the vast territories of Eastern Europe under the banner of " Lebensraum " (living space) for the fulfilment of the material needs of the Germanic people. Ideological declarations about the German Herrenvolk (master race) having a right to expand their territory especially in the East were widely spread among the German public and Nazi officials of various ranks. Later on, in 1943, Erich Koch said about his mission: "We are

3276-477: A total of 30,960,221. The Ukrainian Soviets counted 17% of total Soviet population, and a significant portion was also separately occupied by Romania . The Wehrmacht came under pressure for political reasons to gradually restore private property in zones under military control and to accept local volunteer recruits into their units and into the Waffen-SS , as promoted by local Ukrainian nationalist organizations,

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3432-470: A very small number of cities and their accompanying districts maintained German names. These cities were designated as urban strongholds for Volksdeutsche natives. Hegewald (Himmler's field headquarters and the location of a small, experimental German colony), Försterstadt (also a Volksdeutsche colony), Halbstadt (a Low German Mennonite settlement), Alexanderstadt , Kronau and Friesendorf were some of these. On 12 August 1941 Hitler ordered

3588-599: A way to minimise Soviet influence in Poland's eastern Kresy region. However, this approach was abandoned after Piłsudski's death in 1935, due to continued unrest among the Ukrainian population, including assassinations of Polish government officials by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN); with the Polish government responding by restricting rights of people who declared Ukrainian nationality. In consequence,

3744-698: Is indenrigs / inrikes / innenriks , meaning domestic. The adjective form of the word, rig in Danish and rik in Swedish/Norwegian, means "rich" like in other Germanic languages. Rijk is the Dutch and ryk the Afrikaans and Frisian equivalent of the German word Reich . In a political sense in the Netherlands and Belgium, the word rijk often connotes a connection with

3900-804: Is Hoverla at 2,061 metres (6,762 ft), and the Crimean Mountains , in the extreme south along the coast. Ukraine also has a number of highland regions such as the Volyn-Podillia Upland (in the west) and the Near-Dnipro Upland (on the right bank of the Dnieper). To the east there are the south-western spurs of the Central Russian Upland over which runs the border with Russia. Near the Sea of Azov are

4056-411: Is celebrated as one of eleven Ukrainian national holidays. The republic was heavily damaged by the war, and it required significant efforts to recover. More than 700 cities and towns and 28,000 villages were destroyed. The situation was worsened by a famine in 1946–1947, which was caused by a drought and the wartime destruction of infrastructure, killing at least tens of thousands of people. In 1945,

4212-469: Is the German name given to the Frankish Kingdom of Charlemagne . Frankenreich came to be used of Western Francia and medieval France after the development of Eastern Francia into the Holy Roman Empire . The German name of France , Frankreich , is a contraction of Frankenreich used in reference to the kingdom of France from the late medieval period. The term Reich was part of

4368-474: Is typically used to designate a kingdom or an empire, especially the Roman Empire . The terms Kaisertum ( German: [ˈkaɪzɐˌtuːm] , "Imperium") and Kaiserreich ("Imperial realm") are used in German to more specifically define an empire ruled by an emperor. Reich is comparable in meaning and development (as well as descending from the same Proto-Indo-European root) to

4524-699: Is used to describe a political or governmental entity. Reich has thus not been used in official terminology since 1945, though it is still found in the name of the Reichstag building , which since 1999 has housed the German federal parliament , the Bundestag . The decision not to rename the Reichstag building was taken only after long debate in the Bundestag; even then, it is described officially as Reichstag – Sitz des Bundestages (Reichstag, seat of

4680-525: The Netherlands ". However, since Ukraine's declaration of independence in 1991, this usage has become politicised and is now rarer, and style guides advise against its use. US ambassador William Taylor said that using "the Ukraine" implies disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty. The official Ukrainian position is that "the Ukraine" is both grammatically and politically incorrect. 1.4 million year old stone tools from Korolevo , western Ukraine, are

4836-560: The Belavezha Accords and made Ukraine a founding member of the much looser Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), though Ukraine never became a full member of the latter as it did not ratify the agreement founding CIS. These documents sealed the fate of the Soviet Union, which formally voted itself out of existence on 26 December. Ukraine was initially viewed as having favourable economic conditions in comparison to

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4992-583: The COVID-19 pandemic , which arrived in 2020, were made much harder by low vaccination rates and, later in the pandemic, by the ongoing invasion. From the political perspective, one of the defining features of the politics of Ukraine is that for most of the time, it has been divided along two issues: the relation between Ukraine, the West and Russia, and the classical left-right divide. The first two presidents, Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma , tended to balance

5148-458: The Chernobyl disaster , the worst nuclear reactor accident in history. Mikhail Gorbachev pursued a policy of limited liberalization of public life, known as perestroika , and attempted to reform a stagnating economy . The latter failed, but the democratization of the Soviet Union fuelled nationalist and separatist tendencies among the ethnic minorities, including Ukrainians. As part of

5304-711: The Dnieper ( Dnipro ), Seversky Donets , Dniester and the Southern Bug as they flow south into the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov . To the southwest, the Danube Delta forms the border with Romania. Ukraine's regions have diverse geographic features, ranging from the highlands to the lowlands. The country's only mountains are the Carpathian Mountains in the west, of which the highest

5460-513: The Donbas , and in some larger cities such as Odesa and Kyiv, Ukraine largely remained an agricultural and resource extraction economy. The Austrian part of Ukraine was particularly destitute , which forced hundreds of thousands of peasants into emigration, who created the backbone of an extensive Ukrainian diaspora in countries such as Canada , the United States and Brazil . Some of

5616-694: The East German railway incongruously continued to use the name Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Reich Railways), which had been the name of the national railway during the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era. Even after German reunification in October 1990, the Reichsbahn continued to exist for over three years as the operator of the railroad in eastern Germany, ending finally on 1 January 1994 when

5772-608: The Euromaidan to oppose Yanukovych's refusal to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement . By the end of the protests on 21 February 2014, he fled from Ukraine and was removed by the parliament in what is termed the Revolution of Dignity , but Russia refused to recognize the interim pro-Western government, calling it a junta and denouncing the events as a coup d'état sponsored by

5928-705: The Executed Renaissance . Following the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, German and Soviet troops divided the territory of Poland. Thus, Eastern Galicia and Volhynia with their Ukrainian population became part of Ukraine. For the first time in history, the nation was united. Further territorial gains were secured in 1940, when the Ukrainian SSR incorporated the northern and southern districts of Bessarabia , Northern Bukovina , and

6084-759: The Hertsa region from the territories the USSR forced Romania to cede , though it handed over the western part of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to the newly created Moldavian SSR . These territorial gains of the USSR were internationally recognized by the Paris peace treaties of 1947 . German armies invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, initiating nearly four years of total war . The Axis initially advanced against desperate but unsuccessful efforts of

6240-545: The Iron Age , the land was inhabited by Iranian -speaking Cimmerians , Scythians , and Sarmatians . Between 700 BC and 200 BC it was part of the Scythian kingdom. From the 6th century BC, Greek , Roman , and Byzantine colonies were established on the north-eastern shore of the Black Sea , such as at Tyras , Olbia , and Chersonesus . These thrived into the 6th century AD. The Goths stayed in

6396-664: The Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Belgium as opposed to the European part of the Netherlands or the provincial or municipal governments. The ministerraad is the executive body of the Netherlands ' government and the rijksministerraad that of the Kingdom of the Netherlands , a similar distinction is found in wetten (laws) versus rijkswetten (kingdom laws) or the now-abolished rijkswacht (lit. "guard of

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6552-643: The Metropolitanate of Kyiv under the authority of Moscow . An attempt to reverse the decline was undertaken by Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa (1639–1709), who ultimately defected to the Swedes in the Great Northern War (1700–1721) in a bid to get rid of Russian dependence, but they were crushed in the Battle of Poltava (1709). The Hetmanate's autonomy was severely restricted since Poltava. In

6708-398: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , the Austrian Empire , the Ottoman Empire , and the Tsardom of Russia . The Cossack Hetmanate emerged in central Ukraine in the 17th century, but was partitioned between Russia and Poland, and absorbed by the Russian Empire . Ukrainian nationalism developed and, following the Russian Revolution in 1917, the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic

6864-493: The Pontic steppe north of the Black Sea. The Mongol invasions in the mid-13th century devastated Kievan Rus'; following the Siege of Kyiv in 1240 , the city was destroyed by the Mongols. In the western territories, the principalities of Halych and Volhynia had arisen earlier, and were merged to form the Principality of Galicia–Volhynia . Daniel of Galicia , son of Roman the Great , re-united much of south-western Rus', including Volhynia , Galicia , as well as Kyiv. He

7020-401: The Red , White , Black and Green armies , with the Poles, Hungarians (in Transcarpathia ), and Germans also intervening at various times. An attempt to create an independent state, the left-leaning Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR), was first announced by Mykhailo Hrushevsky , but the period was plagued by an extremely unstable political and military environment. It was first deposed in

7176-506: The Red Army . In the battle of Kyiv , the city was acclaimed as a " Hero City ", because of its fierce resistance . More than 600,000 Soviet soldiers (or one-quarter of the Soviet Western Front ) were killed or taken captive there, with many suffering severe mistreatment . After its conquest, most of the Ukrainian SSR was organised within the Reichskommissariat Ukraine , with the intention of exploiting its resources and eventual German settlement. Some western Ukrainians, who had only joined

7332-403: The Russian tsar for help. In 1654, Khmelnytsky was subject to the Pereiaslav Agreement , forming a military and political alliance with Russia that acknowledged loyalty to the Russian monarch. After his death, the Hetmanate went through a devastating 30-year war amongst Russia, Poland, the Crimean Khanate , the Ottoman Empire , and Cossacks , known as " The Ruin " (1657–1686), for control of

7488-450: The Second Polish Republic , which annexed the Western Ukrainian provinces, as well as a larger-scale victory for the pro-Soviet forces, which succeeded in dislodging the remaining factions and eventually established the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Soviet Ukraine). Meanwhile, modern-day Bukovina was occupied by Romania and Carpathian Ruthenia was admitted to Czechoslovakia as an autonomous region. The conflict over Ukraine,

7644-458: The Soviet Union dissolved , and declared itself neutral . A new constitution was adopted in 1996. A series of mass demonstrations, known as the Euromaidan , led to the establishment of a new government in 2014 after a revolution . Russia then unilaterally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula , and pro-Russian unrest culminated in a war in the Donbas between Russian-backed separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine. Russia launched

7800-432: The political slogan Ein Volk , ein Reich, ein Führer ("One nation, one Reich , one leader"), in order to enforce pan-German sentiment. The term Altes Reich ("old Reich"; cf. French ancien regime for monarchical France) is sometimes used to refer to the Holy Roman Empire . The term Altreich was also used after the Anschluss to denote Germany with its pre-1938 post-World War I borders. Another name that

7956-429: The "realm of a king" (a kingdom can also be called kongedømme in Danish and Norwegian and kungadöme or konungadöme in Swedish, direct cognates of the English word). Two regions in Norway that were petty kingdoms before the unification of Norway around 900 AD have retained the word in the names (see Ringerike and Romerike ). The word is also used in " Svea rike ", with the current spelling Sverige ,

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8112-457: The 10th and 11th centuries, Kievan Rus' became the largest and most powerful state in Europe, a period known as its Golden Age. It began with the reign of Vladimir the Great (980–1015), who introduced Christianity . During the reign of his son, Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054), Kievan Rus' reached the zenith of its cultural development and military power. The state soon fragmented as the relative importance of regional powers rose again. After

8268-513: The 1930s. However, as a consequence of Stalin's new policy, the Ukrainian peasantry suffered from the programme of collectivization of agricultural crops. Collectivization was part of the first five-year plan and was enforced by regular troops and the secret police known as Cheka . Those who resisted were arrested and deported to gulags and work camps. As members of the collective farms were sometimes not allowed to receive any grain until unrealistic quotas were met, millions starved to death in

8424-445: The Black Sea and transformed these into large commercial centers headed by the consul, a representative of the Republic. In 1430, the region of Podolia was incorporated into Poland, and the lands of modern-day Ukraine became increasingly settled by Poles . In 1441, Genghisid prince Haci I Giray founded the Crimean Khanate on the Crimean Peninsula and the surrounding steppes; the Khanate orchestrated Tatar slave raids . Over

8580-407: The Bundestag). As seen in this example, the term "Bund" (federation) has replaced "Reich" in the names of various state institutions such as the army (" Bundeswehr "). The term "Reichstag" also remains in use in the German language as the term for the parliaments of some foreign monarchies, such as Sweden 's Riksdag and Japan 's pre-war Imperial Diet . The exception is that during the Cold War ,

8736-432: The Catholic Church with its local representatives. In 1648, Bohdan Khmelnytsky led the largest of the Cossack uprisings against the Commonwealth and the Polish king , which enjoyed wide support from the local population. Khmelnytsky founded the Cossack Hetmanate , which existed until 1764 (some sources claim until 1782). After Khmelnytsky suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Berestechko in 1651, he turned to

8892-420: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982. However, it was he and his appointee in Ukraine , Volodymyr Shcherbytsky , who presided over the extensive Russification of Ukraine and who were instrumental in repressing a new generation of Ukrainian intellectuals known as the Sixtiers . By 1950, the republic had fully surpassed pre-war levels of industry and production. Soviet Ukraine soon became

9048-430: The Cossack Hetmanate. The Treaty of Perpetual Peace between Russia and Poland in 1686 divided the lands of the Cossack Hetmanate between them, reducing the portion over which Poland had claimed sovereignty to Ukraine west of the Dnieper river. In 1686, the Metropolitanate of Kyiv was annexed by the Moscow Patriarchate through a synodal letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Dionysius IV , thus placing

9204-430: The Cossacks to be useful against the Turks and Tatars , and at times the two were allies in military campaigns . However, the continued harsh enserfment of Ruthenian peasantry by Polish szlachta (many of whom were Polonized Ruthenian nobles ) and the suppression of the Orthodox Church alienated the Cossacks. The latter did not shy from taking up arms against those they perceived as enemies and occupiers, including

9360-448: The Donets Ridge and the Near Azov Upland. The snow melt from the mountains feeds the rivers and their waterfalls . Significant natural resources in Ukraine include lithium , natural gas, kaolin , timber and an abundance of arable land . Ukraine has many environmental issues. Some regions lack adequate supplies of potable water. Air and water pollution affects the country, as well as deforestation, and radiation contamination in

9516-434: The East Ministry was managed by personal criteria and particular interests over official orders. Additionally, they failed to maintain the "Political Section" at an equal level with more specialized departments (Economy, Works, Farms, etc.) because political considerations clashed with exploitation plans in the territory. The Reichskommissariat Ukraine paid Occupation taxes and funds to the German Reich until February 1944 in

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9672-413: The East Slavic tribes along the southern parts of the Dnieper River were already in the process of forming a state independently. The Varangian elite, including the ruling Rurik dynasty , later assimilated into the Slavic population. Kievan Rus' was composed of several principalities ruled by the interrelated Rurikid kniazes ("princes"), who often fought each other for possession of Kyiv. During

9828-475: The Eastern parts of the Holy Roman Empire . In the history of Germany specifically, it is used to refer to: The Nazis adopted the term "Third Reich" to legitimize their government as the rightful successor to the retroactively renamed "First" and "Second" Reichs – the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire, respectively; the Nazis discounted the legitimacy of the Weimar Republic entirely. The terms "First Reich" and "Second Reich" are not used by historians, and

9984-496: The English word realm (via French reaume "kingdom" from Latin regalis "royal"). It is used for historical empires in general, such as the Roman Empire ( Römisches Reich ), Persian Empire ( Perserreich ), and both the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire ( Zarenreich , literally " Tsars ' realm"). Österreich , the name used for Austria today is composed of "Öster" and "Reich" which, literally translated, means "Eastern Realm". The name once referred to

10140-439: The German names for Germany for much of its history. Reich was used by itself in the common German variant of the Holy Roman Empire , ( Heiliges Römisches Reich (HRR) ). Der rîche was a title for the Emperor. However, Latin, not German, was the formal legal language of the medieval Empire ( Imperium Romanum Sacrum ), so English-speaking historians are more likely to use Latin imperium than German Reich as

10296-400: The German nation rather than directly to the state of Germany. The exact translation of the term "German Empire" would be Deutsches Kaiserreich . This name was sometimes used informally for Germany between 1871 and 1918, but it was disliked by the first German Emperor, Wilhelm I , and never became official. The unified Germany which arose under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1871

10452-480: The Germanic word was not inherited from pre-Proto-Germanic, but rather loaned from Celtic (i.e. Gaulish rīx , Welsh rhi , both meaning 'king') at an early time . The word has many cognates outside of Germanic and Celtic, notably Latin : rex and Sanskrit : राज , romanized :  raj , lit.   'rule'. It is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European * reg- , lit. 'to straighten out or rule'. Frankenreich or Fränkisches Reich

10608-402: The Krim Generalbezirk remained ambiguous. According to the original German plan it was to correspond approximately to the old Taurida Governorate (therefore including also mainland portions of Ukraine), and was to consist of two Teilbezirke (sub-districts): Only the first of these saw transfer to civil administration in September 1942, with the peninsula remaining under military control for

10764-414: The OUN to create a homogeneous Ukrainian state without a Polish minority living within its borders, and to prevent the post-war Polish state from asserting its sovereignty over areas that had been part of pre-war Poland. After the war, the UPA continued to fight the USSR until the 1950s. At the same time, the Ukrainian Liberation Army , another nationalist movement, fought alongside the Nazis. In total,

10920-411: The OUN-B and the OUN-M , whilst receiving political support from the Wehrmacht. The German Reichsführer-SS and chief of German Police, Heinrich Himmler , initially had direct authority over any SS formations in Ukraine to order "Security Operations", but soon lost it – especially after the summer of 1942 when he tried to regain control over policing in Ukraine by gaining authority for the collection of

11076-404: The Occupied Eastern Territories headed by Alfred Rosenberg . Between September 1941 and August 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Erich Koch as the Reichskommissar . The administration's tasks included the pacification of the region and the exploitation, for German benefit, of its resources and people. Adolf Hitler issued a Führer decree defining the administration of

11232-523: The Reichsbahn and the western Deutsche Bundesbahn were merged to form the privatized Deutsche Bahn AG . The cognate of the word Reich is used in all Scandinavian languages with the identical meaning, i.e. " realm ". It is spelled rige in Danish and older Norwegian (before the 1907 spelling reform ) and rike in Swedish and modern Norwegian. The word is traditionally used for sovereign entities, generally simply means "country" or "nation" (in

11388-595: The Reichskommissariat Ukraine but never transferred to civil administration were the Generalkommissariate Tschernigow ( Chernigov ), Charkow ( Kharkov ), Stalino ( Donetsk ), Woronezh ( Voronezh ), Rostow ( Rostov-on-Don ), Stalingrad , and Saratow ( Saratov ), which would have brought the boundary of the province to the western border of Kazakhstan . In addition, Reichskommissar Koch had wishes of further extending his Reichskommissariat to Ciscaucasia . The administrative position of

11544-526: The Roman Empire; the vision of God's Empire here on earth; the universality of its claim to suzerainty ; and in a more prosaic but no less powerful sense, the concept of a German state that would include all German speakers in central Europe—"one People, one Reich, one Leader", as the Nazi slogan was to put it. The term is derived from the Germanic word which generally means "realm", but in German, it

11700-606: The Russian part (historically known as " Little Russia " or "South Russia") faced severe restrictions, going as far as banning virtually all books from being published in Ukrainian in 1876. Ukraine, like the rest of the Russian Empire, joined the Industrial Revolution later than most of Western Europe due to the maintenance of serfdom until 1861. Other than near the newly discovered coal fields of

11856-523: The Soviet Union in 1939, hailed the Germans as liberators, but that did not last long as the Nazis made little attempt to exploit dissatisfaction with Stalinist policies. Instead, the Nazis preserved the collective-farm system, carried out genocidal policies against Jews , deported millions of people to work in Germany , and began a depopulation program to prepare for German colonisation. They blockaded

12012-595: The Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding members of the United Nations (UN), part of a special agreement at the Yalta Conference , and, alongside Belarus, had voting rights in the UN even though they were not independent. Moreover, Ukraine once more expanded its borders as it annexed Zakarpattia , and the population became much more homogenized due to post-war population transfers , most of which, as in

12168-712: The Ukrainians settled in the Far East, too. According to the 1897 census , there were 223,000 ethnic Ukrainians in Siberia and 102,000 in Central Asia . An additional 1.6 million emigrated to the east in the ten years after the opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1906. Far Eastern areas with an ethnic Ukrainian population became known as Green Ukraine . Ukraine plunged into turmoil with

12324-526: The United States. Even though Russia had signed the Budapest memorandum in 1994 that said that Ukraine was to hand over nuclear weapons in exchange of security guarantees and those of territorial integrity, it reacted violently to these developments and started a war against its western neighbour . In late February and early March 2014, it annexed Crimea using its Navy in Sevastopol as well as

12480-445: The actual "recruitment" of Ost-Arbeiter to Koch and his brutes. The Todt Organization Ost Branch operated from Kyiv. Other members of the German administration in Ukraine included Generalkommissar Leyser and Gebietkommissar Steudel. The Ministry of Transport had direct control of " Ostbahns " and "Generalverkehrsdirektion Osten" (the railway administration in the eastern territories). These German central government interventions in

12636-569: The administrative relationship between the Estonian general commissariat and Reichskommissariat Ostland ). The district's title was a misnomer, it only included the area north of the Crimean peninsula up to the Dnieper river . The official German press, in 1941, reported the Ukrainian urban and rural populations as 19 million each. During the commissariat's existence the Germans only undertook one official census, for January 1, 1943, documenting

12792-511: The advancement of Ukrainian science and culture. This period was cut short when Joseph Stalin became the leader of the USSR following Lenin's death. Stalin did away with the NEP in what became known as the Great Break . Starting from the late 1920s and now with a centrally planned economy , Soviet Ukraine took part in an industrialisation scheme which quadrupled its industrial output during

12948-565: The affairs of the East Affairs by ministries were known as Sonderverwaltungen (special administrations). The position of the Eastern Affairs Ministry was weak because its department chiefs: (Economy, Work, Foods & Crops and Forest & Woods) held similar posts in other government departments (The Four-Year Plan, Eastern Economic Office, Foods and Farming Ministry, etc.) with other supplementary junior staff. Thus

13104-705: The amount of 1.246 billion  ℛ︁ℳ︁ (equivalent to €5 billion 2021) and 107.9 million  Rbls , in accord with information composed by Lutz von Krosigk , the Reich Minister of Finances. The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories ordered Koch and Hinrich Lohse (the Reichskommissar of Ostland) in March 1942 to supply 380,000 farm workers and 247,000 industrial workers for German work needs. Later Koch

13260-567: The area, but came under the sway of the Huns from the 370s. In the 7th century, the territory that is now eastern Ukraine was the centre of Old Great Bulgaria . At the end of the century, the majority of Bulgar tribes migrated in different directions, and the Khazars took over much of the land. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the Antes , an early Slavic people, lived in Ukraine. Migrations from

13416-709: The beginning of World War I , and fighting on Ukrainian soil persisted until late 1921. Initially, the Ukrainians were split between Austria-Hungary, fighting for the Central Powers , though the vast majority served in the Imperial Russian Army , which was part of the Triple Entente , under Russia. As the Russian Empire collapsed, the conflict evolved into the Ukrainian War of Independence , with Ukrainians fighting alongside, or against,

13572-639: The beginning of the modern age , some circles redubbed the HRE into the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" ( Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation ), a symptom of the formation of a German nation state as opposed to the multinational state the Empire was throughout its history. Resistance against the French Revolution with its concept of the state brought a new movement to create

13728-468: The case of Germans and Crimean Tatars , were forced. As of 1 January 1953, Ukrainians were second only to Russians among adult " special deportees ", comprising 20% of the total. Following the death of Stalin in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became the new leader of the USSR, who began the policies of De-Stalinization and the Khrushchev Thaw . During his term as head of the Soviet Union, Crimea

13884-645: The circles of the Polish nobility ; others joined the newly created Ruthenian Uniate Church . Deprived of native protectors among the Ruthenian nobility, the peasants and townspeople began turning for protection to the emerging Zaporozhian Cossacks . In the mid-17th century, a Cossack military quasi-state, the Zaporozhian Host , was formed by Dnieper Cossacks and Ruthenian peasants. Poland exercised little real control over this population, but found

14040-538: The collapse of the German Empire and the abolition of the monarchy in 1918. There was no emperor, but many Germans had imperialistic ambitions. According to Richard J. Evans : The continued use of the term "German Empire", Deutsches Reich , by the Weimar Republic ... conjured up an image among educated Germans that resonated far beyond the institutional structures Bismarck created: the successor to

14196-477: The competing visions of Ukraine, though Yushchenko and Yanukovych were generally pro-Western and pro-Russian, respectively. There were two major protests against Yanukovych: the Orange Revolution in 2004, when tens of thousands of people went in protest of election rigging in his favour (Yushchenko was eventually elected president), and another one in the winter of 2013/2014, when more gathered on

14352-620: The complete destruction of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv by the use of incendiary bombs and gunfire. Because the German military lacked sufficient material for this operation it wasn't carried out, after which the Nazi planners instead decided to starve the city's inhabitants. Heinrich Himmler on the other hand considered Kyiv to be "an ancient German city" because of the Magdeburg city rights that it had acquired centuries prior. Reich The term Deutsches Reich (sometimes translated to " German Empire ") continued to be used even after

14508-578: The compounds bishopric and archbishopric . The German adjective reich , on the other hand, has an exact cognate in English rich . Both the noun ( * rīkijan ) and the adjective ( * rīkijaz ) are derivations based on the Common Germanic * rīks "ruler, king ", reflected in Gothic as reiks , glossing ἄρχων "leader, ruler, chieftain". It is probable that

14664-478: The confiscation of Soviet state properties to establish German state properties. Additionally the replacement of Russian Kolkhozes and Sovkhozes , by their own "Gemeindwirtschaften" (German Communal Farms), the installation of state enterprise "Landbewirstschaftungsgessellschaft Ukraine M.b.H." for managing the new German state farms and cooperatives, and the foundation of numerous "Kombines" (Great German exploitation Monopolies) with government or private capital in

14820-474: The duration of the war. Its administrator, Frauenfeld, played off the military and civil authorities against each other and gained the freedom to run the territory as he saw fit. He thereby enjoyed complete autonomy, verging on independence, from Koch's authority. Frauenfeld's administration was much more moderate than Koch's and consequentially more economically successful. Koch was greatly angered by Fraunfeld's insubordination (a comparable situation also existed in

14976-540: The earliest securely dated hominin presence in Europe. Settlement by modern humans in Ukraine and its vicinity dates back to 32,000 BC, with evidence of the Gravettian culture in the Crimean Mountains . By 4,500 BC, the Neolithic Cucuteni–Trypillia culture was flourishing in wide areas of modern Ukraine, including Trypillia and the entire Dnieper - Dniester region. Ukraine is considered to be

15132-484: The east and northeast. It also borders Belarus to the north; Poland and Slovakia to the west; Hungary , Romania and Moldova to the southwest; with a coastline along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to the south and southeast. Kyiv is the nation's capital and largest city , followed by Kharkiv , Dnipro , and Odesa . Ukraine's official language is Ukrainian . During the Middle Ages , Ukraine

15288-603: The fighting in World War II took place on the Eastern Front . The total losses inflicted upon the Ukrainian population during the war are estimated at 6 million, including an estimated one and a half million Jews killed by the Einsatzgruppen , sometimes with the help of local collaborators. Of the estimated 8.6 million Soviet troop losses, 1.4 million were ethnic Ukrainians . The Victory Day

15444-615: The government's policy towards the West. Shortly after Yanukovych fled Ukraine, the country signed the EU association agreement in June 2014, and its citizens were granted visa-free travel to the European Union three years later. In January 2019, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was recognized as independent of Moscow, which reversed the 1686 decision of the patriarch of Constantinople and dealt

15600-417: The harvest, and failed miserably, in large part because Koch withheld cooperation. In Ukraine, Himmler soon became the voice of relative moderation, hoping that an improvement in the Ukrainians' living conditions would encourage greater numbers of them to join the Waffen-SS 's foreign divisions. Koch, appropriately nicknamed the "hangman of Ukraine", was contemptuous of Himmler's efforts. In this matter Koch had

15756-480: The historically Germanic countries and regions of Europe into the Nazi state ( Flanders , the Netherlands , Denmark , Norway , Sweden etc.). A number of previously neutral words which were used by the Nazis later took on negative connotations in German (e.g. Führer or Heil ); while in many contexts Reich is not one of them ( Frankreich , France; Römisches Reich , Roman Empire ), it can imply German imperialism or strong nationalism if it

15912-492: The largest country entirely in Europe. Lying between latitudes 44° and 53° N , and longitudes 22° and 41° E ., it is mostly in the East European Plain . Ukraine covers an area of 603,550 square kilometres (233,030 sq mi), with a coastline of 2,782 kilometres (1,729 mi). The landscape of Ukraine consists mostly of fertile steppes (plains with few trees) and plateaus, crossed by rivers such as

16068-598: The likely location of the first domestication of the horse . The Kurgan hypothesis places the Volga-Dnieper region of Ukraine and southern Russia as the linguistic homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans . Early Indo-European migrations from the Pontic steppes in the 3rd millennium BC spread Yamnaya Steppe pastoralist ancestry and Indo-European languages across large parts of Europe. During

16224-479: The lives of millions of civilians in The Holocaust and other Nazi mass killings: it is estimated 900,000 to 1.6 million Jews and 3 to 4 million non-Jewish Ukrainians were killed during the occupation; other sources estimate that 5.2 million Ukrainian civilians (of all ethnic groups) perished due to crimes against humanity , war-related disease, and famine amounting to more than 12% of Ukraine's population at

16380-452: The local Municipalities were administered by native " Bailiffs " and "Mayors", accompanied by respective German political advisers if needed. In the most important areas, or where a German Army detachment remained, the local administration was always led by a German; in less significant areas local personnel was in charge. The six general districts were (English names and administrative centres in parentheses): Scheduled for incorporation into

16536-411: The name of Sweden in Swedish. Thus in the official name of Sweden, Konunga riket Sve rige , the word rike appears twice. The derived prefix rigs- (Danish and pre-1907 Norwegian) and riks- (Swedish and Norwegian) and implies nationwide or under central jurisdiction. Examples include riksväg and riksvei , names for a national road in Swedish and Norwegian. It is also present in

16692-472: The name of Ukraine means "region" or "country." In the English-speaking world during most of the 20th century, Ukraine (whether independent or not) was referred to as "the Ukraine". This is because the word ukraina means 'borderland' so the definite article would be natural in the English language; this is similar to Nederlanden , which means 'low lands' and is rendered in English as "

16848-575: The names of numerous institutions in all the Scandinavian countries, such as Rigsrevisionen (the agency responsible for oversight of the state finances in Denmark) and Sveriges Riksbank (commonly known as just Riksbanken ), the central bank of Sweden. It is also used in words such as udenrigs (Danish), utrikes (Swedish) and utenriks (Norwegian), relating to foreign countries and other things from abroad. The opposite word

17004-533: The new currency, the hryvnia , fell sharply in late 1998 partially as a fallout from the Russian debt default earlier that year. The legacy of the economic policies of the nineties was the mass privatization of state property that created a class of extremely powerful and rich individuals known as the oligarchs . The country then fell into a series of sharp recessions as a result of the Great Recession ,

17160-505: The newly-occupied Eastern territories on 17 July 1941. Before the German invasion, Ukraine was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union , inhabited by Ukrainians , Russians , Jewish , Belarusian , Romanian , Polish , and Roma/Gypsy minorities. It was a key subject of Nazi planning for the post-war expansion of the German state. The Nazi extermination policy in Ukraine, with the help of local Ukrainian collaborators , ended

17316-546: The next three centuries, the Crimean slave trade would enslave an estimated two million in the region. In 1569, the Union of Lublin established the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , and most of the Ukrainian lands were transferred from Lithuania to the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland , becoming de jure Polish territory. Under the pressures of Polonisation , many landed gentry of Ruthenia converted to Catholicism and joined

17472-537: The north, to 11–13 °C (51.8–55.4 °F) in the south. Precipitation is highest in the west and north and lowest in the east and southeast. Western Ukraine, particularly in the Carpathian Mountains, receives around 120 centimetres (47.2 in) of precipitation annually, while Crimea and the coastal areas of the Black Sea receive around 40 centimetres (15.7 in). Water availability from

17628-675: The northeast from the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The environmental damage caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been described as an ecocide , the destruction of Kakhovka Dam , severe pollution and millions of tonnes of contaminated debris is estimated to cost over USD 50 billion to repair. Ukraine is in the mid-latitudes, and generally has a continental climate , except for its southern coasts, which have cold semi-arid and humid subtropical climates . Average annual temperatures range from 5.5–7 °C (41.9–44.6 °F) in

17784-619: The number of ethnic Ukrainians who fought in the ranks of the Soviet Army is estimated from 4.5 million to 7 million; half of the Pro-Soviet partisan guerrilla resistance units, which counted up to 500,000 troops in 1944, were also Ukrainian. Generally, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army's figures are unreliable, with figures ranging anywhere from 15,000 to as many as 100,000 fighters. The vast majority of

17940-464: The once important Low Germans had to assimilate themselves. This marked the transition between Antijudaism , where converted Jews were accepted as full citizens (in theory), to Antisemitism , where Jews were thought to be from a different ethnicity that could never become German. Apart from all those ethnic minorities being de facto extinct, even today the era of national feeling is taught in history in German schools as an important stepping-stone on

18096-464: The other regions of the Soviet Union, though it was one of the poorer Soviet republics by the time of the dissolution. However, during its transition to the market economy, the country experienced deeper economic slowdown than almost all of the other former Soviet Republics . During the recession, between 1991 and 1999, Ukraine lost 60% of its GDP and suffered from hyperinflation that peaked at 10,000% in 1993. The situation only stabilized well after

18252-494: The partial translation "the Third Reich "), first used in a 1923 book entitled Das Dritte Reich by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck , that counted the medieval Holy Roman Empire (which nominally survived until the 19th century) as the first and the 1871–1918 monarchy as the second, which was then to be followed by a "reinvigorated" third one. The Nazis ignored the previous 1918–1933 Weimar period , which they denounced as

18408-455: The point about the inferiority of Ukrainians with a certain simplicity: "Even if I find a Ukrainian who is worthy of sitting at my table, I must have him shot" and "remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population here, which is more distinct from Aryan genealogy than Leningrad." The regime was planning to encourage the settlement of German and other " Germanic " farmers in

18564-804: The political section in the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Leibbrandt's deputy, Otto Bräutigam , had previously worked as a consul with experience in the Soviet Union. Economic affairs remained under the direct management of Hermann Göring (the Plenipotentiary of Germany's Four Year Plan ). From 21 March 1942 Fritz Sauckel had the role of "General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment" (Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz), charged with recruiting manpower for Germany throughout Europe, though in Ukraine Koch insisted that Sauckel confine himself to setting requirements, leaving

18720-439: The post-war Soviet Union that had been devastated by both WWI and later the civil war. The NEP was successful at restoring the formerly war-torn nation to pre-WWI levels of production and agricultural output by the mid-1920s, much of the latter based in Ukraine. These policies attracted many prominent former UNR figures, including former UNR leader Hrushevsky, to return to Soviet Ukraine, where they were accepted, and participated in

18876-581: The realm") for gendarmerie in Belgium . The word rijk can also be found in institutions like the Rijkswaterstaat , Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu and Rijksuniversiteit Groningen . In colloquial speech, rijk usually means working for the central government rather than the provincial or municipal government, much as Americans refer to the "federal" government. In Afrikaans , ryk refers to rulership and area of governance (mostly

19032-484: The region after the war, along with the empowerment of some ethnic Germans in the territory. Ukraine was the furthest eastern settlement of the migrating ancient Goths between the 2nd and 4th centuries and subsequently, according to Hitler, "Only German should be spoken here". In Ukraine, the Germans published a local journal in the German language, the Deutsche Ukrainezeitung . During the occupation

19188-417: The region. Originally subject to Alfred Rosenberg 's Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories , it became a separate German civil entity. The first transfer of Soviet Ukrainian territory from military to civil administration took place on 1 September 1941. In the mind of Adolf Hitler and other German expansionists, the destruction of the USSR, dubbed a " Judeo-Bolshevist " state, would remove

19344-669: The road to a German nation. In the case of the Hohenzollern Empire (1871–1918), the official name of the country was Deutsches Reich ("German Realm"), because under the Constitution of the German Empire , it was legally a confederation of German states under the permanent presidency of the King of Prussia . The constitution granted the King of Prussia the title of "German Emperor" ( Deutscher Kaiser ), but this referred to

19500-527: The same way that the terms Bund (federation) and Bundes- (federal) are used in Germany today, and comparable to The Crown in Commonwealth countries and The Union in the United States . The Nazis sought to legitimize their power historiographically by portraying their ascendancy to rule as the direct continuation of an ancient German past. They adopted the term Drittes Reich ("Third Empire" – usually rendered in English in

19656-463: The sense of a sovereign state) and does not have any special or political connotations. It does not imply any particular form of government, but it implies that the entity is both of a certain size and of a certain standing, like the Scandinavian kingdoms themselves; hence the word might be considered exaggerated for very small states like a city-state. Its use as a stand-alone word is more widespread than in contemporary German, but most often, it refers to

19812-685: The so- called little green men ; after this succeeded, it then launched a proxy war in the Donbas via the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic . The first months of the conflict with the Russian-backed separatists were fluid, but Russian forces then started an open invasion in Donbas on 24 August 2014. Together they pushed back Ukrainian troops to the frontline established in February 2015, i.e. after Ukrainian troops withdrew from Debaltseve . The conflict remained in

19968-684: The so-called parade of sovereignties , on 16 July 1990, the newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine . After a failed coup by some Communist leaders in Moscow at deposing Gorbachov, outright independence was proclaimed on 24 August 1991. It was approved by 92% of the Ukrainian electorate in a referendum on 1 December. Ukraine's new President , Leonid Kravchuk, went on to sign

20124-500: The start of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014, and finally, the full-scale invasion by Russia in starting from 24 February 2022. Ukraine's economy in general underperformed since the time independence came due to pervasive corruption and mismanagement, which, particularly in the 1990s, led to protests and organized strikes. The war with Russia impeded meaningful economic recovery in the 2010s, while efforts to combat

20280-612: The state of Kievan Rus' remains obscure and uncertain. The state included much of present-day Ukraine, Belarus and the western part of European Russia . According to the Primary Chronicle , the Rus' people initially consisted of Varangians from Scandinavia . In 882, the pagan Prince Oleg (Oleh) conquered Kyiv from Askold and Dir and proclaimed it as the new capital of the Rus'. Anti-Normanist historians however argue that

20436-410: The support of Hitler, who remained skeptical when not hostile to the idea of recruiting Slavs in general and Soviet nationals in particular into the Wehrmacht . In the civil administration of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories numerous technical staff worked under Georg Leibbrandt , former chief of the east section of the foreign political office in the Nazi Party , now chief of

20592-407: The term " Fourth Reich " is mainly used in fiction and political humor, although it is also used by those who subscribe to neo-Nazism . The German noun Reich is derived from Old High German : rīhhi , which together with its cognates in Old English : rīce , Old Norse : ríki , and Gothic : reiki is derived from a Common Germanic * rīkijan . The English noun survives only in

20748-406: The territories of present-day Ukraine throughout the Balkans established many South Slavic nations. Northern migrations, reaching almost to Lake Ilmen , led to the emergence of the Ilmen Slavs and Krivichs . Following an Avar raid in 602 and the collapse of the Antes Union, most of these peoples survived as separate tribes until the beginning of the second millennium. The establishment of

20904-414: The territory with a Ukrainian ethnic majority. Although this brought conflict with Nazi Germany, at times the Melnyk wing of the OUN allied with the Nazi forces. From mid-1943 until the end of the war, the UPA carried out massacres of ethnic Poles in the Volhynia and Eastern Galicia regions, killing around 100,000 Polish civilians, which brought reprisals. These organized massacres were an attempt by

21060-410: The territory, to exploit the resources and Donbas area. Hitler said "Ukraine and the East lands would produce 7 million, or more likely 10 or 12 million tonnes of grain to provide Germany's food needs". According to the Nazis, both Jewish and Slavic Ukrainians were untermensch and therefore only fit for enslavement or extermination. Erich Koch , who was chosen by Adolf Hitler to rule Ukraine, made

21216-441: The three Scandinavian states themselves and certain historical empires, like the Roman Empire . The standard word for a "country" is usually land , and there are many other words used to refer to countries. The word is part of the official names of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the form of kongerige   ( Danish ) , kongerike   ( Norwegian ) , and konungarike   ( Swedish ) , all meaning kingdom, or literally

21372-413: The time. Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 in breach of the mutual Treaty of Non-Aggression . On 20 August, Hitler established the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and appointed Erich Koch as Reichskommissar . On the same day, Hitler announced that the region would be under civil administration from noon on 1 September and delineated the boundaries of

21528-436: The transport of food on the Dnieper River. Although the majority of Ukrainians fought in or alongside the Red Army and Soviet resistance , in Western Ukraine an independent Ukrainian Insurgent Army movement arose (UPA, 1942). It was created as the armed forces of the underground Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Both organizations, the OUN and the UPA, supported the goal of an independent Ukrainian state on

21684-454: The underground Ukrainian nationalist and militant movement, which arose in the 1920s gained wider support. Meanwhile, the recently constituted Soviet Ukraine became one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union . During the 1920s, under the Ukrainisation policy pursued by the national Communist leadership of Mykola Skrypnyk , Soviet leadership at first encouraged a national renaissance in Ukrainian culture and language . Ukrainisation

21840-415: The west from the Volhynia region around Lutsk , to a line from Vinnytsia to Mykolaiv along the Southern Bug river in the south, to the areas surrounding Kyiv , Poltava and Zaporizhzhia in the east. Conquered territories further to the east, including the rest of Ukraine ( Crimea , Chernihiv , Kharkiv , and the Donbas/Donets Basin ), were under military governance until 1943–44. Eastern Galicia

21996-404: The world. It is a founding member of the United Nations , as well as a member of the Council of Europe , the World Trade Organization , and the OSCE . It is in the process of joining the European Union and has applied to join NATO. The name of Ukraine is frequently interpreted as coming from the old Slavic term for 'borderland' as is the word krajina . Another interpretation is that

22152-470: The years 1764–1781, Catherine the Great incorporated much of Central Ukraine into the Russian Empire , abolishing the Cossack Hetmanate and the Zaporozhian Sich , and was one of the people responsible for the suppression of the last major Cossack uprising, the Koliivshchyna . After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 1783, the newly acquired lands, now called Novorossiya , were opened up to settlement by Russians. The tsarist autocracy established

22308-413: Was one of the largest grain exporters in the world . Ukraine is considered a middle power in global affairs, and the Ukrainian Armed Force is the fifth largest armed force in the world in terms of both active personnel as well as total number of personnel with the eighth largest defence budget in the world. The Ukrainian Armed Forces also operates one of the largest and most diverse drone fleets in

22464-496: Was transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR , formally as a friendship gift to Ukraine and for economic reasons. This represented the final extension of Ukrainian territory and formed the basis for the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine to this day. Ukraine was one of the most important republics of the Soviet Union, which resulted in many top positions in the Soviet Union being occupied by Ukrainians, including notably Leonid Brezhnev , General Secretary of

22620-410: Was Adolf Hitler's personal desire that Großdeutsches Reich and nationalsozialistischer Staat ("[the] National Socialist State") would be used in place of Drittes Reich . Reichskanzlei Berchtesgaden (" Reich Chancellery Berchtesgaden "), another nickname of the regime (named after the eponymous town located in the vicinity of Hitler's mountain residence where he spent much of his time in office)

22776-412: Was administered by a "Generalkommissar"; each Kreisgebiete "circular [i.e., district] area" was led by a "Gebietskommissar" and each Partei "party" was governed by a Ukrainian or German "Parteien Chef" ( Party Chief ). At the level below were German or Ukrainian "Akademiker" ("Academics" – i.e., District Chiefs) (similar to Polish " Wojts " in the General Government). At the same time at a smaller scale,

22932-457: Was also banned at the same time, despite the fact that a sub-section of the Chancellery was in fact installed there to serve Hitler's needs. Although the term "Third Reich" is still commonly used in reference to the Nazi dictatorship, historians avoid using the terms "First Reich" and "Second Reich", which are seldom found outside Nazi propaganda . During and following the Anschluss ( annexation ) of Austria in 1938, Nazi propaganda also used

23088-509: Was formed. The Bolsheviks consolidated control over much of the former empire and established the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic , which became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union when it was formed in 1922. In the early 1930s, millions of Ukrainians died in the Holodomor , a human-made famine . The German occupation during World War II in Ukraine was devastating, with 7 million Ukrainian civilians killed, including most Ukrainian Jews . Ukraine gained independence in 1991 as

23244-539: Was mentioned during the new year message of 1943, how he "recruited" 710,000 workers in Ukraine. This and subsequent "worker registration" drives in Ukraine would eventually backfire after the Battle of Kursk (July–August 1943) when the Germans would attempt to build a defensive line along the Dnieper only to discover that the necessary manpower had been either recruited to forced labour in Germany or had gone underground to forestall such "recruitment". Alfred Rosenberg implemented an " Agrarian New Order" in Ukraine, ordering

23400-475: Was part of the Soviet-wide policy of Korenisation (literally indigenisation ), which was intended to promote the advancement of native peoples, their language and culture into the governance of their respective republics. Around the same time, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin instituted the New Economic Policy (NEP), which introduced a form of market socialism , allowing some private ownership of small and medium-sized productive enterprises, hoping to reconstruct

23556-409: Was popular during this period was the term Tausendjähriges Reich ("Thousand-Year Reich"), the millennial connotations of which suggested that Nazi Germany would last a thousand years. The Nazis also spoke of enlarging the then-established Greater German Reich into a " Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation " ( Großgermanisches Reich Deutscher Nation ) by gradually and directly annexing all of

23712-413: Was subsequently crowned by a papal envoy as the first king of Galicia–Volhynia (also known as the Kingdom of Ruthenia ) in 1253. In 1349, in the aftermath of the Galicia–Volhynia Wars , the region was partitioned between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . From the mid-13th century to the late 1400s, the Republic of Genoa founded numerous colonies on the northern coast of

23868-461: Was the first entity that was officially called in German Deutsches Reich . Deutsches Reich remained the official name of Germany until 1945, although these years saw three very different political systems more commonly referred to in English as: "the German Empire " (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933; this term is a post- World War II coinage not used at the time), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). After 1918 "Reich"

24024-413: Was the site of early Slavic expansion and the area later became a key centre of East Slavic culture under the state of Kievan Rus' , which emerged in the 9th century. The state eventually disintegrated into rival regional powers and was destroyed by the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. The area was then contested, divided, and ruled by a variety of external powers for the next 600 years, including

24180-428: Was transferred to the control of the General Government following a Hitler decree, becoming its fifth district, ( District of Galicia ). It also encompassed several southern parts of today's Belarus , including Polesia , a large area to the north of the Pripyat river with forests and marshes, as well as the city of Brest-Litovsk , and the towns of Pinsk and Mazyr . This was done by the Germans in order to secure

24336-407: Was usually not translated as "Empire" in English-speaking countries, and the title was instead simply used in its original German. During the Weimar Republic the term Reich and the prefix Reichs- referred not to the idea of empire but rather to the institutions, officials, affairs etc. of the whole country as opposed to those of one of its constituent federal states ( Länder ), in

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