98-535: Ukrainian Americans ( Ukrainian : Українські американці , romanized : Ukrainski amerykantsi ) are Americans who are of Ukrainian ancestry. According to U.S. census estimates, in 2021 there were 1,017,586 Americans of Ukrainian descent representing 0.3% of the American population. The Ukrainian population of the United States is thus the second largest outside the former Eastern Bloc ; only Canada has
196-414: A weak yer vowel that would eventually disappear completely, for example Old East Slavic котъ /kɔtə/ > Ukrainian кіт /kit/ 'cat' (via transitional stages such as /koˑtə̆/, /kuˑt(ə̆)/, /kyˑt/ or similar) or Old East Slavic печь /pʲɛtʃʲə/ > Ukrainian піч /pitʃ/ 'oven' (via transitional stages such as /pʲeˑtʃʲə̆/, /pʲiˑtʃʲ/ or similar). This raising and other phonological developments of the time, such as
294-520: A Ukrainian court convicted three former Berkut police officers in absentia for their part in the killings. The three were in hiding in Russia. Oleh Yanishevsky, a deputy commander of a Berkut regiment, received life imprisonment for murder, while the two others were sentenced to 15 years each for murder. The court ruled that at least 40 of the 48 protesters were killed by the Berkut. In the remaining eight cases,
392-610: A body of national literature, institute a Ukrainian-language educational system, and form an independent state (the Ukrainian People's Republic , shortly joined by the West Ukrainian People's Republic ). During this brief independent statehood the stature and use of Ukrainian greatly improved. In the Russian Empire Census of 1897 the following picture emerged, with Ukrainian being the second most spoken language of
490-513: A larger Ukrainian community under this definition. According to the 2000 U.S. census, the metropolitan areas with the largest numbers of Ukrainian Americans are: New York City with 160,000; Philadelphia with 60,000; Chicago with 46,000; Detroit with 45,000; Los Angeles with 36,000; Cleveland with 26,000; Sacramento with 20,000; and Indianapolis with 19,000. In 2018, the number of Ukrainian Americans surpassed 1 million. Large-scale Ukrainian immigration to America did not begin until
588-649: A larger Ukrainian presence . On September 11, 2001, 11 Ukrainian Americans perished at the World Trade Center in New York City during the acts of mass terrorism committed on that day. All of their names were listed and commemorated by Ukrinform , the National News Agency of Ukraine, during the nineteenth anniversary of the attacks in 2020. Ukrainian Americans living in Northern New Jersey and
686-703: A memorial complex "to the heroes of Heavenly Hundred" in February 2015, on the occasion of the anniversary of the death activists. On 1 July 2014, the Verkhovna Rada (the parliament of Ukraine) established the Medal "Order of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes" . On 25 August 2014, President Petro Poroshenko claimed he had called the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election in order to purify parliament of MPs who had supported "the [January] Dictatorship laws that took
784-637: A policy of defending Ukraine's interests within the Soviet Union. He proudly promoted the beauty of the Ukrainian language and developed plans to expand the role of Ukrainian in higher education. He was removed, however, after only a brief tenure, for being too lenient on Ukrainian nationalism. The new party boss from 1972 to 1989, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky , purged the local party, was fierce in suppressing dissent, and insisted Russian be spoken at all official functions, even at local levels. His policy of Russification
882-555: A result of close Slavic contacts with the remnants of the Scythian and Sarmatian population north of the Black Sea , lasting into the early Middle Ages , the appearance of the voiced fricative γ/г (romanized "h"), in modern Ukrainian and some southern Russian dialects is explained by the assumption that it initially emerged in Scythian and related eastern Iranian dialects, from earlier common Proto-Indo-European *g and *gʰ . During
980-624: A self-aware Ukrainian nation would threaten the unity of the empire. In 1804 Ukrainian as a subject and language of instruction was banned from schools. In 1811, by order of the Russian government, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was closed. In 1847 the Brotherhood of St Cyril and Methodius was terminated. The same year Taras Shevchenko was arrested, exiled for ten years, and banned for political reasons from writing and painting. In 1862 Pavlo Chubynsky
1078-883: A variant name of the Little Russian language . In a private letter from 1854, Taras Shevchenko lauds "our splendid Ukrainian language". Valuyev's decree from 1863 derides the "Little Russian" language throughout, but also mentions "the so-called Ukrainian language" once. In Galicia, the earliest applications of the term Ukrainian to the language were in the hyphenated names Ukrainian-Ruthenian (1866, by Paulin Święcicki ) or Ruthenian-Ukrainian (1871, by Panteleimon Kulish and Ivan Puluj ), with non-hyphenated Ukrainian language appearing shortly thereafter (in 1878, by Mykhailo Drahomanov ). A following ban on Ukrainian books led to Alexander II 's secret Ems Ukaz , which prohibited publication and importation of most Ukrainian-language books, public performances and lectures, and even banned
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#17328589203891176-460: Is accused of "controlling actions of a group of people and directly participating in the arson" of the Party of Regions office building. As of 2 March, The Ministry of Internal Affairs reported 18 officer fatalities related to the conflict. Two deaths that occurred during the crisis were considered by The Interior Ministry's as having no relation to Euromaidan or civil unrest. In addition, according to
1274-625: Is based on the character of contemporary written sources, ultimately reflecting socio-historical developments, and he further subdivides the Middle period into three phases: Ukraine annually marks the Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language on 9 November, the Eastern Orthodox feast day of Nestor the Chronicler . The era of Kievan Rus' ( c. 880–1240) is the subject of some linguistic controversy, as
1372-465: Is more mutual intelligibility with Belarusian , and a closer lexical distance to West Slavic Polish and South Slavic Bulgarian . Ukrainian is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language spoken in the medieval state of Kievan Rus' . In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , the language developed into Ruthenian , where it became an official language, before a process of Polonization began in
1470-455: Is more than 275,155 residents. Ukrainian-born population in the U.S. since 2010: The top 20 U.S. communities with the highest percentage of people claiming Ukrainian ancestry are: Top 20 U.S. communities with the highest percentage of residents born in Ukraine are: Ukrainian language Ukrainian ( українська мова , ukrainska mova , IPA: [ʊkrɐˈjinʲsʲkɐ ˈmɔʋɐ] )
1568-820: Is one of the East Slavic languages in the Indo-European languages family, and it is spoken primarily in Ukraine . It is the first (native) language of a large majority of Ukrainians . Written Ukrainian uses the Ukrainian alphabet , a variant of the Cyrillic script . The standard language is studied by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and Potebnia Institute of Linguistics . Comparisons are often made between Ukrainian and Russian , another East Slavic language, yet there
1666-541: Is referred to as "Old Ukrainian", but elsewhere, and in contemporary sources, is known as the Ruthenian language, and from the end of the 18th century to the present what in Ukraine is known as "Modern Ukrainian", but elsewhere is known as just Ukrainian. List of people killed during the Revolution of Dignity Altogether, 108 civilian protesters and 13 police officers were killed in Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity (or
1764-506: The Kyiv Conservatory (music academy) on the morning of 20 February. The sniper said he was recruited by "a retired military officer". These morning shots are said to have provoked return fire from police snipers that resulted in many deaths. One Maidan leader, Andriy Shevchenko , said police commanders called him to say they were being shot from areas controlled by protesters. Another Maidan leader, Andriy Parubiy , said his team searched
1862-719: The Latin language. Much of the influence of Poland on the development of the Ukrainian language has been attributed to this period and is reflected in multiple words and constructions used in everyday Ukrainian speech that were taken from Polish or Latin. Examples of Polish words adopted from this period include zavzhdy (always; taken from old Polish word zawżdy ) and obitsiaty (to promise; taken from Polish obiecać ) and from Latin (via Polish) raptom (suddenly) and meta (aim or goal). Significant contact with Tatars and Turks resulted in many Turkic words, particularly those involving military matters and steppe industry, being adopted into
1960-557: The Novgorod Republic did not call themselves Rus ' until the 14th century; earlier Novgorodians reserved the term Rus ' for the Kiev , Pereyaslavl and Chernigov principalities. At the same time as evidenced by contemporary chronicles, the ruling princes and kings of Galicia–Volhynia and Kiev called themselves "people of Rus ' " (in foreign sources called " Ruthenians "), and Galicia–Volhynia has alternately been called
2058-613: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . By the 18th century, Ruthenian diverged into regional variants, and the modern Ukrainian language developed in the territory of present-day Ukraine. Russification saw the Ukrainian language banned as a subject from schools and as a language of instruction in the Russian Empire , and continued in various ways in the Soviet Union . Even so, the language continued to see use throughout
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#17328589203892156-403: The invasion of Ukraine through their local congregations. It is estimated that during 2022-2023, around 300,000 Ukrainians have sought asylum in the United States through various means, making the U.S. the fifth-largest destination for refugees of the Russian invasion of Ukraine , and also making Ukrainians one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the United States that don't originate from
2254-399: The law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" was approved by the parliament, formalizing rules governing the usage of the language and introducing penalties for violations. The literary Ukrainian language, which was preceded by Old East Slavic literature, may be subdivided into two stages: during the 12th to 18th centuries what in Ukraine
2352-637: The 'Maidan Revolution'), which was the culmination of the Euromaidan protest movement. The deaths occurred in January and February 2014; most of them on 20 February, when police snipers fired on anti-government activists in Kyiv . The slain activists are known in Ukraine as the Heavenly Hundred or Heavenly Company ( Ukrainian : Небесна сотня , Nebesna sotnia ). By June 2016, 55 people had been charged in relation to
2450-511: The (then) opposition parties ( Batkivshchyna , UDAR and Svoboda ) stated "To hold talks with the regime, the policies of which led to the deaths of many people, is an extremely unpleasant thing but we must do everything possible and even the impossible to prevent further bloodshed". On 21 February, the Maidan held a memorial for the slain protesters who they named the Heavenly Hundred. During
2548-425: The 11th–12th century, but started becoming more similar to them around the 13th–15th centuries. The modern Russian language hence developed from the fusion of this Novgorod dialect and the common dialect spoken by the other Kievan Rus', whereas the modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed from dialects which did not differ from each other in a significant way. Ukrainian linguist Stepan Smal-Stotsky denies
2646-451: The 13th century, eastern parts of Rus (including Moscow) came under Tatar rule until their unification under the Tsardom of Muscovy , whereas the south-western areas (including Kyiv ) were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . For the following four centuries, the languages of the two regions evolved in relative isolation from each other. Direct written evidence of the existence of
2744-666: The 13th century, when German settlers were invited to Ukraine by the princes of the Kingdom of Ruthenia, German words began to appear in the language spoken in Ukraine. Their influence would continue under Poland not only through German colonists but also through the Yiddish-speaking Jews. Often such words involve trade or handicrafts. Examples of words of German or Yiddish origin spoken in Ukraine include dakh ("roof"), rura ("pipe"), rynok ("market"), kushnir ("furrier"), and majster ("master" or "craftsman"). In
2842-470: The 1880s. In 1870-1914 the majority of Ukrainian immigrants came from Austro-Hungary ( Galicia and other regions). They were described as Ruthenians , Rusyns , or “Russniaks.” Many arrived in New York City and Pennsylvania . In 1899 estimates of the number of Ukrainians in the USA ranged from 200,000 to 500,000. The Ukrainian National Association ( Ukrainian : Український народний союз ), known before 1914 as
2940-422: The American continent. As of the 2000 U.S. Census , there were 892,922 Americans of full or partial Ukrainian descent. The New York City Metropolitan Area contains by far the largest Ukrainian community in the United States, due to historically receiving the highest number of Ukrainian immigrants. The U.S. states with the largest Ukrainian populations are as follows: The total number of people born in Ukraine
3038-594: The Berkut shooting at protesters. On 2 April 2014, law enforcement authorities announced they had detained nine officers of the Kyiv City Berkut unit as suspects in the shootings, and verified the Alfa Group 's involvement . Officials also said they planned further arrests, but had been hindered because the Yanukovych regime destroyed documents and evidence. The Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed that Yanukovych gave
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3136-490: The Conservatory but found no snipers. He confirmed that many victims on both sides were shot by snipers, but they were shooting from other, taller buildings surrounding the Conservatory and was convinced they were snipers controlled by Russia. In 2016, Maidan protester Ivan Bubenchik admitted having fired on the security forces from the Conservatory on 20 February, killing two Berkut commanders. He said he acted in response to
3234-589: The Cossack motherland, Ukrajina , as a self-appellation for the nation of Ukrainians, and Ukrajins'ka mova for the language. Many writers published works in the Romantic tradition of Europe demonstrating that Ukrainian was not merely a language of the village but suitable for literary pursuits. However, in the Russian Empire expressions of Ukrainian culture and especially language were repeatedly persecuted for fear that
3332-683: The Minister of Internal Affairs, another police officer, 30-year-old captain of the Internal Troops of Ukraine Dmytro Donets, died from a heart attack. On 18 February, six officers were killed in action against protest camps in Kyiv. Ukrainian sources refer to the activists who died during Euromaidan as "The Heavenly Hundred". In April 2014, the Kyiv City State Administration and Culture Ministry of Ukraine stated that they expected to open
3430-544: The Orthodox church spoke Ruthenian. The 1654 Pereiaslav Agreement between Cossack Hetmanate and Alexis of Russia divided Ukraine between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia. During the following century, both monarchies became increasingly intolerant of Ukrainian own cultural and political aspirations. Ukrainians found themselves in a colonial situation. The Russian centre adopted
3528-719: The Pastor Right Reverend Mitred Archpriest Philip Weiner, the leader of St. Josaphat's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Rochester, New York , said that there were more than 40,000 Ukrainians in the Rochester Metropolitan Area, which would make it one of the largest Ukrainian American communities in the country. There are a large number of Ukrainian Protestants in the Sacramento metropolitan area who have organized support to those affected by
3626-559: The Polish nobility. Many Ukrainian nobles learned the Polish language and converted to Catholicism during that period in order to maintain their lofty aristocratic position. Lower classes were less affected because literacy was common only in the upper class and clergy. The latter were also under significant Polish pressure after the Union with the Catholic Church . Most of the educational system
3724-530: The Principality or Kingdom of Ruthenia. Also according to Andrey Zaliznyak, the Novgorodian dialect differed significantly from that of other dialects of Kievan Rus during the 11th–12th century, but started becoming more similar to them around 13th–15th centuries. The modern Russian language hence developed from the fusion of this Novgorodian dialect and the common dialect spoken by the other Kievan Rus, whereas
3822-552: The Russian Empire. According to the Imperial census's terminology, the Russian language ( Русскій ) was subdivided into Ukrainian (Малорусскій, ' Little Russian '), what is known as Russian today (Великорусскій, ' Great Russian '), and Belarusian (Бѣлорусскій, 'White Russian'). The following table shows the distribution of settlement by native language ( "по родному языку" ) in 1897 in Russian Empire governorates ( guberniyas ) that had more than 100,000 Ukrainian speakers. Although in
3920-591: The Ruthenian National Union ( Ukrainian : Руський Народний Союз ) was founded in Shamokin, Pennsylvania on February 22, 1894. Between 1920 and 1939 about 40,000 more Ukrainians arrived, mostly from Western Ukraine . After World War II, about 85,000 Ukrainian displaced persons emigrated to the United States from Europe. From 1955 to 1965, St. Andrew Memorial Church in South Bound Brook, New Jersey ,
4018-460: The Soviet Union and a special term, "a language of inter-ethnic communication", was coined to denote its status. After the death of Stalin (1953), a general policy of relaxing the language policies of the past was implemented (1958 to 1963). The Khrushchev era which followed saw a policy of relatively lenient concessions to development of the languages at the local and republic level, though its results in Ukraine did not go nearly as far as those of
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4116-509: The Soviet policy of Ukrainianization in the 1920s. Journals and encyclopedic publications advanced in the Ukrainian language during the Khrushchev era, as well as transfer of Crimea under Ukrainian SSR jurisdiction. Yet, the 1958 school reform that allowed parents to choose the language of primary instruction for their children, unpopular among the circles of the national intelligentsia in parts of
4214-543: The USSR, meant that non-Russian languages would slowly give way to Russian in light of the pressures of survival and advancement. The gains of the past, already largely reversed by the Stalin era, were offset by the liberal attitude towards the requirement to study the local languages (the requirement to study Russian remained). Parents were usually free to choose the language of study of their children (except in few areas where attending
4312-564: The Ukrainian language dates to the late 16th century. By the 16th century, a peculiar official language formed: a mixture of the liturgical standardised language of Old Church Slavonic , Ruthenian and Polish . The influence of the latter gradually increased relative to the former two, as the nobility and rural large-landowning class, known as the szlachta , was largely Polish-speaking. Documents soon took on many Polish characteristics superimposed on Ruthenian phonetics. Polish–Lithuanian rule and education also involved significant exposure to
4410-470: The Ukrainian language held the formal position of the principal local language in the Ukrainian SSR . However, practice was often a different story: Ukrainian always had to compete with Russian, and the attitudes of the Soviet leadership towards Ukrainian varied from encouragement and tolerance to de facto banishment. Officially, there was no state language in the Soviet Union until the very end when it
4508-465: The Ukrainian language. Examples include torba (bag) and tyutyun (tobacco). Because of the substantial number of loanwords from Polish, German, Czech and Latin, early modern vernacular Ukrainian ( prosta mova , " simple speech ") had more lexical similarity with West Slavic languages than with Russian or Church Slavonic. By the mid-17th century, the linguistic divergence between the Ukrainian and Russian languages had become so significant that there
4606-409: The Ukrainian school might have required a long daily commute) and they often chose Russian, which reinforced the resulting Russification. In this sense, some analysts argue that it was not the "oppression" or "persecution", but rather the lack of protection against the expansion of Russian language that contributed to the relative decline of Ukrainian in the 1970s and 1980s. According to this view, it
4704-422: The attackers to provide an exit route for the women office workers and was mortally struck in the head with a bat. According to the Ukrainian news site Censor.net , Zakharov died of carbon monoxide poisoning while taking money from the office safe. On 10 April 2020 Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigations handed a murder suspicion notice to a former People's Deputy of Ukraine Tetiana Chornovol . Chornovol
4802-407: The chancellery and gradually evolved into the Ruthenian language. Polish rule, which came later, was accompanied by a more assimilationist policy. By the 1569 Union of Lublin that formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a significant part of Ukrainian territory was moved from Lithuanian rule to Polish administration, resulting in cultural Polonization and visible attempts to colonize Ukraine by
4900-571: The country, and remained particularly strong in Western Ukraine . Specific developments that led to a gradual change of the Old East Slavic vowel system into the system found in modern Ukrainian began approximately in the 12th/13th century (that is, still at the time of the Kievan Rus') with a lengthening and raising of the Old East Slavic mid vowels e and o when followed by a consonant and
4998-506: The country, held several briefings with the agents. Russia's FSB rejected this as "groundless accusations". On 31 March 2014, The Daily Beast published photos and videos which appear to show that some of the snipers were members of the Ukrainian Security Service's "Alfa" group , who had been trained in Russia. In 2015, BBC published a story based on an interview with an unnamed man, who said he fired at riot police from
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#17328589203895096-496: The crackdown on protesters. Valentyn Nalyvaichenko , the interim head of Ukraine's Security Service, said the FSB agents had flown large quantities of explosives into an airport near Kyiv, that they were based at a compound in Kyiv throughout the Maidan protests, were provided with "state telecommunications", and were in regular contact with Yanukovych's security officials. He said that Yanukovych's SBU chief Oleksandr Yakymenko , who had fled
5194-482: The deaths of protesters, including 29 former members of the Berkut special police force, ten titushky or loyalists of the former government, and ten former government officials. On 21 February, the Ukrainian parliament ( Verkhovna Rada ) passed a law to provide assistance to the families of the protesters who were killed. On 21 November 2014 a decree by the new Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko posthumously awarded
5292-544: The event, a mourning Lemko song " A Duckling Swims in the Tysa " was heard ( Ukrainian : « Пливе́ ка́ча по Тиси́ні…» ). On 24 February, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) decided to propose that the next Ukrainian president award the title Hero of Ukraine to protesters killed in the clashes. In June 2016, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine announced that forensic examinations had matched bullets removed from
5390-407: The existence of a common Old East Slavic language at any time in the past. Similar points of view were shared by Yevhen Tymchenko , Vsevolod Hantsov , Olena Kurylo , Ivan Ohienko and others. According to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages during the 6th through 9th centuries. The Ukrainian language
5488-563: The government told her an investigation had begun. In April 2014, Ukraine's new interior minister, Avakov, presented the findings of the initial investigation into the shootings. It found the Berkut responsible for shooting the protesters, and identified twelve of the officers involved. It also identified some of the firing positions. Avakov said the previous regime had tried to hinder any inquiry by destroying weapons, uniforms and documents. The investigation also found that more than 30 Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) agents were involved in
5586-525: The ideology of the (old) regime," he said, citing forensic evidence. Hennadiy Moskal , former deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine and Ministry of Internal Affairs , suggested that snipers from the Security Service and Militsiya were responsible, who acted on contingency plans dating back to Soviet times: "Snipers received orders to shoot not only protesters, but also police forces. This
5684-417: The language of much of the literature was purely or heavily Old Church Slavonic . Some theorists see an early Ukrainian stage in language development here, calling it Old Ruthenian; others term this era Old East Slavic . Russian theorists tend to amalgamate Rus' to the modern nation of Russia, and call this linguistic era Old Russian. However, according to Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak (2012), people from
5782-463: The lives of the Heavenly hundred". Kyiv City Council renamed a part of Instytutska Street into Heavenly Hundred Heroes Avenue on 20 November 2014. President Poroshenko decreed on 11 February 2015 that 20 February will annually be commemorated as "Day of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes". His decree established [an action plan to accomplish] a museum in Kyiv dedicated to Euromaidan . On 20 February, it
5880-528: The merger of the Old East Slavic vowel phonemes и /i/ and ы /ɨ/ into the specifically Ukrainian phoneme /ɪ ~ e/, spelled with и (in the 13th/14th centuries), and the fricativisation of the Old East Slavic consonant г /g/, probably first to /ɣ/ (in the 13th century), with /ɦ/ as a reflex in Modern Ukrainian, did not happen in Russian. Only the fricativisation of Old East Slavic г /g/ occurred in Belarusian, where
5978-456: The modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed from the dialects which did not differ from each other in a significant way. After the fall of the Kingdom of Ruthenia, Ukrainians mainly fell under the rule of Lithuania and then Poland . Local autonomy of both rule and language was a marked feature of Lithuanian rule. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Old East Slavic became the language of
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#17328589203896076-443: The name Little Russia for Ukraine and Little Russian for the language, an expression that originated in Byzantine Greek and may originally have meant "old, original, fundamental Russia", and had been in use since the 14th century. Ukrainian high culture went into a long period of steady decline. The Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was taken over by the Russian Empire. Most of the remaining Ukrainian schools also switched to Polish or Russian in
6174-412: The native language for the majority in the nation on the eve of Ukrainian independence, a significant share of ethnic Ukrainians were russified. In Donetsk there were no Ukrainian language schools and in Kyiv only a quarter of children went to Ukrainian language schools. The Russian language was the dominant vehicle, not just of government function, but of the media, commerce, and modernity itself. This
6272-458: The order to fire on protesters on 20 February. Many of the identified alleged perpetrators fled to Russia after the revolution. According to the Prosecutor General's Office, the Russian Federation granted citizenship to 18 police officers suspected of killing protesters, and has refused to extradite them to Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in 2020 that prosecutions were difficult because "evidence and documents have been lost, while
6370-432: The perpetrators could not be determined due to lack of evidence. According to the Kyiv Independent : "In many cases, it was impossible to identify which Berkut officer shot specific protesters because they wore face masks or their images in photographs and video footage were of poor quality. ... the court effectively considered the officers' actions individually rather than collectively, thus dropping murder charges where it
6468-403: The phone call was authentic, but denied blaming the opposition and said he was merely relaying rumors he had heard from a doctor. A spokesperson for the US state department said the leak was "Russian tradecraft ". The doctor, Olga Bogomolets , said she had not told Paet that policemen and protesters had been killed in the same way, that she did not blame the opposition for the killings, and said
6566-425: The population said Ukrainian was their native language. Until the 1920s the urban population in Ukraine grew faster than the number of Ukrainian speakers. This implies that there was a (relative) decline in the use of Ukrainian language. For example, in Kyiv, the number of people stating that Ukrainian was their native language declined from 30.3% in 1874 to 16.6% in 1917. During the seven-decade-long Soviet era ,
6664-456: The present-day reflex is /ɣ/. Ahatanhel Krymsky and Aleksey Shakhmatov assumed the existence of the common spoken language of Eastern Slavs only in prehistoric times. According to their point of view, the diversification of the Old East Slavic language took place in the 8th or early 9th century. Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak stated that the Old Novgorod dialect differed significantly from that of other dialects of Kievan Rus' during
6762-418: The printing of Ukrainian texts accompanying musical scores. A period of leniency after 1905 was followed by another strict ban in 1914, which also affected Russian-occupied Galicia. For much of the 19th century the Austrian authorities demonstrated some preference for Polish culture, but the Ukrainians were relatively free to partake in their own cultural pursuits in Halychyna and Bukovina , where Ukrainian
6860-461: The protesters were shot by police. Two others died when police set the Trade Union building on fire, and another was found dead with his throat slit. A journalist, Viacheslav Veremii , was beaten and shot dead by titushky for filming them. The five police officers died from gunshot wounds. On the morning of 20 February, riot police massed at the edge of the Maidan camp on Independence Square. At around 9am, two Berkut officers were shot dead. Around
6958-421: The protests—told the Associated Press that the similarity of the bullet wounds suffered by both protesters and police suggested the shooters were trying to stoke tensions on both sides and spark greater violence, with the goal of justifying a Russian invasion. "I think it wasn't just a part of the old regime that (plotted the provocation), but it was also the work of Russian special forces who served and maintained
7056-621: The remainder of the Northeastern United States have long been politically vocal about Ukrainian affairs, often traveling to Washington, D.C. , to express their concerns. In Bloomingdale ( near Chicago ) on September 21, 2015, Filaret , the Ukrainian Orthodox Patriarch of Kyiv and All Rus'-Ukraine , consecrated the first North American monument to the Revolution of Dignity 's " Heavenly Hundred ". In February 2022,
7154-434: The rest died of other injuries. Four police officers were also shot and killed. Later that evening and into the early hours of 19 February, the security forces launched an operation to clear Independence Square. Small groups of titushky (government loyalists) also gathered nearby. Clashes broke out between the security forces and protesters, resulting in the deaths of seventeen protesters and five police officers. Most of
7252-491: The right to defend their lives. So I think it's right that these four people were killed. Moreover, I believe that you need to be stricter." On 18 February, protesters attempted to march from Independence Square to the parliament building, to urge politicians to vote for constitutional amendments. Clashes broke out as their path was blocked by riot police, who tried to push them back to Maidan. Eleven protesters were killed or fatally wounded. Three of them were shot dead by police;
7350-518: The rooftops around the protest area. He stated that the shooting of protesters was a provocation by extremist forces aimed at escalating violence. Party of Regions MP Arsen Klinchayev stated during a memorial service in Luhansk for those killed on 22 January by police, "These people were against the government. Nobody has the right to use physical force against police officers. And then they have their sticks, then stones, then something else. The police have
7448-562: The rural regions of the Ukrainian provinces, 80% of the inhabitants said that Ukrainian was their native language in the Census of 1897 (for which the results are given above), in the urban regions only 32.5% of the population claimed Ukrainian as their native language. For example, in Odesa (then part of the Russian Empire), at the time the largest city in the territory of current Ukraine, only 5.6% of
7546-505: The same day, the dead body of activist Yuriy Verbytsky [ uk ] was found on the city outskirts; he had been kidnapped a day before with Ihor Lutsenko , who was released. These were the first victims to die in demonstrations in Ukraine since it gained national independence in 1991. The deaths caused widespread protests . On 23 January, then Prime Minister Mykola Azarov in a BBC interview said that police had not been issued firearms, and said no police officers were located on
7644-519: The same time, protesters tried to push the security forces away from the Maidan and back up Instytutska Street. The security forces fired indiscriminately on the protesters from ground level, while snipers fired on protesters from above. By midday, 48 protesters had been shot dead on Instytutska Street, as had two other police officers. According to the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda , special forces ( Berkut ) and Interior Troops snipers shot at people on Maidan and/or snipers located in nearby buildings, with
7742-466: The scene of the crime has been tampered with and 'cleaned up'". He could not say when those who gave the orders would be found, but gave assurances that the matter is being "dealt with faster than several years ago". Later in 2020, an investigation by the Ukrainian Bureau of Investigations concluded that the assault on the Maidan protesters was ordered by Yanukovych and his subordinates. In 2023,
7840-661: The sixteenth and first half of the 17th century, when Ukraine was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, albeit in spite of being part of the PLC, not as a result. Among many schools established in that time, the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium (the predecessor of the modern Kyiv-Mohyla Academy ), founded by the Orthodox Metropolitan Peter Mogila , was the most important. At that time languages were associated more with religions: Catholics spoke Polish, and members of
7938-435: The special forces firing AK-47 assault rifles. 20 February was the bloodiest day of the clashes, with at least 21 protesters killed. The final death toll from these clashes in late February was 103 protesters and 13 police. According to Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Oleh Zalisko [ uk ] in February, 184 people sustained gunshot wounds in Kyiv and over 750 suffered bodily injury. On 20 February,
8036-462: The term native language may not necessarily associate with the language they use more frequently. The overwhelming majority of ethnic Ukrainians consider the Ukrainian language native , including those who often speak Russian. According to the official 2001 census data, 92.3% of Kyiv region population responded "Ukrainian" to the native language ( ridna mova ) census question, compared with 88.4% in 1989, and 7.2% responded "Russian". In 2019,
8134-558: The territories controlled by these respective countries, which was followed by a new wave of Polonization and Russification of the native nobility. Gradually the official language of Ukrainian provinces under Poland was changed to Polish, while the upper classes in the Russian part of Ukraine used Russian. During the 19th century, a revival of Ukrainian self-identification manifested in the literary classes of both Russian-Empire Dnieper Ukraine and Austrian Galicia . The Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius in Kyiv applied an old word for
8232-689: The title " Hero of Ukraine " to the slain protesters. Three non-Ukrainian citizens killed in the revolution were each posthumously awarded the title " Knight of the Order of the Heaven's Hundred Heroes ". Since 2015, the deaths have been commemorated each year in Ukraine on 20 February, which is "the Day of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes". The first deaths occurred on Unity Day , 22 January, during riots on Hrushevskoho Street in Kyiv , where three activists: Serhiy Nigoyan , Mykhailo Zhyznevskyi and Roman Senyk [ uk ] were shot dead by security forces. On
8330-516: The use of Ukrainian. The educational system in Ukraine has been transformed over the first decade of independence from a system that is partly Ukrainian to one that is overwhelmingly so. The government has also mandated a progressively increased role for Ukrainian in the media and commerce. In the 2001 census , 67.5% of the country's population named Ukrainian as their native language (a 2.8% increase from 1989), while 29.6% named Russian (a 3.2% decrease). For many Ukrainians (of various ethnic origins),
8428-619: The victims' bodies with the assault rifles of the Berkut . In the years since the revolution, the Office of the Prosecutor General has identified 27 Berkut officers involved in the 20 February shootings of protesters. However, in most cases, investigators have been unable to identify which Berkut officer shot specific protesters. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, the new government's health minister, Oleh Musiy —a doctor who helped oversee medical treatment for casualties during
8526-575: Was a need for translators during negotiations for the Treaty of Pereyaslav , between Bohdan Khmelnytsky , head of the Zaporozhian Host , and the Russian state. By the 18th century, Ruthenian had diverged into regional variants, developing into the modern Belarusian , Rusyn , and Ukrainian languages. The accepted chronology of Ukrainian divides the language into Old Ukrainian, Middle Ukrainian, and Modern Ukrainian. Shevelov explains that much of this
8624-519: Was all done to escalate the conflict, to justify the police operation to clear Maidan". The new Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov , said in March 2014 that the shootings were provoked by a 'non-Ukrainian' third party, and that an investigation was ongoing. Russian state media reported in March 2014 a leaked telephone call in which Estonia's foreign minister, Urmas Paet , allegedly accused the opposition of shooting both police and protesters. Paet acknowledged
8722-530: Was constructed as a memorial honoring victims of the Holodomor of 1932–1933. The largest wave of Ukrainians came in the early 1990s, after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union . Some of those emigrating from Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union were Jewish or Protestant . Many Ukrainians of the newest immigration wave settled in large cities and regional centers, forming ethnic enclaves . In addition, many Ukrainian Americans arrived by way of Canada, which has
8820-548: Was exiled for seven years to Arkhangelsk . The Ukrainian magazine Osnova was discontinued. In 1863, the tsarist interior minister Pyotr Valuyev proclaimed in his decree that "there never has been, is not, and never can be a separate Little Russian language". Although the name of Ukraine is known since 1187, it was not applied to the language until the mid-19th century. The linguonym Ukrainian language appears in Yakub Holovatsky 's book from 1849, listed there as
8918-448: Was formed by convergence of tribal dialects, mostly due to an intensive migration of the population within the territory of today's Ukraine in later historical periods. This point of view was also supported by George Shevelov 's phonological studies, which argue that specific features were already recognizable in the southern dialects of Old East Slavic (seen as ancestors to Ukrainian) as far back as these varieties can be documented. As
9016-407: Was gradually Polonized. In Ruthenia, the language of administrative documents gradually shifted towards Polish. Polish has had heavy influences on Ukrainian (particularly in Western Ukraine ). The southwestern Ukrainian dialects are transitional to Polish. As the Ukrainian language developed further, some borrowings from Tatar and Turkish occurred. Ukrainian culture and language flourished in
9114-538: Was impossible to prove which officer killed which protester". Unidentified activists were reported killed. On 18 February militants from the Social-National Assembly and the Patriots of Ukraine seized and burned down the central office of the ruling Party of Regions . A 57-year-old IT engineer Vladimir Konstantinovich Zakharov died in the fire. According to Party of Regions ' statement, Zakharov proposed to
9212-554: Was inevitable that successful careers required a good command of Russian, while knowledge of Ukrainian was not vital, so it was common for Ukrainian parents to send their children to Russian-language schools, even though Ukrainian-language schools were usually available. The number of students in Russian-language in Ukraine schools was constantly increasing, from 14 percent in 1939 to more than 30 percent in 1962. The Communist Party leader from 1963 to 1972, Petro Shelest , pursued
9310-482: Was lessened only slightly after 1985. The management of dissent by the local Ukrainian Communist Party was more fierce and thorough than in other parts of the Soviet Union. As a result, at the start of the Mikhail Gorbachev reforms perebudova and hlasnist’ (Ukrainian for perestroika and glasnost ), Ukraine under Shcherbytsky was slower to liberalize than Russia itself. Although Ukrainian still remained
9408-537: Was proclaimed in 1990 that Russian language was the all-Union state language and that the constituent republics had rights to declare additional state languages within their jurisdictions. Still it was implicitly understood in the hopes of minority nations that Ukrainian would be used in the Ukrainian SSR, Uzbek would be used in the Uzbek SSR , and so on. However, Russian was used as the lingua franca in all parts of
9506-400: Was substantially less the case for western Ukraine, which escaped the artificial famine , Great Purge , and most of Stalinism . And this region became the center of a hearty, if only partial, renaissance of the Ukrainian language during independence. Since 1991, Ukrainian has been the official state language in Ukraine, and the state administration implemented government policies to broaden
9604-532: Was widely used in education and official documents. The suppression by Russia hampered the literary development of the Ukrainian language in Dnipro Ukraine, but there was a constant exchange with Halychyna, and many works were published under Austria and smuggled to the east. By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of Austro-Hungary in 1918, Ukrainians were ready to openly develop
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