THOUGHTS ON UKRAINE - PART ONE The area that we now know as Ukraine has rarely been an independent entity. We first hear of it as part of Kievan Rus, a state established by Vikings who went east and, centred on Kiev, gave their name to Russia. Kievan Rus was defeated by the ‘Golden Horde’, successor to Genghis Khan’s empire, and by 1240 Ukraine was occupied by the Mongols. Eventually the Poles and the Lithuanians expelled the Mongols and Ukraine was absorbed into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, while Crimea became a semi-independent khanate and eventually a protectorate of the Turkic Ottoman Empire. From 1386 when the heir to the kingdom of Poland and the heir to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were the same man the two states were in a
THOUGHTS ON UKRAINE - PART ONE, THE BACKGROUND
THOUGHTS ON UKRAINE - PART ONE, THE…
THOUGHTS ON UKRAINE - PART ONE, THE BACKGROUND
THOUGHTS ON UKRAINE - PART ONE The area that we now know as Ukraine has rarely been an independent entity. We first hear of it as part of Kievan Rus, a state established by Vikings who went east and, centred on Kiev, gave their name to Russia. Kievan Rus was defeated by the ‘Golden Horde’, successor to Genghis Khan’s empire, and by 1240 Ukraine was occupied by the Mongols. Eventually the Poles and the Lithuanians expelled the Mongols and Ukraine was absorbed into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, while Crimea became a semi-independent khanate and eventually a protectorate of the Turkic Ottoman Empire. From 1386 when the heir to the kingdom of Poland and the heir to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were the same man the two states were in a