More History of Ukraine

Sunday was good today. We enjoyed the assembly and then stayed for a special program this afternoon called their "Sweet Table." They moved the chairs back in their auditorium, and set up tables, and brought out plates of all different types of pastries, cookies and sweets, along with tea and water and juice "sok." Several people sang or played the guitar. They had the children sing a song, and Zhanna and Ella were among them. Then the gathering of people all played a game with clues of some sort wrapped into individual layers of an aluminum foil ball. We thought they had to answer a Bible trivia question and then pass the ball to someone else to peel off another layer, but we never figured out if that was truly it or not. At the end of the game and the concert, before the eating, everyone sang the song "Prayer for Ukraine." It brought tears to many eyes and people in the church were visibly moved. It is obvious that Christians here are prayerful that the heart of Ukraine will be changed more into the image of Christ.

It seems to Mark and me, that although the general population of Ukrainians tend to be somewhat cold and unfeeling, at least in business and on the street, that Christians are different. What a difference Christ makes! He opens doors and breaks down barriers. He brings truth and healing and removes distrust and lies and social ills. He thinks of others more highly than Himself. Yes, Ukraine needs more of Christ. America needs more of Christ. Every nation on earth needs more of Christ.

So, with that said, I will continue sharing a bit more about Ukraine's history. Thanks to Tim O'Hearn who left a message on the blog yesterday about additional historical information that I left out. What he added is quite interesting, so check out his message from yesterday. Thanks, Tim!

After the Revolution in 1917, all of Russia was in the hands of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Ukraine made a bid for independence at that time, but couldn't keep peace long enough to establish a workable government. It wasn't long before the short-lived nation of Ukraine erupted in civil war. The Germans soon advanced in an attempt to capture Kiev. The Bolsheviks approached from the north, and the Poles did their best to hang on. According to different estimates, Kiev changed hands between 14 and 18 times in the years between 1917 and 1920. Hundreds of thousands were killed, many of Jewish ethnicity. Six separate armies ravaged the country, each with confused notions about its ultimate aim. It was said that "Ukraine was a country easy to conquer but almost impossible to rule."

Finally, in 1920, Ukraine was conquered decisively by the Bolsheviks and returned to Russian hands. At first all Ukrainians were expected to release all belongings and food to the Red Army. Out of protest, the peasants stopped planting. An accompanying drought led to a devastating famine, where hundreds of thousands MORE died in Ukraine. Lenin realized his tactics were backfiring, and established a policy of "korenizatsiya" (making roots), where the Ukrainian culture and language were accepted and encouraged. For the first time, educational opportunities were made available in Ukraine. More people learned to read then in Ukraine than any other time in history. However, the books available always featured the Communist party and smiling Red Army soldiers. By the time Lenin died in 1924, collectivism was ebbing and foreign investment was encouraged. Capitalism could have made headway into Ukraine and Russia, if it weren't for Stalin and his policies.

Stalin became the leader of Russia through treachery and was eager to make changes. In 1928 he introduced his "five-year plan" called the "revolution from above." This was a series of gigantic industrial goals for the cities and a collectivism plan for the farm and agricultural industry. The plan was extended another 5 years following the first plan. It all turned into disaster for the peasants and workers in the factories. Living conditions were terrible and discipline severe. Everyone was pushed to the limits. The Soviet state believed it would buy grain cheaply from the peasants, feed the people in the cities and sell the surplus grain for profit. The peasants refused to sell their grain so cheaply and began to hoard it. Hoarding drove up the market price even higher. Stalin reacted severly. During 1929 - 1930 hundreds of thousand of Ukrainian peasants were packed into freight trains, shipped to the frozen tundra of Siberia and ordered to settle the land. Most died of cold and starvation. Stalin then called for even higher grain quotas and sent in military generals to supervise the seizure. Hired gangs went from farm to farm, tearing up floorboards and torturing peasants in search of hidden grain. Another drought in 1931 killed the remainder of the failing crops. After two years of grain requisitioning, most of Ukraine's food supply had been confiscated and the countryside was left to starve. Peasants ate rats, bark, leaves, dirt, and one another. Whole villages died together. The famine of 1932 -33 was the ultimate tragedy for the Ukrainian nation. It is believed that 3 - 6 million Ukrainians starved to death in this "artificial famine," and yet it went unnoticed in the West and much of the Soviet Union. The 1930's also brought with it a new regime of terror directed toward the educated. Scientists, church leaders, writers, editors, historians and musicians disappeared. The Stalinist terror introduced a paranoia that kept people in line for the remainder of the Soviet Union's existence.

The Nazi attack on the USSR in June 1941 took Stalin by surpise. Resistance in Ukraine was futile. In western Ukraine, fascism sounded better than Stalinism. The German soldiers were perceived as liberators and given a hero's welcome in some towns. Kiev was captured in September 1941, and soon after the whole country was occupied by Nazi forces. Knowing the advantage of raw materials in Ukraine, Stalin called for a scorched-earth policy as the Red Army retreated. All political prisoners were shot, electricity plants destroyed, factories blown up and mines flooded. The three-year Nazi occupation of Ukraine was brutal and exploited the land and the people. The collective farms of Ukraine were now feeding the Third Reich, and the Germans had a particular interest in such a fertile land. A common anecdote tells of train loads of rich Ukrainian topsoil being shipped to Germany. Two million Ukrainians were also exported to Germany as forced labor. There were approximately one and a half million Jews in Ukraine prior to the war. Days after the Nazi invasion, the calculated killing of Jews commenced. The majority of Ukraine's Jews were not sent to concentration camps, but were collected, shot and buried in mass graves. By 1943 the Soviet Army had returned to Ukraine. At the war's end, it was estimated that one out of every six citizens in Ukraine had been killed. The conference at the end of the war held in Yalta in 1945 in the Ukrainian held Crimea was an historical occasion.

United in anger toward the Germans, Stalin was able to direct the people's emotions towards rebuilding a wrecked country. Hundreds of war memorials still stand as symbols of overcoming one form of oppression in Ukraine. Frenzied activity ensued. What had been destroyed had to be rebuilt quickly. Millions of Russians moved south to Ukraine, mostly to work in the factories. Cities exploded with growth. Stalin died in 1953 and Nikita Khrushchev became the leader of the Communist Party. Khrushchev was from Ukraine, even though he was Russian by birth. In 1954, the Communist party issued '13 theses' that spelled out the everlasting union of the Ukrainians and the Russians. As a gift, Khruschev annexed Crimea to Ukraine. (Some say he was drunk at the time!)

Khrushchev gained popularity when he denounced Stalin and introduced the "thaw" - a period of relaxed censorship and general freedom. The standard of living improved. The cookie-cutter concrete slab apartment buildings seen all over Ukraine are Khrushchev's doing. They were nicknamed "khrushchoby." (Khrushchev's name along with the word for slum!) They may be ugly, but they allowed housing for the entire Soviet population to be available in a very short time. Khruschev periodically relaxed his grip and tightened the reins on Soviet society throughout his time as leader. Breshnev came into power after Krushchev died, but he was old and ill during his time. Two others, Chernenko and Andropov, came into power after Breshnev, but they also were old and ill. These last ten years of Soviet rule in Ukraine were full of decline and stagnation.

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev, a young reformer, claimed the highest seat in the Communist Party. He held a firm belief in the superiority of socialism, but also had resolve to transform the problems in the Soviet Union. "Glasnost" (openness) and "perestoika" (reconstruction) opened up the economy and helped to reform the political structure.

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear plant north of Kiev exploded. The government was reluctant to let news of the accident escape. After nearly a week, news of the disaster reached the people who were in greatest danger. Hundreds died from the first heavy doses of radiation, but countless people contracted chronic ailments and thousands of children were born deformed in the months following the accident. The power plant was a Soviet plant, but was located in Ukraine, and Ukrainians realized they would be the ones to suffer for the Soviet ineptness. This event added much fuel to a growing fire of resentment toward the Soviet Union's control of Ukraine.

Nationalist sentiment grew more vocal as people tested their boldness under the freedom of glasnost. In the summer of 1988 thousands gathered on several occasions in Lviv and Kiev with a variety of protests, but mostly for independence. All over the Soviet Union, people were now speaking their minds, and the message was freedom. Gorbachev had never intended for things to go this far, and tried frantically to hold to union together. In September, 1989 the Ukrainian nationalist party, Rukh, was founded in opposition to the Communist Party in Ukraine. In 1990, democratic elections were permitted for the first time. The Supreme Soviet, or Verkhovna Rada in Ukrainian, would be open to non-communist parties. More protests took place within the next year, and then a great snowball effect took place, when in August, 1991, the entire Soviet Union was declared in a state of emergency. A coup tried to declare Gorbachev a traitor and sought to put the Communist party back on track. The Ukrainian communists could either comply and fall under a supposed new dictatorship, or support the "democrats" in the party and split the Soviet Union. On August 24, 1991 a vote resulted in an almost unanimous decision. Ukraine was declared an independent nation!

The first years of independence were horribly difficult. Inflation skyrocked. Paper money was printed out, but became invalid almost before it came into use. People continued to go to work, but received no salaries. The shops were either empty or closed, and food and clothing could only be bought on the streets. Growing one's own food became more important than ever. Winters were the hardest, with heat and electricity rationed. Russia threatened to shut off Ukraine's gas supply if the country could not pay its bill. Organized crime ran business enterprises and corruption was the norm at all levels of government.

For a short while, there were some fears that Ukraine would split right down the middle. Ukrainians in the west were speaking Ukrainian and feeling very European. Those in the east were Russian speaking and longed nostalgically for the convenience of the Soviet Union. Slowly, Ukrainian culture and heritage began to be taught in schools and a greater feeling of united national pride began to evolve.

By 2004 a presidential election was underway between a pro-communist candidate and one whose views were more democratic in nature. The democratic candidate, Viktor Yuschenko, was the favored candidate, but was poisoned in an attempted suicide just two months before the vote. He survived, but due to widespread election fraud, the other candidate was declared the original winner in November, 2004. By the next day, many of Yuschenko's "Our Ukraine" supporters had gathered at Independance Square in Kiev to protest the vote. They wore orange clothing and carried orange banners as a form of protest. Over the next few days, up to one million people gathered in Kiev and succeeded in shutting down the city. The people brought tents and refused to leave until the Ukraine Supreme Court intervened and declared a date for a new election. The protesters continued their vigil in Kiev, and all over Ukraine, with the rallying cry, "razom nas bohato" meaning "together we are many." The second vote took place on December 26, 2004 and Viktor Yuschenko was declared the winner. The Orange Revolution, as it came to be called, represented a watershed moment for Ukraine, delivering a huge boost of confidence and self-determination to the Ukrainian people. In a country where oppression, corruption, fraud and violence had become the norm, a true show of people power had fought for change and succeeded against all odds. The Ukrainian people had begun to see their own future much more positively than they had before.

Ukraine continues to evolve and change and grow. It is still only a teenager (18 years old), so it still struggles with some issues due to immaturity. But it is on the brink of adulthood, as well, and is doing its best to use the resources available to provide for its people and its future. Ukraine is a nation with roots in the land and in a fighting spirit. The people are just now beginning to understand where they've come from and how strong they really are. No wonder the Christian people all have tears in their eyes as they sing the song, "Prayer for Ukraine."

"Merciful God, we pray for the people,
Merciful God, we pray for Ukraine.
Save us from sin and forgive,
Your grace to the people reveal.
Merciful God I know that you'll take me
Into your Glorious Heavenly temple.
You gave us joy, peace from above.
You died for the people you love.
Put their names to the Book of Life."

Please pray for Ukraine. Please pray for us. We send love to all.
Dawn and Mark