The history of our land is the history of the Ukrainians as well as many other nations, which populated this country in different times. Researchers from many countries are currently studying remains of the mysterious Trypillya civilization. Dating back to the 4th century B.C., it is one of the first known civilizations of growers. Its name comes from the town of Trypillya near Kyiv.

The wandering tribes of Scythians have also left their footprints in Ukraine. Artifacts of those ancient people are still being unearthed from burial hills of the 6th–4th century B.C. The most notable find is the gold Scythian pectoral weighing over one kilo.

A civilization of eastern Slavs developed in the lands of today’s Ukraine. The 10th–11th centuries were the heydays of a powerful monarchy known as Kyivan Rus. It had cultural, trade, political, and dynastical bonds with the European countries of those times. The heads of the state were knyazs (princes). Since then, the domes of the Kyivо-Pecherskа Lavra and Kyiv’s Saint Sofia Cathedral have been an indelible part of the Kyiv skyline. These architectural monuments are on the UNESCO cultural heritage list. In the 12th–14th centuries, the powerful Halytsko-Volynske Duchy existed in the western part of the modern Ukraine.

A bright page of our history is Cossacks who appeared in the 15th century. Despite the fact that Ukraine at that time was part of other states, a unique state formation appeared here, known as the Hetman state of Cossacks. The Cossacks had their own political and administrative center called Zaporizhia Sich. They elected their leaders, using democratic principles. The liberation war of 1648–1654 led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky was a prominent event in the history of Ukraine. By that time, the hetman government already conducted a policy independent from Poland, seeking other allies. After lengthy negotiations, B. Khmelnytsky entered into a union with Russia, placing part of Ukrainian lands under protection of the Russian state. In 1775, on order of the Russian empress Catharine II, the Zaporizhian Sich was destroyed and the Cossacks dissolved.

Another notable attempt to win independence for Ukraine occurred in the early 20th century. On January 12, 1918, the Tsentralna Rada (Central Council) – Ukraine’s first parliament chaired by Mykhailo Hrushevsky – proclaimed independence of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UPR). However, Ukraine proved unable to hold its independence and fell to Bolsheviks. Later on, it was made part of the Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The horrible page in the Soviet history of Ukraine was the artificial famine of 1932–1933, when each fourth grower died of hunger in the year of plenty. The World War II stormed Ukraine for 40 months, killing each fifth resident.

Despite the historic twists and turns, the Ukrainians had always cherished the dream to create a state of their own, and this dream came true in 1991. Now, we are building a new democratic country. And we should not only take pride in our history but also use our positive historical experience for this state-building effort.