Modern Ukraine went through many periods of turmoil caused by the conflicts between Russia and surrounding countries, before establishing itself as a country in 1991. Ukraine, for a large part of its history, was divided into two territories: the Left-bank and Right-bank. Russia took control over the Left-bank in 1667, and the Right-bank controlled by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1654. Later, Austria took control over certain areas of Ukraine, dividing the lands after the Partitions of Poland between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Around the year 1648, power in Poland was diminishing as the uprise of the Cossacks was growing in Ukrainian society. As Poland was trying to re-establish their dominance in Europe, this brought to the Russo-Polish War in 1654, also known as the War for Ukraine. The war ended up lasting 13 years, and the result of the war and the many conflicts between the Cossacks was Russia and Poland dividing the lands of Ukraine. Ukraine became a major battleground for many of the surrounding countries, mainly Russia, leading to Russia establishing itself as a large power in Europe, while Ukraine’s autonomy began its decline.
(try to fill in paragraph here) The Cossacks were groups of people throughout Ukraine, primarily through central Ukraine. Each of these many groups had different lifestyles. One of the major types of Cossack were those who scavenged in the wilderness, constantly looking for people to trade with to make a living. Another
After WW1, There was a power struggle for the leader of Russia. High level government workers Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky fought for the throne after the untimely death of Vladimir Lenin.
Lenin's control of Russia led to the creation of the secret police, or Cheka. The officers were known as chekists, and instilled terror in citizens. They were used to quell any sort of opposition to Lenin's rule.
After WWII, the USA and the Soviet Union faced a conflict as they competed for global power. Neighboring countries, like Afghanistan, were dragged into the conflict causing millions of people to die. Due in part to the high cost of waging this war the Soviet Union fell only four years after the conflict.
This included coordinated uprisings, organized acts of desertions from the Red Army and terrorist against the Soviets, destruction of the collective farm system in Chechnya, and support for the German war effort. From the perspective of the Soviet government, the Chechens were undoubtedly enemies of the people.
The Russian Civil War (1918-1922) was a fight for political power between the Bolshevik Red Army, who fought for socialism, and the White Army. During this time, the Bolshevik’s secret Communist Police, the Cheka, conducted a series of military operations that became known as the Red Terror. The Red Terror was more than just a collection of mass arrests, tortures, and murders; it was systematic oppression that targeted an entire class. The Red Terror helped the Red Army win the Russian Civil War through any means necessary.
On June 22, 1941, the Nazis launched what they thought would be a quick and victorious war against the Soviet Union. Hitler believed that the Jews were responsible for Germany’s defeat in the first world war, and had the idea that Jews played a central role in bolshevism making this war more than strategic. He also believed that Russian territory would be better used as Lebensraum, or living space, for German citizens. Even before the invasion was launched, Hitler made clear to his officers how to handle the Soviets. In a March 30th meeting with advisors, Hitler said the war was a struggle of 2 ideologies, and that communism was a threat to German future. He said It is a “matter of struggle of annihilation... of Bolshevik commissars and communist intelligentsia.” The combination of these ideas would lead to policy aimed at destroying an entire generation of people. Through this essay, I will argue that the brutal Nazi policies in the east failed to pacify the civilian population, adding to the Partisan movement against Nazi occupation along with aiding the German resistance and ultimately did more harm than good.
The war stemmed off in early 1939 when German dictator Adolf Hitler had intentions of invading Poland. Poland knew about this, so they went to France and Britain for an alliance should Germany invade them. When Germany heard about this, they decided it would be good to take out the Soviets because they didn’t know if they would fight on Poland’s side or not. On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviets signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression pact. This stated that once Poland was taken over, the country would be divided evenly between the two power countries.
On May 8th, 1945, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel surrendered the German armed forces to the allies in Berlin, thus ending the war for Germany. The German people were then confronted by a situation never before experienced. All of Germany was occupied by foreign armies, their cities and infrastructure lay in ruins, and millions were homeless and starving. Following the unilateral surrender by Germany, the country was divided into four zones, governed by each of the allied powers: Britain, France, the U.S. and the Soviet Union. As diplomacy between the West and the Soviet Union began to deteriorate, each zone became more self-sufficient and independent of the others. Tensions between the West and the Soviet Union also began to rise as it became apparent that the two super powers, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. would vie for dominance throughout the world, each seeking to spread its ideology and stop the spread of the other’s. The first real exacerbation of this conflict came when the Soviet Union blockaded the divided city of Berlin, which lay in is zone of control. The U.S.S.R. wanted to test the Western resolve to hold Berlin and maintain control. The response the U.S. chose was to keep Berlin supplied by air, through constant resupply by aircraft, a feat never before accomplished. The airlift lasted for nearly eleven months and kept the Western controlled sectors of Berlin adequately supplied, and showed the Soviet Union the U.S.’s resolve to hold out against the spread of
Research Question: How did the international conflictss between the US and the USSR justify Jimmy Carter’s decision to boycott the 1980 Olympics?
Children, women, men and families as a whole were separated and forced to become slave workers under Stalin’s rule. Stalin also spread a false propaganda campaign against the Kulaks and other classes that were targeted that said they were a danger/threat to society and he attempted to gain support from Ukrainian peasants, which turned them against these classes of people. He wanted to eliminate the leaders of the Ukraine to leave the country without any leadership or guidance against him. More than 5,000
The First World War provided a practical chance for Poland to restore its independence. The powers, which had separated the country more than one hundred years earlier, were fighting on opposite sides. Germany with the Austro-Hungarian Empire (the Central Powers) fought Imperial Russia allied with France and Great Britain. Polish troops, under their own banners, also joined the fight. At first, under the command of the anti-Russian revolutionary Józef Pi³sudski, Polish battalions were formed to fight Russia. But in 1917, after a number of successful operations
The Crimean war, lasting from October of 1853 to February of 1856, was a major conflict fought primarily between the Russians, the British, the French, and the Ottoman-Turks. The Russians fought by themselves, while the other great powers formed the allies during the war. Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, great powers in the area gathered to restore order in the European state system. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna came together in order to resize and balance out forces of the main powers so they could remain at peace (Wikipedia “Napoleonic Wars”). The gathering of these great powers ended in the creation of the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, also called the Vienna Settlement. The Treaty of Vienna, made when the Congress of Vienna came together, was created to keep the peace between major and minor forces by balancing the power of territories based on size. It ensured that large territories didn’t have too much power and small territories had just enough power. The settlement was based off of the idea that monarchies were more stable than republics and would keep the peace for much longer. In the end, the Treaty of Vienna failed primarily because of the weaknesses that were forming in the Ottoman-Turkish Empire and the opportunities those weaknesses provided for European interference.
The conflict between the Ukraine and Russia is the Ukraine's most long-standing and deadly crisis; since its post-Soviet independence began as a protest against the government dropping plans to forge closer trade ties with the European Union. The conflict between Russia and the Ukraine stems from more than twenty years of weak governance, the government’s inability to promote a coherent executive branch policy, an economy dominated by oligarchs and rife with corruption, heavy reliance on Russia, and distinct differences between Ukraine's population from both Eastern and Western regions in terms of linguistics, religion and ethnicity (Lucas 2009).
From the very beginning of its existence, the two states were a single entity and not separated from each other, as well as their people. Ukraine and Russia have a common early history. The development of Russian statehood began with the formation of Kievan Rus. This ancient Russian state considers its predecessor, both Russian and Ukrainian. Later, after moving the center of power in Moscow, Ukraine has become a full-fledged part of Muscovy. The territory of modern western and central Ukraine were subjected to severe influence on the part of the Commonwealth, which captures these lands in fifteen to sixteen centuries. In 1648 Zaporozhye Cossacks rebelled against Poland, led by the Cossack Bohdan Khmelnytsky, which resulted in the fact that in 1654 was convened Pereyaslavskaya Parliament, which stated that the territory controlled by the rebels come under Russian protectorate. Later these lands were integrated
Russia, known by most as the Russian Federation, is a federal state in Eurasia. Russia is the largest country in the world at 17,075,200 square kilometres by surface area, covering more than one eighth of Earth 's inhabited land, and the ninth most populous, with over 146.6 million people as of end of March 2016. The European western part of the country is much more populated and urbanised than the East, with almost eight-tenths of the population living within the European region of Russia. Russia 's capital, Moscow is one of the largest cities in Europe and the world. Its ohter major urban cities include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara.