Happy Independence Day Ukraine.



Every year on August 24, Ukraine celebrates its Independence Day to commemorate the Declaration of Independence in 1991. This declaration established the democratic and sovereign state of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s struggle for independence was not the archetypal freedom movement against a foreign colonial power. Instead, it was a struggle for secession from the former Soviet Union or USSR. By the early 19th century Ukraine was part of the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian Empires. While most of Ukraine was under Russian control, the extreme west, - Lviv and neighboring areas - was occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. By the 1840s, the seeds of nationalism started to take shape in the Ukrainian society.

Following World War I and the Russian Civil War (1917-1922), Ukraine made several attempts to proclaim freedom. The Ukrainian People's Republic was formed in 1919 and united both Russian and Austro-Hungarian Ukraine but was short-lived and could not withstand Polish onslaught. In 1922, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic became a member of Soviet Union. Initially Soviet policy was more tolerant as it allowed cultural autonomy and local administration by Ukrainian Communists, however all that changed during Stalin’s era. Stalin’s stringent policies egged on the spirit of nationalism in Ukraine.

In World War II, the Ukrainians fought against both Soviet and Germans armies, and the resistance movement continued until 1950. Ukrainian freedom movement strengthened in wake of a weakening Soviet Union. In March 1990, quasi-free elections were held, and on July 16, 1990, the Communist parliament declared Ukraine as an independent nation.

Following a failed coup by the conservative Communist leaders to reinstate control of the Central Communist Party over the USSR, the Ukrainian Parliament signed the Act of Declaration of Independence on August 24, 1991. The citizens of Ukraine voted in favor of this declaration on December 1, 1991. Leonid Kravchuk was elected as the first president of the independent nation of Ukraine and August 24 came to be celebrated as the country’s Independence Day.

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