The Ukrainian Tribe

By Volodymyr Kish

When I get tired of writing about contemporary Ukrainian affairs and politics, I often pull out my multi-volume History of Ukraine-Rus’ by Mykhailo Hrushevsky, or the many well-thumbed volumes of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine and bury myself in Ukrainian history. Not only does it help put things into a longer term perspective, but it reminds me that there was a time when there were heroic and capable Ukrainian leaders and not the sorry lot Ukraine is saddled with today.

The other thing that comes into focus is that many of the issues of Ukrainian identity that we have today, were also common in early Ukrainian history. We get frustrated with the fact that it is so difficult to inculcate the sense of one Ukrainian ethnic and national identity when Ukraine is deeply fissured between the more Russified eastern Ukrainians and the more Europeanized western Ukrainians, or Halychany. The Halychany are further sub-divided ethnically, and to some degree linguistically, into Lemkos, Hutsuls, Volhynians, and several other sub-groups.

And yet, this is nothing new. Some one thousand years ago at the height of the Kyivan Rus’ era, the term “Ukrainian” did not even exist. The Kyivan Rus’ State was a loose confederation of many different Slavic tribes. The area around what is now Kyiv was occupied by the Polianians. To the north were the Viatichians, who would form the core ethnic group that eventually evolved into what we know today as the Russians. To the west of the Polianians were the Derevlianians, and west of them were the Dulibians. To the northwest, in the area what is now Belarus were the Drehovichians. To the south of Kyiv towards the Black Sea, lived the Ulychians. To the southwest, in the area around the Dnister River that now borders Romania, lived the Tivertsians. Each of these Slavic tribes clung fiercely to their tribal identity, sparking much intertribal conflict. Eventually, the rulers of Kyiv managed to subdue all these various tribes, impose centralized rule and a state religion in the form of Byzantine Christianity, and gradually, most of these tribal identities disappeared. The Ukrainian ethnic group of today evolved primarily from the melding together of the Polianian, Ulychian, Tivertsian, and the Derevlianian tribes.

It was not until the grand uprisings of the 16^th and 17^th Century against Polish, Tatar and Russian rule that the terms “Ukraine” and “Ukrainian” became commonly used to refer to the territories and the people who inhabited them in the area north of the Black Sea. Ever since then, Ukrainians have been struggling to assert both their identity and their autonomy from their more imperialistic neighbours, primarily Poland and Russia, who have conversely sought to suppress them and even deny them recognition as a distinct ethnic group.

This has led to considerable controversy and disputes amongst historians and academics, many of whom have been dedicated less to scientific accuracy than to advancing imperialistic political agendas. The fact of the matter is that most of the countries of Eastern Europe have common Slavic roots which over the past thousand years have become differentiated into the various Slavic nations that we have today.

Linguistically, they all share common features and vocabulary to a greater or lesser extent. According to one Wikipedia article on the subject by a linguistic expert, the Ukrainian language is most closely related to “Belarusian (84% of common vocabulary), followed by Polish (70%), Serbo-Croatian (68%), Slovak (66%) and Russian (62%).” I can confirm this from personal experience in that I definitely find it easier to understand someone speaking Polish than someone speaking Russian.

The struggle to establish one’s ethnic and linguistic identity is one that is never ending. Ukrainians have been at it for over a thousand years, and I suspect will be at it for many more.