Ukrainians in Russia
Encyclopedia
The Ukrainians in Russia make up the largest single Ukrainian diaspora
Ukrainian diaspora
The Ukrainian diaspora is the global community of ethnic Ukrainians, especially those who maintain some kind of connection, even if ephemeral, to the land of their ancestors and maintain their feeling of Ukrainian national identity within their own local community.-1608 To 1880:After the loss...

 of the Ukrainian people
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

. Officially there are 2,942,961 Ukrainians living in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 or just over 2% of the total population making them the third largest ethnic group after ethnic Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 and Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

 in the Russian Federation.

Early History

Up until the 13th century, East Slavs
East Slavs
The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...

 existed as one state under a powerful Kievan Rus. The Eastern Slavs migrated through the modern Ukraine and into what is now central Russia.

Grand Prince of Kiev Vladimir II Monomakh
Vladimir II Monomakh
Vladimir II Monomakh |Basileios]]) was a Velikiy Kniaz of Kievan Rus'.- Family :He was the son of Vsevolod I and Anastasia of Byzantium Vladimir II Monomakh |Basileios]]) (1053 – May 19, 1125) was a Velikiy Kniaz (Grand Prince) of Kievan Rus'.- Family :He was the son of Vsevolod I (married in...

 founded the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal
Vladimir-Suzdal
The Vladimir-Suzdal Principality or Vladimir-Suzdal Rus’ was one of the major principalities which succeeded Kievan Rus' in the late 12th century and lasted until the late 14th century. For a long time the Principality was a vassal of the Mongolian Golden Horde...

, and his son Yuri Dolgoruki
Yuri Dolgoruki
Prince Yuri I Dolgorukiy , also known as George I of Rus, was the founder of Moscow and a key figure in the transition of political power from Kiev to Vladimir-Suzdal following the death of his elder brother Mstislav the Great...

 founded the city of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 in 1147. However by the end of the 12th century the prominence of Rus' began to decline as Kiev's central role became disputed by the surrounding principalities which were increasingly more powerful and independent. Dolgoruki's son Andrei I Bogolyubsky plundered Kiev in 1169, an event that allowed the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal to take a leading role as the predecessor of the modern Russian state.

The sacking of Kiev itself in December 1240 during the Mongol Invasion
Mongol invasion of Rus
The Mongol invasion of Russia was resumed on 21 December 1237 marking the resumption of the Mongol invasion of Europe, during which the Mongols attacked the medieval powers of Poland, Kiev, Hungary, and miscellaneous tribes of less organized peoples...

 led to the ultimate collapse of the Rus' state. For many of its residents, the brutality of Mongol attacks sealed the fate of many choosing to find safe haven in the North East. In 1299, the Kievan Metropolitan
Metropolitan bishop
In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan, pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis; that is, the chief city of a historical Roman province, ecclesiastical province, or regional capital.Before the establishment of...

 Chair was moved to Vladimir
Vladimir
Vladimir is a city and the administrative center of Vladimir Oblast, Russia, located on the Klyazma River, to the east of Moscow along the M7 motorway. Population:...

 by Metropolitan Maximus
Maximus, Metropolitan of all Rus
Maximus was the Metropolitan of Kiev who moved the see of Russian metropolitans to Vladimir-on-Kliazma. In spite of the move, the metropolitans were officially known as "Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus'" until the establishment of autocephaly under Jonah in 1448.Maximus was of Greek origin...

, keeping the titile of Kiev. As Vladimir-Suzdal, and later the Grand Duchy of Moscow
Grand Duchy of Moscow
The Grand Duchy of Moscow or Grand Principality of Moscow, also known in English simply as Muscovy , was a late medieval Rus' principality centered on Moscow, and the predecessor state of the early modern Tsardom of Russia....

 continued to grow unhindered, the Orthodox religious link between them and Kiev remained strong. Envoys continued to be sent to Moscow from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra
Kiev Pechersk Lavra
Kiev Pechersk Lavra or Kyiv Pechersk Lavra , also known as the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, is a historic Orthodox Christian monastery which gave its name to one of the city districts where it is located in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine....

. Professional artisans, builders, craftsmen and lay-people also traveled to Moscow where they could more easily earn a living.

The Southern Ruthenians found themselves within a new state of Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...

. After the union of Jogaila
Jogaila
Jogaila, later 'He is known under a number of names: ; ; . See also: Jogaila : names and titles. was Grand Duke of Lithuania , king consort of Kingdom of Poland , and sole King of Poland . He ruled in Lithuania from 1377, at first with his uncle Kęstutis...

 and Kingdom of Poland
Kingdom of Poland (1385–1569)
The Kingdom of Poland of the Jagiellons was the Polish state created by the accession of Jogaila , Grand Duke of Lithuania, to the Polish throne in 1386. The Union of Krewo or Krėva Act, united Poland and Lithuania under the rule of a single monarch...

 in 1386 this state became officially Catholic in leadership. This isolated its majority Orthodox population, and soon many notable Ruthenian leaders began to leave for Moscow. In 1408 a group of nobles led by Švitrigaila
Švitrigaila
Švitrigaila Švitrigaila Švitrigaila (ca 1370 – 10 February 1452; was the Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1430 to 1432. He spent most of his life in largely unsuccessful dynastic struggles against his cousins Vytautas and Sigismund Kęstutaitis.-Struggle against Vytautas:...

 along with the Chernihiv
Chernihiv
Chernihiv or Chernigov is a historic city in northern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Chernihiv Oblast , as well as of the surrounding Chernihivskyi Raion within the oblast...

 bishop together with a significant group of soldiers defected to Moscow. Others followed. Trade though initially sporadic, traveling through Chernihiv and Putyvl
Putyvl
Putyvl or Putivl is a town in north-east Ukraine, in Sumy Oblast. Currently about 20,000 people live in Putyvl.-History:One of the original Siverian towns, Putyvl was first mentioned as early as 1146 as an important fortress contested between Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky principalities of...

.

The frequent Russo-Lithuanian Wars meant that in 1448, Moscow Metropolitan Jonah, despite of the fall of Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

, achieved full Autocephaly
Autocephaly
Autocephaly , in hierarchical Christian churches and especially Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, is the status of a hierarchical church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop...

 for the Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...

. The title of Kiev remained with the Kievan Metropolia, which was under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople
Patriarch of Constantinople
The Ecumenical Patriarch is the Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome – ranking as primus inter pares in the Eastern Orthodox communion, which is seen by followers as the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church....

.

The emigration to the Tsardom of Russia
Tsardom of Russia
The Tsardom of Russia was the name of the centralized Russian state from Ivan IV's assumption of the title of Tsar in 1547 till Peter the Great's foundation of the Russian Empire in 1721.From 1550 to 1700, Russia grew 35,000 km2 a year...

 continued to grow in the 16th century. Prominent examples include Michael Glinski
Michael Glinski
Michael Glinski was a noble from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of distant Tatar extraction who was also a tutor of his nephew, Ivan the Terrible. As a young man, Glinski served in the court of Emperor Maximilian I and earned distinction for his military service. Around 1498 he returned to Lithuania...

 who staged a powerful rebellion against Lithuanian rule in February 1508 all those that took part in the uprising, who would receive a boyar
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....

 title along with villages and lands around Medyn
Medyn
Medyn is a town in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Medyn River , northwest of Kaluga. Population: The now-defunct airbase Medyn-Aduyevo is situated northeast of Medyn.-History:...

 for settlement. In mid-16th century the Ukrainian Hetman
Hetmans of Ukrainian Cossacks
Hetman of Ukrainian Cossacks as a title was not officially recognized internationally until the creation of the Ukrainian Hetmanate. With the creation of Registered Cossacks units their leaders were unofficially referred to as hetmans, however officially the title was known as the "Senior of His...

 Dmytro Vyshnevetsky
Dmytro Vyshnevetsky
Dmytro Ivanovych Vyshnevetsky was a Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks. He was also known as Baida in the Ukrainian folk songs.-Biography:...

 visited Moscow where he served in the court of Tsar Ivan IV and received in return the city of Belyov
Belyov
Belyov is a town and the administrative center of Belyovsky District of Tula Oblast, Russia, located on the left bank of the Oka River. Population: 17,000 .As many other Upper Oka towns, Belyov was first mentioned in a chronicle in 1147...

 on the river Tula
Tula, Russia
Tula is an industrial city and the administrative center of Tula Oblast, Russia. It is located south of Moscow, on the Upa River. Population: -History:...

 and surrounding villages and homesteads as rewards. Trade also grew considerably in this period, and many Ukrainian Sloboda
Sloboda
Sloboda was a kind of settlement in the history of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The name is derived from the early Slavic word for "freedom" and may be vaguely translated as "free settlement"....

s were founded in Russian cities.

Many Ukrainian settlers settled in areas that lay between the old Zasechnaya cherta and the new defence line that would guard Russia from the frequent raids by the Nogais and the Crimean Tatars
Crimean Khanate
Crimean Khanate, or Khanate of Crimea , was a state ruled by Crimean Tatars from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was . Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan...

. This became known as Sloboda Ukraine
Sloboda Ukraine
Sloboda Ukraine was a historical region which developed and flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries on the southwestern frontier of the Tsardom of Russia....

, and initial forts, such as Kursk
Kursk
Kursk is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym Rivers. The area around Kursk was site of a turning point in the Russian-German struggle during World War II and the site of the largest tank battle in history...

, Voronezh
Voronezh
Voronezh is a city in southwestern Russia, the administrative center of Voronezh Oblast. It is located on both sides of the Voronezh River, away from where it flows into the Don. It is an operating center of the Southeastern Railway , as well as the center of the Don Highway...

 and Kharkov were founded and settled by Ukrainian peasants that served the garrisons stationed there. According to the writings of the English trader D. Fletcher in 1588, these garrison towns had 4300 soldiers of which 4000 had come from Ukraine. The number of Ukrainian settlers in the southern borders of Russia increased after the unsuccessful revolts against the Poles. As a result the bulk of the population became mixed.

17th and 18th centuries

After the Treaty of Pereyaslav
Treaty of Pereyaslav
The Treaty of Pereyaslav is known in history more as the Council of Pereiaslav.Council of Pereyalslav was a meeting between the representative of the Russian Tsar, Prince Vasili Baturlin who presented a royal decree, and Bohdan Khmelnytsky as the leader of Cossack Hetmanate. During the council...

 of 1654, migration to Russia from Ukraine increased. Initially this was to Sloboda Ukraine
Sloboda Ukraine
Sloboda Ukraine was a historical region which developed and flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries on the southwestern frontier of the Tsardom of Russia....

, but also to the Don lands and the area of the Volga river. There was also a significant migration to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, particularly by church activists: priests and monks, scholars and teachers, artists, translators, singers and merchants. A colony was built in Moscow called the Malorossiysky dvor. In 1652 12 singers under the direction of Ternopolsky moved to Moscow, 13 graduates of the Kiev-Mogilla Collegium moved to teach the Moscovite gentry. Many priests and church administrators migrated from Ukraine, in particular the established Andreyevsky Monastery was made up from Ukrainian clergy. This had a great effect on the Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...

, and the policies of Patriarch Nikon
Patriarch Nikon
Nikon , born Nikita Minin , was the seventh patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church...

 which led to the Old Believer
Old Believers
In the context of Russian Orthodox church history, the Old Believers separated after 1666 from the official Russian Orthodox Church as a protest against church reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon between 1652–66...

 Raskol
Raskol
Raskol |schism]]') was the event of splitting of the Russian Orthodox Church into an official church and the Old Believers movement in mid-17th century, triggered by the reforms of Patriarch Nikon in 1653, aiming to establish uniformity between the Greek and Russian church practices.-The Raskol:...

 (schism). The influence of Ukrainian clergy continued to grow, especially after 1686, when the Metropolia of Kiev was transferred from the Patriarch of Constantinople
Patriarch of Constantinople
The Ecumenical Patriarch is the Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome – ranking as primus inter pares in the Eastern Orthodox communion, which is seen by followers as the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church....

 to the Patriarch of Moscow.

Soon after, the abolishment of the Patriarch's chair by Peter I
Peter I of Russia
Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...

, the Ukrainian Stephen Yavorsky
Stephen Yavorsky
Stefan Yavorsky was an archbishop and statesman in the Russian Empire, of Ukrainian descent, one of the ablest coadjutors of Peter the Great and the first president of the Most Holy Synod....

 became Metropolitan of Moscow, followed by Feofan Prokopovich
Feofan Prokopovich
thumb|Theophan ProkopovichFeofan/Theophan Prokopovich was an archbishop and statesman in the Russian Empire, of Ukrainian descent. He elaborated and implemented Peter the Great's reform of the Russian Orthodox Church...

. Demetrius of Rostov became of Tobol and Siberia, and from 1704 Rostov
Rostov
Rostov is a town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, one of the oldest in the country and a tourist center of the Golden Ring. It is located on the shores of Lake Nero, northeast of Moscow. Population:...

 and Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historical part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities...

. In all over 70 positions in the Orthodox hierarchy were taken by recent emigres from Kiev. Students of the Kiev-Mohyla Collegium started up schools and seminaries in many Russian eparchies. By 1750, over 125 such institutions were opened. As a result, these graduates practically controlled the Russian church obtaining key posts there (and holding them to almost the end of the 18th century). Under Prokopovich the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....

 was opened in 1724 which was chaired from 1746 by Ukrainian Kirill Razumovsky
Kirill Razumovsky
Count Kirill Grigorievich Razumovsky was a Ukrainian Registered Cossack from the Kozelets regiment in north-eastern Ukraine, who served as the last Hetman of Left- and Right-Bank Ukraine until 1764; Razumovsky was subsequently elected Hetman of the sovereign Zaporozhian Host in 1759, a position...

.

The Moscow court had a choir established in 1713 with 21 singers from Ukraine. The conductor for a period of time was A. Vedel. In 1741 44 male, 33 women, and 55 girls were moved to St. Petersburg from Ukraine to sing and entertain. In 1763 the head conductor of the Emperor's court choir was M. Poltoratsky and later Dmitry Bortniansky. Composer Maksym Berezovsky
Maksym Berezovsky
Maksym Sozontovych Berezovsky was a Ukrainian composer, opera singer, and violinist.Berezovsky was the first Ukrainian composer to be recognized throughout Europe and the first to compose an opera, symphony, and violin sonata. His most popular works are his sacred choral pieces written for the...

 also worked in St. Petersburg at the time. A significant Ukrainian presence was also seen in the Academy of Arts.

The Ukrainian presence in the Russian Army also grew significantly. The greatest influx happened after the Battle of Poltava
Battle of Poltava
The Battle of Poltava on 27 June 1709 was the decisive victory of Peter I of Russia over the Swedish forces under Field Marshal Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld in one of the battles of the Great Northern War. It is widely believed to have been the beginning of Sweden's decline as a Great Power; the...

 in 1709. Large numbers of Ukrainians settled around St Petersburg and were employed in the building of the city, the various fortresses and canals.

A separate category of emigrants were those deported to Moscow by the Russian government for demonstrating anti-Russian sentiment. The deported were brought to Moscow initially for investigation, and then exiled to Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

, Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk , formerly known as Archangel in English, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina River near its exit into the White Sea in the north of European Russia. The city spreads for over along the banks of the river...

 or the Solovetsky Islands
Solovetsky Islands
The Solovetsky Islands , or Solovki , are an archipelago located in the Onega Bay of the White Sea, Russia. The islands are served by the Solovki Airport. Area: ....

. Among the deported were Ukrainian cossack luminaries as D. Mhohohrishny, Ivan Samoylovych
Ivan Samoylovych
Ivan Samoylovych was the Hetman of Left-bank Ukraine from 1672 to 1687. His term in office was marked by further incorporation of the Cossack Hetmanate into the nascent Russian Empire and by attempts to win the Right-bank Ukraine from Poland-Lithuania....

 and Petro Doroshenko
Petro Doroshenko
Petro Dorofeyevych Doroshenko was a Cossack political and military leader, Hetman of Right-bank Ukraine and a Russian voyevoda.-Earlier life:...

. Others include all the family of hetman Ivan Mazepa
Ivan Mazepa
Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa , Cossack Hetman of the Hetmanate in Left-bank Ukraine, from 1687–1708. He was famous as a patron of the arts, and also played an important role in the Battle of Poltava where after learning of Peter I's intent to relieve him as acting Hetman of Ukraine and replace him...

, A. Vojnarovsky, and those in Mazepa's Cossack forces that returned to Russia. Some were imprisoned in exile for the rest of their lives such as hetman Pavlo Polubotok
Pavlo Polubotok
Pavlo Polubotok , was a Cossack political and military leader and Acting Hetman of the Left-bank Ukraine between 1722 and 1724.- Biography :...

, Pavlo Holovaty
Pavlo Holovaty
Pavlo Andriyovych Holovaty was a Ukrainian military figure, a Kosh Otoman of the Zaporozhian Sich and last military judge of the Zaporozhian Cossack Host...

, P. Hloba and Petro Kalnyshevsky
Petro Kalnyshevsky
Kalnyshevsky Petro was the last Koshovyi Otaman of the Zaporozhian Host, serving in 1762 and from 1765 to 1775. Kalnyshevsky was the Hero in the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774 and was honoured with a gold medal with brilliants for courage.Being the leader of the Zaporozhian Host, Kalnyshevsky...

.

19th century

Beginning in the 19th century, there was a continuous migration from Belarus, Ukraine and Northern Russia to settle the distant areas of the Russian Empire. The promise of free fertile land was an important factor for many peasants who until 1861, lived under Serfdom
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...

. In the colonization of the new lands, a significant contribution was made by ethnic Ukrainians. Initially Ukrainians colonised border territories in the Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

. Most of these settlers came from Left-bank Ukraine
Left-bank Ukraine
Left-bank Ukraine is a historic name of the part of Ukraine on the left bank of the Dnieper River, comprising the modern-day oblasts of Chernihiv, Poltava and Sumy as well as the eastern parts of the Kiev and Cherkasy....

 and Slobozhanshchyna and mainly settled in the Stavropol
Stavropol
-International relations:-Twin towns/sister cities:Stavropol is twinned with: Des Moines, United States Béziers, France Pazardzhik, Bulgaria-External links:* **...

, and Terek
Terek
The Terek River is a major river in the Northern Caucasus, flowing through Georgia and Russia into the Caspian Sea. It rises in Georgia near the juncture of the The Greater Caucasus Mountain Range and the Khokh Range, to the southwest of Mount Kazbek, then flows north through North Ossetia and...

 areas. Some compact areas of the Don
Don River (Russia)
The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 kilometres southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,950 kilometres to the Sea of Azov....

, Volga and Urals were also settled.

The Ukrainians created large settlements within Russia often becoming the majority in certain centres. They continued fostering their traditions, their language and their architecture. Their village structure and administration differed somewhat from the Russian population that surrounded them. Where populations were mixed, russification often took place. The size and geographical area of the Ukrainian settlements were first seen in the course of the Russian Empire Census of 1897
Russian Empire Census
The Russian Imperial Census of 1897 was the first and the only census carried out in the Russian Empire . It recorded demographic data as of ....

. This census noted only language, not ethnicity. Nonetheless a total of 22,380,551 Ukrainian speakers were recorded. Within the European territories of Russia 1,020,000 Ukrainians, in Asia (not including the Caucasus) 209,000 were recorded. From 1897-1914, the intense migration of Ukrainians to the Urals and Asia continued, and was measured to be 1.5 million before ceasing in 1915.

The formation of Ukrainian borders

The first Russian Empire Census
Russian Empire Census
The Russian Imperial Census of 1897 was the first and the only census carried out in the Russian Empire . It recorded demographic data as of ....

, conducted in 1897 gave statistics regarding language use in the Russian Empire according to the administrative borders. Extensive use of Little Russia
Little Russia
Little Russia , sometimes Little or Lesser Rus’ , is a historical political and geographical term in the Russian language referring to most of the territory of modern-day Ukraine before the 20th century. It is similar to the Polish term Małopolska of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...

n (and in some cases dominance) was noted in the nine south-western Governorates and the Kuban Oblast. When the future borders of the Ukrainian state were marked, the results of the census were taken into consideration. As a result the ethnographic borders of Ukraine in the 20th century were twice as large as the Cossack Hetmanate
Cossack Hetmanate
The Hetmanate or Zaporizhian Host was the Ruthenian Cossack state in the Central Ukraine between 1649 and 1782.The Hetmanate was founded by first Ukrainian hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky during the Khmelnytsky Uprising . In 1654 it pledged its allegiance to Muscovy during the Council of Pereyaslav,...

 that was incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 17th.

Certain regions had mixed populations made up of both Ukrainian and Russian ethnicities as well as other minorities. These include the territory of Sloboda
Sloboda Ukraine
Sloboda Ukraine was a historical region which developed and flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries on the southwestern frontier of the Tsardom of Russia....

 and the Donbass. These territories were between Ukraine and Russia. This left a large community of ethnic Ukrainians on the Russian side of the border. The borders of the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic
Ukrainian People's Republic
The Ukrainian People's Republic or Ukrainian National Republic was a republic that was declared in part of the territory of modern Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, eventually headed by Symon Petliura.-Revolutionary Wave:...

 were largely preserved by the Ukrainian SSR
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...

.

In the course of the mid-1920s, the course of administrative reforms some territory, initially under the Ukrainian SSR was ceded to the Russian SFSR, such as the Taganrog
Taganrog
Taganrog is a seaport city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the north shore of Taganrog Bay , several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population: -History of Taganrog:...

 and Shakhty
Shakhty
Shakhty is a city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the southeastern spur of Donetsk mountain ridge, northeast of Rostov-on-Don. Its population was 240,152 per the preliminary results of the 2010 Census; up from 222,592 recorded in the 2002 Census....

 cities in the eastern Donbass. At the time, the Ukrainian SSR gained several territories that were amalgamated into the Sumy Oblast
Sumy Oblast
Sumy Oblast is an oblast in the northeastern part of Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Sumy.Other important cities within the oblast include Konotop, Okhtyrka, Romny, and Shostka....

 in Sloboda region.

Soviet-time migration

The Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 was officially a multicultural country with no official national language
National language
A national language is a language which has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. The term is used variously. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country...

. On paper all languages and cultures were guaranteed state protection Union-wide. In reality, however, the Ukrainians were granted the opportunity to meaningfully develop their culture only within the administrative borders of the Ukrainian Republic
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...

, where the Ukrainians had a privileged status of being the titular nation
Titular nation
The titular nation is the single dominant ethnic group in the state, typically after which the state was named.-Soviet Union:The notion was used in the Soviet Union to denote nations that give rise to titles of autonomous entities within the union: Soviet republics, autonomous republics, autonomous...

. As many Ukrainians migrated to other parts of the USSR, the cultural separation often led in their assimilation, particularly within Russia, which received the highest percentage of the Ukrainian migration. In Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

, 82% of Ukrainians entered mixed marriages, primarily with Russians. This meant that outside the Ukrainian SSR, there was little or no provision for continuing a diaspora function. As a result, Ukrainian-language press
Ukrainian literature
Ukrainian literature is literature written in the Ukrainian language. Ukrainian literature had a difficult development because, due to constant foreign domination over Ukrainian territories, there was often a significant difference between the spoken and written language...

 was soon found only in large cities such as Moscow. Ukrainian cultural attributes such as clothing and national foods were preserved. According to Soviet sociologist, 27% of the Ukrainians in Siberia read printed material in Ukrainian and 38% used the Ukrainian language. From time to time, Ukrainian groups would visit Siberia. Nonetheless, most of the Ukrainians there did assimilate.

According to Volodymyr Kubiyovych
Volodymyr Kubiyovych
Volodymyr Mykhailovych Kubiyovych, also spelled Kubiiovych or Kubijovyč , Austria-Hungary - 2 November 1985, Paris, France) was a Ukrainian geographer with a specialty in demography, a cartographer, an encyclopedist, politician, and statesman...

 and Aleksandr Zhukovsky the area of Ukrainian ethnic territory outside of the borders of the Ukrainian SSR (1970) where an ethnic Ukrainian majority lived was estimated to be 146,500 square kilometres, and the area of nationally mixed territories make up approximately 747,600 square kilometres.

Ukrainian life in post-Soviet Russia

The Ukrainian cultural renaissance in Russia began in the last years of the 1980s, with the formation of the Slavutych Society in Moscow and the formation of the Ukrainian Cultural Centre named after T. Shevchenko in Leningrad
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 (now Saint Petersburg).

In 1991, the Ukraina Society organized a conference in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

 with delegates from the various new Ukrainian Community oraganizations of the Eastern Diaspora. By 1991, over 20 such organizations were in existence. By 1992, 600 organizations were registered in Russia alone. The Congress helped to consolidate the efforts of these organizations. From 1992, regional congresses began to take place, organized by the Ukrainian organizations of Prymoria, Tyumen Oblast
Tyumen Oblast
Tyumen Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Tyumen. The oblast has administrative jurisdiction over two autonomous okrugs—Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Tyumen is the largest city, with over half a million inhabitants...

, Siberia and the Far East. In March 1992, the Union of Ukrainian organizations in Moscow was founded. In May of that year - The Union of Ukrainians in Russia.

In 1992, for the first time a term called "Eastern Diaspora" was used to describe Ukrainians living in the former USSR, as opposed to the Western Ukrainian Diaspora which was used until then to describe all Ukrainian diaspora
Ukrainian diaspora
The Ukrainian diaspora is the global community of ethnic Ukrainians, especially those who maintain some kind of connection, even if ephemeral, to the land of their ancestors and maintain their feeling of Ukrainian national identity within their own local community.-1608 To 1880:After the loss...

 outside the Union. The estimated number of Ukrainians living in the Eastern Diaspora is 6.8 million, and while those in the West is approximately 5 million.

As of February 2009 about 3.5 million Ukrainian citizens stay in the Russian Federation. They mostly work in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 and the majority of immigrants works in the building sphere. According to Ambassador of Ukraine to the Russian Federation Volodymyr Yelchenko
Volodymyr Yelchenko
- Biography :Yelchenko was born in Kiev in 1959 and graduated from the Faculty of International Relations and International Law at Kiev State University in 1981. Since 1981 he has worked in the diplomatic service of Ukraine. Between 1997 and 2000 he acted as Permanent Representative of Ukraine to...

 there were no state school in Russia with a program for teaching school subjects in the Ukrainian language
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....

 as of August 2010; he considered "the correction of this situation" as one of his top priority tasks.

Religion

The vast majority of Ukrainians in Russia are adherents of the Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...

, as stated above, the Ukrainian clergy had a very influential role on Russian Orthodoxy in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Recently, the growing economic migrant population from Galicia have had success in establishing a few Ukrainian Catholic
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , Ukrainska Hreko-Katolytska Tserkva), is the largest Eastern Rite Catholic sui juris particular church in full communion with the Holy See, and is directly subject to the Pope...

, and there are even several Churches belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate), where Patriarch Filaret agreed to accept a few breakaway groups that were excommuned by the Russian Orthodox Church for various breaking of canon law.

Some point out that Russian bureaucratizations with respect to religion hamper the expansion of the two groups above. According to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, their denomination has only one church building in all of Russia

Compact Ukrainian population centres in Russia

Kuban

The original Black Sea Cossacks came to colonise the Kuban back in 1792, but in the wake of the Caucasus War, and the subsequent colonisation of the Circaucasus, the Black Sea Cossacks, intermixed with many other ethnic groups such as the indigenous Cirsassian population.

Nevertheless, according to the 1897 census, 47.3% of the Kuban population (including extensive latter-19th century non-Cossack migrants from both Ukraine and Russia) referred to their native language as Little Russian (the official term for the Ukrainian language
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....

) while 42.6% referred to their native language as Great Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

. Most of the cultural production in Kuban from the 1890s until the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 in 1914, such as plays, stories and music were written in the Ukrainian language, and one of the first political parties in Kuban was the Ukrainian Revolutionary Party. During the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

 with the Kuban Cossack Rada desperate for survival, turned to the Ukrainian People's Republic
Ukrainian People's Republic
The Ukrainian People's Republic or Ukrainian National Republic was a republic that was declared in part of the territory of modern Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, eventually headed by Symon Petliura.-Revolutionary Wave:...

 and formed a military alliance, as well declaring Ukrainian to be the official language of the Kuban National Republic. This decision was not supported uniformly by the Cossacks themselves and soon the Rada itself was dissolved by the Russian White
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...

 Denikin
Anton Ivanovich Denikin
Anton Ivanovich Denikin was Lieutenant General of the Imperial Russian Army and one of the foremost generals of the White movement in the Russian Civil War.- Childhood :...

's Volunteer Army
Volunteer Army
The Volunteer Army was an anti-Bolshevik army in South Russia during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1920....

.
In the 1920s a policy of Decossackization
Decossackization
Decossackization is a term used to describe the Bolsheviks' policy of the systematic elimination of the Cossacks of the Don and the Kuban as a social and ethnic group...

 was pursued. At the same time, the Bolshevik authorities supported policies that promoted the Ukrainian language and self-identity, opening 700 Ukrainian-language schools and a Ukrainian department in the local university. Russian historians claim that Cossacks were in this way forcibly Ukrainized
Ukrainization
Ukrainization is a policy of increasing the usage and facilitating the development of the Ukrainian language and promoting other elements of Ukrainian culture, in various spheres of public life such as education, publishing, government and religion.The term is used, most prominently, for the...

, while Ukrainian historians claim that Ukrainization in Kuban merely paralleled Ukrainization in Ukraine itself, where people were being taught in their native language. According to the 1926 census, there were nearly a million Ukrainians registered in the Kuban Okrug alone (or 62% of the total population) During this period many Soviet repressions were tested on the Cossack lands, particularly the Black Boards that led to the Soviet famine of 1932-1934 in the Kuban. Yet by the mid-1930s there was an abrupt policy change of Soviet attitude towards Ukrainians in Russia. In the Kuban, the.
Ukrainization policy was halted, and policies were reversed. In 1936 the Kuban Cossack Chorus was however re-formed as were individual Cossack regiments in the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

. By the end of the 1930s many Cossacks' descendants chose to identify themselves as Russians. From that moment onwards almost all of the self-identified Ukrainians in the Kuban, date to non-Cossacks, the Soviet Census of 1989 showed that a total of 251,198 people in Krasnodar Kray (including Adyghe Autonomous Oblast) who were born in the Ukrainian SSR, and moved there by time of census. In the 2002 census
Russian Census (2002)
Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...

, the number of people who identified themselves as Ukrainians in the Kuban was recorded to be 151,788. Despite the fact that most of the Kuban Cossacks
Kuban Cossacks
Kuban Cossacks or Kubanians are Cossacks who live in the Kuban region of Russia. Most of the Kuban Cossacks are of descendants of two major groups who were re-settled in the Western Northern Caucasus during the Caucasus War in the late 18th century...

 descendants do not think of themselves as being nationally Ukrainians, and identify themselves as Russian nationals., many elements of their unique culture originates from Ukraine, such as the Kuban Bandurist music, and the dialect called Balachka
Balachka
Balachka is a term used to label the dialects spoken by Cossacks living in Russia. Originally the term was applied to the dialects of Ukrainian language spoken in the region around the Kuban river, however the usage of this term has recently broadened to include the Cossack dialects spoken on the...

 which they speak.

Moscow

Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 has had a significant Ukrainian presence since the seventeenth century. The original Ukrainian settlement, bordered Kitai-gorod
Kitai-gorod
Kitay-gorod , earlier also known as Great Posad , is a business district within Moscow, Russia, encircled by mostly-reconstructed medieval walls. It is separated from the Moscow Kremlin by Red Square. It does not constitute a district , as there are no resident voters, thus, municipal elections...

. No longer having a Ukrainian character, it is today is known as Maroseyka (a corruption of Malorusseyka, or Little Russian). During Soviet times the main street, Maroseyka, was named after the Ukrainian Cossack hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky
Bohdan Khmelnytsky
Bohdan Zynoviy Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky was a hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . He led an uprising against the Commonwealth and its magnates which resulted in the creation of a Cossack state...

. After Moscow State University
Moscow State University
Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...

 was founded in 1755, from its inception many students from Ukraine studied there. Many of these students had commenced their studies at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

In the first years after the revolution of 1905 Moscow was one of the major centres of the Ukrainian movement for self awareness. The magazine Zoria was edited by A. Krymsky and from 1912-7 the Ukrainian cultural and literary magazine "Ukrainskaya zhizn'" was also published there edited by Symon Petliura. Books in the Ukrainian language were published in Moscow from 1912 and Ukrainian theatrical troops of M. Kropovnytsky and M. Sadovsky were constantly performing there.

Moscow's Ukrainians played an active role in opposing the attempted coup in August 1991 http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1991/529104.shtml.

According to the 2001 census, there are 253,644 Ukrainians living in the city of Moscow http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_nac_02.php?reg=18, making them the third largest ethnic group in that city, after Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 and Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

. A further 147,808 Ukrainians live in the Moscow region
Moscow Oblast
Moscow Oblast , or Podmoskovye , is a federal subject of Russia . Its area, at , is relatively small compared to other federal subjects, but it is one of the most densely populated regions in the country and, with the 2010 population of 7,092,941, is the second most populous federal subject...

. The Ukrainian community in Moscow operates a cultural center on Arbat Street
Arbat Street
The Arbat is an approximately one-kilometer long pedestrian street in the historical centre of Moscow. The Arbat has existed at least since the 15th century, thus laying claim to being one of the oldest surviving streets of the Russian capital. It forms the heart of the Arbat District of Moscow...

, publishes two Ukrainian-language newspapers, and has organized Ukrainian-language Saturday and Sunday schools.

Saint Petersburg

When Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 was the capital during the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 era many people from all nations and including Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

 moved to it. The Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 well known poet Taras Shevchenko
Taras Shevchenko
Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko -Life:Born into a serf family of Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko and Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko in the village of Moryntsi, of Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire Shevchenko was orphaned at the age of eleven...

, and Dmytro Bortniansky
Dmytro Bortniansky
Dmitry Stepanovich Bortniansky was a Russian composer of Ukrainian origin; his father however had been born in thePolish village of Bartne, and was of Lemkos stock.....

 spent most of their lives and died in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

.

According to the latest census, there are 87,119 Ukrainians currently living in the city of St. Petersburg, where they constitute the largest non-Russian ethnic group in the city http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_nac_02.php?reg=29. The present mayor of Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, Valentina Matviyenko
Valentina Matviyenko
Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko , born 7 April 1949 in the Ukrainian SSR), is currently the highest-ranking female politician in Russia, the former governor of Saint Petersburg and the current Chairman of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation...

 (née
NEE
NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...

 Tyutina) was born in Khmelnytskyi Oblast
Khmelnytskyi Oblast
Khmelnytskyi Oblast is an oblast of western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Khmelnytskyi.The current estimated population is around 1,401,140 .-Geography:...

 of western Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 and is of Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

 ethnicity .

Zeleny Klyn

Zeleny Klyn
Green Ukraine
Zeleny Klyn , also known as the Green Ukraine is a historical Ukrainian name of the land in the Russian Far East area between the Amur River and the Pacific Ocean....

 is often referred to as Zelena Ukraina. This is an area of land settled by Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

 which is a part of the Far Eastern Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

 located on the Amur River and the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

. It was named by the Ukrainian settlers. The territory consists of over 1,000,000 square kilometres and has a population of 3.1 million (1958).
The Ukrainian population in 1926 made up 41%-47% of the population . In the last Russian census, 94,058 people in Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai , informally known as Primorye , is a federal subject of Russia . Primorsky means "maritime" in Russian, hence the region is sometimes referred to as Maritime Province or Maritime Territory. Its administrative center is in the city of Vladivostok...

 claimed Ukrainian ethnicity http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_nac_02.php?reg=81, making Ukrainians the second largest ethnic group and largest ethnic minority.

Siry Klyn

The Ukrainian settlement of Siry Klyn was founded around city of Omsk
Omsk
-History:The wooden fort of Omsk was erected in 1716 to protect the expanding Russian frontier along the Ishim and the Irtysh rivers against the Kyrgyz nomads of the Steppes...

. M. Bondarenko, an emigrant from Poltava province, wrote before WWI: "The city of Omsk looks like a typical Moscovite city, but the bazaar and markets speaks Ukrainian". All around the city of Omsk were Ukrainian villages. The settlement of people beyond the Ural mountains began in the 1860s. Altogether before WWI 1,604,873 emigrants from Ukraine settled the area. Today, according to the latest Russian census, 77,884 people of Omsk region identify themselves as Ukrainians, making Ukrainians the third largest ethnic group there, after Russians and Kazakhs
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

 http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_nac_02.php?reg=81.

Zhovty Klyn

The settlement of Zhovty Klyn was founded soon after the Treaty of Pereyaslav
Treaty of Pereyaslav
The Treaty of Pereyaslav is known in history more as the Council of Pereiaslav.Council of Pereyalslav was a meeting between the representative of the Russian Tsar, Prince Vasili Baturlin who presented a royal decree, and Bohdan Khmelnytsky as the leader of Cossack Hetmanate. During the council...

 as the eastern border of the second Zasechnaya Cherta. Named after the yellow steppes on the middle and lower Volga, the colony co-existed with the Volga Cossacks
Volga Cossacks
The Volga Cossacks were free Cossack communities, formed from among the runaway peasants along the Volga River in the 16th century in Russia.The Volga Cossacks participated in Yermak's conquest of Siberia...

 and primarily settled around the city of Saratov
Saratov
-Modern Saratov:The Saratov region is highly industrialized, due in part to the rich in natural and industrial resources of the area. The region is also one of the more important and largest cultural and scientific centres in Russia...

. In addition to Ukrainians, wide-range colonisation of the region was carried out by Volga Germans and Mordovians. Today most of the population is mixed in the region, though a few "pure" Ukrainian villages are present.

Siry klyn Ukrainian community portal

Statistics and scholarship

Statistical information about Ukrainians in the Eastern diaspora from census materials of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation was collected in 1897
Russian Empire Census
The Russian Imperial Census of 1897 was the first and the only census carried out in the Russian Empire . It recorded demographic data as of ....

, 1920, 1923, 1926
First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union
The First All Union Census of the Soviet Union took place in December 1926. It was an important tool in the state-building of the USSR, provided the government with important ethnographic information, and helped in the transformation from Imperial Russian society to Soviet society...

, 1937
Soviet Census (1937)
The Soviet Census held on January 6, 1937 was the most controversial of the censuses taken within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The census results were destroyed and its organizers were sent to the Gulag as saboteurs because the census showed much lower population figures than...

, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989
Soviet Census (1989)
The 1989 Soviet census, conducted between January 12-19 of that year, was the last one conducted in the former USSR. It resulted in a total population of 286,730,819 inhabitants...

 and 2002
Russian Census (2002)
Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...

. Of which, only the 1937 census
Soviet Census (1937)
The Soviet Census held on January 6, 1937 was the most controversial of the censuses taken within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The census results were destroyed and its organizers were sent to the Gulag as saboteurs because the census showed much lower population figures than...

 has been discarded and a semi-fixed 1939 census was carried out.

In the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, attention has been focused on the Eastern Ukrainian diaspora by the Society for relations with Ukrainians outside of Ukraine. Numerous attempts have been made to unite them. The journal "Zoloti Vorota" began to be published by the Society for relations with Ukrainians outside of Ukraine and also the magazine "Ukrainian Diaspora" in 1991.
N Census year Number Percentage (%)
1 1926 6871194 7,41
2 1939 3359184 3,07
3 1959 3359083 2,86
4 1970 3345885 2,57
5 1979 3657647 2,66
6 1989 4362872 2,97
7 2002 2942961 2,03

Trends

During the 1990s, the Ukrainian population in Russia has noticeably decreased. This was caused by a number of factors. The most important one was the general population decline in Russia. At the same time, a lot of Economic migrants from Ukraine moved to Russia for better paid jobs and careers. It is estimated that there are as many as 300 000 legally registered migrants. In wake of negative sentiments to the bulk of economic migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asians, Ukrainians are thus often more trusted by the Russian population.

Anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Russia

Ukrainians in the Russian Federation represent a sizable minority in the country and the third largest ethnic group after Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 and Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

. In spite of their relatively high numbers, some Ukrainians in Russia complain of the unfair treatment and the prevailing anti-Ukrainian sentiment in the Russian Federation. In November 2010, the High Court of Russia cancelled registration of one of the biggest civic communities of the Ukrainian minority, the “Federal nation-cultural autonomy of the Ukrainians in Russia” (FNCAUR).

Famous Ukrainians in Russia

in Culture

  • Maksym Berezovsky
    Maksym Berezovsky
    Maksym Sozontovych Berezovsky was a Ukrainian composer, opera singer, and violinist.Berezovsky was the first Ukrainian composer to be recognized throughout Europe and the first to compose an opera, symphony, and violin sonata. His most popular works are his sacred choral pieces written for the...

     - Composer
  • Sergei Bondarchuk
    Sergei Bondarchuk
    Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, and actor.- Biography :Born in Belozerka, in the Kherson Governorate, Sergei Bondarchuk spent his childhood in the cities of Yeysk and Taganrog, graduating from the Taganrog School Number 4 in 1938. His first performance as an...

     - Film director and actor (Father is a descendant of Zaporozhian Cossacks, mother is Russian
    Russians in Ukraine
    Russians in Ukraine form the largest ethnic minority in the country, and the community forms the largest single Russian diaspora in the world. In the 2001 Ukrainian census, 8,334,100 identified themselves as ethnic Russians ....

    )
  • Dmytro Bortniansky
    Dmytro Bortniansky
    Dmitry Stepanovich Bortniansky was a Russian composer of Ukrainian origin; his father however had been born in thePolish village of Bartne, and was of Lemkos stock.....

     - Composer
  • Alexander Dovzhenko
    Alexander Dovzhenko
    Aleksandr Petrovich Dovzhenko , was a Soviet screenwriter, film producer and director of Ukrainian descent. He is often cited as one of the most important early Soviet filmmakers, alongside Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin.- Biography :...

     - film-maker, writer
  • Nikolai Gogol
    Nikolai Gogol
    Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...

     - Writer
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

     - Composer
  • Ilia Lagutenko
    Ilia Lagutenko
    Ilya Igorevich Lagutenko is the founder and lead singer of the band Mumiy Troll.He was born in Moscow, Soviet Union. Soon after his birth his father died, and the family moved to Vladivostok. In school he became engrossed in studying Chinese. He sang with a children’s choir that took him to many...

     - musician
  • Lyudmila Pavlichenko
    Lyudmila Pavlichenko
    Lyudmila Mykhailivna Pavlichenko was a Soviet sniper during World War II, credited with 309 kills, and is regarded as the most successful female sniper in history.-Early life:...

  • Stepan Petrichenko
    Stepan Petrichenko
    Stepan Maximovich Petrichenko , was a Russian revolutionary, an anarcho-syndicalist politician, one of the main leaders of the Third Russian Revolution, the head of the Soviet Republic of Soldiers and Fortress-Builders of Nargen and in 1921, de facto leader of the Kronstadt Commune, and the leader...

  • Larisa Shepitko
    Larisa Shepitko
    -Early Life:She went to the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow as a student of Alexander Dovzhenko. She was a student of Dovzhenko's for 18 months until he died in 1956. Shepitko graduated from VGIK in 1963 with her prize winning diploma film Heat, made when she was 22 years old...

    - film director
  • Taras Shevchenko
    Taras Shevchenko
    Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko -Life:Born into a serf family of Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko and Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko in the village of Moryntsi, of Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire Shevchenko was orphaned at the age of eleven...

     - poet, painter, writer
  • Orest Somov‎ - writer
  • Mikhail Zoshchenko
    Mikhail Zoshchenko
    -Biography:Zoshchenko was born in 1895, in Poltava, but spent most of his life in St. Petersburg / Leningrad. His Ukrainian father was a mosaicist responsible for the exterior decoration of the Suvorov Museum in Saint Petersburg. The future writer attended the Faculty of Law at the Saint Petersburg...

     - Writer

in Sports

  • Nikolay Davydenko
    Nikolay Davydenko
    Nikolay Vladimirovich Davydenko is a Ukrainian-Russian tennis player. Davydenko's best result in a Grand Slam tournament has been reaching the semifinals, which he has done on four occasions: twice each at the French Open and the U.S. Open. His biggest achievement to date was winning the 2009 ATP...

     - Tennis player
  • Fedor Emelianenko
    Fedor Emelianenko
    Fedor Vladimirovich Emelianenko) is a Russian heavyweight mixed martial artist. He has won numerous tournaments and accolades in multiple sports, most notably the Pride 2004 Grand Prix and the World Combat Sambo championship on four occasions, as well as medaling in the Russian national Judo...

     and Aleksander Emelianenko
    Aleksander Emelianenko
    Alexander Vladimirovich Emelianenko , more commonly known as Alexander Emelianenko or Aleksander Emelianenko, is a Russian mixed martial artist. He is a three-times Russian national Sambo champion and three-time world Sambo champion in the absolute division...

     Mixed martial arts fighters (Ukrainian
    Ukrainians
    Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

     father, Russian
    Russians
    The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

     mother)
  • Viktor Khryapa
    Viktor Khryapa
    Viktor Vladimirovich Khryapa is a Russian professional basketball player.-Pro career:Khryapa played for Khimik Engels in 1999-00, and for Avtodor Saratov in 2000-02...

     - Basketball player.
  • Andrei Nikolishin
    Andrei Nikolishin
    Andrei Vasilievich Nikolishin is a Russian professional ice hockey player currently playing for Sokil Kyiv of the Professional Hockey League of Ukraine...

     - Ice hockey player; Olympic Bronze medal winner
  • Sergei Semak
    Sergei Semak
    Sergei Bogdanovich Semak is a Russian international football midfielder of Ukrainian origins.-Early life:Semak was born in the selo Sychanskoye in the Voroshilovgradskaya Oblast into a peasant family of modest economical background. He was an excellent student and had an ideal behavior...

     - Soccer player, captain of the Russian national football team.
  • Olexandr Spivak
    Olexandr Spivak
    Aleksandr Sergeyevich Spivak is a retired Ukrainian football midfielder who last played for the St. Petersburg Zenit and had been with the organization since 2000. Before coming to Zenit, Spivak has been with multiple clubs including Selur, Steel, Metallurg, Star, Black Sea, Odyssey. A former...

     - Soccer player.
  • Oleg Tverdovsky
    Oleg Tverdovsky
    Oleh Fedorovych "Oleg" Tverdovsky is a Ukrainian-Russian professional ice hockey defenceman currently playing for Salavat Yulaev Ufa of the Kontinental Hockey League .-Early years:...

     - Ice hockey player; Olympic Bronze medal winner
  • Vitaly Vishnevski
    Vitaly Vishnevski
    Vitaliy Viktorovych Vyshnevsky is a Ukrainian-Russian professional ice hockey defenceman currently playing for SKA St. Petersburg of the Kontinental Hockey League .-Playing career:...

     - Ice hockey player; Olympian
  • Nikolai Zherdev
    Nikolai Zherdev
    Mykola Olehovych "Nikolay" Zherdev is a Ukrainian-Russian professional ice hockey right winger who currently plays for Atlant Moscow Oblast of the Russian Kontinental Hockey League...

     - Ice hockey player
  • Alexei Zhitnik
    Alexei Zhitnik
    Oleksiy Mykolaiovych "Alexei" Zhitnik is a retired Ukrainian-Russian ice hockey defenceman. Zhitnik has played more games in the National Hockey League than any other Soviet-born defenceman. He has represented the Soviet Union, CIS, and Russia internationally, and Ukraine during two NHL All-Star...

     - Ice hockey player; Soviet Ice Hockey Hall of Fame inductee; Olympic Gold and Silver medal winner

in Science

  • Vladimir Chelomei
    Vladimir Chelomei
    Vladimir Nikolayevich Chelomey was a Soviet mechanics scientist and rocket engineer from Ukraine.-Early life:Chelomey was born in Siedlce, Russian Empire into a Ukrainian family...

  • Anatoly Fomenko
  • Yuri Gidzenko
    Yuri Gidzenko
    Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko is a Russian cosmonaut. He was a test cosmonaut of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center . Gidzenko has flown twice into space and has lived on board the Mir and International Space Stations. He has also conducted two career spacewalks. Although he retired on July 15,...

     - cosmanaut
  • Valentin Glushko
    Valentin Glushko
    Valentin Petrovich Glushko or Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko was a Soviet engineer, and the principal Soviet designer of rocket engines during the Soviet/American Space Race.-Biography:...

  • Yuri Kondratyuk
    Yuri Kondratyuk
    Yuri Vasilievich Kondratyuk , was a follower, supporter and founder of cosmism, pioneer of astronautics and spaceflight. He was a theoretician and a visionary who, in the early twentieth century, foresaw ways of reaching the moon...

  • Sergey Korolyov
    Sergey Korolyov
    Sergei Pavlovich Korolev ; died 14 January 1966 in Moscow, Russia) was the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer in the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s...

     (Russian
    Russians
    The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

     father, Ukrainian
    Nizhyn
    Nizhyn is a city located in the Chernihiv Oblast of northern Ukraine, along the Oster River, north-east of the nation's capital, Kiev. It is the administrative center of the Nizhynsky Raion, though the city itself is also designated as a district in the oblast...

     mother of Zaporozhian Cossack descent)
  • Trofim Lysenko
    Trofim Lysenko
    Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a Soviet agronomist of Ukrainian origin, who was director of Soviet biology under Joseph Stalin. Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of the hybridization theories of Russian horticulturist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, and adopted them into a powerful...

  • Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich
    Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich
    Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich, in Russian: Дмитрий Павлович Григорович, was a Russian/Soviet aircraft designer of a number of planes under the Grigorovich name....

  • Igor Sikorsky
    Igor Sikorsky
    Igor Sikorsky , born Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky was a Russian American pioneer of aviation in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft...

     (quarter Ukrainian
    Ukrainians
    Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

    , was also partly Polish
    Poles
    thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...

     and Russian
    Russians
    The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

    .)
  • Pyotr Zinchenko
    Pyotr Zinchenko
    Pyotr Ivanovich Zinchenko was a Soviet developmental psychologist, a student of Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev and one of the major representatives of the Kharkov School of Psychology...


Minister of Defence of Soviet Union

  • Semyon Timoshenko
    Semyon Timoshenko
    Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko was a Soviet military commander and senior professional officer of the Red Army at the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.-Early life:...

     - (1940–41)
  • Rodion Malinovsky
    Rodion Malinovsky
    Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky was a Soviet military commander in World War II and Defense Minister of the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and 1960s. He contributed to the major defeat of Nazi Germany at the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Budapest...

     - (1957–67)
  • Andrei Grechko
    Andrei Grechko
    Andrei Antonovich Grechko was a Soviet general, Marshal of the Soviet Union and Minister of Defense.-Biography:Born in a small town near Rostov-on-Don, the son of Ukrainian peasants, he joined the Red Army in 1919, where he was a part of the legendary “Budyonny Cavalry”...

     - (1967–76)

Head of State of the USSR

  • Grigory Petrovsky
    Grigory Petrovsky
    Grigory Ivanovich Petrovsky was one of the most prominent Russian revolutionaries of Ukrainian origin, who was the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR from December 30, 1922, to January 12, 1938....

     - (1922–38)
  • Konstantin Chernenko
    Konstantin Chernenko
    Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko was a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death thirteen months later, on 10 March 1985...

     - (1984–85)

Prime Minister of Russian Federation

  • Sergei Kiriyenko
    Sergei Kiriyenko
    Sergey Vladilenovich Kiriyenko is a Russian politician. He served as the Prime Minister of Russia from 23 March to 23 August 1998 under President Boris Yeltsin...

     - (1998) (Jewish father, Russian mother with Ukrainian name).

Other

  • Eduard Limonov
    Eduard Limonov
    Eduard Limonov is Russian writer and political dissident, and is the founder and leader of radical National Bolshevik Party. An opponent of Vladimir Putin, Limonov is one of leaders of Other Russia political bloc.-Early life:...

     (Savenko) - Founder of National Bolshevik Party
  • Mikhail Tereshchenko
    Mikhail Tereshchenko
    Mikhail Ivanovich Tereshchenko was the foreign minister of Russia from 5 May 1917 to 25 October 1917...

     - Foreign Minister of Russia (1917)
  • Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky
    Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky
    Mikhail Ivanovich Tugan-Baranovsky or Myhaylo Tuhan-Baranovsky was the Ukrainian politician, statesman, and a noted Russian-Ukrainian economist, a tutor of Nikolai Kondratiev...

     - Famous Russian and Ukrainian economist
    Economist
    An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

  • Valentina Matviyenko
    Valentina Matviyenko
    Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko , born 7 April 1949 in the Ukrainian SSR), is currently the highest-ranking female politician in Russia, the former governor of Saint Petersburg and the current Chairman of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation...

     - Chairwoman of the Federation council
    Federation Council of Russia
    Federation Council of Russia ) is the upper house of the Federal Assembly of Russia , according to the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation...

     and former Governor of Saint-Petersburg.

Sources

  • Українське козацтво - Енциклопедія - Kyiv, 2006
  • Польовий Р. Кубанська Україна К. Дiокор 2003.
  • Сергійчук В. Українізація Росії К. 2000

Internet site for Ukrainians in Russia

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK