A Trek through Time in Ukraine Quiz

The Cucuteni-Trypillia culture spans the time from around 5500 BC to 2750 BC. It is a Neolithic culture of "Old Europe", as per the wording of Marija Gimbutas. Some of the settlements associated with its zenith may have supported a population of over 30,000 people, a large figure by prehistoric standards. Sites associated with that culture also appear in modern-day Romania and Moldova.

It was succeeded by the Yamna culture, which encompassed most of today's Eastern Ukraine.

Panticapaeum was founded by Greek colonists from Miletus around 600 BC. Its name, however, derives from the local Scythian language, more specifically from the Scythian word pantikapa, meaning "the path of the fish". Like other colonies in the Crimea, soon a people comprising of both Greeks and Scythians was formed.

The cities in the Crimea were allies of democratic Athens during the Peloponnesian War and supplied her with grain.

The Chernyakhov culture begins in the 2nd century AD, representing a southern extension of the Wielbark culture. Both cultures are associated with the Goths, on the basis of tribal names and testimonies by authors like Tacitus, Ammianus and Jordanes. The culture spanned over most of Ukraine and was much advanced for the standards of the era, exhibiting even glass-making workshops (which did not rely on imports, but local production). Both ceramic and metallic finds indicate the dominance of Germanic groups, although Sarmatian (akin to Scythian) substrates have been detected.

The Varangians were Scandinavian sailors, traders and warriors. Kyiv was one of the many commercial outposts (emporia) founded by them throughout Eastern Europe, on the path linking Scandinavia with the Byzantine Empire (the well-known trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" as recorded in the sources) and Central Asia.

The other name for the Varangians, 'Rus', is derived from a Germanic term meaning "rowers". Even today, Finns use the term "ruotsi" in a similar fashion. The founding of Kyiv is usually dated at 862 CE, on the basis of the reports in the Primary Chronicle, composed around 1113.

The ultimate defeat of the Khazars occurred around 965 AD. The tribes of the Black Sea and the Don were feeling oppressed by the Khazar demands for tribute and they rose in rebellion, asking the help of Prince Snyatoslav (or Sveneld in other sources) of Kyiv. Svyatoslav destroyed the Khazar fortress of Sharkel, destroying the qaganate.

Svyatoslav was the last pagan Kyivan ruler. It is said that he refused to convert to Christianity because, if he did, his retinue would laugh at him.

The baptism of Volodymyr (referred with this name in the sources, and not Vladimir, as in modern Russian) occurred in 988 AD. By this decision, Volodymyr probably hoped to consolidate his realm, encompassing a vast expanse of Eastern Europe, inhabited by Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes, ruled by a Slavicizing Scandinavian elite.

Russian and Ukrainian academics have quarreled over Volodymyr's legacy and whether he belongs to Russia or Ukraine, but the fact that he ruled from Kyiv and that the principal cities of his realm were away from Moscow should throw some cold water on the modern Russian attempts to monopolize the Kyivan state.

The Sack of Kyiv happened in the early 1240s. The Rus' principalities were new left without the spiritual and cultural centre that had sustained them for centuries and, with the exception of Galicia-Volhynia (centered around Lviv, in western Ukraine), the Rus' identity was neglected, in the favour of more local forms of self-perception. Only in the 16th century did Muscovy start calling itself "Russia", giving birth to modern Russia and, unfortunately, launching the westward expansionism that so often has hindered people of East Central Europe from pursing their independent future.

The Battle of Poltava happened in the early 18th century. It was one of the most decisive battles of the Great Nordic War, pitting Sweden against Russia/Muscovy. The war affected the declining Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Cossack Hetmanate, which saw itself allying with the Protestant Swedes in a desperate effort to protect its independence from the fellow Orthodox Russians, The defeat meant that the Hetmanate capitulated, the Cossack titles declared invalid and the mere mention of the state prohibited.

In the 19th century, the fierce and dissident Cossacks became a symbol of Ukrainian patriotism, mostly thanks to the works of Taras Shevchenko.

The Holodomor was an organized famine, perpetrated by Soviet authorities, under orders of Joseph Stalin. Stalin viewed the Ukrainians and the reinforced Ukrainian national consciousness as a threat to his policies. The death toll of the famine is comparable with that of the Nazi Holocaust. Raphael Lemkin, the very person who coined the term "genocide", classified the Holodomor as a genocide par excellence.

The full-scale invasion occurred in early 2022, although the seeds of the conflict certainly date from 2014, when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula, in response to growing Ukrainian ties with the West. The 2022 invasion has had massive impact, having been characterized as the most serious conflict to affect Europe since the end of World War Two.

The whole situation has already had impact on economics, international relations and security feelings around the globe.