Ukraine’s Historical Heritage
Layers and Elements: An Essay
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Knowledge of history provides orientation. For historical heritage co-determines the present and the future. History can be analysed as a bundle of internal and external factors. For Ukraine, eleven elements of its historical heritage are of particular importance. They range from its natural geographic conditions via Orthodoxy, which was adopted in the 10th century, to the catastrophes of the 20th century. Other elements are related to the shaping of Ukraine by Poland, Russia, and Austria and to Cossack mythology and the role of the Jews.
(Osteuropa 7/2021, pp. 85–108)