UKRAINE CELEBRATING UNITY DAY

UKRINFORM's photo

Ukraine marks the Unity Day on January 22. This is a state holiday established by the President's decree of January 21, 1999, which symbolizes unity of Ukrainian lands.

On January 22, 1918, the Fourth Universal of Ukraine's first government, Central Rada, was announced, when Ukraine was declared an independent state, the Ukrainian People's Republic.

Over the same period, as a result of the split of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Western Ukrainian People's Republic was formed in Halychyna (West Ukraine), with its center in Lviv.

In exactly a year, on January 2, 1919, the Act of Unification of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Western Ukrainian Republic into a single Ukrainian state was declared by the Directory of the Ukrainian People's Republic in Kyiv's Sofiyska Square. Both republics announced their merger into a single state. Thus, for the first time in minimum 600 years, a serious move was made towards unification of the majority of ethnic Ukrainian lands into a single state.

It was planned to finally ratify the Unity Act at a meeting of the Constituent Assembly, the first Ukrainian parliament, which had not been convoked so far. By that time, the Ukrainian People's Republic stopped to exist. In two weeks after declaration of the Unity Act, the Ukrainian Government (Directory) had to leave Kyiv under the pressure of Russia's Red Army, and somewhat later the whole territory of Ukraine. The potential of the Unity Act has thus never been put into practice.

Ukraine's broad public for the first time widely marked the day of unification of the Ukrainian People's republic and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic on January 22, 1990, when people formed live chains of many kilometers between Ukrainian cities.

UKRINFORM