Ukrainians
(Українці/Ukrayintsi)

Daniel I. Roxelana Khmelnytsky Mazepa Prokopovich Skovoroda Bortniansky Kotlyarevsky Gogol T. Shevchenko Lysenko L. Ukrainka I. Franko Petliura Makhno Korolyov Akhmatova Timoshenko Pavlichenko Blokhin Jovovich Vi. Klitschko Farmiga A. Shevchenko Bubka
Total population
39.8[1]–57.5[2][3] million
Regions with significant populations
Ukraine 37,541,693[4]
Russia 1,927,988[5]  Canada 1,209,085 [6][7]  USA 961,113 [6][8]  Brazil 500,000 [6][9]  Moldova 375,000 [6][10]  Kazakhstan 333,000 [11]  Italy 320,070 [citation needed]  Romania 300,000 [12]  Poland 300,000 [citation needed]  Argentina 300,000 [6][13]  Belarus 159,000 [14]  Uzbekistan 104,720 - 128,100 [6][15][16]  Czech Republic 126,613 [6][17]  Portugal 52,293 [18]  Latvia 45,699 [19]  Azerbaijan 30,000 [20]  Syria 27,878 [citation needed]  Estonia 27,530 [21]  Kyrgyzstan 21,924 [22]  Lithuania 21,100 [23]  Greece 19,785 [24]  Georgia 7,039 [25]  Armenia 6,125 [26]  Bulgaria 2,489 [27]
Languages
Ukrainian[28][29][30]
Religion
Razumkov center study about main church membership in Ukraine (2006); Of the total: Irreligious, atheist or unaffiliated - 62,5% Religious or affiliated - 37,5% Of the religious: Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate) - 38,9%; Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) - 29,4%; Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church - 2,9%; Greek Catholic - 14,7%; Roman Catholic - 1,7%; Protestant - 2,4%; Other religion - 2.9%; Do not know - 7.0%;
Related ethnic groups
Other Slavs, particularly other East Slavs

Ukrainians (Ukrainian: Українці, Ukrayintsi, [ukrɑˈjinʲtsʲi]) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe.^[31] The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens. According to some dictionary definitions, a descriptive name for the "inhabitants of Ukraine" is Ukrainian or Ukrainian people.^[32] Russians and Belarusians are considered the closest relatives of Ukrainians, while Rusyns are either considered another closely related group, or an ethnic subgroup of Ukrainians.

Ethnonym Ukrainians became widely accepted only in the 20th century, so modern Ukrainians identify their ancestry with differently named historical Slavic groups, who are often called Ukrainians too, in retrospect. The oldest recorded ethnonyms used for Ukrainian ancestors are Rusy, Rusyny, and Rusychi (from term Rus'). From the 9th to 12th centuries those names applied to the population of Kievan Rus', as the united state of Rusy is restrospectively called. Similar names were adopted by the proto-Russian and proto-Belarusian inhabitants of the northern principalities of Rus',^[33][34] reflecting the common origin of all those East Slavic peoples.

Before the medieval period, Kievan Rus was preceded in the area by the ancient Greeks,^[35][36][37] Scythians,^[38] Sarmatians,^[39][40] Goths,^[41][42][43] and Norsemen.^[44][45] By 14th century, the Kievan Rus' disentigrated and the territory of modern Ukraine was split between several states. From that time until at least the 17th century, the ancestors of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Rusyns identified as the same people, known as Ruthenians and comprising most of the population of the region called Ruthenia.

By the Early Modern Era and the age of Cossacks, the toponym Ukraine was accepted to denote the lands around Kiev and alongside the lower Dnieper River. The same region was also known as Little Russia (Malorussia), as the heartland of the Kievan Rus' had been designated by the Byzantine Greeks. The corresponding term Malorussians was widely accepted to identify the population of the area when it was a part of the Russian Empire. In the last few centuries, the population of Ukraine was subjected to periods of Polonization and Russification, but preserved common culture and a sense of common identity.^[46][47]

In the last decades of the 19th century, many Ukrainians moved to the Asian regions of Russia, while many of their counterpart Slavs under Austro-Hungarian rule emigrated to the New World seeking work and better economic opportunities.^[48] Today, a large ethnic Ukrainian minority reside in Russia, Canada, the United States, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Italy and Argentina.^[49] According to some sources, around 20 million people outside Ukraine identify as having Ukrainian ethnicity,^[3][50][51] however the official data of the respective countries calculated together doesn't show more than 10 million. Ukrainians have one of the largest diasporas in the world.

Geographic distribution[link]

Ethnographic map of the Slavic peoples issued probably 1902 - 1924; by Czech ethnographer Lubor Niederle; territorial boundaries of Slavic languages in Europe, including the Ukrainian language, given in dark green. Note that the Ukrainians are called Little Russians (Malorusove) and shown as a part of Russians (Rusove)

Most ethnic Ukrainians live in Ukraine where they make up over three-quarters of the population. The largest population of ethnic Ukrainians outside of Ukraine live in Russia where about 1.9 million^[5] Russian citizens consider themselves ethnic Ukrainians, while millions of others (primarily in southern Russia and Siberia) have some Ukrainian ancestry. The inhabitants of the Kuban, for example, have vacillated among three identities, Ukrainian, Russian (supported by the Soviet regime), and "Cossack".^[52]

According to some previous assumptions, there are also almost an estimated 2.1 million of people of Ukrainian origin in North America (1.2 million in Canada and 890,000 in the United States). Large numbers of Ukrainians live in Brazil (500,000), Moldova (375,000), Kazakhstan (about 333,000), Poland (estimates from 300,000 to 400,000), Argentina (300,000),^[13] Belarus (estimates from 250,000 to 300,000), Portugal (100,000), Romania (estimates from 60.000 to 90.000) and Slovakia (55,000). There are also Ukrainian diasporas in the UK, Australia, Germany, Latvia, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Ireland, Sweden and the former Yugoslavia.

Identity[link]

Cossack Mamay, the national personification of Ukraine and Ukrainians.

The watershed in the development of modern Ukrainian national consciousness was the struggle for independence during the creation of Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–21).^[53] A concerted effort to reverse the growth of Ukrainian national consciousness was begun by the regime of Joseph Stalin in the late 1920s, and continued with minor interruptions until the most recent times. The man-made Famine-Genocide of 1932–3, the deportations of the so-called kulaks, the physical annihilation of the nationally conscious intelligentsia, and terror in general were used to destroy and subdue the Ukrainian nation.^[54] Even after Joseph Stalin's death the concept of a Russified though multiethnic Soviet people was officially promoted, according to which the non-Russian nations were relegated to second-class status. The creation of a sovereign and independent Ukraine in 1991, however, pointed to the failure of the policy of the "merging of nations" and to the enduring strength of the Ukrainian national consciousness. Today, one of the consequences of these acts is Ukrainophobia.^[55]

Biculturalism is especially present in southeastern Ukraine with a significant Russian minority. Historical colonization of Ukraine is one of the reasons for creating confusion about national identity to this day.^[56] Many citizens of Ukraine took the Ukrainian national identity in the past 20 years. According to the concept of nationality dominant in Eastern Europe the Ukrainians are people whose native language is Ukrainian (an objective criterion) whether or not they are nationally conscious, and all those who identify themselves as Ukrainian (a subjective criterion) whether or not they speak Ukrainian.^[57]