Glossary of Terms

Autonomy - the self-government within a state.

Baskak - an official of the Mongolian Khan in those lands, which were conquered by the Mongols.

Bohatyrs - the powerful heroes of Russian Bylinas.

Bolsheviks (the Communists) - members of the Russian Social Democratic Party.

Boyars - the high nobles; from the 10^th to the 17^th centuries; in some Slavic countries it was the second class after the ruling Princes.

Burghers - European townsmen of the 12^th - 15^th centuries; members of the trading or mercantile class of a medieval city.

Bylinas - Kievan Rus epic poems.

Capitalism - the social system in which a country's trade and industry are mostly controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

Communists - supporters of the Communism theory, according to which the community must own all property in the country, and the members of the community contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

Dissidents - the political oppositionists (opponents) to the Soviet regime between the late 1950s and the early 1980s.

Druzhyna (litterally, friends) - the armies of the Kyivan Rus Princes.

Feudalism - the social system in medieval Europe. In this system the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service. Vassals were tenants of the nobles. The peasants (serfs) were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labour, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.

Hetman - the ruler of the Ukrainian Cossacks.

Inflation - a common growth of the prices of goods and services. Khan - the title of the ruler in Turkic and Mongolian languages.

Kurkuls (kulaks) - the term by which the Communists called independent farmers.

Landlordism - the system whereby land (or property) was owned by landlords to whom tenants paid a fixed rent.

Liberalization - changes in a state and social life towards a free-market economy and democratic liberties.

Little Russia - the name of Ukraine in the Russian Empire. The name "Little Russia" was used from 1654 till 1917.

Magdeburg rights - the medieval German laws, which allowed towns the internal autonomy. The name refers to the German town of Magde­burg, which became the first of all towns, which got the internal auto­nomy. Under the Magdeburg rights towns elected their own self-go­vernments, which were known as the Magistrates.

Mirza - the Prince of the Blood, who was legitimately descended in the male line from the ruler (the Khan) of Turkic, and Mongolian countries.

National-personal autonomy - the self-government of a nation minority in its cultural policy.

Nazis - members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (1920 - 1945), which had extreme racist and authoritarian agendas.

Outcasts (izhoi) - the name used in Kyivan Rus for designating the Princes without lands, bankrupt merchants, unfrocked monks, slaves and others, whose links with the feudal society were broken.

Pechenihs or Patzinaks - the medieval nomads, who in the 10^th and the 11^th centuries settled the Black Sea steppe, in the south of Ukraine.

Polovtsians (the Cumans) - the medieval nomads, who between the 11^th and the 13^th centuries settled the Black Sea steppe, in the south of Ukraine.

Rus - the name for the people, the region, and the medieval Slavic State of the 9^th - 12^th centuries, known as Kyivan Rus.

Russes - the people of Kyivan Rus.

Ruthenia - the country inhabited by the Ruthenians (the old name of the Ukrainians).

Ruthenians or Rusyns (word) - name, under which the Ukrainians were known before the 1800s. In the 19^th century the "Ruthenians" usually used to designate the Ukrainian population of the Austrian or Habs­burg monarchy.

Sejm - the parliament (legislature) in the Grand Duchy Lithuanian, the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth (the 16^th - the 18^th centuries), the Carpatho-Ukraine (1939), the Republic of Poland (1945 - 1990), Lithuania and Latvia (since 1920 year).

Serfdom - the social and economic system, according to which serfs (peasants or tenants) had to work on lords' land and might not leave without that lords' permission.

Servitor boyars - the nobles, who served the Princes in the Rus lands from the 10^th to the 14^th centuries.

Sovereignty - the independence, completeness and indivisibility of the republic authorities within its territory, independence and equality in foreign relations.

Sovietization - the transformation of most spheres of a social life in the Communistic way.

Starshyna - the Cossack officers during the 16^th - 18^th centuries.

Szlachta - from the 14^th to the 18^th centuries the Polish and Lithuanian nobles, which were determined by heredity and/or military service.

Teutonic Order - the German Christian Brotherhood of knights founded in 1190.

Totalitarian system (from the Italian totalita - covering everything) - the regime, where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life.

Ukraine (word) - the name, which means "on the edge" or "borderland", the far western edge of the Eurasian steppe, between Europe and Asia, West and East. The name "Ukraine" was firstly mentioned in the Ipatiivska chronicle in 1187.

Union - Association of two countries under certain conditions.

Voivode - the Slavic title; it originally was the name for the principal commander of military troops; due to the time voivode became the name for the governor of a province (Voivodeship).

Zaporozhian Sich - the Cossack fort, firstly founded in 1556 or 1557, beyond the Dnieper rapids, in the region known as Zaporizhzhia. The Sich was open to entry to any Christian male, and was barred to any woman.