A major theme in the history of the 20th century has been the struggle of nations against empires.
Much like the ancient dinosaurs, the empires, which seemed to have been with us since the dawn of time, became too large, too unwieldy, and too ineffective to survive in a rapidly changing world.
One after another they failed to prevent their subject nations from breaking away and establishing independent states. The Romanov, Habs-burg, and Ottoman empires disintegrated after the First World War. After the Second World War, the British, the French, and other European powers were forced to abandon their overseas domains. By the end of the 20th century had come the turn of the world’s last empire, the USSR. In a desperate effort to adapt to modernity, the Soviet leadership attempted to introduce far-reaching reforms. But the reforms only allowed the long-repressed forces of nationalism and the inherent desire for self-determination among the Soviet Union’s myriad nationalities to emerge and hasten the collapse of the ossified structure.Ukraine had been a cornerstone of the Russian and Soviet imperial systems. As is usually the case with imperial rule, the centuries-old experience was not without its benefits. But with time the glaringly negative features of Soviet rule had come to the fore: the deteriorating economy and falling standard of living, the ecological devastation of the land, the past crimes of the regime, now being revealed for the first time, and the repression of civil rights and of the national consciousness and culture of the Soviet Union’s many peoples. When the opportunity to choose independence arose, therefore, the people of Ukraine overwhelmingly embraced it. It was a decision of monumental significance, for it sounded the death knell of the USSR. And the disintegration of this regime provided Ukraine with the opportunity to return to the mainstream of global history. Together with the entire community of nations, Ukrainians commenced a new epoch, one in which empires were a thing of the past.
