page_title: Ukraine
section_title: Western Ukraine, Carpathian Ruthenia and Bukovina
hierarchical_section_title: Ukraine / History / Western Ukraine, Carpathian Ruthenia and Bukovina
caption_attribution_description: English: Hutsuls (Ukrainian highlanders) from Verkhovyna district, southern part of Ivano-Frankivsk oblast (province), western Ukraine. old prewar photo.
context_page_description: Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and north-east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west; and Romania, Moldova, and the Black Sea to the south. Ukraine also borders the Crimean Peninsula to its south, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, though Ukraine still continues to claim the territory. Including the Crimean Peninsula, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second-largest country by area in Europe after Russia, and the 46th-largest country in the world. Excluding Crimea, Ukraine has a population of about 42 million, making it the eighth or ninth-most populous country in Europe, and the 32nd-most populous country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Kiev. Ukrainian is the official language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy.
  The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC. During the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus' forming the basis of Ukrainian identity.
context_section_description: The war in Ukraine continued for another two years; by 1921, however, most of Ukraine had been taken over by the Soviet Union, while Galicia and Volhynia (mostly today's West Ukraine) were incorporated into the Second Polish Republic. Modern-day Bukovina was annexed by Romania and Carpathian Ruthenia was admitted to the Czechoslovak Republic as an autonomy.
  A powerful underground Ukrainian nationalist movement arose in eastern Poland in the 1920s and 1930s, which was formed by Ukrainian veterans of the Ukrainian-Soviet war (including Yevhen Konovalets, Andriy Melnyk, and Yuriy Tyutyunyk) and was transformed into the Ukrainian Military Organization and later the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). The movement attracted a militant following among students. Hostilities between Polish state authorities and the popular movement led to a substantial number of fatalities, and the autonomy which had been promised was never implemented. The pre-war Polish government also exercised anti-Ukrainian sentiment; it restricted rights of people who declared Ukrainian nationality, belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church and inhabited the Eastern Borderlands. The Ukrainian language was restricted in every field possible, especially in governmental institutions, and the term "Ruthenian" was enforced in an attempt to ban the use of the term "Ukrainian". Despite this, a number of Ukrainian parties, the Ukrainian Catholic Church, an active press, and a business sector existed in Poland. Economic conditions improved in the 1920s, but the region suffered from the Great Depression in the early 1930s.
caption: Hutsuls living in Verkhovyna, c. 1930
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