History of Ukraine
Strikingly different interpretations of the medieval state of Kievan Rus' appear in the four schools of historiography within Ukraine: Russophile, Sovietophile, Eastern Slavic, and Ukrainophile. The Sovietophile and Russophile schools have become marginalized in independent Ukraine, with the Ukrainophile school being dominant in the early 21st century. The Ukrainophile school promotes an identity that is mutually exclusive of Russia. It has come to dominate the nation's educational system, security forces, and national symbols and monuments, although it has been dismissed as nationalist by Western historians. The East Slavic school, an eclectic compromise between Ukrainophiles and Russophilism, has a weaker ideological and symbolic base, although it is preferred by Ukraine's centrist former elites.
Post-Soviet transition in Ukraine
Between 1990 and 1991, several republics of the Soviet Union proclaimed their state sovereignty and then announced their independence. On July 16, 1990, the Ukrainian SSR's parliament issued its 12th legislation proclaiming the sovereignty of Ukraine's territory and the country eventually declared its independence on August 24, 1991. The declaration was then confirmed by the results of the referendum on December 1 later that year, where 90,3 % of voters were in favor of independence. The same day, Leonid Kravchuk, head of the Supreme Council of Ukraine, was elected as the country's first president. Following his election, an economic then political crisis developed and Kravchuk organized another presidential election as a response.