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.
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Following the failed August Coup in Moscow on 19–21 August 1991, the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine declared independence on 24 August 1991, which renamed the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic to Ukraine. The result of the 1991 independence referendum held on 1 December 1991 proved to be a surprise. An overwhelming majority, 92.3%, voted for independence. The referendum carried in the majority of all oblasts. Notably, the Crimea, which had originally been a territory of the RSFSR until 1954, supported the referendum by a 54 percent majority. Over 80 percent of the population of Eastern Ukraine voted for independence. Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union led to an almost immediate recognition from the international community. Ukraine's new-found independence was the first time in the 20th century that Ukrainian independence had not been attempted without either foreign intervention or civil war. In the 1991 Ukrainian presidential election 62 percent of Ukrainians voted for Leonid Kravchuk. The secession of the second most powerful republic in the Soviet Union ended any realistic chance of the Soviet Union staying together even on a limited scale. The Soviet Union formally dissolved three weeks after Ukraine's secession.