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.
Modern history of Ukraine
Ukraine emerges as the concept of a nation, and the Ukrainians as a nationality, with the Ukrainian National Revival which is believed started sometime at the end of 18th and the beginning of 19th century. According to Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Hrytsak, the first wave of national revival is traditionally connected with publication of the first part of "Eneyida" by Ivan Kotlyarevsky (1798). In 1846 in Moscow was published "Istoriya Rusov ili Maloi Rossii" (History of Ruthenians or Little Russia). During the Spring of Nations, in 1848 in Lemberg (Lviv) was created Supreme Ruthenian Council which declared that Galician Ruthenians are part of bigger Ukrainian nation. The council adopted the yellow and blue flag (Flag of Ukraine).