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.
History of Ukrainian nationality
Slavs are believed to have originated in the region(s) of modern-day Poland, Slovakia or western Ukraine. During the 5th and 6th centuries, the Hunnic and Gothic kingdoms had fallen, and Slavs began to migrate in all directions, settling as far as the Balkans, the Oder, and the Arctic. Numerous tribes settled on either side of the Dnieper, the river that has been a symbol of Ukraine. Originally, the early Slavs divided themselves by tribe – large communal families that practiced a sort of “primitive communism.” The application of technological advances to agriculture “increased productivity and rendered the collective labour of large groups no longer necessary. The clans split into smaller families; and, on the more fertile soil at least, it became possible for the small family to meet the needs of its members by restricting operations to a limited holding of land. Such land became in course of time private property.”