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.
North Slavs
While the Czech lands have never been as much of a military or political power during the region's history as Poland and Russia have, it was arguably seen by some as one of the most cultured of the North Slavic lands and the first to accept their new religion. The Czechs were the first in the east to be Christianised in the 9th century, they later became arguably the most religiously tolerant of the Slavonic nation-states thanks to the Bohemian Reformation. However today, the Czech Republic is one of the most irreligious countries in the world. Presently, after the fall of the Eastern Bloc, North Slavonic nation-states are split among two different factions: the NATO and EU members of the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (Belarus and Russia). Ukraine is currently a partner of both the CIS and NATO, while also taking part in the EU's Eastern Partnership initiative as part of the European Neighbourhood Policy.