MAPS OF UKRAINE OF THE XX-TH CENTURY AS AN INDICATOR OF THE BOUNDARIES OF THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL TERRITORY

Abstract

The purpose of the article is the analysis of mapping representations of Ukraine of the XX-th century in the context of the boundaries of the Ukrainian national, so as ethnical and state territory lined by their authors. It is stressed on the struggle of the Ukrainian nation for an independent state as a main social and historical condition of activation of works in the field of mapping Ukrainian territory in the XX-th century. The authority of the mapping works that contain representation of Ukraine is showed, some of them believe to Stepan Rudnytskyi and Volodymyr Kubiiovych. It is accented that the notion “Ukrainian national territory” can involve the Ukrainian state territory so as the ethnical one. It is marked that on the first maps of Ukraine created during the World War I, Ukrainian ethnical lands are enlarged to the East behind Volga and to the Caspian Sea. The state boundary of Ukraine on the maps 1918–1920 is a little thinner but it is enlarged efficiently farther to the East than relatively to the modern one. Maps prepared for West-European user that, as a rule, have expositive notes as framings, have an exclusively important significance. Especially, this is a map “Ukraine. Land and people” (1918), a map of the UPR, presented on Paris peace conference 1919, and the map created by S. Rudnytskyi in 1920. It is stressed on the content of the map of the USSR created in 1922 and the map of the Donetsk government created in 1923 on them the Shakhty and Taganrog districts that were integrated to Russia lately were included to Ukraine. Step thinning of the Ukrainian ethnical territory on the maps edited before and during the World war II and – especially – in the second half of the XX-th century is regular. It is accented that it was caused by the results of the Holodomor-genocide of Ukrainians 1932–1933 and their further assimilation. Kuban, Nothern Slobozhanshchyna and Starodubshchyna on the Russian territory and Beresteishschyna on the Byelorussian territory are rested as Ukrainian ethnical lands that are boarding with Ukraine. Fixation Ukrainian ethnical lands on maps can, with some conditions, have an international lawful significance in the context of the future state and political organization of the East-European region after finishing Russian-Ukrainian war and the further possible disintegration of the Russian Federation.