UkrainianTrident(Tryzub) [Symbolism will be their downfall]
https://ukraine.ua/stories/trident-tryzub/
The Ukrainian coat of arms ā trident, or tryzub ā has a long history (over a thousand years, if not more), but at the same time, it is a symbol of a modern country. It is short-spoken ā and meaningful as well. It reflects heroic events of the past ā and it is a stripe of Ukrainian warriors protecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine today.
On February 19, 1992, the Ukrainian parliament, Verkhovna Rada, approved the Small State Emblem of Ukraine ā one of the three official symbols of our state. In 1996, its status was enshrined in the Constitution.
The trident was the ancestral sign of the Rurik dynasty (10th-12th century, Kyivan Rusā times). Archaeologists still find its image on coins, seals, utensils, bricks, murals. Back in the 10th century, the obverse of coins during the times of Volodymyr the Great, the Prince of Kyiv, bore his portrait. On the other side of the coins, the trident was depicted as Volodymyrās symbol of power.
https://ukraine.ua/explore/origins-history-of-ukraine/
As perhaps any sign, the Ukrainian trident has its hidden symbolism. Still, with over 40 (!) theories about its actual meaning, itās hardly possible to find the real roots of the symbol. The theories vary from referring to trinity, bow with arrows, candlestick to pointing out its similarity with anchor and even falconās wings.
The trident, or tryzub in Ukrainian, wasnāt the only symbol used throughout the history of Ukraine. Since the 14th century, other signs (which often characterised regions) became popular, and Ukrainian cossacks later had their own symbols too.
In 1918, just after the Russian empireās collapse, the Ukrainian Peopleās Republic government approved the trident as a state coat of arms. A commission that were empowered to choose a new symbol considered several alternatives: a golden lion (the symbol of the Halychyna region, which was the centre of the Ukrainian national movement for independence in the 19th century), a cossack with his musket (respectively, the sign of Zaporizhzhia cossacks), an image of St. Michael the Archangel (the patron of Kyiv, Ukraineās capital), and more.
Finally, the ancient symbol of Kyivan Rusā was chosen to symbolise Ukraineās state and national unity. The trident became popular very fast ā primarily thanks to its appearance on the banknotes.
The symbol connects past and present ā from the Kyivan Rusā times, where Ukraine has its roots, to the 21st century. Today, you can see trident on T-shirts everywhere. You can buy souvenirs with it on the streets. You can even get a trident tattoo. After 70 years of Soviet rule, when the trident was called nationalistic and banned, itās now official and widely used again.
Since the days of the Ukrainian Peopleās Republic, the trident (tryzub) has become an important symbol for those who fought for Ukraineās independence 100 years ago and those who protect it now.
Origins & History of Ukraine
https://ukraine.ua/explore/origins-history-of-ukraine/
The lands that make up Ukraineās modern territory are home to thousands of mysteries and the stories of hundreds of peoples, states and cultures. In the history of Ukraine, heroic and dramatic plots have taken place here over the centuries ā the formation and destruction of civilizations, the intermingling and confrontations of nations, wars, revolutions, cultural decline and revival.
Historians have long been drawn to choosing metaphors to describe this region. It has been called āthe gates of Europeā as many people, cultures, tastes and religions have entered Europe through Ukrainian lands. It has also been regarded as āthe cradle of many peoples and culturesā because Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, Tatars, Belarusians, Roma, Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, Germans and Romanians lived and worked alongside one another for centuries.
We learn from Herodotus that the Scythians, the ancient nomadic people, lived here a few centuries before Christ. They traded with Greeks and fought with Persians. Compatriots of the Greek father of history loved Ukraineās Black Sea coast as well. When the brilliance of the ancient civilization dimmed, the Slavs entered the historic arena. Archaeological research shows that their ancestral homeland was the Ukrainian land.
Under the influence of Christianity, the Slavic ancestors of the Ukrainians began to search for their place in Medieval Europe. A powerful medieval state called Rusā land or just Rusā was born and it developed into Ukrainian lands, meeting its golden age at the turn of the 11th century. According to scientists, about 100,000 people lived in its main city called Kyiv (the modern capital of Ukraine), which exceeded the total then population of London and Paris. Later, in the 13th century, the princes of Rusā were the first in Europe to meet the Mongol invasion, which undermined the state-building potential of the local nobility.
Ukrainian lands fell under the rule of neighbouring states ā Lithuania and Poland. It merged into one of the largest and most powerful monarchies in Europe, the Commonwealth. This state existed from the 16th to the end of the 18th century, gathering the territories of modern Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and western Russia.
At the same time, the Ukrainian phenomenon of free chivalry reached its apogee, and Cossacks (āfree menā, from Turkic languages) appeared in the European arena. For a while, they even managed to create their own state called Hetmanate (Zaporizhzhia Host). Cossack detachments took part in almost all the great wars in the region, either as an independent military force or as mercenaries. They had their own unique customs, self-government and an original military tradition.
Meanwhile, Crimean Tatars developed on their native soil in their own state ā the Crimean Khanate. History both united Crimean Tatars with Cossacks in one coalition and brought them into collision in bloody fights. The Crimean state ceased to exist at about the same time as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was divided, and the Hetmanate finally lost its autonomy. Imperial Russia contributed to all of these tragic events.
From the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century, Ukrainian lands were part of two empires ā Austrian (later Austro-Hungarian) and Russian. At that time, Ukrainians took part in the Napoleonic Wars, fought for political and civil rights, built powerful corporations and railways, opened gymnasiums and hospitals, contributed to science and technology as well as developed language and culture along the same lines as other European nations that did not have their own states and were parts of empires.
The 20th century began in a stormy way for Ukraine ā millions of people were thrown into the chaos of World War I.
Witnessing the downfall of the age-old empires, Ukraine made an attempt to build its own nation-state in 1917-1921. Together with the Poles, Ukrainians managed to protect Europe from communism and defeat the Russian Bolshevik troops near Warsaw.
Poland resisted, while Ukraine was reconquered by its neighbours. Until 1991, Ukrainians lived under the power of the totalitarian regime as a constituent part of the communist USSR. It was a difficult time with terrible tragedies and challenges ā forced collectivization, genocide-Holodomor, The Great Terror, Holocaust, deportations, GULAG, punitive psychiatry, Soviet military interventions, the Chornobyl disaster, among other events, that took the lives of millions of Ukrainians who represented many different nationalities.
Despite difficult conditions, Ukrainians founded and rebuilt cities and villages, created space missiles and nuclear power plants, developed medical technologies and invented new methods of welding. Some of the computers developed in Ukraine were among the very first ones the world has ever seen, not to mention the significant contribution to world culture and art (avant-garde, constructivism, futurism, experimental cinema and music).
Ukraine was at the heart of World War II not once but twice ā first in the time of Hitlerās offensive and occupation, and then during the bloody expulsion of the Nazis. A total of 8 million Ukrainians died between 1939 and 1945, most of them were civilians. 1.5 million Jews from Ukraine became the victims of the Holocaust. The historical truth about all victims of World War II was censored for a long time in the Soviet Union and started to get restored in the late 1980s, shortly before the collapse of the USSR. 3 million soldiers lost their lives in the battles against the Nazis and in captivity, many went missing, died in hospitals during the war and in the first postwar years. Ukrainians fought against Hitler and his allies in the armies of Poland and the USSR, Canada and France, the United States and Czechoslovakia, in theaters of war in Europe, Africa and Asia, in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
After the war and up until its independence, many Ukrainian independence fighters, human rights defenders and dissidents contributed efforts to overthrow the totalitarian communist regime, which eventually succeeded.
In 1991, Ukraine declared independence in order to build a free, democratic and sovereign state within internationally recognized borders.
Since then, any attempts to restore authoritarianism have faced strong peopleās resistance. The Orange Revolution (2004-2005) and the Revolution of Dignity (2013-2014) have proven that freedom is the ultimate choice and expression of the Ukrainian people.
In 2019, European and Euro-Atlantic integration was incorporated into Ukraineās Constitution as a vision of national development.
Since 1991, more than 40 million people of different nationalities and religions had enjoyed peace in Ukraine until 2014 when Russia illegally occupied Crimea [https://ukraine.ua/cities-places/crimea/] and sent its troops over the border in Ukraineās Donbas region.
Today, Russia carries out aggression and hybrid warfare against Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, which has already resulted in over 14,000 people killed and more than 33,500 wounded, continuously building up its military capacities and drawing armed forces to the Ukrainian border.
On February 21, 2022, Russia made a decision to recognise the āindependenceā of the quasi-entities it had created in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine ā the so-called āLuhansk Peopleās Republicā and āDonetsk Peopleās Republic.ā
While Russia violates the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, Ukraine continues to protect its independence, as well as freedom and democracy in Europe.
Want to know more about the history of Ukraine? Here is a short introductory course [https://www.udemy.com/course/ukraine-history-culture-and-identities/?persist_locale=&locale=en_US]in the history, culture, and society of Ukraine from the Middle Ages to the present.
Utterly wasted