Ukraine in the Years of the Rat

According to the Oriental calendar, the year beginning on Feb. 7, 2008, is the Year of the Rat. Every Year of the Rat, which occurs once every 12 years, augurs a good financial situation but may also spell financial setbacks in subsequent years. Politics can lead to surprises in such periods because all kinds of accusations and condemnations are typical of the Year of the Rat. It is also favorable for credit purchases, loans, and investments. It is especially auspicious for creative writing and art, as well as for establishing sociopolitical and artistic associations, groups, and organizations. Years of the Rat are periods of economic stability and peace. According to the Oriental (Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian, etc.) horoscope, Ukraine’s lunar sign is the Ox, and Oxen consider the Year of the Rat favorable in all respects, especially financial.

Below is a brief recapitulation of events that occurred in Ukraine’s sociopolitical and economic life in the Years of the Rat throughout the 20th century: 1900, 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, and 1996.

1900

Yuzhny rabochii, a clandestine Social Democratic newspaper based in Katerynoslav, began appearing in January. On Jan. 28 the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party (RUP), eastern Ukraine’s first national political organization, was founded in Kharkiv. This party demanded national and cultural autonomy for Ukraine within the borders of Russia. In Lviv in the spring of 1900 Mykola Mikhnovsky published a brochure entitled Samostiina Ukraina, which the RUP used for some time as its programmatic document. On May 1 Kharkiv was the site of Ukraine’s first 10,000-strong political demonstration of factory workers. The protest was disbanded by soldiers, and 150 demonstrators were arrested. In September-October the newspaper Molod Ukrainy published an open letter from the RUP to Dmitry Sipiagin, Russia’s Minister of Internal Affairs, protesting against the Russian government’s anti-Ukrainian policies, including the Ems Ukase of 1876. The Volyn Historical Scholarly Society and the Society of Kharkiv Artists were established in Zhytomyr and Kharkiv, respectively. Electric lighting was installed on Lviv’s streets, and an electric funicular was opened in Odesa. A department of Ukrainian literature was established at Lviv University. By late 1900, Ukraine’s economy was ranked one of the best in the Russian Empire. Coal production increased eight-fold compared to 1800 and iron ore — nearly 80-fold in Kryvyi Rih alone. In 1900 Ukraine accounted for about 70 percent of the coal, 57 percent of the iron ore, and 52 percent of the cast iron produced in Russia.

1912

Ukraine’s workers staged solidarity strikes throughout April in Katerynoslav, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Kherson, and other cities in protest against the shooting of 200 Lena (Siberia) gold mine workers on April 4. On June 23 the government enacted a law on accident and health insurance for workers. On Nov. 15 Ukrainian deputies began working in the Russian Empire’s 4th State Duma (parliament). In 1912 the Katerynoslav Mining School was reorganized as the Mining Institute, and Lviv hosted a regional congress of Sokoly and Sich organizations. A palace designed by the architect Leonid Sherwood and known as Swallow’s Nest was built in Koreiz, in the Crimea. A periodical called Ukrainske zhyttia (Ukrainian Life), edited by Symon Petliura, began to come out in Moscow (publication ceased in 1917). In Odesa, Volodymyr Filatov performed the world’s first corneal transplant. Russia held the first soccer championship, including teams from Kyiv, Odesa, and Kharkiv. The construction of a memorial church began at the Berestechko Cossack graveyard (architect V. Maksymov). By late 1912, Ukrainian industry accounted for about 70 percent of the Russian Empire’s total raw materials and semi-finished products, as well as 69 percent of cast iron, 57 percent of steel, and 58 percent of rolled metal.

1924

On Jan. 19 the 8th All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in Kharkiv approved the draft Constitution of the USSR, and on Jan. 31 the 2nd Congress of Soviets adopted the Soviet Union’s first constitution. On March 20 to 24 Kharkiv hosted a plenary meeting of the CC CP(b)U, which discussed Ukraine’s economic situation, wage problems, and rural economic policy. Mykhailo Hrushevsky, who had emigrated in 1919, returned to Kyiv in March. The Ukrainian Donbas Assistance Committee (UkrkomDonbas) was founded on April 2, and on April 17 the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee (VUTsVK) in Kharkiv approved a resolution on tackling homelessness among children.

On May 31 Soviet Ukraine’s Council of People’s Commissars (RNK) passed a resolution to protect the ancient Greek city of Olvia. On July 7-9 a CC CP(b)U plenary meeting in Kharkiv discussed wage problems, steel-making, crediting, etc. On July 30 in Kharkiv the VUTsVK approved the Ukrainian SSR’s Civil Procedural Code (which came into force on Oct. 1, 1924). On Oct. 6-8 a CC CP(b)U plenary meeting discussed the current and future situation in Ukraine’s steel-making industry, the financial and economic situation, administrative division, etc. Ukraine’s first radio station was launched into operation in Kharkiv in October. The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed as part of the Ukrainian SSR on Oct. 12. On Nov. 19 the VUTsVK and the RNK of the Ukrainian SSR passed a resolution on state-run children’s health care and the duties of physicians to protect children’s health. The first city airport was opened in the Kyiv suburb of Zhuliany. The first children’s theater was established in Kyiv. The State College of Cinematography was established in Odesa, and Prague hosted an exhibit of Ukrainian book graphics.

1936

On Jan. 7-10 Stalino hosted the All-Union Congress of Stakhanovites (record-breaking coal miners), and on Feb. 1 Mykyta Izotov of the Kocheharka mine set a new record for coal production during a six- hour shift — 607 tons. On Feb. 12 Kyiv hosted the first Ukrainian folk art exhibit featuring 5,000 pieces of pictorial and plastic art. The first Ten Days of Ukrainian Art took place in Moscow on March 11-21. Oleksandr Korniichuk’s play Platon Krechet premiered in Prague on April 3, and the first exhibit of Soviet Ukrainian architecture was unveiled in Kyiv on April 18. On April 25 the RNK of the Ukrainian SSR and the CC CP(b)U passed a resolution on the development of choral singing in Ukraine. Yurii Kotsiubynsky was arrested and executed in April on a trumped-up charge of leading a Ukrainian Trotskyite center. New purges of the CP(b)U and mass repressions took place between October 1936 and November 1938; most of the victims were rehabilitated in the 1950s. On Oct. 14 the Mariupil steel-worker Makar Mazai set a world record, producing 103.5 tons of steel in an open-hearth furnace in 6 hours and 50 minutes. A new Constitution of the USSR was approved on Dec. 5 in Moscow. That year two new institutions of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences — the Institute of Economics and the Institute of Ukrainian Folklore — were founded.

1948

Early in the year some units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) crossed the Polish border, and some even broke through to West Germany via Czechoslovakia. On Jan. 24 Kyiv hosted a jubilee session of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR to mark the 30th anniversary of the creation of the Ukrainian SSR. An all-Ukrainian pedagogical exhibit was unveiled in Kyiv on Feb. 13. On Feb. 21 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in Moscow resolved, on the initiative of Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the CC CP(b)U, to deport Ukrainians deliberately evading farm work and leading an antisocial and parasitic way of life. On March 17 the CC CP(b)U held a meeting in Kyiv with writers, artists, composers, actors, radio personalities, and newspaper and magazine editors.

On April 10 the newspaper Pravda published a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on a new reduction of state-controlled retail prices for some goods. On May 6-7 Kyiv hosted the founding congress of the Ukrainian Theater Association. On Aug. 18 Ukraine signed the Danube Navigation Convention in Belgrade. The Kharkiv Tractor Plant was reopened after reconstruction on Aug. 29. From August to September Ukraine saw a wide-scale attack on genetics, which led to the virtual destruction of this science. The construction of the USSR’s and Europe’s largest gas pipeline Dashava-Kyiv was completed on Oct. 1. By the end of the year there were more mechanical engineering plants in Ukraine than before the war. Ukrainian enterprises accounted for about 50 percent of the pig iron, more than 30 percent of the steel, about a third of the rolled metal, and about 30 percent of the coal produced in the USSR. A CC CP(b)U plenary meeting held in Kyiv on Dec. 15-16 resolved to improve the conservation of cultural monuments on the territory of Ukraine.

1960

On Jan. 4 in Kyiv, Yurii Zbanatsky was awarded the Mykola Ostrovsky Literary Prize for the best work about youth, established by the Central Committee of Ukraine’s Komsomol and the Union of Ukrainian Writers, for his novel The Crimson Bell. The Days of Ukrainian Culture took place on Jan. 20-30 in Hungary. On Feb. 12 a ceremonial session of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences took place in Kyiv to mark the commissioning of Ukraine’s first nuclear reactor. In Moscow, the CC CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR resolved on Feb. 15 to organize extended-day schools, while on Feb. 23-27 Kyiv hosted the Ukrainian Republican Conference on Art Education. On May 4 the Council of Ministers of the USSR resolved to carry out a monetary reform and revise the scale of prices. In June the first stage of the Yaniv Reservoir, the world’s largest, was commissioned. On July 11, the world’s largest continuous steel-casting unit was put into operation at the Stalino steel mill; that same month the Luhansk Rolled Metal Plant commissioned the world’s first pig iron vacuuming unit. On Sept. 9 the Kharkiv Tractor Plant issued its millionth tractor. A society for cultural links with Ukrainians abroad was founded in Kyiv on Oct. 1, and the Kyiv subway was commissioned on Nov. 6. In 1960 Ukraine became a permanent member of the International Bureau of Exhibitions and Intervision.

1972

On Jan. 25— 28 Kyiv hosted an international conference on nuclear spectroscopy in the atomic nucleus structure. January saw the end of the construction of the 1,800-kWt Ladyha Thermal Power Plant (two years ahead of schedule). From February to May Ukraine went through a second wave of repressions. Two hundred people were arrested, including Viacheslav Chornovil, Yevhen Sverstiuk, Ivan Svitlychny, Ivan Dziuba, Mykhailo Osadchy, and Vasyl Stus. In February the USSR Council of Ministers resolved in Moscow to establish Symferopil State University. In Kyiv, the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR resolved on March 17 to institute the Maksym Rylsky Prize for the best translation and to open a museum of books and book printing in Kyiv. In March, the sixth issue of the clandestine publication Ukrainskyi visnyk came out in Kyiv. On April 20-22 Kharkiv hosted the 4th All-Union Universiade. On May 3 Pravda reported on the opening of a museum of decorative folk art in Kaniv. On July 2- 7 Kyiv hosted the 9th International Congress of Gerontologists.

On July 21-26 Kyiv hosted the 12th All-Union Schoolchildren’s Spartakiad, while the 5th All-Union Conference on the Physics of Electronic and Atomic Collisions was held in Uzhhorod on Sept. 18-28. On Oct. 26-30 Odesa hosted the 4th All- Union Festival of Sports Films. In November Kyiv began to publish a collection of Andrii Malyshko’s works in 10 volumes. On Dec. 25 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR cancelled taxes on wages below 70 rubles a month, and reduced tax rates on wages below 90 rubles a month.

1984

On Jan. 16 the main assembly line was put into operation at the Lviv-based farming machinery factory. On March 9 Kyiv held a nationwide art and literature celebration “In a Free and New Family,” dedicated to the 170th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko’s birth. In March the first issue of The Chronicle of the Ukrainian Catholic Church was published in Lviv. On April 20 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR awarded the Order of the October Revolution to Kyiv T. H. Shevchenko State University. Kyiv Spring, an all-union art festival, opened on May 19 in Ukraine’s capital. On Sept. 1 the CC CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR resolved to cut state-controlled prices for a number of consumer goods. On Oct. 15 the Novokramatorsk-based mechanical engineering plant began to manufacture the 5000-type thick-sheet metal rolling machine. In November the Lviv KGB arrested Vasyl Kobryn, the head of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Believers and the [Ukrainian Catholic] Church. On Dec. 10 the one-million-kWt first unit of the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant produced electricity. On Dec. 12 Kyiv hosted a joint plenary meeting of Soviet Ukrainian artistic associations.

1996

On Jan. 16 Moscow hosted a meeting between Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchma and Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin, who signed an agreement on establishing a Ukrainian-Russian cooperation commission that would be headed by the two countries’ prime ministers. In February the Constitutional Commission submitted a draft constitution to parliament, which debated it for about three months. On June 28 the Verkhovna Rada passed the new Constitution of Ukraine. A new national currency, the hryvnia, was introduced in Ukraine on Sept. 25. The year 1996 saw a drastic reduction of inflation to 39 percent (compared to 181 percent in 1995) and a stable exchange rate of the US dollar ($1=UAH 1.89 and UAH 1.9 in 1997). In the summer of 1996 the main nuclear warheads were removed from Ukraine’s territory and their launch silos near Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv oblast, were destroyed. By late 1996, direct foreign investments in Ukraine’s economy increased to $511 million (from $413 million in 1995). Ukraine presented eight movies at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The 2008 is also the Year of the Earth Rat and the Yellow Rat, which promises a purposeful and sustainable economic and intellectual life.