Today, January 22, is the Day of Unity of Ukraine. The event was established in 1999 in honor of the proclamation of the Act of Unification of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic in 1919, UNN reports.
In early 1919, the two young Ukrainian states that emerged from the wreckage of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires found themselves in an extremely difficult military and political situation, and, in fact, in international isolation.
On January 18, 1919, peace negotiations began in France to summarize the outcome of the First World War.
To demonstrate the Ukrainian people's desire for independence, and thus to encourage the negotiators to recognize Ukraine as an independent state, the leaders of the UPR and ZUNR decided to declare the Act of Unification.
On January 22, 1919, a solemn meeting was held in Kyiv on St. Sophia Square, where the Act of Unification (reunification) of the Ukrainian lands was proclaimed, certified by the Universal on the unification of the UPR and ZUNR into a single Greater Ukraine.
It affirmed the unification of the two states of the time, which emerged from the wreckage of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, into a single united Ukrainian state, which has since become the guarantor of the national interests of Ukrainians. The Ukrainian people, torn apart for centuries, were freed from captivity and reunited on their land in a single Ukrainian state.
After the solemn proclamation of unification, a prayer service was held on St. Sophia Square, followed by a military parade led by Colonel Ivan Chmola. The parade was hosted by Colonel Yevhen Konovalets.
Human chains between different cities of Ukraine are a symbol of the celebration of Unity Day.
The first of these was organized in 1990 between Kyiv, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk as a symbol of the spiritual unity of people from the eastern and western lands of Ukraine. According to various estimates, between 3 million Ukrainians took part in the event.
