The Day of Ukrainian Statehood is celebrated on 15 July. The holiday symbolizes the continuity and succession of Ukraine’s more than thousand-year history. Its main purpose is to honor every stage of our state-building and to affirm our civilizational European choice and the unity of the nation in its struggle for independence against an age-old enemy.
The Day of Ukrainian Statehood is a reminder that our state is not really 35 years old. Our statehood has a history of more than a thousand years. From Rus and the Cossacks to the Ukrainian People’s Republic and modern Ukraine, we are a single link between the generations who built this land.
Today we are not just remembering history — we are defending its future.
More than a millennium of state-building
Ukrainian statehood did not begin in 1991. Its origins go back to medieval Rus, which was a powerful European political and cultural center. It is counted from the first forms of statehood, which were recognized internationally as early as the 10th century.
The Ukrainian tradition of state-building has a thousand-year history and dates back to the formation of the Old Rus state in the 9th century. It was in the Princely era that the Old Ukrainian language took shape, the first self-designations of our people appeared — “Rus”, “Rusychi”, “Rusyny” — and Cyrillic became our alphabet. From those times come our national coat of arms, the tryzub (trident), and the name of our currency, the hryvnia; the use of the word “Ukraine” has been known since 1187. Not Russia but Ukraine is the rightful heir to the state and cultural tradition of Rus.
The Coat of Arms (Tryzub), the Flag and the Anthem of Ukraine are not newly created symbols but historical sacred symbols of our people, forged over centuries of struggle for freedom.
Civilizational choice and European integration
Today is also the Day of the Baptism of Kyivan Rus–Ukraine. Today we honor the memory of Prince Volodymyr the Great. It was his baptism of Rus in 988 that finally integrated our state into the European cultural and political space.
The Baptism of Rus by the Kyivan Prince Volodymyr the Great became the most epoch-making event in our national history. The adoption of Christianity meant that the people and the state embraced not only the highest ethical and moral standards; it also brought about a fundamental change in worldview, the flourishing of education and culture, the formation of national unity, the drafting of the first code of laws and the minting of our own coins. The world-class architectural masterpieces built at that time — St. Sophia Cathedral, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and notable landmarks in other cities of Ukraine — still remain the pride and hallmark of the capital.
So our European course is not a trend of recent years or decades. It is a choice made back in 988 by Volodymyr the Great. The Baptism of Rus integrated us into the European cultural and political space more than ten centuries ago. We are returning to the European family, where our home has always been.
Ukraine’s current movement toward full membership in the European Union and NATO is a logical return to our historical and geopolitical roots.
The link between eras
Ukrainian statehood is an unbroken chain of events.
Modern Ukraine is the heir to the state traditions of many eras: Rus, the Principality of Galicia–Volhynia, the Ukrainian Cossack State (the Zaporozhian Host), the Ukrainian People’s Republic, the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, the Ukrainian State and Carpatho-Ukraine.
After the adoption of Christianity, other Christian states no longer saw Rus as a barbarian land, and it joined the family of civilized countries and the common European civilization. Moreover, under Volodymyr the Great and Yaroslav the Wise, Rus became one of the most powerful states in Europe, with a high standard of living, education and culture for its time.
The Old Rus state tradition continued in the Principality of Galicia–Volhynia and was preserved in certain forms in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which was often called Lithuanian Rus. Later, the idea of reviving our own statehood was taken up by the Ukrainian Cossacks. During the War of Liberation led by Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, they managed to create the Ukrainian Cossack State with its own borders, governing bodies, administrative system, army and foreign policy. Although this state was later divided between Muscovy and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ukrainians were able to preserve significant elements of statehood in the form of Cossack autonomies from the second half of the 17th to the second half of the 18th century.
At the beginning of the 19th century it seemed that the destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich, the elimination of the Ukrainian Cossacks as a social estate, the enserfment of the peasantry and total Russification would lead to the complete disappearance of the Ukrainian people. But once again, like the magical Phoenix, the Ukrainian people rose from the ashes. And with them, the idea of their own statehood rose again.
The Ukrainian national revival of the 19th century prepared the ground for the rebirth of the Ukrainian state in 1917–1921.
When the First Liberation Struggle ended in failure, the nation once again did not give up. The Second Liberation Struggle of 1938–1950 began.
On the eve of and during the Second World War, the Ukrainian people repeatedly tried to restore their sovereignty.
During this period of struggle for their own agency, Ukrainians suffered enormous losses, but the existence of an independent Ukrainian state was not part of the superpowers’ plans.
However, the struggle and the sacrifices were not in vain. New generations of freedom fighters grew up on the heroic deeds of their predecessors. Finally, on 1 December 1991, in the All-Ukrainian referendum, 90 percent of the votes were cast in support of the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on 24 August 1991, which became the starting point of modern statehood.
Naturally, the peaceful and steady development of the young state did not please the Russian imperialists. When all political and economic attempts to destroy modern Ukrainian statehood had failed, the Russian invaders resorted to armed aggression in 2014. Putin’s regime denies not only the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state but also the existence of Ukrainians as a distinct people. On 24 February 2022, a liberation struggle began for the very existence of the Ukrainian nation.
The struggle for sovereignty, gratitude to our defenders and shared responsibility
Today Ukrainian statehood is being defended both at the front and on the home front.
Amid the full-scale war, the Day of Ukrainian Statehood is a day of national mobilization, resilience and unity around the defense of sovereignty.
The main guarantors of the preservation of Ukrainian statehood are the Defense Forces of Ukraine, who are holding back the Russian aggressor. Today’s holiday is a day to honor the courage of today’s men and women defenders, as well as the bright memory of all generations of fighters for Ukraine’s freedom who gave their lives for its independence.
The history of Ukrainian state-building is inseparably linked with the development of the Ukrainian army and national military traditions.
The defenders of our statehood are descendants of the warriors of Rus, the Cossacks, the Sich Riflemen and the soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
Today’s Armed Forces of Ukraine and other security and defense forces protect Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and statehood and prove that Ukrainians are a nation-family, a nation-army, an army of the brave and unbreakable.
Statehood is not only institutions; it is every citizen who saves and strengthens the country through their work, service, volunteering and civic stance.
Preserving a sovereign, united and democratic Ukraine is the highest national priority and the duty of every Ukrainian to future generations. Statehood is all of us. Every citizen is part of the state, and preserving it is today’s main national task.
The modern dimension of the holiday
Moving the date of the holiday (in connection with the transition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to the New Julian calendar) is an important element in decolonizing national memory and making a final break with Russian imperial historical myths. (In 2023 the Day of Ukrainian Statehood was celebrated on 28 July, but since 2024 it has been celebrated on 15 July.)
The experience of past centuries has shown that having our own state is the only way to ensure the physical survival of the nation and the guarantee of its stable development and unity. Clearly, throughout its entire history the Ukrainian people have always shown the will, and taken action, to win their own Independent United Ukrainian State.
Today, amid the full-scale war, the Day of Ukrainian Statehood takes on special significance. We must clearly understand that the enemy is fighting not just for territory but against our identity; it seeks the complete destruction of Ukraine as a state.
Yet a statehood that has withstood more than ten centuries of trials cannot be destroyed. It lives in every Ukrainian who holds a weapon, volunteers or simply works honestly in their place. It is not without reason that our Constitution says: “The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, on behalf of the Ukrainian people… expressing the sovereign will of the people, based on the centuries-old history of Ukrainian state-building and on the right to self-determination realized by the Ukrainian nation, all the Ukrainian people… aware of responsibility before God, our own conscience, past, present and future generations… adopts this Constitution — the Fundamental Law of Ukraine”.
So modern Ukraine lives not by permission of superpowers or international alliances, but by the combination of God’s grace and the will of the Ukrainian nation.