Ukraine celebrates Unity Day

Today, January 22, Ukraine celebrates the Unity Day. On this day in 1919, was proclaimed the Act of unification of Ukrainian people's Republic and West Ukrainian people's Republic.

 

This holiday was formally established in 1999, given the great political and historical significance of the unification of UNR and ZUNR for the formation of the United (Soborna) Ukrainian state. In 2011 Unity Day was merged with Freedom Day, which was celebrated earlier on November 22, called "the Day of Unification and Freedom of Ukraine". However, in 2014 the decree of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, the holiday was restored as the Day of Unity of Ukraine.

 

In the modern Ukrainian national calendar date January 22 occupies one of leading places and has a deep symbolic meaning: the eternal dream of Ukrainian people on free life in an independent independent state. On January 22, 1918 the Central Rada Universal was proclaimed the independence of the Ukrainian people's Republic. A year later, on January 22, 1919, in Kiev on the Sofia area, was declared an Act of zluka (unification) of Ukrainian lands into a unified Ukraine, approved the unification of the two contemporary States of the UPR and ZUNR, emerged from the wreckage of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, in a unified Ukrainian state.

 

In the text of the Act of Unification claimed: "Now the whole earth of Ukraine, divided over centuries - Galicia, Bukovina, Transcarpathian Rus in the Dnieper will be one of the great Ukraine. Dream, for which the best sons of Ukraine lived and died, became a reality. Now and forever will be one of the independent Ukrainian people's Republic".

 

However, the Association of Ukraine took place symbolically: within a few weeks after the proclamation of the reunification of the Bolsheviks captured Kiev, later the poles occupied Eastern Galicia, and Czechoslovakia - Transcarpathia.

 

The first celebration of Unity was held on 22 January 1939 in the Carpathian Ukraine (Hust), at the time the Autonomous Republic of Czechoslovakia. On this day, under the blue and yellow flags held demonstration thirty-thousand local people who gathered in the capital of Carpathian Ukraine from all over the region to remember the events of 20 years ago.

 

A vivid manifestation of the unity, aspirations of the Ukrainian people to freedom, became a "human chain" organized by the Rwandese Patriotic army on January 21, 1990 on the occasion of the 71st anniversary of the proclamation of the Act zluky. Millions of then-Soviet Ukrainians joined hands from Kiev to Lviv, marking the Day of Unity.

 

 

Since then in Ukraine "human chain" was created repeatedly, symbolizing the unity (catholicity) of the Ukrainian people, and the Day of Unity is now celebrated at the state level annually.

 

Today in Kiev on the bridge Paton on the occasion of the Day of Unification and about a hundred people formed a live chain". Participants unfurled a 30-meter flag of Ukraine along the bridge and on the Sofia area and all of tserkvah Kyivan Patriarchate held a prayer service for Ukraine.