One more lesson from our series Короткий курс з історії України. This time we will talk about the beginning of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic – УСРР (later УРСР), and probably the most tragic times in Ukrainian history.

In this Ukrainian Lesson, you will:

  • listen to my introduction about попередні уроки історії;
  • listen the chapter #6 of Короткий курс з історії України;
  • relisten by smaller parts with my explanations and comprehension questions
  • try to solve a short True or false quiz;
  • discover “Розстріляне Відродження” – the generation of talented Ukrainian artists and writers who had a tragic destiny…

Study these important terms before listening to the episode:

  • СРСР (Союз Радянських Соціалістичних Республік) – The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, abbreviated as the USSR, was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991.
  • УРСР (Українська Радянська Соціалістична Республіка, before 1937 – Українська Соціалістична Радянська Республіка) – The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from its inception in 1922 to its breakup in 1991.
  • «Українізація» – Ukrainization is a policy of increasing the usage and facilitating the development of the Ukrainian language and promoting other elements of Ukrainian culture, in various spheres of public life, such as education, publishing, government, and religion. The term is used, most prominently, for the Soviet indigenization policy of the 1920s (коренізація, literally ‘putting down roots’), aimed at strengthening Soviet power in the territory of Soviet Ukraine and southern regions of the Russian Socialist Republic.
  • Микола Хвильовий (1893 – 1933) was a Ukrainian writer and poet of the so-called Ukrainian Renaissance. Except for his fictional works, he wrote a number of pamphlets presenting his views on the connection between politics and art. He advocated an orientation toward cultural trends in Western Europe in order to loosen Ukraine’s dependence on Russian forms and inspiration. Because of Stalin’s repressions against his friends in the pro-Ukrainian Communist movement, Khvylovy committed suicide on 13 May 1933 in front of his friends in his apartment in Kharkiv.
  • Йосиф Сталін (1878 – 1953) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician of Georgian ethnicity. Governing the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953, he served as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952.
  • Колективізація – “collectivization” of the agricultural sector, enforced by The Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940 during the ascendancy of Joseph Stalin. It aimed to consolidate individual landholdings and labor into collective farms called колективні господарства (колгоспи).
  • Голодомор – (derived from морити голодом, “to kill by starvation“), also known as the Terror-Famine, Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, or The Ukrainian Genocide of 1932–33 – was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed an officially estimated 7 million to 10 million people. It was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.

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Transcript, Vocabulary List, and Flashcards!

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  • Full transcript & translation of all the introduction and the lecture in history;
  • Encyclopedia: important historical terms explained;
  • Exercises: fill-in the blanks, multiple choice comprehension test, vocabulary exercise to practice the new vocabulary;
  • Vocabulary List: new words from the episode in a chart with English translation.

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