Crimea has been a major area of conflict and disagreement between Russia and Ukraine since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The 2014 Ukraine Crisis say Russia essentially invade Crimea and returned it to Russia rule (ostensibly approved in a vote, though widely acknowledged to be rigged). Crimea is also at the center of the current war between Russia and Ukraine.
I know that Nikita Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine during Soviet times, but didn’t know the basis of the decision: I figured it was Khrushchev doing something nice for his homeland. From a book I’m currently reading, there’s much more behind it than just a friendly gesture:
Most significant in terms of its longer-term repercussions, in January 1954 the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Agreement (which the Soviet press presented as a historic treaty of Russian-Ukrainian unity, although some Ukrainians viewed it more as a tragic betrayal of their country’s independence) was celebrated with great fanfare and declarations of eternal brotherhood between Russians and Ukrainians. This culminated in the legal transfer of Crimea from Russia to Ukrainian control. Although official emphasis was placed on Crimea’s economic ties to Ukraine as the reason for the transfer, there was also a clear sense that this was a ‘gift’, intended to demonstrate and to strengthen the historic friendship between Russian and Ukrainian peoples. Of course, for as long as both Russia and Ukraine remained part of the same country, the switch of jurisdiction was essentially a symbolic one.
Hornsby, Robert, The Soviet Sixties, p51
Yeah, how did that historic friendship and eternal brotherhood turn out? Not good, it appears.
