REPUBLIC OF SERBIA AND UKRAINE

Close connection between the two Slavic and Orthodox nations, Serbs and Ukrainians, has lasted for centuries. It is also the foundation of friendly relations between these two, today independent and sovereign, states.

The history of the Serbian people in different periods in the past was related to the area of ​​today’s Ukraine. One of the theories about the Serb origin states that their ancestral home was the region behind the Carpathians, which was called Boiki. In the early Middle Ages, this area was also known as White Serbia, and its inhabitants were “White Serbs”. Along the valley of Tisa river, in the 6th century, they moved towards the Balkan Peninsula.

The beginning of the 18th century also brought significant migrations of the Serbian population from Europe to the territory of today’s Ukraine. During that period, Serbs living in the Military Frontier in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy turned to Orthodox Russia due to constant persecution and pressure from the Catholic Church. The Serbs were first settled in the northwestern part of Zaporozhye, and a new autonomous territory was formed – New Serbia. The immigrants named their settlements after places from their homeland: Kanjiza, Pancevo, Becej, Subotica.

This period was also described by Milos Crnjanski in the second book of his novel Migration: “In the autumn of 1752, the last transports of those who were moving to Russia passed through the Hungarian land and crossed the Tisa, resembling Serbian weddings and Serbian funerals.” It all happened “with cries and laughter, with tears and lamentation and chuckle. They were led by officers, as before in the war, and they were counted and reported to Kiev by the Russian mission in Tokaj. Upon thier arrival to Kiev, the lines of Serbian border guards were delighted with its splendor. “Fortresses, churches, buildings of the upper town, in flicker, seemed like a Russian imperial crown, imagined all in precious stones by those dismissed officers at that time. Sofia Cathedral, St. Andrew’s Church, Pechersk Lavra, Golden Gate, in the snow, on the hill, seemed to these immigrants, in the first days, as buildings not of human hands, but as if some crazy imagination built them, in snow and ice “, Crnjanski wrote.

In the following year, 1753, by the decision of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, Serbian border guards, together with other nations, settled in today’s Lugansk area called Slavyanoserbia. Captain Simeon Piscevic described life in Slavyanoserbia in his “Memoirs”.

Portrait of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, 1760

New Serbia and Slavyanoserbia served as border areas for a little over a decade. With the manifesto of Empress Catherine in 1762 and the Decree of the Russian government in 1764, they were formally abolished and included in the new provinces, while the Serbian people integrated with the people of today’s Ukraine.

Regions of New Serbia and Slavyanoserbia on the territory of modern-day Ukraine

After the Russian Tsar Alexander I Romanov responded positively to Karadjordje’s appeal to receive Serbian high military officials and people under his rule, this Serbian military leader, with family members and numerous Serbian field marshals and their families, landed on today’s territory of Ukraine, this time in the city of Hotin.

Serbs were also present in Odessa since the founding of this city and played a significant role in its economic, social and cultural life. During the First World War, Odessa became the center for gatherings of volunteers, who went to the Salonica front as part of the Serbian forces. Nikola Pasic, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Serbia, visited them in May 1916.

Nikola Pasic, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Serbia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes

During World War II, Serbs fought against Nazi troops supporting the Ukrainian partisan units.

As part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was the most developed member with outstanding results in industrial and agricultural production.

Ukraine gained independence in 1991, and diplomatic relations with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were established on April 15, 1994 at the embassy level. Since then, numerous visits have been recorded at the highest state level. Intensive political dialogue implies regular contacts at all levels to implement bilateral agreements and improve relations. The Embassy of Ukraine in Belgrade actively promotes Ukrainian culture in Serbia by organizing diverse events throughout the country.

Details of Ukrainian folklore

Ukraine’s contribution to global development in different areas is remarkable. Nikolai Gogol, the founder of Russian realism, and the composers Igor Stravinsky and Peter Tchaikovsky were of Ukrainian descent. Ana Yaroslavna is the ancestor of two European dynasties – Bourbon and Valois, and in France she is still known today as a ruler who changed the course of history. The agreement which Philip Orlyk concluded with the Cossack leaders “Constitutions on the Rights and Liberties of the Zaporozhian Army” went down in history as the first constitution of modern Western civilization. Nobel laureate Ilya Mechnikov is the father of the theory of immunity, and the founder of evolutionary embryology, microbiology and immunology. Due to the first successful vaccines against plague and cholera, bacteriologist Vladimir Havkin saved the world from these diseases. Igor Sikorsky, whose helicopters were the first to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is considered the father of aircraft and helicopter construction. On a larger scale, perhaps the best-known Ukrainians to today’s modern society are Vladimir Horowitz, “king of kings of pianists”, and the world boxing champions Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko.

Geographically, Serbia and Ukraine are linked first by the Tisa River, whose spring is in Ukraine. And when it flows into the Danube near Stari Slankamen, its water changes direction and returns to the Black Sea, to the Ukrainian border. In this manner nature itself defined the historical course of relations between the two countries – as an eternal connection in time and space.