Ukrainians of the Eastern Diaspora: An Atlas

Description

The atlas Ukrainians of the Eastern Diaspora is the first such publication concerning Ukrainians living outside their ethnic territory and scattered throughout the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union during the course of the last century.

The last Soviet census of 1989 enumerated more that 6.8 million Ukrainians outside Ukraine in the republics of the former Soviet Union alone. In addition, at least two million Ukrainians, according to official statistical data, reside in various countries of Europe, the Americas, and even Australia. They constitute the so-called “diaspora,” a term that has become ever more current to denote the dispersal of Ukrainians beyond their historical homeland. The “Eastern Ukrainian diaspora” refers to the dispersion of Ukrainians on the territory of the former USSR outside Ukraine.

The maps of the atlas are based on the official censuses of 1897, 1926, 1959, 1970, 1979, and 1989. The principle of defining nationality in terms of self-identification was the one used by Soviet census takers. However, under a totalitarian regime, these censuses did not always establish the true numbers of national groups. Multi-faceted programs of research and analysis are required to refine Soviet census data in order to determine the ethnic composition of the former USSR more accurately. See Ukrainians: World Distribution map in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine.