Донбасс: история, культура и экономика восточной Украины

Region in eastern Ukraine

The Donbas (/UK//d//ɒ//n/'/b//ɑː//s/, /US/'/d//ɒ//n//b//ɑː//s//, //d//V//n/'/b//æ//s/; [[wikt:Донбас ;) or Donbass ([[wikt:Донбасс ) is a historical, cultural, and economic region in eastern Ukraine. The word Donbas is a portmanteau formed from "Donets Basin", an abbreviation of "Donets Coal Basin" (Донецький вугільний басейн; Донецкий угольный бассейн). The name of the coal basin is a reference to the Donets Ridge; the latter is associated with the Donets river. There are numerous definitions of the region's extent. It is now most commonly defined as the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. The historical coal mining region excluded parts of these oblasts, and included areas in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and Southern Russia. A Euroregion of the same name is composed of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in Ukraine and Rostov Oblast in Russia. The Donbas formed the historical border between the Zaporizhian Sich and the Don Cossack Host. It has been an important coal mining area since the late 19th century, when it became a heavily industrialised territory. The city of Donetsk (the fifth largest city in Ukraine) is considered the unofficial capital of the Donbas. Other large cities (over 100,000 inhabitants) include Luhansk, Makiivka, Horlivka, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Mariupol, Alchevsk, Lysychansk, and Sievierodonetsk.

The Kurgan hypothesis places the Pontic steppes of Ukraine and southern Russia as the linguistic homeland of the Proto Indo Europeans. The Yamnaya culture is identified with the late Proto Indo Europeans. The region has been inhabited for centuries by various nomadic tribes, such as Scythians, Alans, Huns, Bulgars, Pechenegs, Kipchaks, Turco Mongols, Tatars and Nogais. The region now known as the Donbas was largely unpopulated until the second half of the 17th century, when Don Cossacks established the first permanent settlements in the region. The first town in the region was founded in 1676, called Solanoye (now Soledar), which was built for the profitable business of exploiting newly discovered rock salt reserves. Known for being "Wild Fields" (дике поле, dyke pole), the area that is now called the Donbas was largely under the control of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate and the Turkic Crimean Khanate until the mid late 18th century, when the Russian Empire conquered the Hetmanate and annexed the Khanate. In the second half of the 17th century, settlers and fugitives from Hetman's Ukraine and Muscovy settled the lands north of the Donets river. At the end of the 18th century, many Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs and Greeks migrated to lands along the southern course of the Donets river, into an area previously inhabited by nomadic Nogais, who were nominally subject to the Crimean Khanate. Tsarist Russia named the conquered territories "New Russia" (Новоро́ссия, Novorossiya). As the Industrial Revolution took hold across Europe, the vast coal resources of the region, discovered in 1721, began to be exploited in the mid late 19th century. It was at this point that the name Donbas came into use, derived from the term "Donets Coal Basin" (Донецький вугільний басейн; Донецкий каменноугольный бассейн), referring to the area along the Donets river where most of the coal reserves were found. The rise of the coal industry led to a population boom in the region, largely driven by Russian settlers. Donetsk, the most important city in the region today, was founded in 1869 by Welsh businessman John Hughes on the site of the old Zaporozhian Cossack town of Oleksandrivka. Hughes built a steel mill and established several collieries in the region. The city was named after him as "Yuzovka" (Юзовка). With the development of Yuzovka and similar cities, large numbers of landless peasants from peripheral governorates of the Russian Empire came looking for work. According to the Russian Imperial Census of 1897, Ukrainians ("Little Russians", in the official imperial language) accounted for 52.4% of the population of the region, whilst ethnic Russians constituted 28.7%. Ethnic Greeks, Germans, Jews and Tatars also had a significant presence in the Donbas, particularly in the district of Mariupol, where they constituted 36.7% of the population. Despite this, Russians constituted the majority of the industrial workforce. Ukrainians dominated rural areas, but cities were often inhabited solely by Russians who had come seeking work in the region's heavy industries. Those Ukrainians who did move to the cities for work were quickly assimilated into the Russian speaking worker class.

In April 1918 troops loyal to the Ukrainian People's Republic took control of large parts of the region. For a while, its government bodies operated in the Donbas alongside their Russian Provisional Government equivalents. During the 1917–22 Russian Civil War, Nestor Makhno, who commanded the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, was the most popular leader in the Donbas. Ukrainians in the Donbas were greatly affected by the 1932–33 Holodomor famine and the Russification policy of Joseph Stalin. As most ethnic Ukrainians were rural peasant farmers, they bore the brunt of the famine.

The Donbas was greatly affected by the Second World War. In the lead up to the war, the region was racked by poverty and food shortages. War preparations resulted in an extension of the working day for factory labourers, whilst those who deviated from the heightened standards were arrested. Nazi Germany's leader Adolf Hitler viewed the resources of the Donbas as critical to Operation Barbarossa. As such, the Donbas suffered under Nazi occupation during 1941 and 1942. Thousands of industrial labourers were deported to Nazi Germany for use in factories. In what was then called Stalino Oblast, now Donetsk Oblast, 279,000 civilians were killed over the course of the occupation. In Voroshilovgrad Oblast, now Luhansk Oblast, 45,649 were killed. In 1943 the Operation Little Saturn and Donbas strategic offensive by the Red Army resulted in the return of Donbas to Soviet control. The war had taken its toll, leaving the region both destroyed and depopulated.

During the reconstruction of the Donbas after the end of the Second World War, large numbers of Russian workers arrived to repopulate the region, further altering the population balance. In 1926, 639,000 ethnic Russians resided in the Donbas, and Ukrainians made up 60% of the population. As a result of the Russification policy, the Ukrainian population of the Donbass then declined drastically as ethnic Russians settled in the region in large numbers. By 1959, the ethnic Russian population was 2.55 million. Russification was further advanced by the 1958–59 Soviet educational reforms, which led to the near elimination of all Ukrainian language schooling in the Donbas. By the time of the Soviet Census of 1989, 45% of the population of the Donbas reported their ethnicity as Russian. In 1990, the Interfront of the Donbass was founded as a movement against Ukrainian independence.

In the 1991 referendum on Ukrainian independence, 83.9% of voters in Donetsk Oblast and 83.6% in Luhansk Oblast supported independence from the Soviet Union. Turnout was 76.7% in Donetsk Oblast and 80.7% in Luhansk Oblast. In October 1991, a congress of South Eastern deputies from all levels of government took place in Donetsk, where delegates demanded federalisation. These questions included whether Russian should be declared an official language of Ukraine, whether Russian should be the language of administration in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, whether Ukraine should federalise, and whether Ukraine should have closer ties with the Commonwealth of Independent States. Close to 90% of voters voted in favour of these propositions. None of them were adopted since the vote was nationwide. Ukraine remained a unitary state, Ukrainian was retained as the sole official language, and the Donbas gained no autonomy. A total of 3,576 delegates from 16 oblasts of Ukraine, Crimea and Sevastopol took part in the congress, claiming to represent over 35 million citizens. Moscow Mayor Yurii Luzhkov and an advisor from the Russian Embassy were present in the presidium. There were calls for the appointment of Viktor Yanukovych as president of Ukraine or prime minister, for declaring of martial law in Ukraine, dissolution of the Verkhovna Rada, creation of self defence forces, and for the creation of a federative South Eastern state with its capital in Kharkiv. In other parts of Ukraine during the 2000s, the Donbas was often perceived as having a "thug culture", as being a "Soviet cesspool", and as "backward". Writing in the Narodne slovo newspaper in 2005, commentator Viktor Tkachenko said that the Donbas was home to "fifth columns", and that speaking Ukrainian in the region was "not safe for one's health and life". It was also portrayed as being home to pro Russian separatism. The Donbas is home to a significantly higher number of cities and villages that were named after Communist figures compared to the rest of Ukraine. Despite this portrayal, surveys taken across that decade and during the 1990s showed strong support for remaining within Ukraine and insignificant support for separatism.

From the beginning of March 2014, demonstrations by pro Russian and anti government groups took place in the Donbas, as part of the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity and the Euromaidan movement. These demonstrations, which followed the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and which were part of a wider group of concurrent pro Russian protests across southern and eastern Ukraine, escalated in April 2014 into a war between the Russian backed separatist forces of the self declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR respectively), and the Ukrainian government. Amid that conflict, the self proclaimed republics held referendums on the status of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts on 11 May 2014. In the referendums, viewed as illegal by Ukraine and undemocratic by the international community, about 90% voted for the independence of the DPR and LPR. According to a 2016 survey of religion in Ukraine held by the Razumkov Center, 65.0% of the population in the Donbas believe in Christianity (including 50.6% Orthodox, 11.9% who declared themselves to be "simply Christians", and 2.5% who belonged to Protestant churches). Islam is the religion of 6% of the population of the Donbas and Hinduism of the 0.6%, both the religions with a share of the population that is higher compared to other regions of Ukraine. People who declared to be not believers or believers in some other religions, not identifying in one of those listed, were 28.3% of the population. In 2013 (before war) GDP of Donbas was ₴220 billion (€20 billion). The Donbas economy is dominated by heavy industry, such as coal mining and metallurgy. The region takes its name from an abbreviation of the term "Donets Coal Basin" (Донецький вугільний басейн, Донецкий угольный бассейн), and while annual extraction of coal has decreased since the 1970s, the Donbas remains a significant producer. The Donbas represents one of the largest coal reserves in Ukraine, with estimated reserves of 60 billion tonnes of coal. Coal mining in the Donbas is conducted at very deep depths. Lignite mining takes place at around below the surface, whilst mining for the more valuable anthracite and bituminous coal takes place at depths of around
Other industries in the Donetsk region include blast furnace and steel making equipment, railway freight cars, metal cutting machine tools, tunneling machines, agricultural harvesters and ploughing systems, railway tracks, mining cars, electric locomotives, military vehicles, tractors and excavators. The region also produces consumer goods like household washing machines, refrigerators, freezers, TV sets, leather footwear, and toilet soap. Over half its production is exported, and about 22% is exported to Russia. In mid March 2017, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko signed a decree on a temporary ban on the movement of goods to and from territory controlled by the self proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic, so since then Ukraine does not buy coal from the Donets Coal Basin. Shale gas reserves, part of the larger Dnieper–Donets basin, are present in the Donbas, most notably the Yuzivska gas field. In an effort to reduce Ukrainian dependence on Russian gas imports, the Ukrainian government reached an agreement with Royal Dutch Shell in 2012 to develop the Yuzivska field.

The coal mines of the Donbas are some of the most hazardous in the world because of the deep depths of mines, as well as frequent methane explosions, coal dust explosions, rock burst dangers, and outdated infrastructure. Even more hazardous illegal coal mines became very common across the region in the late 2000s.

Sviatohirsk (Holy Mountain City) is the main religious sanctuary of the region. Near the city is located the Sviatohirsk Lavra. The monastery was restored following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the independence of Ukraine. In 2004 the monastery was granted the status of lavra. In 1997 area around the monastery was turned into the Holy Mountains National Nature Park.