Ukraine celebrating Unity Day

Today, Jan. 22, Ukraine marks the Day of Unity. A hundred years ago the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic (WUPR) signed the Unification Act.

The holiday was officially established in 1999 due to a great political and historical significance of the UPR and WUPR unification for the formation of a single Ukrainian state. In 2011, the Day of Unity was merged with the Freedom Day, celebrated earlier on November 22, into the Day of Unity and Freedom of Ukraine. However, in 2014, President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree restoring the holiday as Ukraine’s Day of Unity, Censor.NET reports citing Ukrinform.

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This year, on the 100th aniversary of the Unification Act signing, the holiday is celebrated under the slogan "Together of own free will since 1919."

Jan. 22, 1918, the Universal of the Central Ukrainian Council proclaimed the independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic. A year later, Jan. 22, 1919, the Act of Unification of Ukraine was declared on Sofiiska Square in Kyiv. The two former UPR and WUPR, formed after the collapse of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, united in a single Ukrainian state.

However, the unification of Ukraine was purely symbolic. A few weeks after the Unification Act proclamation the Bolsheviks seized Kyiv, Poland occupied Eastern Galicia, and Czechoslovakia took over Transcarpathia.

The main tradition of the holiday is "human chains" formed across the country. Ukrainians formed the first "chain" on Jan. 21, 1990 when 450,000 people symbolically "united" the cities of Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Kyiv.

The Day of Unity is now celebrated as a state holiday every year.