Zelenskyi congratulates Ukrainians on Day of Unity: Let Dnieper waters be the only thing dividing us
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi congratulated Ukrainians on the Day of Unity and called on everyone to unite and respect each other.
He wrote about it on social media.
" 'The parts of a united Ukraine torn apart for centuries merge together… "
This quote from the universal about the unification of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic proclaimed 102 years ago evokes a wide range of emotions.
This is joy. The joy of a great uniting is not of just lands or territories but the unification of Ukrainians.
This is pride. Pride for our ancestors who carried out the Act of Reunification, and with it, the eternal dream of all fighters for a united Ukraine.
This is a shame. Because state leaders didn't have enough wisdom and understanding then to preserve an independent Ukraine.
This is pain. After all, a hundred years later, Crimea and part of Donbas were separated from a united Ukraine.
And this is confidence. That in the future, we will overcome everything, and together we will become the creators of a new act of union.
To do this, we must forever learn the lessons of centuries ago and never forget: you need to be united to become strong. You need to be strong to be united. Enough separations. It's important to remember that unity isn't just about territory. One of the oldest dreams of our people–unity–is a fundamental dream. But we cannot achieve once and for all. This is a permanent job. This is a daily movement. This is not something in the past, not an ideology from above, and not an achievement that can be simply made.
It's a task to teach oneself to distinguish between one's own emotions and those artificially wound up by politicians. Respect the differences and interests of others in society, those who don't look like you but comprise our people together with you. And give up personal ambitions when necessary for a common result.
This year, we celebrate the Day of Unity with a feeling of deep sorrow and mourning for our fellow citizens who died in the fire in Kharkiv.
Unfortunately, we are united not only by happy pages but also by tragic ones. Every day, and especially today, we must unite, support each other, stand brother for brother, shoulder to shoulder.
Let's protect our Ukraine and be united. Both in joy and grief.
And let the waters of the beautiful Dnieper be the only thing that divides us.
Happy Unity Day, great people!" the President congratulated the Ukrainians.
For the first time in the XX century, Ukrainian independence was proclaimed on January 22, 1918, by the IV Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada. A year later, on January 22, 1919, the Act of Unification of Ukrainian lands into a united Ukraine was proclaimed on Sophiivska Square in Kyiv. The unification of the two then states of the UPR and WUPR, which emerged on the ruins of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, into a single conciliar Ukrainian state, was declared.
The text of the Act of Reunification read: "The Western Ukrainian People's Republic (Halychyna, Bukovyna, and Hungarian Ukraine) and the Dnieper Greater Ukraine, which have been torn apart for centuries, are merging for centuries. The eternal dreams of the best sons of Ukraine who lived and died for the dream came true. There is only one independent Ukrainian People's Republic."
However, then the unification of Ukraine took place purely symbolically: a few weeks after the proclamation of the Act of Unification, the Bolsheviks gained control of Kyiv, later the Poles occupied Eastern Galicia, and Czechoslovakia occupied Zakarpattia.
