Post by ukraine on Jan 9, 2011 15:57:04 GMT -5
(((My Reflection)))
Nation: Ukraine
Name: Sofiya Chernenko
In June 2010, Himarayu posted possible names for several unnamed characters on his blog. For Ukraine, he mentioned the first names Irunya, Sofiya, and Maria, and the surname Chernenko.
Gender: Female
Appearance Age:
10-15 years old as part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
15-17 years old as part of Imperial Russia
18-20 years old as the Ukrainian SSR pre-WWII
21-22 years old during Nazi occupation
23-26 years old as the Ukrainian SSR post WWII
27 years old upon gaining independence
28 years old in modern times
Hair Color: platinum blonde
Eye Color: blue
Height: 5 ft 4 in
Weight: 120 lbs
Appearance:
Sofiya has a tall, curvy body with large breasts and wide hips. She can usually be described as plump, but during the most difficult times in her history, she has become thin and emaciated. With her round face and big blue eyes, Sofiya has a bit of a childish look. Her expressive facial features seem to be in a perpetually sad or discouraged state, although she can and does smile sometimes. She is pale-skinned. Her platinum blonde hair is cut short and held in place with a headband, although she used to wear it in a long, braided style on the back of her head. She is often seen wearing a white shirt and overalls, and sometimes carrying a pitchfork.
(((Know Thyself )))
Personality:
Sofiya is an overly emotional young woman. She has a lot of negative emotions, and she lets them out on a regular basis. She is often very sad and frequently bursts into tears. She seldom expresses her frustrations through anger, preferring instead to cry and wallow in self-pity, although there have been times when she has been driven to physical violence.
Perhaps her weepy attitude stems from the fact that she is, by nature, a warm and kind-hearted person. She has a generally idealistic attitude and likes to believe the best of people. When those ideas turn out to be mistaken and she ends up suffering, she feels miserable and cannot control her emotions. In her early days, she was much more optimistic and cheerful, and that attitude sometimes shows through, but she can often seem miserable and depressed. This is especially true when her people are going through unusually difficult times.
Sofiya often feels left out and unwanted. Even though Russia is her brother, she does not like him and would rather be independent. Whenever she tries to leave, it backfires on her – for example, when she was taken over by Nazi Germany, Ukraine initially felt optimistic about her new situation, but she soon realized that the Nazi regime was going to be even worse than being under Soviet control. When she finally became independent, she felt that she didn’t fit in with the Western nations and wondered what was wrong with her. Ukraine wants badly to be accepted by other nations and lives in fear of their rejection.
Ukraine is very proud of her country’s language and culture. She is constantly trying to preserve them, despite her frequent occupation by stronger nations who often try to force her to adopt their own cultures and give up her own traditions. She especially hates having to speak Russian and generally "become one with Russia", and she is willing to take great risks to preserve the Ukrainian language and culture.
Likes:
★ The Ukrainian language
★ Peace
★ Independence
★ Sunflowers
★ Cooking
Dislikes:
✖ Being dominated by other nations
✖ Nuclear power plants
✖ Feeling trapped
✖ The Russian language
✖ The Soviet Union
Fears:
☣ That she will lose all sense of self, end up with no language or culture of her own, and eventually die. In other words, she fears becoming one with Russia.
☣ That her people’s suffering will never end/get worse.
☣ Russia and Belarus. Belarus because her irrational devotion to Russia is very creepy, and Russia because of his insanity.
☣ Being rejected or excluded by Western nations.
Secrets:
♦ She still speaks her own language to herself, even when it’s forbidden.
♦ She pities her siblings. She can’t understand what makes them so unstable and she wishes she could help, for both their sake and hers. But she knows she can’t, so she doesn’t waste her time trying.
Strengths:
She is the most stable, sane member of her family. She is determined to hold onto her sense of self. She can endure many hardships. She is devoted to the well-being of her people and never gives up trying to help them, even when it seems impossible.
Weaknesses:
Ukraine is overly emotional and often cries. She does not often stand up for herself and is easily pushed around by more powerful nations. She is often unable to do anything to help her people when they suffer. She is physically weak.
(((The Pages of History )))
History:
- In the 14th Century, Ukraine was fought over by the Mongols and the Polish.
- When the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was formed in 1567, Ukraine fell under Polish rule.
- In 1648, the Cossacks rebelled against the Commonwealth. One of these groups, the Zapporoshian Cossacks, would go on to become Ukraine.
- In 1656, Ukraine and Russia signed the Treaty of Pereyslav, in which Russia promised Ukraine protection and some autonomy as a Russian territory.
- When the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was partitioned, Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire, along with Belarus and Lithuania.
- Ukrainians tried to restore their own language and culture during this time, but Russia banned the study and use of the Ukrainian language to prevent Ukraine from attempting to become independent.
- In 1917 and 1918, several groups of Ukrainians attempted rebellion.
- Ukraine was fought over by Germany, Austria, Poland, and Russia, among others.
- In March 1921, the western part of Ukraine was incorporated into Poland and the eastern part became the Ukrainian SSR.
- In the 1920s, the Soviet policy of Korenization allowed the people of Ukraine to learn and speak the Ukrainian language to increase literacy.
- Despite the Soviet Union’s anti-religious policy, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was formed. This was tolerated temporarily by Russia to draw people away from the Russian Orthodox Church.
- Industrialization was difficult for Ukraine, which had always been a predominantly agricultural nation. To solve this problem, the peasants’ lands were combined into collective farms. This was enforced starting in 1929.
- Many peasants resisted, and Russia responded by executing tens of thousands of the resistors and deporting about 100,000 families to Siberia and Kazakhstan.
- The Soviet government required that no farm workers would receive any grain until government quotas were met. Because they set the quotas unreasonably high, millions died of starvation. The Soviets hid this information from other nations.
- In the 1930’s, the Soviet Union conducted purges in Ukraine to eliminate people who they did not approve of. This included intellectuals, the elite, newer and more liberal politicians, and clergy.
- Following World War I, Poland and Ukraine fought a war over Galicia and Volhyina. The two territories were eventually annexed by the Soviet Union.
- In 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union and occupied Ukraine. The Ukrainians thought of the Germans as liberators from the Soviet Union, and Germany encouraged this. However, after a short period of time, they showed their true colors and the Ukrainians started resisting.
- The Ukrainian Insurgent Army formed. This was an underground army that fought both the Nazis and the Soviets. Other Ukrainians supported the Soviet army over the Nazis as the lesser of two evils.
- After World War II, Ukraine was re-incorporated into the Soviet Union. Some changes were made to its constitution to allow Ukraine, along with Belarus, to be a United Nations member.
- For some time, Ukraine was one of the more prosperous nations of the Soviet Union.
- On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded in Ukraine.
- On January 31, 1990, 300,000 Ukrainians joined hands in a human chain to represent unity and express their desire for freedom.
- Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union on August 24, 1991.
- Ukraine removed the last of its nuclear weapons on June 1, 1996. They were sent to Russia to be dismantled.
- The Constitution was officially adopted on June 28, 1996
- In the 2004 presidential elections, the supporters of the losing candidate protested that the election had been rigged and that voters had been intimidated into voting the way that they did. A second election was held and the other candidate won.
- In 2005, there was a dispute between Ukraine and Russia over natural gas.
Allies:
- Her relationship with Russia is difficult. They are usually allies, but that doesn’t mean that they get along, and during the Soviet era she is constantly trying to leave him.
Belarus is her sister and a fellow Soviet nation. - Poland could be considered an ally at times
- The Baltics
- In modern times, she has diplomatic relations with many countries and is a member of the United Nations.
Enemies:
- Germany, during World War II
- Poland, occasionally
- Russia, during the early days of the Soviet Union. Purges, 100,000 families deported to Siberia, mass starvation due to high grain quotas ...
Sample Post:
A Ukrainian farm in the 1930’s was not a pleasant sight. She had known that. For years now, she had felt her people’s agony. She had begged Russia to put an end to his barbaric policies, but it had been useless. For whatever reason, he had decided to pass those awful laws that made her people literally starve to death while trying to fulfill insanely high government grain quotas. The collective farms had been nothing compared to this. That at least had a reasonable goal, even if she didn’t like it. But this? This was murder. If they stood up for themselves, they were executed or sent to Siberia. If they stayed, they were worked to death and starved to death. It was murder, either way.
She had known that she would not like what she saw, but she had to come. If she couldn’t help her people, maybe she could at least comfort them. She couldn’t bear to hear her hungry children crying for help without at least doing something. But now that she saw how awful conditions really were, she was the one who needed the comfort. Sofiya sank to her knees in the field, sobbing. She didn’t even raise a hand to wipe away the tears that streamed down her cheeks; she just let them flow.
How could her own brother do this to her? She had always known that Ivan was a little ... well, a little unstable, a little sadistic, but he had never been this cruel, at least not to her. Not so long ago, she had actually been optimistic about the future. She had felt relieved to see an end to the Great War, and she had hoped that life under the Soviet Union wouldn’t be so bad. Well, look at her now, thin and starving just like her people, unable to do anything to bring an end to their suffering or her own. What was wrong with Russia? Was he really naïve enough to think that what he was doing was reasonable or fair? She had a hard time believing that. Was he just so hard-hearted that he didn’t care? Did he enjoy seeing her suffer? She knew this was most likely the case, but she still didn’t want to believe it.
Where had everything gone wrong? Or had it been all wrong from the start and just taken so long for her to realize? She had nowhere to turn to for help anymore. Her own brother was the cause of her misery, and her sister was so blindly devoted to Russia that she would never understand or even care. Maybe someday a new power would emerge who would stand a chance against Russia. When that day came, she would be ready, but for now, there was nothing to do but endure.
Did you read the rules and Dark Reflections Canon? Italian Pasta
Random fun fact about yourself: I also play Seychelles on this site.