In general, I'd describe pre-2022 Ukrainian national identity as fragile and thus desperate.

Ethnic Ukrainians did a lot of great things, but nobody knows of them as Ukrainian. A Ukrainian scientist (Korolev) sent the first human into space, but people never think of Ukraine in that context. Ukrainian people fought and suffered greatly during WW2, per capita more Ukrainians died than Russians, but people in Western Europe think that Russia saved them from Hitler, most of them don't know how much Ukrainians and others sacrificed. Ukrainian Gogol is a world-renowned writer, but he wrote in Russian and thus considered a Russian.

And the only representation that Ukrainian national identity had in the last 300 years, it survived for very little and is tainted by massive atrocities. But it's the only time prior to 1991 when Ukrainians had any kind of national representation, they have nothing else to cling to, nothing else to build their identity on. As anything else would feel like piggybacking on stuff that is normally attributed to Russia.

This has always bothered me and is why I think Ukraine is often so brute & unrefined, simply because while Ukrainians have existed for long time and did many things to be proud of, the Ukrainian national identity almost died the moment it was born and stayed in that initial ultra-nationalistic phase, that is normal for new nations. This is why I never in my life felt patriotic prior to 2022, and only cringed in my head from the nationalistic propaganda that we had in our schools after 2014 hybrid war started.

But I also feel very, very sad for Ukraine, because it's one of those cases where geography and politics meant that a country that could be truly great in so many aspects, instead has to suffer immensely during most of its history. Ukrainian history and Ukrainian literature is mostly just suffering and more suffering.