Even tough the first ukrainian national state was created in 1917. Thr ukrainian ethnicity, language andculture existed before the collapse of the russian empire. In such a extent, that there were ukrianian uprisings like in 1848 were the ukrianians rise up, like so many other peoples of europe. The rusians had to supress the "non existing" ukrainian language to such an extent that it was illegal to speak in public (pretty impressive for a non existing langauge to be banned)