The presented monograph concerns the problem of creation, development and distribution of the Ukrainian language. Is this language, today declared native to the indigenous population of Ukraine, really such? How did language relations develop in the space occupied by modern Ukraine? What is the place of the Russian literary language here? The chronological framework of the study covers the period from the emergence of the Little Russian dialect to the present day. Particular attention is paid to the attitude of the authorities and society to the language issue in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, as well as the policy of Ukrainization carried out in this territory after the establishment of Soviet power.