This week in history

May 27: 1657. The Holy Roman Empire contracted an alliance with Rzeczpospolita, promising to render military assistance to Poland and mediate in its negotiations with Bohdan Khmelnytsky.

1821. The Mykolayiv Astronomy Observatory was founded.

May 28: 1920. The First issue of the Visti VUTsVK (News of the All- Ukrainian Executive Committee, now Holos Ukrayiny) was published.

1997. The heads of the governments of Ukraine and the Russian Federation signed a number of documents on the division and deployment of the Black Sea Navy.

May 29: 1917. Russian Minister of War Aleksandr Kerensky forbade holding the Second All-Ukrainian Military Congress.

1964. The biggest botanical garden in USSR was opened in Kyiv.

May 30: 1876. Russian Tsar Alexander II signed the Ems Ukase prohibiting publishing and importing literature and holding theatrical presentations in the Ukrainian language.

1923. The Ukrainian History and Philology Society was founded in Prague.

May 31: 1989. The founding congress of the International Association of Ukrainian Studies took place in Naples.

1995. President Leonid Kuchma issued a decree on conducting April 28 a poll among Ukraine’s citizens on the issues of their trust to the President of Ukraine and Verkhovna Rada; on June 1 the decree was rejected by Verkhovna Rada.

June 1: 1996. At the Vienna conference of foreign ministers of the Central European Initiative (CEI) member states a decision was passed On Accepting Ukraine as CEI Full Member.

1996. Ukraine transferred its last nuclear missiles to the Russian Federation, thereby becoming a nuclear free state.

June 2: 1652. Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s Cossack and Tatar Army defeated Polish one at Batih.

1980. The Kyiv Spring All-Union Arts Festival ended in Kyiv.