Help for my school subject - Opinions needed

[Sascha1]

So, at my school, I need to do this annoying subject called Research Project.

Anyway, we basically need to pose a question that we can research and answer, and produce something from it.

My question is "How have significant events in Ukraine's history developed Ukraine into the country it is today?" and my final product will be a historical essay linking history to modern Ukraine: the Ukrianian culture, politics and people.
One of the criteria of the subject is to work with/use the help of other people. Most people will just be making a poll or whatever, but I thought I'd post here to ask Ukrainians themselves about how they believe history has developed our unique culture, and developed Ukraine into the country it is today.

My main areas of research are:
-Kievan Rus Era
-Mongol/post Kievan period
-Poland-Lithuania/Russian control over the region
-Birth of the Cossacks
-19th century Ukrainian rising national identity/Ukrainian intelligentsia
-World War 1
-Integration with Soviet Union
-The Holodomor
-World War 2
-Ukraine under USSR Post-WW2 and eventual independence.

I am researching these periods in order of when they occured, taking a week for each. So far I've collected notes on the first 3, so I would very much appeciate if, for now, a few of you could give me some opinions on how the Kievan Rus, Mongol, or Poland-Lithuanian periods of our history have influenced the current culture/politics of Ukraine.

I know this sounds like a big ask, but I'm not neccessarily looking for indepth historical facts (I will be researching these), just short opinions from Ukrainian people
I will also be interviewing my grandmother, but hopefully this will bring a further personal, down-to-earth level to my project, not just neutral historical facts written by Westerners.

-Thankyou for your time

[Storyteller]

I am very interested in what you are researching. I can not help you since I have no real background in this, but I might suggest you break up your list of topics and post each of them separately with a number of enticing questions especially to attract those knowledgable people to feel motivated to answer them. It seems there are many in this forum that would be happy to help you, but it might be a little overwhelming for someone to tackle all that you have posted to inquire about.