Throughout its existence, Ukrainian has been a language of more than one state. At the time of the formation of its modern standard (nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries), the Ukrainian ethnic territory was divided between the Austrian and Russian empires, leading to the rise of two distinct varieties: eastern and western. Apart from different dialect bases, these two standards contrasted with respect to the type of interdialectal language variety immediately preceding them: folklore and urban koine, respectively. Despite the coexistence of two standards, Ukranian was not a bi- or pluri-centric language strictu sensu, as its development was characterized by a good deal of acentricity. Cross-border cooperation and periodical border shifts contributed to partial levelling of differences, especially during the interwar years, when contacts between the two traditional varieties were intensified in all of the countries (partly) inhabited by Ukrainians: the Soviet Union, Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia. The corpus-planning centres for Ukrainian in each country were of different types (powerful, weak, dictatorial). After the reunification of the bulk of Ukrainian lands within the Soviet Union (1945) and following the proclamation of the country’s independence (1991), homogeneity of the standard was achieved, although ancient state boundaries continue to be felt.