Among the ex-Soviet nations, Ukraine has been one of the least successful in finding its way to a stable political order and a liberal market economy. Putting the country, its political conditions, and its culture into historical context, we tell of liberal ideas and scholarship as they existed in the pre-Soviet period (treating Mykhaylo Drahomanov, Ivan Franko, Bohdan Kistyakivsky, and Mykhaylo Tugan-Baranovsky), during Soviet period, during the 1990s transition (treating Oleksandr Paskhaver, Viktor Pynzenyk, and Volodymyr Lanovyi), and as they exist nowadays in higher education, among public intellectuals, and in think tanks and other organizations within Ukraine.