<
https://theconversation.com/how-russian-is-ukraine-clue-not-as-much-as-vladimir-putin-insists-173758>
"A political pamphlet published in 1762 described a conversation between “Great
Russia” and “Little Russia”. In the exchange, the latter refused to be simply
reduced to part of Great Russia and put forward its own unique history and
identity. At the time, the name “Ukraine” did not yet designate a state. But
the noun
ukraina – a word that meant “borderland” in several Slavic languages
– was already used to describe its future territory: the vast steppe region
surrounding the Dnipro (
Dnieper) River and bordering the Black Sea.
The term Little Russia was gradually abandoned in the age of nationalism, as
19th-century Ukrainian-speaking academics and thinkers decided to subvert the
old derogatory term to devise the modern idea of Ukraine as a nation. But two
centuries later under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, Russia is exploiting
these historical discourses to justify its own encroachments into independent
Ukraine. He made his sentiments clear in an article from July 2021 published on
his presidential web page when he wrote of Russians and Ukrainians as “one
people – a single whole”.
The capital of Ukraine, Kyiv (or Kiev), has been repeatedly described as the
“mother of Russian cities”. Kyiv was at the centre of the Kyivan Rus’
(882-1240), an Orthodox medieval state to which Russian leaders – from the
tsars to Putin – trace the origins of their country (an ancestry also asserted
by Belarus and Ukraine). The claim is often used to support Russia’s claims
over Ukrainian territories.
But this is a misconception. While the predecessor of the Russian empire,
Muscovy, rose in the aftermath of the Mongol invasion (1237-40) that marked the
end of the Rus’, the rulers of Moscow only took control of Kyiv 500 years
later. Claiming Kyivan origins was rather a convenient method to negate the
Mongol and Tatar element shaping Muscovy’s early development and instead give
Russia an Orthodox past, with tsars apparently appointed by God.
Russia’s territorial sway over the remains of the Rus’ was limited by the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795), a bi-federation of the two
powerhouses of central Europe. Most of the region known as Ukraine remained
outside Russian authority until the final partition of Poland in 1795."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
