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Why Ukrainians Resent the Russians
by Oleh
Chornohuz, author, member of Ukrainian
parliament
Here is the opinion of one Ukrainian patriot, Oleh Chornohuz, with which no other patriot could possibly disagree:
For
me,
the Russian
language is the unstoppable flow of Ukrainian blood
spilled by our “elder
Russian brother” who, according
to his birth records, is by far the younger brother. With
this blood we, Ukrainians, have written our history. And
when we read our bloody history, we have totake sedatives and ponder
the question: why was (is) thisrelationship called the “friendship
of fraternalnations?”
For me,
the Russian
language is robbery committed in broaddaylight before
the eyes of the entire civilized world: thec o-opting of the name of a neighbouring country
(Kyivan Rus’-Ukraine)
and its inclusion in all the maps of theworld by supplanting
the term “the state of Muscovy” with
thewords “Russian Empire” (1713).
For me,
the Russian language is the condemnation and anathema proclaimed
by the Synod of the Russian OrthodoxChurch against the “new Kyivan
books” of
the Ukrainiantheologians Petro Mohyla, Kyrylo Stavrovetsky-Tranquillon,and
Simeon Polotsky (1690).
For me,
the Russian
language is the deliberate burning of all the original
Ukrainian historical annals, the literaryheritage of Kyivan
Rus’, the treaties of hetmans
BohdanKhmelnytsky and Ivan Vyhovsky—our historical memory.
For me,
the Russian
language is the ukase issued by Tsar Peter I, prohibiting
the printing of books in the Ukrainian language and the excision
of passages from liturgical books.
For me,
the Russian
language is the crucifixion of Ukraine. It is the millions
of bones of Ukrainian Cossack prisoners of war, which are
literally immured in the foundations ofSt. Petersburg, the
capital of Muscovy (1703); the all-out massacre of the
Ukrainian population (over 17,000 men, women and children) of
Baturyn, the capital of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate,
the day before the Battle of Poltava (1709); the devastation
of Zaporozhian Sich Cossackoutposts; and the use of Ukrainian forced
laborers on the White
Sea Canal and other artificial channels.
For me,
the
Russian language is the command issued by Tsar Peter III to rewrite,
from Ukrainian into Russian, all government decrees and regulations.
For me,
the
Russian language is the decree issued by Tsarina Catherine II, forbidding
instruction in theUkrainian language at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
(1753).
For me,
the
Russian language is the closure of Ukrainian schools attached to regimental
Cossack offices and the uninterrupted spilling of Ukrainian blood by
the bayonets of their Muscovite “brothers” (1775).
For
me,
the
Russian language is “the conquest of Siberia and the subjugation
of the Crimea” (a
line from Russian playwright Alexander Griboedov’s play
Woe from Wit) as promoted by Russia’s poets and painters.
For me,
the Russian language is the sentiment expressed by Russia’s pre-eminent
poet Alexander Pushkin: “Humble thyself,
O Caucasus, for Yermolov is coming.”
For me,
the Russian language is the deportation of the larger
and smaller nations of the Muscovite Empire to “unexplored Siberia.”
For me,
the
Russian language is the intensification of the brutal persecution
of the Ukrainian language and culture in the19th century, as
exemplified by the prohibition of the finest works of Ukrainian
writers.
For me,
the
Russian language is the closure of Ukrainian Sunday schools for adults in the Russian Empire (1862).
For me,
the
Russian language is the circular issued by Peter Valuev, tsarist
Russia’s Chief
of Gendarmes, who banned the printing of spiritual and popular-educational
books in the Ukrainian language because “there never
was, is not, and never will be a separate Ukrainian language” (1863-1876).
For me,
the Russian
language is the declaration of Dmitry Tolstoy, tsarist Russia’s
education minister: “The
end goal
of the education of all foreigners should be their complete
Russification” (1870).
For
me,
the Russian
language is the Ems Ukase of Tsar Alexander II, which banned
Ukrainian performances,
the singing of Ukrainian songs, and even the printing of music notes
accompanied by Ukrainian-language texts (1876).
For me,
the
Russian language is the prohibition against the translation of Russian literature
into Ukrainian and the ban on publishing Ukrainian children’s
books (1892).
For
me,
the
Russian language is the closure by tsarist Russia’s Prime Minister Petr
Stolypin of all Ukrainian cultural centers, associations, and printing
houses; the prohibition against giving lectures in Ukrainian and organizing
any kind
of non-Russian clubs.
For me,
the
Russian language is the resolution passed by the 7th Noble Assembly in Moscow
concerning the exclusivity of Russian-language education and the inadmissibility
of using other languages of instruction in schools throughout the
Russian Empire (1911).
For
me,
the
Russian language is the interdiction against commemorating the 100th
anniversary of Ukraine’s
national poet Taras Shevchenko and the liquidation
of the Ukrainian press (1914).
For me,
the Russian
language is the Russification campaign in western Ukraine, the
prohibition on Ukrainian letters, education, and the church (1914-1916).
For me,
the
Russian language is the occupation of Ukraine by the Russian Bolsheviks
and their red terror, organized by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.
For me,
the
Russian language is the summary executions of Ukrainian civilians in
Kyiv by the cutthroats led by Soviet commander Mikhail Muravev simply
because they spoke Ukrainian and some were wearing Ukrainian
embroidered shirts (1918).
For me,
the Russian
language is the phenomenon of cannibalism during
the first and second of the three famines that took place
in Ukraine in the twentieth century (1921, 1932-33).
For me,
the
Russian language is the genocide, known as the Holodomor,
which killed at least 10 million Ukrainian peasants, the finest farmers
in the world, as Stalin informed Churchill during a conversation
by indicating all the fingers
of his two hands (1933).
For me,
the
Russian language is a crime without punishment. It is the Stalin-ordered deaths
of tens of thousands of my innocent countrymen in the first days
of the Second World War in the park named after the Soviet Russian writer
Maxim Gorky in my native city of Vinnytsia.
For me,
the
Russian language is the poorly clothed, fed, and armed Ukrainian troops who
were used as cannon fodder during World War Two to fend off the Nazi occupiers,
who were armed to the teeth; ditto for the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
For me,
the
Russian language is the millions of Ukrainian refugees who fled to the West
before the second Soviet invasion of western Ukraine (1943).
For me,
the
Russian language is the wholesale deportation of the Chechens and
Ingushetians from their native lands during
the Second World War.
For me,
the Russian language is the complete assimilation of
the peoples of the Muscovite Empire, be it tsarist, communist, or
post-Soviet.
For me,
the
Russian language is the pledge “to kill, slaughter, hang,
drown, and exile those ‘khokhols,’”the derogatory
term with which our “fraternal” neighbors,
the Russians, refer to Ukrainians.
For
me,
the
Russian language is the political assassinations of the finest
sons of my nation not only in Ukraine but outside its borders.
For me,
the
Russian language is Siberia, Kolyma, the Solovetsky Islands, and the hundreds of other
death camps in the Soviet GULAG, where the most brilliant Ukrainian intellectuals of the twentieth century — poets, including blind
ones, writers, scholars, academicians, scientists, and clergymen,
bishops, and archbishops) met their untimely end.
For me,
the
Russian language is 21 January 1978, the day that Oleksa Hirnyk from
the city of Kalush went to the gravesite of Ukraine’s national
poet Taras Shevchenko in Kaniv, where he scattered a thousand handwritten leaflets protesting the Russification
of the Ukrainian people. Then he doused himself with gas and
raised a lighter to his chest. Hirnyk’s death marked the year of the building of the “single
Soviet people.”
For me,
the
Russian language is Vladimir Putin’s notorious pledge to eradicate
the Chechens’ age-old struggle for independence: “We’ll
get them anywhere—if
we find them sitting in the outhouse, we will rub them out there” (1999).
For me,
the Russian
language is the executions of Ukrainian patriots who
stood up for their right to speak and write in Ukrainian.
For me,
the
Russian language is the language of a fascist, a racist, a chauvinist—and
my bitterest enemy.
For me,
the Russian
language is the continuing threats made by the Putins,
Zhirinovskys, Zatulins, and Luzhkovs of Russia to launch pre-emptive
nuclear strikes at Ukraine.
For me,
the Russian language is the continuing cruelty and disrespect
shown to my nation by the installation or maintenance
of monuments honoring the tsarist and Soviet oppressors of Ukraine (2008).
For me,
the Russian language is the language of an oppressor, a
conqueror, and an occupier.
Today, the Russian language in independent Ukraine, if Ukraine is indeed independent, is the death of my Ukrainian language and Ukraine’s final enslavement.
October 2, 2019, Submitted by Peter Borisow apb.uke@earthlink.net
We should note that the crown of the Russian Empire, worn by the tzars, from its inception was built around a Mongol Vassal’s skullcap, which remains at its heart to this day. Muscovites served the Mongol Horde and when the Horde went home one day to settle internal disputes, the Muscovites continued administering the “empire” only now in their own behalf. Therein lies the irreconcilable difference between Ukrainians and Muscovites.
The essential difference between Ukrainians and Muscovites is that Ukrainians stayed true to their European identity while Muscovites absorbed the beliefs and values of their Mongol Masters. Hence, the Russian empire and today’s Russian Federation are not European in the same sense that Ukraine is European. The Muscovite Empire is “Eurasian” and with a land mass overwhelmingly in Asia, Russia is more Asian than European. The label “Eurasian” is a PR ploy to imply a heritage that is simply not there. The difference between Europe and Asian heritage is not that either is better than the other. It’s that they are different and like oil and water, don’t mix very well.
This is why Ukraine fits in easily with European and EuroAtlantic democracies while Russia is more comfortable with historically Asian style dictatorships. They have different traditions, different life beliefs and expectations formed over many centuries. Ukraine will never adapt to alien Eurasian ways and thus can never adapt to Russia’s “Eurasian” Empire. Nor can Russia ever adapt to EuroAtlantic ways, precluding the possibility of Russia ever becoming European. The only way to force Ukraine’s square peg into Russia’s round hole is to eliminate the Ukrainians with genocide and ethnic cleansing, a process Muscovites began four centuries ago and which continues to this day.
Russia is keenly aware of this and invests huge money and attention obfuscating its own history and hijacking Ukraine’s history. Ukrainians should make a mission to correct Muscovite’s hijacking of the very name and history of Kyivan Rus. It’s a tale about how a long lost distant nephew somehow became his own great-grandfather. Bizarre, but as Pomerantsev writes, in Russia “Everything is Possible.”
Russians simply can’t live with knowing that “Russia” was the name ancient Ukrainians used to describe the nomads in the distant northern tundra, a name taken from the Ukrainian word “ra-see-ya-ne” meaning “the scattered ones,” derived from the Ukrainian verb used for scattering grain when planting wheat. Russia remains to this day the last Central Asian vestige of the Mongol Empire, a heritage of which Muscovites can be proud if they wish, but which doesn't make them European.
Russian dance https://youtu.be/aXaQpvfWe9Y
Olga asks: Is this Russian interpretation of Ukrainians dances...especially the men appear to have copied Ukrainian cossack squats and kicks ?
Reply: On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 Peter Borisow apb.uke@earthlink.net wrote:
The Muscovites have copied or stolen everything else they have, why wouldn’t they steal Cossack dances? Remember, Cossack dance moves, were all based on training exercises for battle. Young cossacks would show off their moves to young ladies to impress them with their prowess and win a lady’s hand. The better the dancer, the more likely he was to succeed in battle. Jumping, leaping, fancy footwork were all part of avoiding swords and spears. There was a great deal of pride in the Cossack tradition. The scalp-lock was more than an impediment to getting his head chopped off in battle. The rest of the head was shaved to show there were no scars, that the cossack was so good in battle that the enemy never managed to land a blow and leave a scar. The same goes for why Cossacks frequently rode into shirtless. It was to show that they were not scarred, that they were great warriors. The loose pants not only confounded the enemy as to just what the Cossack’s legs were doing (in anticipation of his next move) but also served as a blanket he could pull up over his shoulders at night to keep warm. The Cossack was, in his day, the perfect, mobile fighting machine.
The last original thing to emerge from the frozen Russian tundra was Rasputin. You may recall how helpful he was.
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