Colorado males are hanging; at that time they were still embarrassed to kill females; it was believed that they could be cured of Muscovophilia by occupational therapy in soldiers’ brothels.
How were unreliable Russians distinguished from Ukrainians who willingly went to the front to kill the damned Muscovites? The problem was solved simply: lists of “Colorados” were compiled based on denunciations Ukrainians and Poles. Amazing collisions arose: members of the same family sometimes found themselves on opposite sides of the barbed wire because one brother was Ukrainian, and the other was Russian.
I repeat again and again: Ukrainian is not a nationality, it is the result of zombification. The example of Crimea, by the way, clearly demonstrates this. In 2001 According to the results of the all-Ukrainian census of 2001, 24.4% of the population of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea identified themselves as Ukrainians. Presumably, over the next 14 years their numbers should have increased.
And for six months now we have been “our Crimean”: you won’t find a Ukrainian during the day. They seem to have nothing to be ashamed of, since the Ukrainian language is an equal state language in Crimea. Where have the HALF A MILLION (!!!) Crimean Ukrainians gone? Yes, they haven’t gone anywhere, they just changed their minds about being Ukrainians, it has become unfashionable and unprofitable.
The reunification of Ukraine with Russia is a myth. Well, or, as they say now, a fake. Firstly, because no Ukraine existed then. The toponym “Ukraine” itself appeared later, and in the West. In Russia it became known only in the 19th century. Previously border territories were called Ukraine, be it in the Caucasus, in the Arctic or in Siberia. The Ukrainian cities mentioned in the chronicles are not Ukrainian at all, but border cities, bordering cities, standing on the edge.
Ukrainians were bred as a species to destroy Russians. The cultural matrix of the Ukrainian is based on this.
Ukrainianness is a brain virus, an infection, striking the consciousness of Russians. There was a Russian who caught the infection and became a zombie, ready to “burn out the Russians all the way to the Pacific Ocean.” The Liberastia virus works in exactly the same way. Any Russian person infected with liberalism turns into a zombie, fanatically destroying his own country. If you don’t know what the word “perestroika” means, at least check out Wikipedia.
Crimean Tatars(Kyrymly) after the Anschluss for some reason did not rush to enroll their children in classes with Russian language training. This is because the Crimean Tatars are a real ethnic group, and they see no point in renouncing their nationality. Russians are not upset about this at all.
Ukrainianness is schizophrenia of consciousness, when a person who is Russian by culture, due to a voluntary choice, and more often under the influence of targeted propaganda, becomes a Svidomite and begins hate everything Russian. Yes, modern Banderaites are Russians. Russians are killing Russians in Donbass. Russians burned Russians in Odessa. Russian zombies are jumping on the Maidan (and now everywhere) and shouting “Moskalyak to Gilyak!” Ukrainian is a zombie, a man completely screwed up.
It is impossible to rationally explain the behavior of a Ukrainian, who writes a denunciation against his brother, dooming him to death in Talergof only because he did not renounce his faith and nationality.
It is impossible to rationally explain why Ukrainians, who wanted to see their country a member of the EU, destroyed Lukoil gas stations owned by Austrians in Kyiv.
And it’s absolutely impossible to understand why Ukrainians are “liberating” Ukrainian land by turning it into ruins and destroying the population that they consider Ukrainian. The behavior of schizophrenics cannot be explained logically.
Anyone who claims that the Russian and Ukrainian people will live in friendship is an idiot. Look how friendly Ukrainians live with each other today and think about why you need such friends? Great happiness - Ukrainians themselves are destroying Ukraine. The collapse of the Ukrainian statehood - stake in the chest ukrozombie.
Oath of the Ukrainian - I, Dzygovbrodsky Dmitry Alexandrovich, I swear...
The question of the origin of the Ukrainian nation is one of the most controversial and controversial. Historians of “Independence” prove that the roots of the Ukrainian ethnic group are the most ancient in Europe, scientists from other countries are trying to refute them.
"Autochthonous" Ukrainians
Today, in the Ukrainian community, hypotheses are increasingly being expressed more and more boldly, according to which the history of the Ukrainian ethnic group should date back almost to primitive tribes. At least our southern neighbors are seriously considering the version according to which it was the Ukrainian ethnic group that became the basis for the emergence of the Great Russian and Belarusian peoples.
Kiev journalist Oles Buzina was ironic about this hypothesis: “That is, according to the logic of its followers, a certain Pithecanthropus, hatching from a monkey in Africa, came to the banks of the Dnieper, and then slowly degenerated into a Ukrainian, from whom Russians, Belarusians and other peoples descended to the Hindus."
Ukrainian historians, trying to make their roots ancient in defiance of Moscow, forget that for more than a thousand years, the lands from the Don to the Carpathians, subject to invasion by the Sarmatians, Huns, Goths, Pechenegs, Polovtsians, Tatars, repeatedly changed their ethnic appearance. Thus, the devastating Mongol conquest of the second quarter of the 13th century significantly reduced the number of inhabitants of the Dnieper region. “Most of the people of Russia were killed or taken captive,” wrote the Franciscan Giovanni del Plano Carpini, who visited these lands.
For a long time, the former territories of the Principality of Kyiv were plunged into social and political turmoil. Until 1300 they were part of the Nogai ulus, from the 14th century they fell under the rule of the Principality of Lithuania, and two centuries later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth came here. Until recently, the strong element of the ancient Russian ethnos turned out to be thoroughly eroded.
In the mid-17th century, Cossack uprisings broke out against Polish rule, which were the first attempts to restore national identity. Their result was the “Hetmanate,” which became an example of southern Russian autonomy under Cossack control.
First self-names
Until the mid-17th century, the term “Ukrainian” was not used as an ethnic designation. Even the most ideological historians of Independence recognize this. But in the documents of that time there are other words - Russians, Rusyns, Little Russians, and even Russians.
In the “Protestation” of 1622 by the Kyiv Metropolitan Job Boretsky there are the following lines: “to every pious people of the Russian people who are emerging... to all the pious Eastern Church, to the well-behaved, great to the Russian people of every spiritual and spiritual dignity, to the pious people.”
And here is a fragment of a 1651 letter from Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky to the Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV: “... and all Rus' that lives here, which is of the same faith with the Greeks and has its origins from them...”. By the way, in a thought recorded from the kobzar from the Chernihiv region, Andrei Shuta, it is said: “Why is Hetman Khmelnytsky, a Rusyn, in us.”
Nezhinsky archpriest Simeon Adamovich in a letter to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich is more specific: “... and because of those my labors, from your royal mercy, I did not want to leave Moscow at all, knowing the inconstancy of my brotherhood of the Little Russian inhabitants...”.
The phrase “Little Rus'”, as the name of the Dnieper lands, was first recorded in 1347 in the message of the Byzantine emperor John Cantacuzenus.
Outlying people
We first encountered the term “Ukraine” in 1213. This is the date of the chronicle message about the return of Russian cities bordering Poland by Prince Daniil of Galicia. There, in particular, it says: “Daniil rode with his brother and took Beresty, and Ugrovesk, and Stolpie, Komov and all of Ukraine.”
Such an early mention of a controversial term is often used as evidence of the antiquity of the Ukrainian nation. However, in the chronicle context, in fact, as in the context of that era, various border, outlying lands in the Muscovite kingdom (“Siberian Ukraine”) and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (“Polish Ukraine”) were called “Ukraines”.
Writer Vladimir Anishchenkov says: “The science of ethnology does not mark such a people as “Ukrainian” until the 19th century. Moreover, at first the Poles began to call local residents “Ukrainians,” then the Austrians and Germans. This name was introduced into the consciousness of Little Russians for several centuries. Since the 15th century."
However, in the minds of the Cossack elites, a single ethnic group living on the territory of Little Russia began to be isolated and opposed to its neighbors already in the second half of the 17th century. Zaporozhye ataman Ivan Bryukhovetsky wrote in an appeal to Hetman Petro Doroshenko: “Taking God to help, near our enemies before the Moscow ones, behold, there are Muscovites, who no longer have friendship with them ... so that we know about such a Moscow and Lyak unprofitable intention for us and Ukraine, prepared to expect destruction, but they were not willing to bring themselves and the entire Ukrainian people to the point of known decline.”
The term “Ukrainians” came to the residents of the Western regions of Ukraine, which were part of Austria-Hungary, the latest – at the beginning of the 20th century. The “Westerners” traditionally called themselves Rusyns (in the German version “Ruthens”).
“Mogholi! Mogoli!
It is curious that the pride of the Ukrainian nation, the poet Taras Shevchenko, did not use the ethnonym “Ukrainian” in any of his works. But in his message to his fellow countrymen there are the following lines: “The German will say: “You can.” “Mogholi! Mogoli! They teach the golden Tamerlane.”
In the brochure “Ukrainian Movement” published in Berlin in 1925, the Russian emigrant and publicist Andrei Storozhenko wrote: “Observations on the mixing of races show that in subsequent generations, when crossing occurs within the same people, individuals can nevertheless be born that reproduce in pure form an ancestor of someone else's blood. Getting to know the leaders of the Ukrainian movement, starting from 1875, not from books, but in living images, we came away with the impression that “Ukrainians” are precisely individuals who have deviated from the all-Russian type in the direction of reproducing the ancestors of foreign Turkic blood.”
But one of the most popular images of Ukrainian folklore – “Cossack knight Mamai” – is a clear confirmation of such an assumption. Where did the character in folk pictures get a purely Tatar nickname? Isn't he the personification of the beklyarbek Mamai, whose descendants took part in the formation of the Cossacks in Ukraine?
Translated from Turkic languages, “Cossack” means “robber”, “exile”. This is what they called the fugitives from Genghis Khan’s army who did not want to obey the despot and settled in the steppe regions of what is now Ukraine. The medieval Polish chronicler Jan Dlugosz wrote about the Crimean Tatars who attacked Volyn in 1469: “The Tatar army is made up of fugitives, miners and exiles, whom they call Cossacks in their language.”
The idea of the Tatar roots of the current Ukrainian nation is also suggested by the results of archaeological excavations at the site of the battle of Berestechko (1651): it turns out that the Zaporozhye Cossacks did not wear crosses. Archaeologist Igor Svechnikov argued that the idea of the Zaporozhye Sich as a stronghold of Christianity is greatly exaggerated. It is no coincidence that the first church in the Zaporozhye freemen appeared only in the 18th century, after the Cossacks accepted Russian citizenship.
What geneticists say
One cannot help but pay attention to the ethnic diversity of the population of modern Ukraine. Ethnographers claim that the Pechenegs, Cumans and Tatars played no less a role in shaping the appearance of the “broad” Ukrainian than the Rusyns, Poles or Jews.
Genetics generally confirms such assumptions. Similar studies were carried out by the Laboratory of Population Genetics of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, using genetic markers of the Y chromosome (transmitted through the male line) and mitochondrial DNA (pedigree of the female line).
The results of the study, on the one hand, revealed significant genetic similarities between Ukrainians and Belarusians, Poles and residents of Western Russia, but on the other hand, they showed a noticeable difference between the three intra-Ukrainian clusters - western, central and eastern.
In another study, this time by American scientists at Harvard University, the distribution of Ukrainians by haplogroup was analyzed more deeply. It turned out that 65-70% of Ukrainians belong to haplogroup R1a, which is characteristic of steppe peoples. For example, among the Kyrgyz it occurs in 70% of cases, among the Uzbeks - in 60%, among the Bashkirs and Kazan Tatars - in 50%. For comparison, in the Russian regions of the north-west - Novgorod, Pskov, Arkhangelsk, Vologda regions - group R1a belongs to 30-35% of the population.
Other haplogroups of Ukrainians were distributed as follows: three of them - R1b (Western European), I2 (Balkan), and N (Finno-Ugric) each have approximately 10% of representatives, another one - E (Africa, Western Asia) has approximately 5% .
As for the “autochthonous” inhabitants of the territory of Ukraine, genetics is powerless here. “The genotypes of modern Ukrainians cannot tell us anything about the ancient history of the population of Ukraine,” admits American geneticist Peter Forster.
This question (rather useless, in my opinion) has been haunting everyone who is concerned about modern Russian-Ukrainian relations for many years. Radical and completely incorrect points of view are often cultivated in the mass consciousness. Starting from " Ukrainians were invented by the Austro-Hungarian General Staff!" - to " Ukrainians are the oldest nation in Eastern Europe!" We will now try to consider this topic at a more rational level. Based on known scientific facts, using historical documents.
First, about mutual understanding. As Rene Descartes used to say: “ determine the meaning of words and you will rid the world of half of its delusions" Indeed, a huge percentage of completely meaningless disputes that flare up around Ukrainian issues are associated precisely with different understandings of certain terms. To avoid confusion, let's use universal scientific terminology.
Nation(not to be confused with “nationality”!) is a political concept, and not at all an ethnic one, as some people think. Nations are “imagined communities” (B. Anderson), formed along civic lines. They began to actively form in the second half of the 18th century, and appeared everywhere in Europe only in the 19th century.
Ethnos- a community of people united by a common history, culture, language, identity, etc. Large and heterogeneous ethnic groups (“Russians”) are sometimes divided into subethnic groups who have some differences in culture and/or territory of residence (“Pomors”). Unfortunately, there are still no absolute and generally accepted criteria that would allow one to clearly separate a subethnic group from a full-fledged ethnic group at any specific stage of development.
Oikonym/bury- name of a locality or settlement. Katoykonym/ethnohoronym- the name of the resident according to the name of the place of residence. “Sibiryak” is a katoikonym. If Siberia separates from the Russian Federation, then the “Siberian” will eventually become a nation. But only when it is possible to speak with confidence about the significant linguistic and cultural differences between the inhabitants of Siberia and the inhabitants of the European part of Russia, the “Siberian” can also become a separate ethnic group.
Ukraine- a modern East Slavic state. Once again, a MODERN state. If at the beginning of the 17th century you would have called the territory of the current Odessa or Lutsk region “Ukraine”, the local residents would have been quite amazed. “Ukraine” was then used to refer to various border regions in the Muscovite kingdom and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The origin and meaning of this horonym are obvious (“outskirts”), and are not questioned by any serious researcher.
Today we will talk to you about the population of this region:
At least in the 17th century, the population of this territory certainly felt their unity. But they did not have a universal word to designate this territory. Political borders spanned hundreds of kilometers. Real power over individual cities and towns turned out to be either the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Zaporozhye Cossacks, the Russian state, or the Crimean Tatars. There was no unified political or geographical Ukraine. But there was clearly a human community living in the designated territory.
That's what we'll talk about.
First, a small excursion into well-known history.
A thousand years ago on the vast territory from Kyiv to Novgorod there was a single ancient Russian ethnic group. It certainly included some sub-ethnic subgroups; it was continually split into opposing political entities. But its ethnic unity is an indisputable fact.
Then the invasion of nomads, the Tatar yoke, the weakening of most of the Old Russian principalities and the subsequent strengthening of Lithuania/Poland/Rzeczpospolita led to a radical decrease in connections between the Southwestern and Northern habitats of the Old Russian ethnic group. Kyiv and Lvov ended up in the same country. Novgorod and Moscow - in another. Naturally, this left its mark on further ethnic development.
Four hundred to five hundred years ago we can see a new map of Eastern Europe. The former northern fragment of the ancient Russian community is independently developing in its own state. The former southwestern fragment develops under the influence of Lithuania, and then the unified Polish-Lithuanian state. Moreover, if early Lithuania was a strongly “Russified” state (the percentage of the Russian population, including in the elites, was huge), then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a state where Russians quickly found themselves in a “second-class”, very difficult situation.
Everything began to change dramatically in the middle of the 17th century. Successful Cossack uprisings, years of instability, partial reunification of two broken fragments of the former ancient Russian ethnic group. And most importantly, for the first time since the abolition of the ancient principalities, there is a timid attempt to create a real South Russian autonomy under Cossack control - the “Hetmanate”, and to declare their rights and desires on behalf of the entire ex-“Southern Old Russian” community.
In short, this is a key moment in the history of the entire region. Therefore, we will focus on it. Moreover, until the 17th century, the word “Ukrainian” as an ethnic designation was definitely not found in documents (even the most nationalist-minded researchers admit this). Only Russians/Rusyns.
So, three key questions about the Hetmanate.
1.
What did the locals really call themselves?
2.
Did they differ from the northern heirs of the ancient Russian ethnic group?
3.
Did they use the term “Ukrainian” as a general ethnonym?
An important point is that we must not forget that all the “self-names” that have come down to us were studied only by the literate elite (and not at all by the peasant masses). The elite, for the most part, was fairly Polished (even many Orthodox bishops wrote more often in Polish and Latin than in Russian). And besides, elite documents are always a politically biased source. In a letter to one monarch I will write one thing, and in a letter to another monarch I will write something completely different. It all depends on the goals and the situation. Therefore, trusting one source is hardly reasonable. It is necessary to compare documents of different persons and different directions.
In order not to let my thoughts wander, I’ll start right away with specific examples:
- “Protestation” of Metropolitan Job of Boretsky, 1622. Appeal: " to everyone of emerging piety to the Russian people to man... to all the pious Eastern Church, the well-obedient great to the Russian people I will become a godly people of every spiritual and spiritual dignity" (quoted from: Golubev S.T. Kiev Metropolitan Peter Mogila and his associates. Kyiv, 1883. P. 263.)
Letter from Bohdan Khmelnytsky to Sultan Muhamed, 1651: “…tegoż i wsyzstka ruś co dzień życzy sobie, która jednej wiary z grekami będąc i od nich swój początek mając" (“...and all Rus, who lives here, who is of the same faith with the Greeks and has her origin from them ... "). (Collection “Documents of Bohdan Khmelnytsky”, p. 233.)
Station wagons by I. Vygovsky, 1660. Appeal: “To the Zaporozhian army and everything people and Russia». (RGADA. F.79. Op.1. 1660 No. 3. L.65-68.)
Letter to the Russian Tsar from Nezhin archpriest S. Adamovich, 1669: “...and for those of my labors, from your royal mercy, I did not want to leave Moscow at all, knowing the fickleness of my brethren Little Russian residents…» . (ASZR. T.8. P.9.)
I could give hundreds more similar quotes from documents, but I don’t see much point in this. Who wants to see more examples - go to the sources! If you are lazy about learning cursive and going through the archives, then I am glad to inform you that printed collections have already been scanned and posted on torrents a long time ago: “Acts of Southern and Western Russia”, “South Western Russia Archive”, and other similar ones. Study!
“Rus”, “Rusyn”, “Russian people”, “Russian people”, “Little Russian inhabitant”, “Orthodox people”, “people of the Christian faith” - 99% of the self-names that we find in documents look exactly like this (moreover, religious self-identification is much more common than ethnic self-identification). In the letters of the ruling Cossack elders, the characteristic “we, Cossacks” is also found, but this is no longer observed among other social strata (for example, the clergy). In any case, the Zaporozhye Cossacks are a separate topic, because there we are talking about an extremely motley group of daring warriors, drawn from different nations and perceiving their community in a rather unique way.
In general, that in Moscow there is a “Russian, Orthodox Tsar”, that here there are “Russian, Orthodox people.” Self-identification is practically the same, despite the previous centuries-long weakening of mutual ties. The same can be said about the language, which differed hardly much more than the language of a Pomor differs from the language of a Ryazan.
Here is an example of a Moscow text of that time (I won’t torment you with cursive writing, I’ll give a printed transcript from the book at hand):
And here is an example of the Kyiv text (in Moscow it was usually called the “Belarusian letter”):
As they say, comments are unnecessary.
What about the “Ukrainians”? Was there such an ethnonym in the 17th century? Yes, I was. Moreover, we can confidently assume that it was constructed precisely in the second half of this century, when the polarized Cossack elite had already fully enjoyed the de facto independence of their power, and some of its representatives began to think that the difficult choice between the same-faithful Moscow and the familiar Warsaw - this is not the only possible choice. That you can rule a vast territory yourself. But how can she rule if this territory is inhabited by the “Russian people”, and next to it is the “Russian Tsar”, to whom they themselves have been asking for citizenship for so long...
All that remains is to declare themselves some other people and accept the formal power of some foreign king. Which, due to its foreignness and weak influence on the broad masses of the population, will certainly not interfere much in local affairs, giving all real power to the local hetman princes (oh, how the influence of the Polish state model is felt here, with its omnipotent and uncontrollable tycoons!). And so began the bloody series of hetman betrayals. The terrible period of the so-called “Ruins”, which claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people...
The first mention of the “Ukrainian people” unearthed by researchers is the late 1650s, Vygovsky’s correspondence. Personally, I came across similar examples in archival documents about 3-4 times. A drop in the ocean of other self-names. And most importantly, this “drop” was always brought by the same characters. Several pro-Polish/pro-Turkish representatives of the local elite, in moments of acute conflict with Moscow.
For example, in the universal of the 1660s, in which Bryukhovetsky justified his transition to Doroshenko, it was said: “ Taking God to the rescue, near our enemies to Moscow, behold, there are Muscovites, no longer having friendship with them... so that we are aware of such Moscow and Lyak unprofitable intention for us and Ukraine, the destined destruction to expect, and ourselves and the whole Ukrainian people before the known decline about himself, he did not gladly bring and" (ASUR. T.7. P.39-40).
In general, in the second half of the 17th century, the first attempt was recorded by some representatives of the “foreign-oriented” elites to separate “Ukrainians” from “Muscovites” on an ethno-territorial basis. As we know, the attempt was unsuccessful. The masses were not at all inspired by the idea of returning to the rule of the Polish oppressors. Not to mention the Turkish domination that Hetman Doroshenko tried to establish. As a result, the Left Bank hetmans recognized the power of Moscow for a long time (until Mazepa’s betrayal). And the “professional traitor” Doroshenko, who had done the most, surrendered to the Moscow Tsar (as the greatest humanist in this whole story) and went into honorable exile.
In total, if you look at the self-name, language, culture, orientation of the masses, then we can say with confidence that in the 17th century, a separate Ukrainian ethnic group did not yet exist. There were only the first and failed attempts to construct it and come up with a new name for it, according to one of the popular regional oikonyms (“Ukraine” - “Ukrainian people”).
What then existed? Russian ethnicity. Which can easily be divided into southern Russian and northern Russian subethnic groups. But nothing more.
As we know, the further development of the southern Russian subethnic group took place under conditions of constant fragmentation into several states. Naturally, after the events of the 17th century, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth burned out any “Russianness” with a hot iron. Naturally, the Russian Empire rather rudely suppressed any too strong protrusion of sub-ethnic and local characteristics. All this left a certain imprint on the further destinies of Southern Rus'...
Then the time of active formation of nations came in Europe. There was a rapid growth of social and ethnic self-awareness. Revolutions, republics, national liberation movements... The world was becoming more and more like the modern one. Naturally, Little Russian nationalism began to appear on the general wave. At first he is sweet and peaceful, mainly of a cultural and linguistic nature. But at the end of the 19th century, political-separatist ideas gradually began to develop (first in foreign Galicia, and then on the territory of the Russian Empire). Accordingly, more and more often the term “Ukrainian” began to come across in the flow of the usual “Russian”/“Little Russian”. A nationalist publicist needs to somehow highlight his differences from his extremely close brother.
And then came the great and terrible twentieth century. And away we go...
CONCLUSION
As mentioned above, there are no absolute and generally accepted criteria that make it possible to clearly separate a subethnic group within one large nation from a completely independent ethnic group. Nations fragment and merge gradually over a long period of time. This process can only be described in the form of someone, on one side of which there will be a clear absence of a separate ethnic group, and on the other - its obvious existence. And everything in between is a slowly changing intermediate state.
Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, a separate Ukrainian ethnic group obviously exists. And it certainly makes up more than half of the remaining population of the country-Ukraine. But in the 17th century it definitely did not exist. And it is impossible to name the day on which this new ethnic group “appeared.” The process is gradual, with hundreds of influencing factors, with slight accelerations and decelerations... It is important that it already exists now, and this fact cannot be canceled.
If we talk only about the ethnonym “Ukrainian,” then everything is much simpler. The second half of the 17th century is the first recorded use in writing. XIX century - set of popularity. The first half of the 20th century is the final victory of the “Ukrainian” over the “Rusyn” and the “Little Russian”.
But the problem is not at all in the name... After all, the average Ukrainian, even half a century ago, would have gone crazy if he had seen his grandchildren jumping on the Maidan to the cries of “he who doesn’t jump is a Muscovite.” Regardless of current self-names and language reforms, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians are the closest Slavic peoples, who until recently were one ethnic group. Plus family connections. And, for the most part, a common religion and culture. Plus a unified infrastructure. Plus familiar and convenient economic relations. What can I say, between the extreme Russian village and the extreme Ukrainian village, twenty years ago there was no border, except an artificial political one.
Everything that we are now seeing in Ukraine is just a continuation of the course that the pro-Western elite tried to chart in the second half of the 17th century. However, the texts of the hetman’s generalists: “we are Ukrainians, and Muscovites are strangers to us” - could not change mass consciousness. Modern means of influencing the masses have incomparably greater power. And as a result, the people who three centuries ago were the Russian people, and half a century ago - the fraternal people, now look like perhaps the main enemy.
What happened has already happened. We cannot change history. And personally, I am perplexed (if not to say “contempt”) by all those who delve into history with a purely political motivation - in search of the “absence of Ukrainians” or “the antiquity of the Ukrainian nation.”
But I am even more bewildered by my fellow citizens who enjoy constant mockery of the terrible Ukrainian catastrophe. Fellow citizens who, with their curses and jokes, lump absolutely everyone with the same brush: pro-Western elites, groups of radical nationalists, and the unfortunate deceived people who find themselves under their power. “Ukrofashists! Stupid crests! - rushes to absolutely every address, literally from every discussion on the Internet. And this is instead of restoring trust and strengthening ties! Truly, if we had acted in a similar way in the 17th century, we would have lost our southern brothers even then...
We cannot change history.
But we can change the future.
Let's first understand the origin of the term Ukraine. At the same time, let’s consider his attitude to the terms Little Rus', Little Russia. As is easy to understand, the word “Ukraine”. (“ukraina” in the spelling of that time) our ancestors called outlying, border lands. The word “ukraine” first appeared in the Ipatiev Chronicle in 1187. Moreover, the chronicler used it not as a toponym, but precisely in the meaning of borderland. To be more precise, the borderland of the Pereyaslav Principality.
The terms Little and Great Rus' began to be widely used only after the Mongol invasion. The first meant the Galicia-Volyn land, the second meant the Vladimir-Suzdal land. As we remember, the Kiev region (and the Dnieper region in general) was completely devastated by nomads and lay deserted. Some historians believe that these names were introduced into circulation by Greek church hierarchs to designate those two fragments of Rus' that, after Batu, continued contacts with Constantinople. Moreover, the Greeks were guided by a rule that came from antiquity, according to which the ancestral lands of the people were called the Small Country, and the Great Country - the lands colonized by people from the Small Country. Subsequently, the names Great/Little Rus' were used mainly by clergy or people who were educated in a church environment (and these were the majority at that time). These names began to appear especially often after the Union of Brest in 1596 in the texts of Orthodox publicists.
The term "Ukraine" at this time continued to be used by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Muscovite kingdom in the sense of border lands. So in the 15th century Serpukhov, Kashira and Kolomna were called Moscow Ukrainian cities. Ukraine (with emphasis on A) was even on the Kola Peninsula. South of Karelia was Kayan Ukraine. In the Pskov Chronicle in 1481, “Ukraine beyond the Okoya” is mentioned, and the lands around Tula are called “Tula Ukraine”. You can give a lot of similar examples if you want, but I think even these are enough to understand that there were a lot of “Ukrainians” in Rus'. Over time, in Russia, due to changes in territorial division, this term fell out of use, giving way to volosts and provinces. But in the lands of Rus' captured by the Poles, this term remained, however, the occupying power distorted the word “ukrAi-ia” in its own way, calling it “ukraIna” in its transcription.
By the way, I think it would be useful to explain that in the Middle Ages Rus' was divided into White, Black, Red and Small. Here we need to remember the origin of the name “Black Rus'”. In the XI V - XVI centuries. “Black Russia” was the name given to the lands that paid a universal tribute to the Golden Horde - “black forest”. These were mainly northeastern principalities. To understand why Rus' “turned black,” let us remember that “black” in Ancient Rus' was the name given to people subject to various duties or taxes. For example, the tax-paying class was called “black people,” hence the name “Black Hundred.”
Political structure of Muscovite Rus' in the 15th-16th centuries
However, in the fifteenth century, Moscow threw off the Horde yoke, and with it the name “Black” Rus' sank into oblivion. From now on, Great Rus' appears on the maps, whose autocrats, who received the informal title of the White Tsar, began to gather around themselves the lands of all Rus'. As of the first half of the 16th century, the Moscow state included Black Rus' and part of White Russia, i.e. Smolensk and Pskov; in Poland - Chervonnaya Rus, i.e. Galicia; in Lithuania - White and Little Rus'.
Therefore, the Poles needed to contrast the Russian lands belonging to them with the Russian lands of the Moscow state. Then the term Ukraine came in handy and was given a new meaning. However, at first the pamphleteers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth tried to declare the subjects of the Moscow Tsar not to be Russian people at all. The Poles declared only Little and Chervonnaya (red) Rus' to be Russia, and the city of Lvov was called the capital of Rus'. However, the absurdity of such a statement was obvious, because everyone understood that both the Muscovites and the Orthodox of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were a single people, divided between two empires. Even the Polish geographer of the early 17th century. Simon Starovolsky wrote the following about “Russia” in his work “Polonia”: “It is divided into White Russia, which is part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Red Russia, most closely called Roxolania and belonging to Poland. The third part of it, lying beyond the Don and the sources of the Dnieper, was called Black Russia by the ancients, but in modern times it began to be called Muscovy everywhere, because this entire state, no matter how extensive it is, is called Muscovy from the city and the river Moscow.”
However, this state of affairs threatened Polish power in Russian lands. Moreover, with the increasing pressure of the royal administration and Catholics on the Orthodox Church, the Russian people increasingly turned their gaze to the east, to the Moscow tsars of the same blood and same faith.
Under these conditions, the concept of “Ukraine” instead of “Rus” is increasingly being used in the Polish written tradition. As we have already mentioned, initially this name in Poland was applied to the border Russian Voivodeship, consisting of the lands of Red Ruthenia (Galicia). After the Union of Lublin, the crown (i.e., Polish) lands included the voivodeships of Kiev and Bratslav, which from now on became the new Polish borderland. The merger of the old and new Ukrainians of the Polish state gave rise to the generalized name of all these voivodeships as “Ukraine”. This name did not immediately become official, but, having become firmly established in the everyday use of the Polish gentry, it gradually began to penetrate into office work.
Map of Ukraine in the 17th century
In its development, this Polish concept of replacing Rus' with “Ukraine” reaches the 19th century. to its logical end - i.e. theories of Count Tadeusz Czatsky (1822) and Catholic priest F. Duchinsky (mid-19th century). For the first, Ukraine is a name derived from the ancient tribe “Ukrov” that never existed in real history, and for the second, the Slavic origin of the Great Russians is completely denied and their “Finno-Mongol” origin is affirmed. Today, these Polish nonsense (they say that it is not the Slavs who live in the Russian Federation, but Mongolian-Ugric “hybrids”) are selflessly repeated by Ukrainian nationalists who defend the “Ukraine project” with foam at the mouth.
Why did this Polish name take root in our lands?
Firstly, it was well known to all Russian people and did not cause rejection. Secondly, along with the introduction of the name “Ukraine” instead of “Rus” among the Poles, this concept is also accepted by the Cossack foreman who received a Polish education. (After all, as we know, the Cossack elite bowed to everything noble!) At the same time, initially the Cossacks used the term “Ukraine” when communicating with the Poles, but when communicating with Orthodox people, the clergy and state institutions of the Russian state, the words “Rus” were still used " and "Little Rus'". But over time, the Cossack elders, who largely looked up to the customs and education of the Polish gentry, began to use the name “Ukraine” along with “Rus” and “Little Russia”. After the final entry of Little Russia into the Russian Empire, the appearance of the word “Ukraine” in documentation and literary works was sporadic, and in the eighteenth century this term almost completely fell out of use.
However, there remained a reserve where anti-Russian ideas developed freely. As we remember, after the Pereyaslav Rada, not all ancient Russian lands at that time were liberated from foreign rule. It was on these lands that the idea of the existence of a separate non-Russian people of Ukrainians received state support and over time took hold of the minds. The Right Bank remained under Polish rule until the end of the eighteenth century and was reunited with Russia under the second (1793) and third (1795) partitions of Poland. Let us emphasize that although in our history these events are called “partitions of Poland,” the empire here did not encroach on the original Polish territories, but only returned the ancient lands of Rus' previously captured by Poland. However, Chervonnaya Rus (Galicia) was not returned then - by that time it no longer belonged to the Polish crown, since under the first partition of Poland (1772) it came into the possession of Austria.
As we see from the above, from the 14th century. The main name of the people and country on the territory of modern Ukraine was Rus (Black, Chervonnaya or Malaya), and this name was used until the middle of the 17th century. all ethnic, class-professional and religious groups living in Little Russia. And only with the process of penetration of Polish culture into the upper strata of the Russian population, the newfangled Polish name “Ukraine” began to spread. The entry of the Hetmanate into the Russian state stopped this process, which was revived only at the beginning of the 19th century, when the Right Bank entered the Russian Empire, having lost its entire national Russian elite in more than 100 years, whose place was taken by the Polish gentry. All this points to the external and artificial introduction of the name “Ukraine” instead of natural and historical concepts: Rus' and Little Rus'.
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Former President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma in his book “Ukraine is not Russia” (M. 2003) wrote: “No one could challenge the word, especially such an important one as “Ukrainians,” after Shevchenko used it... With his poems, Shevchenko legitimized the words “Ukrainian” and “Ukrainians”... Shevchenko simply went crazy from such words:
It's not my fault!!!
Origin and use of the word “Ukrainians”
Fyodor Gaida, Candidate of Historical Sciences
From Ryazan and Moscow to Transcarpathia. Origin and use of the word “Ukrainians”
Short version:
1. HOW AND WHEN DID THE WORD “UKRAINE” APPEAR?
From the 12th to the 17th centuries, various border lands of Rus' were called “Oukrains” (“Ukrains”, “ukrains”). In the Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1187, the Pereyaslav "oukraina" is mentioned, under 1189 - the Galician "oukraina", under 1213 - the border cities of this Galician "oukraina" are listed: Brest, Ugrovsk, Vereshchin, Stolp, Komov.
The First Pskov Chronicle, dated 1271, talks about the villages of Pskov “Ukraine”. In the Russian-Lithuanian treaties of the 15th century, “foreign places”, “Ukrainian places”, “Ukrainian places” are mentioned, which mean Smolensk, Lyubutsk, Mtsensk. In the agreement between two Ryazan princes in 1496, “our villages in Mordva in Tsna and in Ukraine” were named.
With regard to the Moscow-Crimean border, from the end of the 15th century it was also said: “Ukraine”, “Our Ukraines”, “our Ukrainian places”.
In 1571, “A list of guards from Ukrainian cities from Polish Ukraine along the Pine, along the Don, along the Sword and along other rivers” was compiled.
Russian legislation of the 17th century often refers to “Ukraine”, “Ukrainian cities”, “Sovereign Ukraines”, “Our Ukraines”, “Ukrainian/Ukrainian cities of the wild field”, “Ukrainian cities”, and refers to the presence of military people “in the State service in Ukraine"5.
This concept is extremely broad: “...to Siberia and Astrakhan and other distant Ukrainian cities.”
However, in the Moscow state there also existed Ukraine in the narrow sense of the word - Oka. Russian legislation of the 17th century repeatedly provides a list of cities of such Ukraine: Tula, Kashira, Krapivna, Aleksin, Serpukhov, Tarusa, Odoev. Along with it, there was also Sloboda Ukraine of the Moscow state.
From the end of the 16th century, the word “Ukraine” in the narrow sense of the word also began to designate the lands of the Middle Dnieper region - the central regions of modern Ukraine. Polish sources (royal and hetman generals) mention “our Ukrainian castles and places”, “Ukrainian places and towns”, “Kiev Ukraine”.
In Russian legislation of the 17th century, “Little Russian Ukraine”9 appears, “Ukraine, which is called Little Russia”0; the right bank of the Dnieper was called “Polish Ukraine”.
Little Russia and Sloboda Ukraine were clearly separated in Russian legislation: “Residents of Little Russian cities come to the Moscow State and to Ukrainian cities...”.
2. WHAT WERE THE RESIDENTS OF THE BORDER UKRAINE NAMED?
In the Ipatiev Chronicle, under the year 1268, the inhabitants of the Polish borderland are mentioned - “Lyakhov Ukrainians”. In the Russian-Lithuanian treaties of the 15th century, they are called “Ukrainian people”, “Our Ukrainian people” - residents of Smolensk, Lyubutska, Mtsensk. In Polish documents from the end of the 16th century there appear “our Ukrainian elders”, “lords of the governor and Ukrainian elders”, “Ukrainian people”, “Ukrainian inhabitants”, “Ukrainian Cossacks”, “Ukrainian senators”.
There was no ethnic connotation in this naming. The documents also mention “Ukrainian military people” and “Ukrainian places” of the Crimean Khanate. The inhabitants of Rus' still called themselves Russians, and that’s what foreigners also called them. In Polish and Russian sources of the same time, “Russian churches” in Lutsk, “Russian clergy” and “Russian religion [religion, faith]” are called, as well as “our Russian people” (here - “Tutish Ukrainian inhabitants”), “ Rusyns", "People of Rusue", "Russian people".
The text of the Gadyach Treaty between Hetman Vyhovsky and Poland speaks of the “Russian people” and “Russians”.
The subjects of the Moscow state were also called: “Russian people”, “your great sovereign’s military people, Russians and Cherkassy”.
3. WHERE AND HOW DID THE WORD “UKRAINIANS” FIRST BE USED?
In the Moscow state, “Ukrainians” were originally called military people (border guards) who served in the Oka Ukraine - in the Upper and Middle Poochye - against the Crimeans. In March 1648, the Moscow Duma clerk Ivan Gavrenev wrote a note to the Discharge Order about preparing a number of cases for the report, in which, in particular, under the sixth point it was briefly said: “Ukrainians, who live for what reason, should not be kept and let them go.” The Duma clerk did not explain the word “Ukrainians” in any way; Obviously, it was well known in Moscow and did not need any explanation.
What it meant becomes clear from subsequent documents. In the spring of 1648, in connection with rumors of an impending attack by the Crimeans on the Moscow borders, a gathering of military people from Ukrainian cities was announced - Tula, Kashira, Kozlov, Tarusa, Belev, Bryansk, Karachev, Mtsensk. In the order to the governors Buinosov-Rostovsky and Velyaminov dated May 8, drawn up according to the report of clerk Gavrenev, in particular, it was said: “... to those cities, the governors should write off the children of the boyars and nobles and all kinds of service people for the sovereign’s service and send them to them immediately "
In 1648, Zaporozhye Cossacks were already in the service of the Moscow state, but they were called not “Ukrainians”, but “Cherkasy” (they are also mentioned in Gavrenev’s note).
The use of the word “Ukrainians” in the Muscovite state no later than the second half of the 16th century is evident from the fact that the Ryazan payment books of 1594-1597 mention the Ukraintsovs, nobles of the Kamensk camp of Pronsky district. A charter of 1607 mentions the serviceman Grigory Ivanov, son of the Ukrainians, who received an estate in Ryazhsky district from Vasily Shuisky. The Duma clerk Emelyan Ivanovich Ukraintsev (more correctly: Ukraintsov; 1641-1708), who signed the Treaty of Constantinople between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in 1700, is also well known. In 1694, Emelyan Ukraintsov compiled a pedigree of the Ukraintsov family for the Discharge Order, according to which the founder of the family was the Ryazan nobleman of the mid-16th century Fyodor Andreev's son Lukin, nicknamed the Ukrainian; his father was “settled in Ryazan,” that is, somewhat east of the above-mentioned cities of Oka Ukraine, as a result of which the distinctive nickname “Ukrainian” could arise, and then the surname “Ukraintsov”.
Most likely, Fyodor the Ukrainian was not a mythological figure: it was his grandchildren who were mentioned in the books of 1594-1597, and his great-grandson in the charter of 1607. In the second half of the 17th century, the service people of Oka Ukraine - “Ukrainians, boyar children” and “Ukrainians, nobles” - are mentioned in Russian legislation very often. In “The Tale of the Seat of Azov” “Ukrainians” are mentioned in the same sense (“his sovereign’s people are Ukrainians”, “the governors’ sovereign’s people are Ukrainians”, “his sovereign’s people are Russian Ukrainians”30).
According to M. S. Grushevsky, in the first half of the 17th century the word “Ukrainians” (Ukraincy) was used by the Poles: this was how they designated either Polish military personnel or Polish landowners in Ukraine.
Such a diverse use of words indicates the instability of the term - in contrast to the stable Moscow version. In any case, the Poles did not consider such a term an ethnonym and did not extend it to the Russian population of Ukraine...
Moscow ambassadors A. Pronchishchev and A. Ivanov, sent to Warsaw in 1652, noted in a report that in the Polish capital they met six envoys of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, among whom was “Ondrey Lisichinsky from Volyn, Ukrainian, and now lives in Boguslav.” The rest of Khmelnytsky's representatives were natives of central or eastern Ukraine.
It is noteworthy that among all the ambassadors, only one Lisichinsky was called “Ukrainian”; Thus, most likely, Pronchishchev and Ivanov meant that he was a former Polish soldier.
Yuri Krizhanich in his work (after 1661) once uses the word “Ukrainians” as a synonym for the word “Cherkasy”. In addition, once again he called “Ukrainians and new subjects” of the Russian Tsar; in this case, the meaning of the word “Ukrainians” is not entirely defined: it is not clear whether they are also new subjects or residents of the former borderlands of the Moscow state. Krizanich was a Croat; he wrote his work, later called “Politics,” in Latin in an artificial eclectic language - a mixture of Church Slavonic, common Russian and literary Croatian.
Krizanich could have borrowed the word “Ukrainians” from Russian or Polish, or constructed it independently: he was born in Bihac, not far from Krajina, where the Krajina people lived, that is, the Horutans, or Slovenes.
Gradually, the word “Ukrainians” spread to the border service people of Sloboda Ukraine. In 1723, Peter the Great mentioned “Ukrainians of the Azov and Kyiv provinces” - Ukrainian service people, including those from Sloboda Ukraine. At the same time, he clearly distinguishes them from the “Little Russian people”.
In 1731, the Ukrainian Line began to be created in Slobozhanshchina, protecting the Russian borders from the Crimeans. Under Elizaveta Petrovna, regiments of the Sloboda Land Militia were formed from the “Ukrainians”. In 1765, the Sloboda Ukrainian Governorate was established here (as the Kharkov Governorate was called in 1765-1780 and 1797-1835). In 1816-1819, the very popular “Ukrainian Bulletin” was published at Kharkov University.
From the first half of the 17th century, the word “Ukrainians” in relation to suburban Ukrainians and border service people began to be used occasionally in Little Russia. In a letter from the Archimandrite of the Novgorod-Seversky Spassky Monastery, Michael Lezhaisky, to the boyar Artamon Matveev in 1675, we read: “I don’t know why the border governors have recently called our Ukrainians traitors and hear some kind of treason that we do not see; and if something had happened, I myself would have been the first to notify the great sovereign day and night; Please preface this so that the governors in such measures are dangerous and do not start such unnecessary news and do not embitter the Little Russian troops; It’s dangerous that a small spark doesn’t ignite a big fire.”
It is quite obvious that the archimandrite uses a concept that is well known in Moscow and means the border military people of Ukraine.
In the poems of the Little Russian poet Klimenty Zinoviev, who wrote during the time of Peter and Mazepa, the only time the “Ukrainian of the Little Russian breed” (in the collective sense) was mentioned, that is, a clarification was introduced about which specific suburban “Ukrainians” were being discussed in this case...
4. WHEN DID THE POPULATION OF UKRAINE – LITTLE RUSSIA BEGAN TO BE CALLED “UKRAINIANS”?
Since the end of the 18th century, the word “Ukrainians” has gradually been torn away from its original meaning and begins to be used by educated people in an arbitrary manner. The outstanding military engineer Major General Alexander Ivanovich Rigelman (1720-1789), a Russified German who served in Little Russia and Sloboda Ukraine in 1745-1749, retired and settled near Chernigov in his declining years, wrote “Annalistic narrative about Little Russia and her people and the Cossacks in general" (1785-1786).
Rigelman was the first to extend the name “Ukrainians” to the population of the entire Ukraine—Little Russia. The concepts “Ukrainians” and “Little Russians”, as well as “Ukraine” and “Little Russia” were used by him as identical...
Following Rigelman, the Kharkov writer I. I. Kvitka, as well as Pushkin, called the Cossacks “Ukrainians.” In the drama “Boris Godunov” (1825), Otrepiev says about himself: “And finally he fled from his cells / To the Ukrainians, to their riotous kurens, / Learned to wield a horse and a saber...” (scene “Night. Garden. Fountain”). This shows that in the Russian version the word initially had stress on the second syllable (Ukrainian), while in Polish (according to the rules of Polish stress) - on the penultimate (Ukrainian).
The Polish emigrant count, later Russian official Jan Potocki (1761-1815), in his work “Historical and Geographical Fragments about Scythia, Sarmatia and the Slavs,” published in 1795 in Paris in French, called the people who lived “Ukrainians” or “Little Russians” supposedly in ancient times in the Dnieper region there was a separate Slavic people and was divided into four tribes - the Polyans, the Drevlyans, the Tivertsy and the Ulics44.
At the same time, the word “Ukrainians” continued to be used in the same Peterian meaning. Decembrist Pavel Pestel (1792-1826) in his “Russian Truth” divided the “Russian people” into five “shades”, distinguished, in his opinion, only by the “image of their government”, that is, by the administrative structure: “Russians”, “Belarusians” , “Russnaks”, “Little Russians” and “Ukrainians”.
“Ukrainians,” as Pestel noted, inhabit the Kharkov and Kursk provinces.
Kharkov playwright Grigory Kvitka (Osnovyanenko) (1778-1843), nephew of I. I. Kvitka, in a short essay “Ukrainians” (1841) wrote: “The peoples who inhabited the present Kharkov province were mostly Ukrainians and had the same language and some customs, but since the time of their settlement here they have significantly deviated from them to a noticeable difference...”46
5. WHEN DID “UKRAINIANS” BEGAN TO BE UNDERSTANDED AS A SEPARATE SLAVIC PEOPLE?
At the turn of 1845-1846 in Kyiv, on the initiative of a young university professor, St. Vladimir Nikolai Kostomarov, the “Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood” arose, which set itself the task of fighting for the creation of a Slavic federation, which should also include a free Ukraine.
In the charter of the brotherhood, Kostomarov wrote: “We accept that upon unification, each Slavic tribe should have its own independence, and we recognize such tribes as: South Russians, North Russians with Belarusians, Poles, Czechs with [Slovenians], Lusatians, Illyrian-Serbs with Khurutans and Bulgarians”47.
Vasily Belozersky wrote an explanatory note to the charter, which contained the following phrase: “Not one of the Slavic tribes is obliged to strive for originality and excite the rest of the brothers to the same extent as we, Ukrainians.”
It is from this document that one can trace the history of the use of the word “Ukrainians” in the ethnic sense. Belozersky, a Chernigov native and history teacher, could not help but know Rigelman’s manuscript, which was kept by his son, Chernigov district marshal A. A. Rigelman, and was actively used by historians. At the same time, in 1847, it was published in Moscow by Osip Bodyansky, a good friend of the members of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood.
After the appearance of Belozersky’s note, Kostomarov wrote his proclamation “Brothers of the Ukrainians,” which said the following: “...We accept that all Slavs should unite with each other. But in such a way that each people constitutes a special Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and is not governed in unison with others; so that each people has its own language, its own literature, its own social structure. We recognize such peoples as: Great Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Chekhovs, Luzhichans, Khorutans, Illyro-Serbs and Bulgarians... Here are the Ukrainian brothers, residents of Ukraine on both sides of the Dnieper, we give you this reflection; read it carefully and let everyone think about how to achieve this, and how best to do it...”
However, the use of the word “Ukrainians” in the ethnic sense in the middle of the 19th century was as artificial as the use of the concept “Southern Russians”. It is noteworthy that such a more radical member of the Brotherhood as Taras Shevchenko never used this word...
6. WHEN DID THE ACTIVE USAGE OF THE WORD “UKRAINIANS” IN THE MODERN MEANING BEGAN?
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the word “Ukrainians” was usually used not in an ethnic, but in a geographical sense, denoting the population of Ukraine. In a similar meaning, the word “Ukrainians” began to be actively used in the works of public figure Mikhail Petrovich Drahomanov (1841-1895), published from the late 1880s. At first, Drahomanov distinguished between “Ukrainians” (“Russian Ukrainians”, “Ukrainian-Russians”) and “Galician-Russian people” (“Galicians”, “Rusyns”), then united them into “Rusyn-Ukrainians”.
Be that as it may, the borders of the “Ukrainian land” included the territories of Little Russia, New Russia (without Crimea), Don and Kuban regions, Polesie, Galicia and Subcarpathia.
Drahomanov’s niece, poetess Larisa Kosach-Kvitka (1871-1913; pseudonym Lesya Ukrainka), also distinguished between “Ukrainians” and “Galicians” (“Galician Rusyns”), but considered them one people.
It is interesting that Lesya Ukrainka signed her own translation into German of Hamlet’s monologue “To be or not to be?..” (1899) as follows: “Aus dem Kleinrussischen von L Ukrainska” (literally: “From the Little Russian woman L. Ukrainskaya”).
In other words, Kosach-Kvitka understood her pseudonym not in an ethnic sense, but in a geographical sense (a resident of Ukraine). Ivan Franko, who wrote about the united “Ukrainian-Russian people,” called himself a “Rusyn”...
Only after the victory of the February Revolution in Russia, the word “Ukrainians” gradually began to become widespread. It was still rarely used in official documents; in the universals of the “Central Rada” it appears only once, and not in an ethnic, but in a geographical sense: “Commoners of the Ukrainian land... As soon as the recruitment of the Ukrainian units is in progress, then for this Central Rada we have its representatives at the office of the Ukrainian Minister, at the General Staff and the Supreme The commander-in-chief, who will take part in the right recruitment of several units, including Ukrainians, since such recruitment, according to the decision of the Minister of Ukraine, will be possible from the technical side without damaging the combat effectiveness of the army.”
The word “Ukrainians” in the ethnic sense at the official level finally took root only with the creation of the Ukrainian SSR. In Galicia this happened only after its territory became part of the USSR in 1939, in Transcarpathia - in 1945.
Thus, having emerged no later than the 16th century and gradually spreading from Ryazan and Moscow to Transcarpathia, the word “Ukrainians” completely changed its meaning: initially meaning border service people of the Moscow state, it ultimately acquired the meaning of a separate Slavic ethnic group.
