Житие и чудеса святого Иоанна Русского
Can Russians Ever Be "Former"?
(The Ukrainian Crisis Through the Eyes of a Greek)
? ~40 min readPreface (2025)
This text was written back in 2014, when nothing yet foreshadowed the terrible war that is happening now. My nine-year-old son, whose question sparked this article, has already grown up—yet the war continues. And what's most frightening: it could spill over onto everyone as World War III.
Sometimes a retrospective approach turns out to be the most useful. What seemed like academic observations about identity and historical memory in 2014 has become a bloody reality in 2022 and beyond. Perhaps understanding the roots of this conflict—the mechanisms of ethnic engineering that created it—can help ensure that this never happens again.
And so, here is the text as it was written then, in 2014.
The Question That Started It All
The writing of this article was prompted by a question from my 9-year-old son. After watching news about Ukraine on Greek television, he brought his history textbook (they were studying the Baptism of Rus' at the time) and asked me:
"Dad, whom did we baptize?"
I, though a historian by education, couldn't immediately think of what to answer, except perhaps: "They chose the faith themselves."
But who are "they"—Russians or "proto-Ukrainians"?
There's an ancient aphorism: "We see the world not as it is, but as we are."
The thesis "Ukraine is not Russia" is based on three historical idols: Kievan Rus', Malorossiya (Little Russia), and Galicia. Their common feature is that their distinctiveness was formed outside the borders of the Muscovite state, and therefore—supposedly—that is precisely where the origins of Ukrainian identity lie.
I will present the position of the Greek historical school on "which people were baptized," but I'll start from the opposite end—by explaining why none of this is Ukraine. And only then will I move on to the most interesting part: the birth of Ukrainian identity within the framework of the policy of korenizatsiya (indigenization)—a social program that began in the USSR and was completed on the Maidan.
Part I: So, First of All—Who Was Baptized?
Greeks are the only people outside the borders of the former "Kievan Rus'" where the history of its baptism is taught in schools as part of our (that is, not only their!) history. But in modern Greek schools, at the moment when this period of Byzantine history begins to be taught, children are not told about the "baptism of Kievan Rus'" (this is a term of Soviet origin). Nor is the modern Russian term "ancient Russian state" used, since for us "ancient" means what existed before the birth of Christ. In our Greek school textbooks, all of this is designated as:
"The Christianization of the Russian people."
I understand that Ukrainian nationalists will disagree with this, but this history is not only theirs—it's ours too, and the word "Rossia" (Russia) is the Greek pronunciation of the word "Rus'."
What is the difference between the word "Rus'" and the word "Rossia" (Russia)? The Greek suffix "-ία" (ia) added to the Russian word "Rus'." The word "Rosia" (Ρωσία) was first used in the 10th century by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos in his work De Administrando Imperio.
The people of Rus' in medieval Byzantine texts were called Ρως (Ros/Rus'), and the ending "-ία" in Greek linguistic structure denotes the country where that people lives—similar to "-land" in English (England, Deutschland) or "-stan" in Turkic languages. So it turns out that translated from Greek, the word "Ρωσία" (Rossia/Russia) means "the land of the Russian people."
The main city of the Rus' is indicated as Kiev (Kiav), standing on the Dnieper River. The Kievan prince Igor is called "Archon of Rosia." Greek seals of other Russian princes from the 11th-12th centuries have been preserved with the inscription "Archon (ruler) of Rosia."
And for 1,000 years now (since the time of Constantine Porphyrogennetos), we have called Russia "Russia," and the terms "Rus'" and "Russia" are not contrasted, because they are synonyms. "Rus'" is the people, "Russians" are hence from Rus', and "Russia" is their country.
The first written mention of the word "Rosia" in Cyrillic script is dated April 24, 1387. From the late 15th century, the name began to be used in secular literature and documents of the Russian state, gradually displacing the former name "Rus'." The modern spelling of the word "Rosia"—with two letters "s"—"Rossiya," appeared from the mid-17th century and was finally established under Peter I.
Naturally, the evolution of the name and spelling structure reflected the evolution of Russian statehood itself, but each new name did not negate the Russian identity of all previous periods. Only in Soviet historiography, within the framework of the policy of korenizatsiya (indigenization), did a soft form of de-Russification of the word "Rus'" occur. This word was turned into a "scientific term" meaning "not quite Russia."
But history is not only our view of the past—it is above all the view of people of the past on themselves.
Part II: Kievan Rus'—Also Not Ukraine
When the term "Kievan Rus'" appeared in the scholarly works of Russian historians of the 19th century, it meant merely "the Kievan phase of Russian statehood." But that it was Rus'—for them was naturally more important than that it was Kievan (this is just one of the phases of Russian statehood). But Lenin's korenizatsiya swapped the meanings. Why should the indication that Rus' was Kievan be more important than the fact that Rus' and Russia are synonyms? In order to argue (within the framework of Leninist ethnic engineering) for the existence of a common ancestor for three fraternal (and this means—separate!) ethnic groups.
After the collapse of the USSR, the new Ukrainian historiography went even further: having privatized all of "Kievan Rus'" for itself, it throws out the monstrous idea—"not only Ukraine but ancient Rus' itself is not Russia."
And here begin the cries of the followers of Mykhailo Hrushevsky—a Ukrainian historian whose works became the foundation of Ukrainian nationalist historiography, arguing that Ukrainians were always a separate ethnic group from Russians. These people understand that the word "Ukraine" was not used in the era of Prince Vladimir, who baptized Rus', but then begin the arguments that "Rosia" (with one "s") is not the same as "Rossiya" (with two "s's").
It's known that half of the correct answer is the correct formulation of the question. The question here is not how "rus'kyi" differed from "russkiy"—the question is different. Why did the descendants of Russians, having jumped around on the Maidan, decide that in application to the past this question is even appropriate?
The answer is the following: the terminological time bomb with the division of one Russian people into three "fraternal" ones through the "autonomization" of the term "Rus'" from its own meaning "Ross-ia," planted by Lenin's korenizatsiya, exploded after the collapse of the USSR—precisely after. But neither the USSR nor the "post-Soviet mentality" existed in the era of "historical Rus'." And this question is not applicable to the past, since history is not our view of the past (politics) but above all the view of people of the past on themselves (historical reconstruction).
And we, Greeks, for 1,000 years now persistently call Russia Russia, and do not contrast the terms "Rus'" and "Russia," since one cannot contrast like with like: "Rus'" is the people, and "Ross-ia" is their country.
Part III: Malorossiya and Ukraine—Synonyms, Like Rus' and Russia
Here another, purely Greek remark suggests itself. The title of the head of the Church, which in Russian is written as "of All Rus'," in Greek sounds as Metropolitan (now Patriarch) "of All Russias" (Πατριάρχης Μόσχας και πασών των Ρωσιών), because there have always been many Russias.
The only time when the entire Russian people found themselves within one state since the fragmentation of the proto-Russian principalities was the period from 1939 until the collapse of the USSR. This does not mean that Russians did not exist outside Russia as a state—they did, and they continued to live on lands they kept calling Russia.
The term "Μικρά Ρωσσία"—"Little Russia" (Malorossiya)—was introduced into use by Greek bishops, in whose church jurisdiction (the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate) until 1686 resided that part of the Russian people who lived within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, subsequently, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The Poles called this land their borderland (Ukraina/Okraina). The word "Ukraine" is of Polish origin, meaning "borderland"—and even for the Poles it meant the Russian borderland of their state. But for the Russian people who lived there and for the Greek bishops who spiritually shepherded these lands, this territory was called "Little Russia" (Malorossiya).
Originally, the term "Ukraine" was purely geographical, not ethnic, and did not imply that Ukrainians were not Russians—they were simply Russians living on the borderland (ukraina) of Poland.
Part IV: Ukraine—A Geographical Term
Unfortunately, modern Ukrainians have complete confusion with terms. The geographical term "Ukraine" is indeed quite ancient—not only Polish but even earlier, found already in Russian chronicles—it is found not only in the Hypatian Chronicle but in many other chronicles. In 1189 (the Galician "ukraina"), in 1271—Pskov "ukrainas," in 1571—Tatar "ukrainas," "Kazan ukraina," and "ukraina people."
But one must understand that the medieval term "kraina," like "okolie," "okolica"—is an exclusively geographical (not ethnic) term, and this term was applied far from only to the territory of southern Rus'. There were many borderlands (Ukrainas), and not only in Russian or Polish history.
For example, in the medieval Roman Empire (Byzantium), there were the so-called Akritai—a subculture of peasant-warriors who guarded the borders. If you translate the Greek word "Ακρίτας" (Akritas) into Russian, you get "ukrainets" (border dweller). Moreover, these warrior-akritai differed from the inhabitants of Constantinople from an everyday and ethnocultural point of view no less than a Cossack with a forelock differed from a Muscovite in uniform—but both called themselves Romans.
Unfortunately, modern Ukrainian historiography projects the modern ethnic self-consciousness of Ukrainians onto the past of their Russian ancestors. A parallel can be drawn with the term "Byzantium."
If "Ukraine is not Russia," then "Byzantium is not Rome."
The word "Byzantium" is very ancient—that's what the ancient Greek city on the shores of the Bosphorus was called, where Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire. The term "Byzantium" to designate the entire 1,000-year medieval phase of the Roman Empire appeared from the 17th century in the West, in order to emphasize that "Byzantium is not Rome."
By analogy, the medieval term "kraina" originally had a geographical rather than ethnic coloring. And only after the 19th century, again at the West's prompting, did they acquire a new ethnic meaning.
There were no ethnic Ukrainians in the "chronicle era" of Russian history—because of Orthodoxy.
Part V: Kiev—"Mother of Russian Cities"
The phrase "Mother of Cities" is a semantic calque from the Greek "metropolis," from Greek μήτηρ (mother) and Greek πόλις (city)—hence the English term "metropolitan bishop." The center of the unified Russian metropolitanate was originally Kiev, then Vladimir, then Moscow. Then the Russian metropolitanate split into two parts.
The reasons for the division of the once-unified metropolitanate of Russian lands into the Kiev and Moscow metropolitanates (1441-1458) are a topic for a separate article. Why separate? Because the split was not ethnic.
When the Kiev Metropolitanate arose within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and subsequently Poland, it was precisely a Russian Orthodox metropolitanate, which is why Greek bishops called these lands Little Russia. As for that part of the Russian people who lived outside the borders of the Muscovite state and was subjected to pressure from Catholic expansion, the profession of Orthodoxy ultimately became a factor in the ethnic self-identification of Little Russians. Orthodoxy in their perception was the faith of their fathers, the Russian faith.
The fundamental problem of Soviet and post-Soviet education lies in the exclusion of teaching the history of religion from the history of the people. But one must understand that several centuries ago, people's worldview was determined to a greater degree by belonging to a Church than by dances, embroidered shirts, and different dialects.
Today, belonging to any confession does not correspond to the concept of "nation," but back then the concept of "nation" simply didn't exist. Orthodoxy played the same role in the Russification of "proto-Russian" tribes (Krivichi, Vyatichi, etc.) as the Olympic Games played in the Hellenization of proto-Greek tribes—Dorians, Danaans, Achaeans—into Hellenes (they originally did not call themselves Hellenes).
Religion is not simply belief in God—it is a unified conceptual apparatus that can gather disparate tribes into a people (a people is a common memory). And preserving this memory preserves the people.
Part VI: Galicia—The Unia
There is an opinion that the geographical term "Ukrainians" became an ethnonym of a people separate from Russians with the acceptance of the Unia with the Catholic world by the western Russian lands in 1596 (the Brest Union). The Unia is a religious "unification" which is essentially a rejection of Orthodoxy and transition to Catholicism while preserving the Orthodox (Greek) rite—hence the term "Greek Catholic."
But everything is not so simple. First, there are examples of stubborn resistance of the people to the Unia, which led to a return to Orthodoxy. We Greeks signed the Unia twice: first in 1274 (the Lyon Union) and then in 1449 (the Ferrara-Florence Union). But these Unias remained at the declarative level, since the people remained Orthodox. Most modern Greeks don't even know that this happened in our history, and there are almost no Greek Catholics in Greece.
The term "Greek Catholic" is not used in Greece itself—the term "Uniate" is used, because the majority of Greeks are Orthodox. And the Unia is quite a reversible process.
As for western Rus', the Unia was not carried through to full transition to Catholicism (as happened with the Croats). At the same time, dogmatically, Uniates are Catholics. But by rite, Uniates are still Orthodox. And the memory of the Orthodox (Russian) past among Uniates of western Rus' was preserved.
A Uniate is like a person who has exited one door but has not fully entered another.
Ultimately, the "Russian Unia" remained precisely a Unia: there was no mass transition to Catholicism (i.e., the memory of the Orthodox past was preserved), but due to historical vicissitudes, there was also no mass return to Orthodoxy. And so it has been for 400 years...
Nevertheless, the Unia over the centuries remained precisely Russian—this is visible from the example of Poland.
Part VII: Galicia Under Poland
There is another opinion that the geographical term "Ukrainian" became an ethnonym of a people separate from Russians over several centuries within Poland, but this is also incorrect—Russians continued to be Russians.
First, we Greeks had a hand in this (literally): in 1620, the Jerusalem Patriarch Theophanes III restored the Orthodox Kiev Metropolitanate, "ordaining" new bishops for Little Russia—that part of the Russian people who lived within Poland and were called "Ukraine" by the Poles.
As for Galicia specifically, in 1586 the Antiochian Patriarch Joachim IV confirmed the charter of the Lviv Orthodox Brotherhood, which subsequently received the status of "stauropegia"—that is, direct subordination to the Antiochian Patriarch rather than to local Orthodox bishops, who kept crossing over to the Unia. Such brotherhoods later became numerous. And even when they too were forced to accept the Unia (1708), these brotherhoods, speaking in the language of modern Ukrainian nationalists, remained "hotbeds of Russian influence." There were many Russophile Uniates.
As a result, the territory of present-day western Ukraine (within Poland) was called by the Poles the "Ruthenian Voivodeship" with its capital in the city of Lviv... Apparently, the Poles could also see better that this was the Russian people.
Part VIII: Galicia Under Austria—Talerhof
There is yet another opinion that the geographical term "Ukrainian" became an ethnonym of a people separate from Russians when modern Western Ukraine became part of Austria-Hungary. It was in Austria-Hungary that Russophile Uniates were simply exterminated.
When World War I broke out, mass anti-Russian terror began in Galicia. The Austrians understood that Russophile Uniates were potential separatists sympathizing with Russia. And the Austrians solved this problem in a very German way.
"The Galician Russians are divided into two groups: a) Russophiles and b) Ukrainophiles. If it is at all possible to reform Russians, this is possible only through the application of merciless terror. My opinion is that all Russophiles are radicals, and they should be destroyed." — Major General Fr. Riml, Military Commandant of Lviv, 1914
The first concentration death camps in Europe were created not by Hitler but by Austrians—for the physical extermination of Russophile Galicians. The most famous of them is Talerhof near the city of Graz in Austria. With the start of World War I, more than 60,000 people were killed, more than 100,000 fled to Russia, and about 80,000 more were killed after the first retreat of the Russian army, including about 300 Uniate priests suspected of sympathies toward Orthodoxy and Russia.
Talerhof is the first concentration camp in Europe where genocide of Russian Galicians occurred. The Germans liked the idea, and later it grew into the Holocaust of the Jewish people.
"Holocaust" is a Greek word, and in translation it means "whole-burning" (ὁλοκαύτωμα)—words have their own meaning. Austria-Hungary literally burned out everything Russian in Galicians—this was a "Russian holocaust," naturally with the help of Ukrainophiles of Galicia.
But the majority of Galicians remained Russophiles. This is evident from the following: during World War II, in the Bandera UPA—the ideological heirs of Galician Ukrainophiles—who created the SS Division "Galicia" that served Hitler, a total of about 70,000 people passed, while 500,000 Galicians fought against Hitler in the ranks of the Soviet Army.
Today, the spiritual heirs of those who killed their own Galicians in Talerhof while collaborating with the Austrian Germans in World War I, and then collaborated with the German Germans in World War II, are trying to privatize for themselves the entire history of western Rus'.
Part IX: The USSR—Almost Ukraine
Russia often boasts that not a single people that fell under Russian rule (from the time of Ivan the Formidable's empire including the USSR) has disappeared. This phrase is deeply Russophobic in its essence. It turns out that in Russia, everyone can be considered a people—except Russians. Because a huge part of precisely the Russian people, who once lived on primordially Russian lands, ceased to be Russian precisely over the last 100 years.
A people is not a language (a language is a tribe), a people is not genetics (genetics is also a tribe), a people is not a nation (a nation is a state of modern times)—a people is a common memory (a people is historical).
Ethnic disintegration is when part of a people massively changes its perception of the past (the culture of memory changes), and this can happen only through the simple and elementary general education course of secondary school. Mass education became available to the Russian people only in the Soviet era. This was one of the best general education systems in world history, but it was precisely this system that excluded the common history of the Russian people as a factor of ethnic identification—through the substitution of the concept of "people" (historical memory) with the concept of "tribe."
Here is a quote from Comrade Stalin's concluding remarks at the 10th Congress of the RCP(b), March 10, 1921:
"Here I have a note that we Communists are supposedly artificially cultivating a Belarusian nationality. This is untrue, because the Belarusian nationality exists, which has its own language different from Russian... Similar speeches were heard about five years ago about Ukraine. And recently it was still being said that the Ukrainian republic and Ukrainian nationality are a German invention. Meanwhile, it is clear that the Ukrainian nationality exists, and the development of its culture is the duty of Communists. One cannot go against history. It is clear that if Russian elements still predominate in the cities of Ukraine until now, then over time these cities will inevitably be Ukrainized... The village is the guardian of the Ukrainian language, and it will enter all Ukrainian cities as the dominant element."
It's as if Stalin was describing the Maidan. The process of "khutor-ization" (village-ification) of Russian cities began, within the framework of a new "Pale of Settlement"—but now applied to Russians as a boundary of lands where Russians were taught in schools that they were not Russian.
After 1917, the Greek ecclesiastical term "Little Russia" (Malorossiya) was practically removed from historiographical use and replaced with the term "Ukraine." Why? Because it doesn't contain the word "Russian" in any form—neither in terms of color palette nor in terms of magnitude (White Russia, Little Russia, etc.).
Why Was Ukrainization (Korenizatsiya) Carried Out?
The Russian people (ethnos) was "indecently huge" within the concept of building a multinational Soviet political nation. If Russians in the USSR were more numerous than all the other peoples of the country combined, then the USSR would turn out to be a reincarnation of the Russian Empire with a new ideology. Russians in this new world were supposed to transform from the state-forming ethnos into the largest ethnic minority in their own country.
A radical reduction in the number of Russians could be achieved only through the total de-Russification of a huge part of the Russian people itself. The main instrument was the creation of "non-Russian" republics on primordially Russian lands.
And so they named primordially Russian lands the "Borderland Republic" (Ukraine). And Little Russians were prescribed to write "Ukrainian" in the nationality field of their passport. And so that Russians would agree to the new identity, Ukraine began to be simply subsidized for its non-Russianness. Ukraine within the USSR lived more prosperously than core Russia, and this was already the main argument for former Russians that Ukraine was definitely "not Russia."
Nevertheless, the final de-Russification of Ukraine was completed only after the collapse of the USSR. Even under the same Stalin, radical korenizatsiya was curtailed. Stalin understood that the policy could lead to separatism of regional elites under conditions of approaching war with Germany.
And then the greatest war in world history broke out, which delayed the disintegration of the Russian people.
Such key moments in common folk historical memory as the Great Patriotic War, May 9th (Victory Day), and the Battle of Stalingrad became a disruption of ethnic disintegration.
This is why, after the collapse of the USSR, the new Ukrainian historiography began with such zeal the deconstruction of the memory of that victory, through satanic questions: Was there really a victory on May 9th? Was the war really Patriotic? Is Nazism really the greatest of evils?
Part X: The Great Patriotic War vs. World War II
Regarding the name of the war: in most countries of Europe, the term "World War II" is usually used, since most countries of continental Europe either collaborated with Hitler or were "loyally neutral." Their story of the war is "the cinema of the defeated," which is why they use the neutral term "World War II."
In Greece, as in Russia, the term "World War II" is secondary, since Greece is one of the few countries in Europe that was in the anti-Hitler coalition from the very beginning of the war. Therefore, in our school textbooks, this period is called "Ethniki antistasi"—"National Resistance"—since the resistance was not partial but nationwide. The Serbs have a similar approach.
Such terms as "Great Patriotic" for Russians, "National Resistance" for Greeks, "Serbian Resistance," etc., can be used only by peoples who have something to be proud of.
Modern Ukrainian historians slyly replace the term "Great Patriotic War" with "World War II." This is also the difference between May 8th and May 9th. On May 8th, the end of World War II is commemorated in Germany (a day of defeat), while May 9th is Victory Day. The question here is philosophical, about identification: May 9th is a holiday of the "victor in the Great Patriotic War," but this term cannot be used by those who lost the war.
In the new Ukrainian historiography, through the replacement of terms, Ukrainian nationalists from the UPA (who collaborated with the Nazis) are equated with Red Army soldiers. This is not reconciliation of victors and defeated—this is rehabilitation of collaborationism, and a spit on the graves of millions of Ukrainians who not only fell in the war against Nazism—THEY WON IT.
Another trick of modern Ukrainian historiography is the equation of the crimes of Nazism and Communism. Thus, the decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal are annulled.
What is the difference between the crimes of Nazism (concentration camp) and Stalinism (Gulag)? Solzhenitsyn was released from the Gulag, because the Gulag was a repressive mechanism of political repression, not ethnic genocide. A bar of soap came out of the Nazi concentration camp—and that soap was once a small child who simply had the misfortune of being Jewish. The concentration camp was not designed for anyone to survive—it was designed for extermination.
There is an ancient Greek saying: "All things are known by comparison, except Evil, which is absolute."
At Nuremberg, they condemned the very ideology of "genetic incompatibility with life." A concentration camp is absolute evil, which it is criminal to compare with anything.
Part XI: On Stalin and the Fate of Great Names
I once lived in Athens on a street named after an emperor of the medieval Roman Empire—Leo III the Isaurian. The emperor was, to put it mildly, no angel. In his time, terrible repressions of Orthodox Christians began, which in historiography received the name "Iconoclasm." For venerating icons, people had their hands chopped off, their eyes gouged out; those who were lucky were simply killed. All these repressions are not hushed up in Greek school textbooks—yet streets are named after him.
Why? Because this great emperor stopped the Arab attempt to break through into Europe. The Siege of Constantinople lasted a whole year (717-718), and the Arabs were thrown back. He saved the empire, and European civilization along with it.
Why am I saying this? We Greeks don't have such a big history—only 4,000 years or so—and in this "small period" we haven't had so many personalities who predetermined the global history of humanity that we shouldn't name streets after them. And the fact that they committed great mistakes—this, naturally, cannot be hushed up. Great people commit great mistakes, but "there are laws of life for great names," or as the great Patriarch Photius said, "we honor sanctity, we do not accept errors"—in one and the same person.
Alexander the Great also committed great crimes—such as the destruction of the Greek city of Thebes—but entire cities are named after him. I imagine if we Greeks started destroying monuments to Alexander the Great just because he killed Greeks too.
But I'm not talking now about Stalin and Stalingrad—I'm talking about a country that has renounced its own past. About this country, long before the Maidan, F.M. Dostoevsky prophetically said:
"It is necessary that such a people as ours should have no history, and that what it did have under the guise of history should be forgotten by it with revulsion, all of it entirely."
And he added a definition of the demon: "Whoever curses his past is already ours!"
Part XII: Whose Holodomor?
In modern Ukraine, the Holodomor (the Soviet famine of 1932-1933) is understood as a genocide specifically of Ukrainians—as if other peoples who died in the same famine were not people.
German Nazis did not consider what was happening in concentration camps a crime against humanity for one simple and terrible reason—for German Nazis, their children (German) were humans, while the children of Jews, Slavs, and other peoples were genetic garbage.
In the new Ukrainian historiography, the term "Holodomor" is understood as the deliberate destruction of precisely the Ukrainian people. It turns out that the huge number of famine victims in Russia and Kazakhstan in the same period are merely a side effect. That is, a Ukrainian child who died of hunger is a tragedy of genocide of the Ukrainian people, while Russian, Tatar, or Kazakh children who died in huge numbers at the same time for the same reasons—that's also a tragedy, but not an equivalent one. And who are these children then? Genetic garbage?
The privatization of the term "Holodomor" only for describing victims on the territory of Ukraine is idiocy. The word "idiot" (ἰδιώτης) in translation from Greek means "individualist."
Desecration of a corpse is demonism: and the millions of Russians, Tatars, Kazakhs, and representatives of other peoples of the USSR who died then from hunger—are they all genetic garbage?
In 2008, at a UN vote, the world community did not recognize the fact of "deliberate genocide of the Ukrainian people" within the framework of the mass famine. But the USA and Great Britain voted for such recognition—they turned out to be in the minority.
Who is right? Russians once said: "We are Russians, and God is with us." Today, part of the Russian people shouts while jumping at various Maidans: "We are Ukrainians, and America is with us."
And what about the crimes of Communism? Perhaps the main crime of Communism against the Russian people consists precisely in the policy of korenizatsiya (indigenization) of part of the Russian people, the unexpected result of which is the new Ukrainian historiography. And the goal of the latter is not so much the heroization of Stepan Bandera as the propaganda of the LIE about the existence of some "Ukrainian Insurgent Army."
Part XIII: Was There Even an Army?—The UPA
The UPA cannot be called the "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" (this is merely a self-designation), since its influence did not extend not only to all of Ukraine but even to all of western Ukraine. Moreover, there was and could not have been any influence of it on the main regions of modern Ukraine. Bandera is an all-Ukrainian marginal.
But the UPA is not an army either, since armies consist of soldiers.
A soldier differs from a punisher in that a soldier goes to war to die, while a punisher goes to kill.
Therefore, the effectiveness of punishers in real military operations is extremely low (they're afraid to die), but they kill with pleasure. The Germans understood this perfectly and almost never used all these punitive battalions in real combat engagements with the Red Army, since punishers cannot be an army.
But the UPA cannot be called even "anti-Soviet insurgents." Why? Because they didn't fight during World War II behind the lines of the Red Army—they "fought" behind German lines. But naturally, they also cannot be called anti-Hitler insurgents. We're talking about elementary collaborators.
Moreover, the Soviet secret services successfully used the habits of the UPA during their liquidation after the war. Their liquidation is a solid history of collaboration—now with the Soviet secret services, betraying their fellow Nazis to survive.
Modern Ukrainian historiography is not so much history as hysteria.
This does not mean that Ukraine has no heroes. Ukrainians fought in this great war in the absolute majority in the ranks of the Red Army. A soldier is one who goes to war to die, and these warrior-death-defiers stormed the Reichstag, breaking the back of the Beast. Throughout Ukraine there are many graves of people thanks to whom Nazism was defeated. The absolute majority of modern Ukrainians are descendants of Red Army soldiers—that is, descendants of victors.
And the descendants of the victors are being offered to consider the defeated as heroes, recognizing the self-designation "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" for punishers whom even the Germans considered "not-boys."
For whom the mourning? Modern Ukrainian historiography is the dreams of the losers, or the rehabilitation of Nazism.
Part XIV: Victory and Defeat—A Question of Memory
For a Russian person, the replacement of the term "Great Patriotic War" with "World War II" means an insult to the memory of ancestors killed in this terrible war for the sake of victory over fascism.
A people is a common memory, and this concerns not only common victories but also common misfortunes (bedy).
A modern Ukrainian is offered to consider the killing of Bandera (assassinated by a KGB agent in Munich in 1959) a misfortune; for a Russian person, this is not a misfortune—this is just retribution. But a real misfortune is the Volyn massacre (the mass murder of 50,000-100,000 Polish civilians by the UPA in 1943, including women and children killed with extreme brutality), which makes it impossible to consider the UPA even human.
The interpretation of history is not so much a question of science as a question of conscience. The word "conscience" (so-vest') means "common knowledge" (sovmestnaya vest'), but the message can also come from the devil, and the Volyn massacre killers did what they did with a clear conscience. The Poles remember this and will never forget—Poles are not beasts, because a human is a remembering creature.
A young Ukrainian is essentially being offered not just "a different memory from Russians"—he is being offered a different conscience from Russians, if this can even be called conscience.
So when did the geographical term "Ukrainian" come to mean not "a Russian living on the Borderland" but simply "non-Russian"?
Part XV: The Completion of Korenizatsiya in Post-Soviet Ukraine
"Non-Traditional Ethnic Orientation of Former Russians"
One can believe in God or not, but not understanding the role of Orthodoxy in common Russian folk memory is madness! This madness was the sin of Soviet historiography. The Russian people for the greater part of their history lived on the territories of several states. But the people in the Middle Ages were basically Orthodox, and as a consequence, had a philosophical attitude toward state borders, which changed on average every generation, for one simple reason: they had one common memory—baptism, and this is not an event—it is being.
After another decentralization of Rus' (the collapse of the USSR), everything returned to square one—again new borders for one people. But it was precisely Soviet education that completely excluded the religious factor from the common memory of the Russian people; as a result, the concept of ethnogenesis was vulgarized in the Soviet and post-Soviet mentality to elementary local history.
In other respects, the USSR as the country that won the greatest war in world history is the peak of Russian messianism. But when the USSR fell, the Russian people, deprived both of Orthodox common historical memory and the Red messianic project of building an ideal society, begins to disintegrate into "embroidered shirts and their markets"—that is, into political nations.
A political nation is a state of modern times; today it is constantly confused in Ukraine with the concept of a people (ethnos). Within the framework of the post-Soviet mentality, the existence of three new Russian states came to be understood as the existence of three separate peoples.
Unfortunately, instead of teaching the common history of one people in several states (as Greece and Cyprus do), Ukraine took the path of creating ethnic myths. And here the developments of the Soviet historical school came in handy (the same Grushevskys and their derivatives). Essentially, Lenin's policy of korenizatsiya, suspended by Stalin, was completed within the framework of "post-Soviet education in Ukraine."
Ethnic disintegration is when the perception of history changes not in an academician's dissertation but in the mass consciousness of an entire generation. Modern Ukrainian historiography is a "skeleton from the closet" of the half-forgotten Leninist policy of ethnic engineering, and generations were raised on these books.
Part XVI: The Macedonia Example—How an Ethnonym Is Made from a Toponym
I'll give you someone else's example of korenizatsiya that doesn't concern Ukrainians or Russians. The example will be from the korenizatsiya of Serbs and Bulgarians within the framework of the creation of Yugoslavia.
Korenizatsiya is when Serbs who live on the Black Mountain (Crna Gora/Montenegro) were told that they are actually not quite Serbs—they're Montenegrins. Why? Because they live on the Black Mountain. And the Bulgarians who lived in Macedonia were "blessed" by the great Yugoslav indigenizers with the news that they are actually descendants of Alexander the Great. Why? Because they live in Macedonia. It sounds like nonsense, but generations were raised on this.
And so, when Yugoslavia collapsed, to the north of Greece and to the west of Bulgaria, there arose the absurd state of Macedonia, populated seemingly by Bulgarians. But the most dramatic thing is that there they raised a generation on their mythical historiography with the classic "non-traditional ethnic orientation." They have no common memory with Bulgarians: although they speak the Bulgarian language, they don't consider themselves Bulgarians but believe they are descendants of Alexander the Great.
Greece flatly refused to recognize the name "Macedonia" for this state. Ancient Macedonians considered themselves Greeks and participated in the Olympic Games (only Greeks could participate), while present-day "Macedonians" do not consider themselves Greeks—which means they're not Macedonians either.
From our Greek point of view, Macedonia ends at the borders of northern Greece. They eventually agreed to call themselves "North Macedonia." Thus, the geographical rather than ethnic character of this state's name is emphasized.
This is the same as if Russia had insisted that Ukraine change its constitutional name from "Ukraine" to "Borderland."
Bulgaria's Response
And here's the most interesting thing—Bulgaria's reaction:
In this state (Macedonia) is the city of Ohrid, the former capital of the Western Bulgarian Tsardom. It is believed that it was precisely in Ohrid that the Cyrillic alphabet was first created by a student of Cyril and Methodius, St. Clement of Ohrid. Given the enormous significance of this city for the formation of Bulgarian identity, Ohrid can be called "the mother of Bulgarian cities."
According to a Joint Declaration of February 22, 1999, Bulgaria recognizes the Macedonian state, but at the same time continues to consider the state language of the Republic of Macedonia a dialect of Bulgarian and expects from the authorities of this republic the cessation of aggressive steps and disinformation regarding Bulgarian history.
Thus, Bulgaria does not recognize the "non-traditional ethnic orientation" of Macedonian Bulgarians, who have convinced themselves that they are descendants of Alexander the Great, and is waiting for them to come to their senses.
Because a people is not one generation but their historical totality, and if one generation has gone mad, this does not mean that their children will not come to their senses.
Part XVII: Russia at the Crossroads
This is what Russia did not do after the collapse of the USSR. Russia often wins wars but sometimes loses the elementary peace. After the collapse of the Union, Russia continued (at the level of post-Soviet atavism) to reproduce the old Leninist myth, calling Russians a "fraternal people."
The well-known slogan "Ukrainians are a fraternal people" means: "Ukrainians are not Russians."
Can you imagine a person looking in a mirror and saying to their reflection: "You are my brother"? And then the reflection growled at some point: "We will never be brothers!"—so don't blame the mirror.
"We Will Never Be Brothers" — This famous Maidan video had enormous resonance in Ukraine. It's in Russian with a Russian woman explaining in her native Russian why she is "no longer Russian." Millions of Ukrainians watched this video, and for them it became a symbol of their non-Russianness. But for other millions of Ukrainians who wanted to remain Russian, it meant the uprising in Donbas for their right to stay Russian.
Leninist policy of social engineering (korenizatsiya), with the division of one people with one historical memory into three supposedly "fraternal" ones, led to the war in Donbas. It developed in part of the Russian people a complex of the younger brother, and a fraternal people is not necessarily a friendly one.
Cain killed Abel exclusively out of fraternal jealousy.
There's a Chinese proverb: "The ideal war is one that was avoided." Wars begin in schools; only there can they end. One shouldn't expect anything sensible from Ukrainian historiography, but how is the history of the Russian people taught in Russia itself?
Within the framework of post-Soviet historiographical atavism, Russia itself gave up to Ukrainian nationalists part of the history of the Russian people (calling it "fraternal"), thereby opening the path to the emergence of non-traditional ethnic orientation of former Russians (korenizatsiya).
Part XVIII: The Greek-Cypriot Model
What is traditional ethnic orientation?
There is one single Eastern European people that, by the will of fate, did not experience the social experiment of scientific atheism as a state religion and preserved traditional ethnic orientation despite the presence of two political nations.
Modern Cypriots are a view into the Russian past of Ukrainians, before korenizatsiya.
A political nation is merely a superstructure on the enormous historical body of folk (ethnic) memory, but one and the other do not negate each other.
Why invent a new people (ethnos) when there are several political nations (states)? Take an example from the Greeks. We Greeks have one people (ethnos), with an enormous history, but at the same time two young political nations—Greece (state founded at the beginning of the 19th century) and the "Republic of Cyprus" (a separate state since 1960).
Moreover, the differences between these states are greater than the differences between Ukraine and Russia:
- Greece is a NATO member, while Cyprus is not.
- In Cyprus there's left-hand traffic, in Greece right-hand traffic.
- There were even conflict situations between the two Greek states, for example, the overthrow of Archbishop and President of Cyprus Makarios by the Greek "Black Colonels" in 1974.
- The linguistic differences are radical: when a Greek-Cypriot from some remote village speaks with a Greek from Greece in different dialects, the differences between Russian and Ukrainian simply pale.
Nevertheless, both Greeks from Greece and Greek-Cypriots, despite representing two separate political nations substantially differing from each other, nevertheless consider themselves part of one people (ethnos), and we don't care that there are two states but one people.
I myself served in the Greek military contingent in Cyprus, and I know firsthand that Cypriots are great patriots of their state. But if you even hint to a Cypriot that he's not a Greek, he will, to put it mildly, be very offended—and that's in the best case.
Why? Because he has "traditional ethnic orientation"—that is, he perceives all his ethnocultural differences from continental Greeks as the wealth and multifacetedness of common Greek historical memory.
Cyprus is not Greece (Ukraine is not Russia), but Cypriots are Greeks (Ukrainians are Russians)—and there is NO semantic contradiction in this.
Political nations are situational and, at best, are objects of politics, while a people is a subject of history.
In general, there are now three states on Rus' (three political nations), but Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians are one people. This is visible even in how they argue (whose borscht—Ukrainian or South Russian).
Any attempt to invent a separate Ukrainian or Belarusian people because of the attempt to build political nations will inevitably lead to the creation of mythical historiography. A people is common memory.
Part XIX: Nationalism as Neo-Paganism
If you translate the word "nationalism" into Church Slavonic, you get "yazychestvo" (paganism)—from the word "yazyci" (peoples/nations).
Naturally, translating the modern term "nationalism" into Church Slavonic as "paganism" is somewhat incorrect, since in those distant times the term "nation" simply didn't exist. The concept of "nation" is a state of modern times, where the national idea performs the function of secular religion.
But looking at the Ukrainian crisis, you ask yourself: is there anything new in this "modern times" besides new technologies? If "nationalism" is not classical paganism but more neo-paganism, where instead of a national god (Zeus, Perun, etc.) a "national idea" is used—that is, an ideological construct. If you translate the phrase "pagan cult" into modern language, you get "national idea."
But the Ukrainian national idea cannot really even be called a myth. In the case of myth, according to Durkheim: "The preparation and development of meanings occurs through trial and error over several generations, is built into 'prelogical thinking,' strengthening a certain belonging to traditions and culture within the framework of collective representations."
The Trojan War played the same role for ancient Greeks as the Battle of Stalingrad did for the descendants of those who won it, and this is the memory that future generations should be proud of.
And what does Bandera with Shukhevich have to do with it? They simply don't fit here. Thus, Ukrainians are being offered to give up a living legend for the sake of a dubious myth.
Part XX: Separatism of Regional Elites (Nationalism in an Empire)
In the case of the new Ukrainian nationalist historiography, we are dealing with a product of the political activity of a narrow group of people (nationalism is often separatism of regional elites), who are trying to displace logical thinking with the help of new historiography and change the historical memory of the people with the aim not just of seizing power but of arguing for retaining it.
If a myth can exist among a people without an administrative resource, then nationalism exists only for the sake of power on a particular territory. That's why former party functionaries of the late Ukrainian SSR, after the country's collapse, so easily switched from the slogan "Ukrainians are a fraternal people" (Ukrainians are not Russians) to the slogan "Ukraine is Europe" (Ukrainians are better than Russians).
But the problem is not in the elites. The problem is deeper—in Ukrainian Soviet schools, where Russians were turned into "Russian-speakers."
The thesis "Ukrainians are a fraternal people" is a soft form of Banderism (Nazism directed against Russians). Bandera claimed that Ukrainians are not Russians, and the same meaning is embedded in the phrase "Ukrainians are a fraternal people." From here it's a stone's throw to "Russian-speaking Ukrainian nationalism."
And all this party nomenclature of the late Ukrainian SSR—these are "little brothers" who, after the collapse of the huge country, "switched shoes" to Ukrainian nationalists for one simple reason: they got the opportunity not to report to Moscow but directly to utilize IMF loans.
Ukraine left the USSR with zero state debt; now it amounts to tens of billions of dollars.
Part XXI: Consumer vs. Integral Nationalism
The slogan "Ukraine is not Russia" after the collapse of the USSR is based on two versions of nationalism—consumer and integral.
A classic example of consumer nationalism is the USA; in the Russian variation, this is the Euromaidan—and this variation is precisely Russian. The Maidan is a natural expression of Russian consumer nationalism.
How Can a Russian Become a European?
"Russian-speaking Ukrainian nationalism" is less ideological and more consumerist. The Euromaidan is a syndrome of a person from the post-Soviet space—a person who has lost their homeland. After all, for a Russian person to become a European, they must become a Euro-Ukrainian, and then they'll be accepted into the European Union. Since Russians are not welcome in Europe, one must stop being Russian to enter Europe—like Esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage.
And Russian people "fell for it." Naturally, the Customs Union (with Russia) compared to the European Union was skillfully presented in Ukraine's mass media as the "Taiga Union."
If for this a Russian person needs to convince themselves that they're Ukrainian—"easy!"—after all, there's the concept of "political nation." The fanaticism with which, after the Maidan of 2014, Russians called themselves Euro-Ukrainians already resembled a "Russian sect of Maidan witnesses."
Former Little Russians, having passed through the crucible of korenizatsiya, have sunk to the state of micro-Europeans (with the rights of distant or poor relatives).
In this mythology, Russia is presented as an aggressor that first aggressively gifted Crimea (in 1954, Khrushchev transferred Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR without asking the inhabitants) and then, after the collapse of the USSR, politely took it back (Putin, at least, asked the Crimeans through a referendum).
Naturally, any farce (Euro-integration) is short-lived; this chocolate illusion melted before our eyes. As for Ukraine, the main result of the Maidan was harsh deindustrialization.
And here, replacing consumer nationalism (Euromaidan), comes integral (ethno-nationalism).
After all, for a Russian person, Bandera cannot be a hero. But if for a Russian person Bandera is a hero, it means this person has ceased to be Russian.
Part XXII: The War in Donbas—A War for Souls
After conducting decommunization in post-Maidan Ukraine ("we will never be brothers"), what remains in the dry residue for preventing the return of Ukrainians to traditional ethnic orientation (to Russianness)?
Khutor Nazism.
And these quite Russian people from Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, within the framework of "integral nationalism," began enlisting in Azov and nationalist battalions. Because, it turns out, their ancestors called Rus' not greater Russia but that territory where Ukraine is now located. Ukrainians turn out to be the true rusichi. And the Finno-Ugrians of Muscovy, the Tatars of Kazan, have no relation to the true Rus' because they turn out to have "all sorts of" admixtures.
Racism is not science—it's a diagnosis. To put it mildly, it's "unscientific" to claim that residents of modern Kiev are more purebred descendants of Prince Vladimir than residents of Moscow. That is, Pechenegs and other Turkic peoples—from whose language the word "Maidan" is taken (it's Turkic, not Slavic)—as well as "Poles with the right of the first wedding night" were just "passing through" Ukraine?
Russian racism is introverted, and its roots go back to the Soviet policy of korenizatsiya of part of the Russian people.
Any modern Russian who says that Ukrainians are a "fraternal" people is a racist no less than any Banderite. It's just that one racism is "fraternal" (introverted) and the other is anti-fraternal (extroverted), but they're both Russian.
And these "anti-brothers," like new Russian janissaries, are ready to fight with Russia, forgetting that war with Russia is by definition suicide (especially for former Russians).
Blood Sacrifice
The war in Donbas is needed by Ukrainian nationalists for the birth of the Ukrainian ethno-nation (to bind with blood). Moreover, the more corpses, the better. After all, these are new heroes of Ukraine, and they died in war with Russians, which means they themselves are not Russian.
The war is not for territory—it's for souls.
This is not a war—this is a sacrifice of drugged children in a pagan cult called "the Ukrainian national idea." What kind of idea is this? The transformation of Russians into anti-Russians—only this way can they become "former."
But if we tell the truth, in Donbas "Russians are cutting Russians"—it's just that some remember that they're Russian, others don't.
The Russian word "po-beda" (victory) means "after beda" (after the misfortune)—war is a beda (misfortune), and the only way to stop the beda is to win it. And the war in Donbas is a common beda of the Russian people (on both sides of the front), and in this war there can be no victors, because the beda is common. A people is not only common victories but also common bedy (misfortunes). But a beda has a cause.
Hard times in Russian ethnic history began with Lenin's policy of korenizatsiya of part of the Russian people ("fraternal people") and ended on the Maidan ("we will never be brothers"). And both theses are absolutely correct in their satanic logic because Cain killed Abel.
If Russians and Ukrainians agree that they are different peoples, the source of conflict can be even borscht.
Part XXIII. Looking into the Abyss, or Return to Traditional Ethnic Orientation
When I say that Ukrainians are Russians, I mean first of all modern residents of the Russian Federation, who, considering themselves Russian, so easily declare part of their people a "fraternal" or "non-fraternal" (and in both cases this means non-Russian) people.
How does such a Russian differ from a "khokhol on the Maidan"? The mechanism for introducing non-traditional ethnic orientation is identical.
If they managed to "de-Russify" primordially Russian lands by calling them the Borderland, and brought Russian people to the point where a person absolutely sincerely answers "I'm an indigenous/native" to the question of nationality—why can't the same thing happen with Siberia or the Far East at the first weakening of Russian statehood?
Then Russia too will disintegrate into the indigenized—Muscovites, Permyaks, Tulyaks, Sibiryaks—in general, new Krivichi and Vyatichi. And the result can only be a bloody mess between them, as is happening now in Donbas.
There's a phrase of Nietzsche's: "And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
The word "bezdna" (abyss) means "bez-dna" (without bottom).
The Russian people looked into the abyss of the crack in their historical memory in Soviet school. There, Russians were told they are not one people but three fraternal ones. After the collapse of the USSR, part of the Russian people sank into the new Ukrainian historiography—and here there really is no bottom.
After the geographical term "Ukrainian" ceased to be geographical and became ethnic, a semantic paradox (cognitive dissonance) arises. A self-sufficient people cannot, in essence, be "borderland" to itself (the term itself is demeaning). Moreover, if the word "Ukraine" is translated as "Borderland," the word itself excludes independence—a borderland cannot be independent.
That's why it's so important to lead the origin of the word Ukraine away from "Okraina" (borderland). It came to marasmus: the word "Ukraine" began to be connected with the Slavic tribe of the Ukri, who lived in the Baltic Pomerania. Why precisely these Ukri? Because the name turned out to be accidentally consonant with "Ukraine." And the fact that this tribe is connected with the river Ucker in Germany no longer worries anyone.
After all, one must somehow argue that modern Ukrainians are "not Russians," while all their ancestors considered themselves Russian—both western Ukrainians (before Talerhof) and eastern ones (before korenizatsiya). This is how cognitive dissonance is provoked.
In the language in which the great Pushkin wrote, the only ethnos that is designated not by a noun but by an adjective is the Russian ethnos. But when a Russian person is deprived of the history of Russian Galicia, and Russian Malorossiya, and the Great Patriotic War, and when the Russian language itself is declared foreign—they have nothing left to attach to as to an icon.
And then from the adjective "Russian," from the question "what kind?", they become a noun—from the question "who?": if not Russian, then who?
If the French are told they're French, the British that they're English, then the new Ukrainian historiography tells poor Ukrainians that they are nobody (the word "Ukrainian" means "inhabitant of someone's borderland"). Or, at worst, a descendant of the Ukri.
Paradoxically, under these conditions, being Russian in Ukraine becomes easy, since it means remaining a civilized person.
Russian—from the question "what kind?" (от слова «какой»)
Conclusion
The question remains open: Can Russians ever be "former"?
History suggests that the answer is no. Because a people is not one generation but their historical totality—including the past and the future. And if one generation has gone mad, forgetting about its past, this does not mean that their children will not come to their senses.
As we Greeks say (after 4,000 years of history):
«Όσα δε φέρνει ο χρόνος, τα φέρνει η ώρα»
What time does not bring, a single hour will. — Greek proverb
The changes you wait an eternity for can happen in a single moment. Time crawls—and then, suddenly, an hour arrives that transforms everything.
Postscript (2025)
When I wrote this in 2014, I hoped I was wrong. I hoped the logic of ethnic engineering I described would not play out to its bloody conclusion. I was not wrong. I was, if anything, too optimistic.
The war that is happening now is exactly the war this analysis predicted: a war not for territory but for souls, a war to make Russians "former," a war that requires maximum bloodshed precisely because bloodshed is the goal—the ritual sacrifice that creates the new nation.
My son, whose innocent question started this article, has grown up. He's now a young man. And the war continues.
And the most frightening thing is that this war—between Russians who remember they're Russian and Russians who've been made to forget—could yet engulf us all.
May it not be so. May memory triumph over forgetting. May the children come to their senses.
But if not—we will wait.
Glossary of Terms
- Korenizatsiya (коренизация)
- Literally "taking root." Soviet policy of "indigenization" launched in the 1920s, aimed at creating separate national identities where Russians lived, transforming Russians into "Ukrainians," "Belarusians," etc. through education, language policy, and administrative categories.
- Malorossiya (Малороссия)
- "Little Russia." Greek ecclesiastical term for the Russian lands under Constantinople's jurisdiction (Lithuania, later Poland). "Little" (Μικρά/Malo) was geographical, not diminutive—like "Little Britain" (Brittany) vs "Great Britain."
- Svidomye (свідомі/свядомыя)
- "The conscious/aware ones." Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalist self-designation, now often used ironically. Implies those who've "woken up" to their non-Russian identity.
- Unia
- Church Union. Agreement where Orthodox Christians accept Catholic doctrine while keeping Orthodox liturgical practices. Creates "Greek Catholics" or "Uniates."
- UPA (Українська повстанська армія)
- "Ukrainian Insurgent Army." WWII-era nationalist paramilitary. Collaborated with Nazi Germany. Responsible for the Volyn massacre. Now officially celebrated in Ukraine.
- Talerhof
- Austrian concentration camp near Graz (1914-1918) for Russophile Galicians. First concentration camp in Europe. 60,000+ killed.
- Fifth Line (пятая графа)
- The nationality field in Soviet internal passports, which recorded ethnic identity—not citizenship. A tool of Soviet ethnic engineering.
- Political Nation
- A state of modern times; citizenship-based identity. Distinguished from "people" (ethnos), which is based on common historical memory.
- Po-beda (победа)
- Victory. Etymologically "through/after beda (misfortune)." Russian victory is always bittersweet, coming through shared suffering.
- Beda (беда)
- Misfortune, calamity, catastrophe. More than "problem"—implies shared suffering, communal disaster.
- The Great Patriotic War
- Russian term for WWII (1941-1945), emphasizing it as a war of survival for the Fatherland. Distinguished from the neutral "World War II" which both victors and defeated can use.
- Holodomor
- The Soviet famine of 1932-1933. In Ukrainian nationalist historiography, understood as deliberate genocide specifically of Ukrainians.
- Pereyaslav Rada (1654)
- The council at which Cossack leaders under Bohdan Khmelnytsky pledged allegiance to the Russian Tsar, leading to the reunification of Ukraine with Russia.
