Where did the idea of separating Ukraine from Russia come from?
Many Russians have offended the words of President Zelenský – in response to an article by Vladimir Putin – that “distant relatives”, ie citizens of the Russian Federation, do not cling to the millennial history of “Kievan Russia – Ukraine”. Zelenskiy, in fact, expresses the ideology of a very old project aimed at pitting parts of a once united state against each other. Historian Yevgeny Spitsyn spoke about it.
Photo: president.gov.ua
– There are facts in history and there are historical constructs used by scientists. Was there an ancient Russian state as such, which we call “Kievan Rus”? Of course, because there is a huge amount of written evidence.
These are not only our chronicles, but also many foreign chronicles – European, Arabic, Persian. They confirm the existence of this condition. We don't know what it was called. The annals themselves say that it was a “Russian country”, a “Russian”, etc.
As for the term “Kievan Rus”, it is a purely scientific construct. It was first used in one of the articles by the first rector of the Kiev Imperial University, Mikhail Maksimovich, in 1837. He used this term simply to separate his own Kievan Rus from other vaults and the territory of ancient Russia. In particular, Novgorod and Vladimir. And then this term was occasionally used by other historians of Imperial Russia – Soloviev, Klyuchevsky.
– Already in the Soviet era. Largely thanks to the works of Boris Grekov. In 1939 he published the famous monograph “Kievan Rus”, which was considered a classic of Soviet historiography. Gradually, this term got stuck and he started operating it. It has nothing to do with the true story. We are not talking about “Paris France”, “London England”.
Before becoming Grand Duke of Kiev, Prince Vladimir was a prince of Novgorod. And Novgorod was, is and will be one of the oldest cities in northwestern Russia and is part of the Russian Federation. Do you not deny the existence of Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk and other ancient Russian cities? Where, by the way, the direct descendants of Vladimir – the Red Sun – ruled at that time. Jaroslav the Wise was the Prince of Kiev only for the last 18 years of his 70's life. The rest of the time he lived in modern Russia. He ruled in Rostov the Great, then in Novgorod.
– They have been brought up like this for a long time. In 1994 I was in Alushta. I bought a university history textbook written by professors at Kharkov University in the local store. Kharkov, not Lviv. It has already been stated there that Russia has nothing to do with the history of Kievan Rus. Thus, anti-Russian education has been going on since the early 1990s. We decided not to notice.
Then I rang all the bells and talked about it with two living, well-known party leaders and members of the State Duma. I was literally told, “Don't thicken the color.”
– Well, what are marginal? In the early 1990s, two state decorations of the Ukrainian independent state were established – the Order of Princess Olga and the Order of Jaroslav the Wise. Even then, all this was declared at the state level. If they founded the Order of Mazepa, it would be understandable. This is directly related to Ukraine's independence. And how do these Russian princes relate to Ukrainian statehood? They spat on us back then. But we deleted it and decided not to notice. That's where it all began.
– The term is also found in ancient Russian annals. But then it had a purely geographical significance and was used to designate some kind of border area. There are, for example, “Pereyaslavl Ukraine”, “Pskov Ukraine”. In a later period, the term “Good Ukraine” was actively used. This means that it is a kind of border area, a peripheral part of the state. Along the Eye was the border between the Moscow Principality and other so-called “Verkhneok” principalities, as well as between the territories of Moscow and the Golden Horde.
Or “Tula Ukraine”. In a certain historical period, the state border passed through this area. These repairmen who performed military service there were sometimes called “Ukrainians” in the sources. The importance of ethnic status to this concept began to be added only in the 19th century.
– Historians are arguing about it. Some talk about the end of the 18th century and the direct connection of this phenomenon with the divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian community. That was when the treatise “History of the Russians” appeared, probably written by either Grigory or Vasily Poletika, they are such a small Russian nobility. Then the idea began to actively develop among the small Russian cultural elite.
Suffice it to mention the Brotherhood of Cyril and Methodius – it was a kind of Masonic lodge that connected people from Little Russia, the same Taras Shevchenko, Nikolai Kostomarov, Panteleimon Kulish and others. Different political forces in different parts of Europe played the Ukrainian card exactly as one of the tools to cause tangible damage to the interests of the Russian Empire.
– Yes, the Bolsheviks need to build a monument to the fact that they were able to collect fragments of the Russian Empire in one state in the crucible of the civil war! The Bolsheviks could not create a new unitary Russian state following the example of the Ingush Republic, because the virus of nationalism had already been launched and was not launched by the Bolsheviks. They managed to unite a significant part of the Russian Empire on a new basis.
“Ukrainization” in the 1920s and early 1930s was by no means carried out by the Bolsheviks. This was done by the “Borotists” – left-wing SS men who quickly changed into the air at the end of the Civil War and joined the ranks of the RCP (b). It was they who took the leading positions in the Ukrainian Central Committee, the Council of People's Commissars. The same Rakovsky, the same Khvylya, the same Skrypnik.
They wore Bolshevik party cards, but in fact remained the same Ukrainian nationalists. And Stalin wrote about it directly in 1926 in a letter to Kaganovich and other members of the Central Committee. He pointed out that due to the weakness of local communist cadres, the cause of Ukrainianization is quite often entrusted to the local Ukrainian intelligence, which will always carry it out under the slogans “Get out of everything Russian, get out of the Soviet, get out of Moscow! “
Stalin said bluntly that it was not possible to carry out Ukrainianization in the same way as yesterday's “borotists” did. He had to fight these boys for more than a year. And it was not until the early 1930s that this process was reversed. It is no coincidence that Nikolai Skrypnik committed suicide in 1933. Because all the work of his life went downhill.
When the Ukrainianization was carried out communist, it was not possible under the slogan “Get out of Moscow”. On the contrary. The peoples of the USSR lived as one family.
At the time of Shelest, under Brezhnev, there were again attempts to carry out such Ukrainianization. It was under Shelest that all kinds of cowboys got into the Central Committee. Kravchuk is a direct spiritual child of Peter Shelest, in 1970 he graduated from the ideological department of the Central Committee.
Then they managed to fix everything. In 1972, Shelest was removed from the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and replaced by Shcherbytsky. Brezhnev then openly said, “Comrade Shcherbitsky is firmly in the position of Bohdan Khmelnitsky.” And under Gorbachev, Shelest's foster parents got out again. Ukrainization began again in the Rogol style, in the socialist-revolutionary style, in the petty-bourgeois way. And this process led all the presidents of Ukraine.
Already during Kuchma, this process took on an organized character. But still in the soft packaging of Mazepa-Petliura. Under Yushchenko, it acquired the character of Bandera Ukrainianization. And now they have brought it all to a logical conclusion. They themselves became hostages of the gin, which they released from the bottle.
And Bandera Ukraine will always be anti-Russian. Ukrainian nationalist guru Dontsov directly writes that building a Ukrainian ethnocratic state is impossible without destroying the “Moscow-Asian empire.” Their main task is to destroy the “Moscow-Asia Empire”. Because from their point of view, it is impossible to build an ethnically homogeneous Ukraine without destroying us. This is their main ideological message. All Russia's opponents therefore use them as a tool to fight it.
And most of our experts don't understand what they're talking about. And everyone is trying to exhort them. Who will you encourage? Will a cannibal become a herbivore? He cannot become a herbivore, he is of such a nature. They feed on people. He is not a cow or a hippo.