Historical lands. What happens with the Ukrainians on the other side of the Russian border
In the case of self -identification of all as Ukrainians, a serious wave of internal protests could be organized. However, this is not possible now - local, although they have Ukrainian roots, have been assimilated: they consider this state to be their homeland and their native language. The propaganda of the Kremlin and the oppression only deepen the abyss between the country of residence and historical lands. For many years, this situation has not been a problem for Ukraine.
The state is not that outside, but also did not even try to work with the manifestations of destruction of national identity. There was no political expediency, because for many years both the authorities and individual scientists supported the myth of peoples' affinity. In 2014, Russia, and later in 2022, made acts of aggression, starting a war. Relations at family levels and diplomatic levels were broken.
What happens to the Ukrainians on the other side of the border, historically populated by the territories of the Russian Federation, has decided to find out President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. On the Day of Ukraine's Unification, he announced the appropriate decree. In it - that Russia has systematically destroy and destroys national identity for centuries, oppress Ukrainians, violating their rights and freedoms in certain territories.
So now it is necessary to state the problem by examining the facts of crimes, and establish relationships with other enslaved peoples. Yulia Yurina is a Ukrainian singer, folk and contemporary music performer. She was born in Anapa Krasnodar Territory, in Russia. She has lived in Ukraine since the age of 18 - she studied at the university and was a participant in various music groups.
Hearing about the decree of President Zelensky, she wrote an emotional post on social networks: "I am a Ukrainian, without Ukrainian citizenship. " Like, despite its long -term permanent residence in Ukraine, language knowledge, it cannot receive a Ukrainian passport. "At first I thought that Russian citizens do not receive Ukrainian citizenship.
It was so difficult for me - without a certificate from the FSB about criminal record in the migration service of Ukraine is not progress It will be even easier for me as a person with historically populated lands, ”she says. Yurina recalls how she has heard Ukrainian since her childhood and sang her in children's music groups. "I was given a music school for three years. It was a national ensemble" Nightingale ".
We sang:" The Cossack wedding was walking "," A girl was walking "," Return Words in transcription. The songs performed on squares and competitions. " For the first time, Julia arrived in Ukraine at 16. "They performed in Kiev, on Independence Square during St. Nicholas. And he remembers that even then the girl was offered to try to study at the Conservatory in Kiev. Two years have passed, and Yurina joined the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts.
Several of her peers from Kuban were also able to start training in Kiev, Lviv and Nizhyn. Someone then returned to Russia, someone remained in Ukraine. Among the latter was Yurina. "I realized that I would not go, although I was offered the title of Honored Worker of Cuban Culture," she says. She sang in the folklore ensemble "Kraly", studied with now known performers. "She learned about Ukrainian roots by accident when she argued with her father. She studied folklore at the university.
"The topic of the diploma -" Ukrainians in the Kuban "," the singer continues. "I went to Kuban to explore Ukrainian villages. And when I already knew the Ukrainian language, I noticed that many of their own names of Ukrainian origin. For example, there is a river with the name of the pond", - says the Ukrainian singer. Yulia Yurina explored the village of Blagoveshchensk, which is 35 km from Anapa. "There, grandparents talked about their traditions, songs that remained.
I asked where such songs were here, they said that they know them from childhood. There were winter rituals - driving a goat, a little woman. and mermaid songs. All this in Russia does not have. When I interviewed my grandmothers, their fifty -year -old daughters, who were assimilated to Russian culture, were sitting in Russian. But these daughters helped me with translation when I didn't understand when I did not understand The Kuban dialect, which was told by the elders, "Yurina explains.
At the same time, she notes that since 2014 in the Kuban they began to eradicate Ukrainian: "I went to my music school, I was told that the order - Ukrainian songs should be crossed out of the repertoires. It was strange because most of the teams were singing Ukrainian. Also forbidden newspaper, teach Ukrainian and store libraries. I know about the facts of destruction of Ukrainian books - they were simply burned on the street.
" Kuban, or as it is unofficially called, a crimson wedge - a land inhabited by Ukrainians, starting in 1775, when part of the Zaporozhye Cossacks decided to subordinate tsarist Russia. Then about 25,000 Cossacks, some with families, moved to these lands for a rather short time. Former Cossacks from Chernihiv and Poltava provinces, Slobidsky from Kharkiv, were also relocated to Kuban. This process lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century.
The Cossacks spoke Ukrainian and identified themselves as Ukrainians, even despite attempts by the Kuban to Russify - Ukrainian Cossack customs and culture were stored there. In 1897, a census was conducted in tsarist Russia - more than 900,000 Ukrainians lived in the Kuban, accounting for 47. 4% of the population. After the revolution of 1917, the Kuban People's Republic was proclaimed. It happened on February 16, 1918.
This state consisted of the Kuban region, the Black Sea and Stavropol province, as well as the Tver region. It was about the annexation of the republic to the Ukrainian state, the delegation visited Hetman Pavel Skoropadsky, the decision was even agreed. However, in 1920, Kuban was under the rule of the Bolsheviks. For the first time, Ukrainian schools were opened there, Ukrainian -language newspapers were published.
Until Russia organized the Holodomor in 1932-1933 in these territories, as well as throughout the Center and North of Ukraine. During the Second World War, many Kubans fought against Soviet power. In modern Russia, Kuban is "an integral historical part of Russia", calls local Cossacks "Russian", and the Kuban Ukrainian language - "chatter", which is "the southern dialect of the Russian language". Krasnodar region is only one of the territories mentioned in the presidential decree.
The list also includes Starodubshchina, North and East Slobozhanshchina within the modern Krasnodar region, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, Rostov regions. However, the list of these lands is not exhaustive. Historian, participant in the Likbez. Historical Front, an employee of the Institute of History of Ukraine Gennady Yefimenko speaks of Ukrainians who inhabited solid arrays of the territory in the territory of modern Russian Federation, in the past.
"They do not live, but live," says the focus scientist. "After the opening of oil and gas sources in Russia, many Ukrainians went to those regions, but in the mention of the territory of the Russian Federation inhabited mainly by Ukrainians in the Ukrainian territory. Centuries when the transition from ethnicity to the nation took place when national identity was formed in the masses. The best Ukrainian ethnic territories were fixed by the census of the population of 1897 and 1926.
The latter in Russia lived about 7 million Ukrainians, most in the territory of the North Caucasus. Kuban, Taganzhchyna, part of the Don region and Stavropol province. And also in the Slobozhanshchina. First of all, these are the territories of modern Beloroda and Voronezh regions.
" Gennady Yefimenko insists: there are many Ukrainians who are not mentioned in the decree, but who also need national and cultural development, including the policy of Ukrainianization, and national and cultural life was developed until 1932. "One can mention the Volga region, some districts of Siberia, the Far Eastern Territory, where 18% of Ukrainians lived in 1926. It is a large number.
In all these territories, the policy of Ukrainianization was implemented in one way or another, including December 1932. And in the Autonomous Soviet Republic of Germans. The Volga Language in 1924 - along with German and Russian - was even recognized as official, that is, the language of record keeping. " Sergey Gromenko, an expert of the Ukrainian Institute of the Future, speaks about the unbounded territory in a conversation with focus and Candidate of Historical Sciences.
"The presidential decree is not about historical lands in the Russian Federation, but about Russian lands inhabited by Ukrainians. And this is a big difference. Actually among the Ukrainian historical lands in this decree is mentioned only one - Starodubshchina, which was part of the Hetmanate of Bohdan Khmelnitsky and the UNR. The rest. "Russian territories inhabited by Ukrainians," he explains.
Equally important are at least three territories of the former Russian Empire, densely populated by Ukrainians. Sergey Gromenko is convinced that Ukraine has been late with a similar decree. "It was to be approved in the 1990s to balance Russian policy on the Russian population in Ukraine. And then we did not act symmetrically. For some reason, our leaders thought that they could play with the enemy," he adds.
Currently, it is difficult to determine which Ukrainians are referred to in the Russian Federation. "According to their statistics, the number of Ukrainians is less than a million. And the vast majority of them in the present conditions are so denationalized and Russified that someone will be able to declare themselves Ukrainian. Therefore, it is difficult to talk about the real prospects of real practical implementation of this decree for Ukrainians in Russia.
The only thing that can be about is to collect and study the facts and evidence of crimes committed against Ukrainians living in the territories of the Russian Federation, historically populated by ethnic Ukrainians, about the policy of forced Russification, political repression and deportation. Therefore, the Cabinet can, for example, establish a Center for Documentation of Crimes against Ukrainians in Russia.
"This decree is aimed at fixing crimes against Ukrainians in Russia in a historical context," explains Sergey Gromenko. "Maybe a lawsuit would be made to an international court on the basis of this decree. other enslaved peoples of Russia. " Ukrainians can only mention national identity in the Russian Federation only in the event of Russia's defeat.
And then the scientist is not sure, he says that, probably, Kuban Cossacks will not declare that they are Ukrainians, but will develop their regional Kuban identity. When Ukrainians can remember that they are Ukrainians, Gennady Yefimenko does not answer. "The collapse of the Russian Empire, defeat in the war. Towintsy. And Ukrainians should remember that they are Ukrainians, not Russian. Perhaps the most ethnic Russians remember that they are great, not Russian.
" Probably, the President meant the creation of a structure that would study the history of Russia, since it is impossible to study "true history" within the Russian Federation itself. "It is now complicated in connection with the war, full -scale invasion, rocket fire, so many of the emigrants are operating in the EU. In Europe, it is safer, and donors can be found for such work. However, there is one important feature in Ukraine that is not available in Europe.
We can really prepare the ground for force in Ukraine. Creating national units from representatives of this emigration, if they, of course, want a good idea. Europe cannot allow it, and Ukraine can, " - offers Ukrainian expert. The Institute of the Future Sergey Gromenko. The Russian Volunteer Corps and the Chechen Battalion as part of the Defense Forces of Ukraine have already been created and fighting.
Returning to the issue of Ukrainians in the Russian Federation, experts note that after the start of a full -scale invasion, the so -called Ukrainian diaspora in Russia did not show itself. This is not surprising - in Russia to show its Ukrainian identity and fight in the conditions that are difficult. Therefore, no ethnicity and no nation revealed the resistance of totalitarianism. Some adjust to the Russians and their imperial policies and became their weapons.