All about Ukraine. Questions and answers

[David Hume]

I promised David Hume that he would be the first person I would answer here. So I'm happy to do it.

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Thanks for sharing this sad yet important info. I have a few questions.

I am very interested in history and culture. I hope small cultures to survive and not been fully assimilated by the dominant ones. From my knowledge, Belarusian is closer to Ukrainian than Russian in terms of language and culture. But unfortunately, it seems Belarusians are ok with being Russified. Currently most of the people over there speak Russian as mother tongue. It seems unavoidable that they will be completely Russfied in a generation or two. This is vastly different from Ukraine. Do you know why is that the case? How strong is the national identity in Belarus?

For Ukraine, I heard there is a deep national divide. The western part, especially Galicia, was strongly influenced by Poland and Austrian Empire, and strongly against Russification, while the east is less so. What about the ethnic Ukrainians in the eastern part, who survive the Soviet holocaust and Russification?

I know Ukraine is currently going through de-russification. But in the worst case scenario, say US did not defend nor provide enough support, and Putin conquered Ukraine. He is likely to re-russify Ukraine, like promoting Russian as official language again. Do you think the eastern Ukraine could survive that, or (unfortunately) become another Belarus?

And if the current situation continues, or the broke-away forces continue with effective autonomy. Do you think they will be russified like Belarus?

Here are the answers

The situation with Russification in Belarus differs significantly from the situation with russification in Ukraine for many reasons, but I would like to single out 3 main ones. Yes, indeed, Belarusian culture and language are closer to Ukrainian than to Russian, but at the same time, Russian language and culture are closer to Belarusian than to Ukrainian. This is the first reason. The second reason is that at the time of the main repressions of Ukrainians and persecution of Ukrainian culture, not all the territory inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians was under the control of the USSR, unlike the Belarusian ethnic territories. Western Ukraine has become a bastion of the Ukrainian language and culture. Having managed to preserve the language and culture, after the cessation of persecution and Soviet repression, people began to speak Ukrainian again and began to remember traditions and customs. Finally, the third reason actually has a name. And this name is Alexander Lukashenko. He himself does not know Belarusian, and during his reign did his best to destroy the Belarusian language and culture (for example, the Belarusian language is taught in most schools only 1-2 per week, while all subjects are taught in Russian).

As for ethnic Ukrainians in the East, the very notion of ethnic Ukrainians is important here. In fact, many in the East are pro-Russian or non-pro-Ukrainian. But most of these people are ethnic Russians, descendants of Russians who were settled by Stalin on empty lands after the Holodomor. There are many Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the East due to centuries of Russification, but many of them are patriots. Personally, I have many acquaintances from the eastern regions of Ukraine who spoke Russian all their lives, but after 2014 decided to speak Ukrainian so that Putin would not try to "protect" them.

As for Russia's occupation of eastern Ukraine, it all depends on the duration of it. If it lasts up to 30-40 years, I am sure that the Ukrainian language and culture in the East will still survive. And if it lasts longer than 30-40 years, then this part of Ukraine will probably repeat the fate of Belarus (and only obsessive Ukrainization will be able to fix it).

If the current situation continues, it is very likely that the Ukrainian language will slowly but surely prevail. At the same time, the occupied parts of Donbass in 3-4 years will be lost almost forever (for the next 50 years for sure) for Ukraine, as children are brought up there in the spirit of hatred for Ukraine and all things Ukrainian. I can say something else about Crimea, where there are more and more pro-Ukrainian people every day.

Thanks very much for your detailed and helpful answer.

In eastern Ukraine, is there a significant differences between ethnic Russians and russified Ukrainians? How can one tell if someone is a Russian or a russified Ukrainian? How common is the inter-marriage? Is there a cultural conflict between Russians and Ukrainian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians? If so, how strong is it? And how do the russified Ukrainians react to it?

[David Hume]

Another question. I used to compare Ukraine to Russia as Netherland to Germany. But there is one point I am not sure. There is a dialect continuum across the Netherland - Germany border. But for eastern Ukrainian, since a lot of residents are more recent political immigrants, is there really a dialect-continuum? 

Moreover, is there still a dialect-continuum across the Ukrainian-Berulas boulder? Can people converse with the mother tongue of each side?

[David Hume]

Another question. I used to compare Ukraine to Russia as Netherland to Germany. But there is one point I am not sure. There is a dialect continuum across the Netherland - Germany border. But for eastern Ukrainian, since a lot of residents are more recent political immigrants, is there really a dialect-continuum? 

Moreover, is there still a dialect-continuum across the Ukrainian-Berulas boulder? Can people converse with the mother tongue of each side?

The Ukrainian language is quite rich. We have many dialects (but these are mostly slight differences in the definitions of certain objects, which may vary in different regions and small differences in the pronunciation of certain sounds). In general, the language is almost identical everywhere (except in some mountainous regions of the Carpathians, where there is an extremely strong Hutsul dialect, Transcarpathia, where Slovak and Hungarian languages and southern Chernivtsi region, where Ukrainian is influenced by Romanian).

There is such a thing as "surzhyk" - Ukrainian with some interspersed Russian words. It is mainly distributed in the East and South of Ukraine.

As for the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, there are many Ukrainian words used by Belarusians and many Belarusian words used by Ukrainians, but I have not seen widespread use of Belarusian in Ukrainian border villages.

Interesting. I thought Chernivtsi dialect would have a German influence instead of a Romanian one, since it was the capital of Bukovina, where German was the lingua franca.

[David Hume]

And my question to Andriy is, do you honestly think, that Putin would dare to invade Ukraine with Trump in WH?

I don't think it would depend on who's in the White House anyway. Honestly, I am more than sure that Russia's actions have depended and continue to depend on who is the President of Ukraine. If Zelensky was not the President, but someone else (a professional politician, such as Poroshenko, Tymoshenko or even Boyko), the probability of an attack would be much lower, although for various reasons.

May I know the reason for the territorial claim of your map? It seems you included all Cossack areas. But to my knowledge not all Cossacks are Ukrainians. Cossack is a complex group of people with mixing ethnic and language.