Historical deadlock in Ukraine (1) Who is Ukrainian?

Historical deadlock in Ukraine (1): Who is Ukrainian?

Ukraine, a country with a serious flood of beautiful women, needs to add "one", which is debatable, but it is not necessary. On the streets of Kiev, a not-so-handsome "pot" often holds two or three "Ji Bo Su" in its arms, which makes people salivate.

A virtuous Ukrainian beauty, a partner favored by successful men in Western Europe, is the perfect combination of Ukrainian women's life with gentlemen in Western Europe and virtuous men in China. Compared with the Eastern Slavic men who are addicted to alcohol, have a weak sense of responsibility and are not so diligent.

(The former beauty prime minister of Ukraine once charmed countless men around the world. Her style and unique braids have become a landscape in Ukrainian politics. Tymoshenko is also the most popular politician in the opposition camp. Can she make a comeback through this square movement? )

If only the political and social changes in Ukraine were as perfect as their women. Generally speaking, beauty is a natural "capitalist animal" and will flow in the direction of wealth and development. In fact, everyone has this nature. In recent years, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia have not only lost their beauties, but also their populations. Before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the population of Ukraine was about 510.8 million, and it dropped to 48.4 million ten years later, and then to more than 44 million in the second decade.

There are four reasons for the negative population growth in Ukraine. First, the birth rate is low; Second, emigrate and pursue better work and life opportunities; Third, after Ukraine's independence, some Russians returned to Russia; Fourth, men's bad habits such as drinking and smoking lead to short life expectancy and high mortality, which makes the ratio of men to women seriously unbalanced. The number of women in Ukraine is 8 percentage points higher than that of men.

The "Great Slavism" of past dynasties tried to unify the whole Slavic nation into a big country, but this dream never came true. However, Stalin from Georgia carefully operated and basically realized this wish in the late 1940s. It seems that all Slavic brothers are squeezed under the banner of "Soviet bloc".

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Slavic countries have taken different paths, but all roads lead to the same goal. The general direction is-free market economy, basic social security and pluralistic democratic politics. Regardless of the level of social development or the quality of democratic politics, Ukraine has become the "little brother" of Slavs.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia, the brother countries of Sislav, have entered the threshold of developed countries, followed by Poland; Yugoslavia's Slovenia ranks among the clubs of developed countries, Croatia does not lose to the Czech Republic, and even Bulgaria is close to the level of underdeveloped countries. Serbia once suffered from war, and now it ranks first among developing countries, and its comprehensive development level still lags behind Ukraine.

From the superficial economic data, Russia and Belarus in Eastern Slavic also performed better than Ukraine. Some people in the west call Belarus "the last Soviet country" in Europe because of the constant problems of its political and economic system. President Lukashenko established a stronger regime there than Putin's government, and ended the political and economic relations that were highly dependent on Russia. Compared with the Soviet period, everything there seems to have changed little. No matter what problems Belarus has, at least in the eyes of Lukashenko and Putin's supporters, it is an insulated place for all the "revolutions" and "turmoil" in the past 20 years, and it seems that the country is as stable as an iron bucket.

Ukraine has not developed a high-quality modern political and economic system like the Western Slavs and Yugoslav countries, nor has it derived strongman autocracy like the Eastern Slavs' Russia and Belarus. However, the long-term political crisis and street unrest have made it famous all over the world. As the Slavic nation with the second largest population, it has the second largest land area in Europe and the second largest economy after Russia in the Soviet era. When it was separated, it got the second largest industrial facility. What happened to Ukraine?

Ukraine has a long history of civilization, but as a modern independent country, its time is quite short.

World celebrities from Ukraine can write several pages, and several of them are household names in China. They have had an important influence on the world and China: the writer Nikolai Nikolai Gogol, which literary youth doesn't know you damn fool and an imperial envoy; There is no need to introduce the three general secretaries of the Soviet Union-Khrushchev, Bonezlev and Gorbachev. Ganovic, although not many people know, is Stalin's right-hand man, one of the nine members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Soviet Union in Stalin's later period, and once a powerful figure.

However, a closer look reveals that Nikolai Nikolai Gogol is a highly Russian Ukrainian, but his mother tongue is Russian. Khrushchev and Bonezhilev were both Russians who grew up in Ukraine. Gorbachev comes from Chernigov, Ukraine, a mixed-race family of Ukrainians and Russians. Kaganovich is a Ukrainian Jew.

Where are the Ukrainians in Ukraine?

The process of establishing an independent country in modern Ukraine was difficult and the political transformation was tortuous. In ancient times, its development process could not be completed in two days with tears. It can be said that Ukraine is a rare oppressed nation in the world, and its unique fate can only be described as tragic destruction.

1240, Badou, the grandson of Genghis Khan, led the Mongolian army to the west for the second time. On the day Kiev was captured, the nightmare of Ukrainians began, and the "Kiev-Ross" Grand Duchy, which lasted for nearly 400 years, perished. Badou later returned to the grassland in southern Russia to establish a "golden tent khanate", which opened the era of Mongolian rule over Russian States.

Kiev-Russia was originally the birthplace of three branches of Eastern Slavic-Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Kiev is also the mother of ancient Russian countries. Today, the mainstream historical narratives of the three ethnic groups can be traced back to this period, thinking that this is their first country, and they all respect Vladimir I of Kiev and his son yaroslav as ancient sacred kings. Of course, there was no national identity concept of "Russia, Ukraine and Belarus" at that time, and everyone was "Russian".

After Kiev was razed to the ground by the Mongolian army, it was no longer prosperous. The political and religious center of Eastern Slavic moved to Vladimir with Archbishop 1299 and finally to Moscow. Some Kiev residents have also moved to the northern countries, so that the Romanticism can be inherited and carried forward here.

The Grand Duchy of Moscow "kept a low profile" and worked as a tax contractor for the Mongols. With gold and sweat, Russia gradually became stronger, and finally unified several Russian States (excluding Ukraine) and got rid of the rule of the Mongols. 1453, the Ottoman Empire captured Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), and Moscow became the center of the Orthodox Church, pretending to be the successor of the Third Roman Empire, paving the way for the later world super empire, the Russian Empire.

Today, many Russians are scratching their heads and can't understand that the birthplace of their nation and country also includes most ancient Russian cities and relics, including Kiev, and now it is actually "another country". According to Ukrainian nationalists, the glory of Kiev-Ross belongs to Ukraine. At that time, Moscow was just a border town, and Russia only copied its achievements later.

(According to the History of Ross, three brothers of Ryurik, a Viking nobleman, were invited by the Eastern Slavs to establish a country. This is the origin story of the Grand Duchy of Kiev-Ross. Nationalists in Russia and Ukraine are quite embarrassed when faced with this story. Is the royal family of the Eastern Slavic countries owned by the Germanic Vikings? Naturally, it has also caused a long-term debate in academic circles. The mainstream opinion is that although Lord Ross is German, he is also quite Slavic. )

The Russians in Eastern Slavic rose and embarked on the road of fighting nation, while Ukraine, another brotherly nation, fell, and this region became a battlefield for 700 years.

Ukraine was ruled successively by the rising Lithuania and Poland, and later by the "Republic of Poland-Lithuania Federation (constitutional monarchy)"; After a series of battles, Russia and Poland signed the Treaty of Andrews Sovo in 1667, completing the partition of Ukraine, and the eastern part of Ukraine fell into the hands of the tsar. Since then, it has been tied with Russia for more than 320 years, and Ukraine has also been nicknamed "Little Russia". The tsar took this opportunity to gradually expand until most of Ukraine was included in the territory.

However, western Ukraine has a different fate, and it has never been touched by the Russian Empire. Later, Poland was carved up, and it passed to the Habsburg dynasty in Austria. The two Ukrainians gradually embarked on their own development paths, which also laid a historical foundation for contemporary Ukrainian politics.

Until the 1920s, 90% of Ukrainians lived in rural areas and were farmers, while the landlords were Poles, Romanians, Hungarians and Russians. The commerce, administration and law of the city are arranged by Germans and Jews; Most of the workers in the factory are Russian. Due to the lack of opportunities and hardships, Ukrainians living in rural areas emigrated in large numbers, about 6 million people.

Different from the fate of other ethnic groups in Europe, Ukrainians have hardly had their own nobles, landlords, businessmen and intellectuals in the past 700 years, and a very small number of political and cultural elites are highly Russian and can't even speak Ukrainian. As a country with a farming history of 700 years, Ukrainians were once quite unfamiliar with commerce, industry, administration, law and education.

"I am not a small Russia"-despite being suppressed and assimilated, the spiritual fire of Ukraine's pursuit of national identity has been looming for hundreds of years and has never been extinguished. The modern history of Ukraine is a history of farming, blood and tears, and being carved up. The modern history of Ukraine is a history of nationalism.

However, compared with other nationalities, Ukrainian nationalism is like "the snow in 2002, a little later than before", but it has full stamina and is sometimes high. (Text/Duan Yuhong)

This painting shows that the Russian army in Kiev attacked Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), when it was a "pagan". Contrary to what many Russians think, China's political development for thousands of years has not been greatly influenced by the Mongols, except for a few words related to animal husbandry. Vladimir I of "Kiev-Russia" wanted to introduce his faith into the Russian region and inspected several major religions at that time. He believes that although Judaism is good, Jews do not have their own country. Islam is good, but it is forbidden to drink and eat big meat. Russians can't stand it; Catholic rules are too strict and subject to the Pope. In the end, he chose to convert to the Eastern Roman Orthodox Church, where there are magnificent palaces and churches and grand ceremonies. People can't tell whether it is heaven or earth, and they are required to obey the supreme political and religious leader-the monarch. Since then, the Grand Duke of Moscow has inherited and promoted this tradition, and the czar governments of past dynasties have often claimed to be the successors of the Eastern Roman Empire. Byzantine political and religious patterns left a deep impression on Russia.