Ruś porwana?
Rus’ Abducted?

Russia’s War over the Identity of Ukraine

Author(s): Joanna Getka, Jolanta Darczewska
Subject(s): History, Present Times (2010 - today)
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Ukraine; Russia; aggression; myths; identity; symbols
Summary/Abstract: In the face of the military aggression and the brutal realities of war, Russian ideas are utterly incomprehensible. The Russian aggression is hardly explained by the concepts of political realism or pragmatism. These concepts are also completely useless when it comes to understanding the Russian mentality. For over three hundred years, the Russians have cultivated a myth of a community or brotherhood of blood and an inseverable bond uniting all East Slavic peoples. A majority of today’s Russians do not recognize separate Ukrainian and Belarusian identities, consider Ukrainians and Belarusians subgroups of the Russian nation, and deem the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages dialects of Russian. They also tacitly accept the Kremlin’s arguments about the necessity to defend the Russian-speaking population of the Ukrainian lands from a “fascist coup” and to “denazify” Ukraine. The aim of this work is to analyze the reasons for this state of affairs from a linguo-cultural perspective.

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