Talk:Ukraine/Archive 2

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DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

This archive page covers approximately the dates between January 2005 and December 2006.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.

Please add new archivals to Talk:Ukraine/Archive03. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.) Thank you. — Alex^(T|C|E) 22:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

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In/On

the following piece removed.

However, since Ukrainian independence, some of the Russian language speakers have begun using a different preposition (в as opposed to на) to emphasize Ukraine's status as a country and not merely a neighboring territory.

First, it is relevant only for Russian language usage, hence only marginal relation to English wikipedia. All languages change all the time, and IMO there is no reason to discuss every language in every other language encyclopedia.

Second, the sentence as it stands is stated in a totally unclear way for an English speaker.

Third, even when you "get it", the "emphasize" part is not totally correct. E.g., there is the usage, e.g., "na Rusi" (English: "On Rus"). The preposition "na" (Eng:"on") is not exclusively used in the cases of territory or direction, as opposed to "in". A seeming confirmation of this theory would be: "na smolenshchine", but "v Smolenskoj oblasti". But this is not a strict rule, often a matter of tradition. "Na Ukraine", but "v Zaporozhye" (in the sense "in Zaporizzhya area"). "V zapolyarye", "v pribaltike", no "na dalnem vostoke", "Na Volge" i "v Povolzhye" are almost synonyms. Anyway, this is a topic of Russian language, not English one. Mikkalai 19:56, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Modern Ukraine

The text says: Ukraine became independent from the Soviet Union on August 24, 1991. But wasn't Ukraine already recognised as an independent country by the International Community? After all wasn't Ukraine or the Ukrainian SSR already a member of the UN since its formation in 1945? Meursault2004 15:59, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I think the reason why Ukraine and other republics were a member of the UN is to get more votes or something. Also notice "became independent from the SU", but either way the country under USSR was far from independent, not even autonomous, or anything like that. --Berkut 08:55, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

The Ukraine and other Soviet Republics could leave the USSR at any time,so they were in a sense independent. Dudtz 11/27/05 2:27 PM EST

The fact that the Soviet Republics had the official right to become independent from the Soviet Union does not mean that they already were. So of course it is correct to say that Ukraine became independent in 1991, and this was a completely legal step granted by the Soviet constitution.

That Belarus and Ukraine had individual seats in the General Assembly of the UN is indeed a matter of votes. When the UN was founded, the Soviet Union argued that communism was in its essence an internationalist movement, so that although the Soviet Union was only one communist state aiming at its own abolition (when real socialism would eventually be achieved), it was the Soviet Republics that were equivalent to capitalist states. Consequently, the Soviet Union demanded to have 15 votes in the General Assembly. 3 votes was the compromise. --Daniel Bunčić 21:12, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Coat of Arms

Cross posted from user:talk page:

I am just curious why the main article about Ukraine contains a wrong image of the coat of arms: the one with a lion and a cossack. The only official (small) coat of arms is currently the trident. I'll try to find an image of the trident.Sashazlv 03:37, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Found. Use. Sashazlv 03:49, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

If this CoA is not official, we should change it. Could you or anyone just confirm for sure that the CoA in the main UA article is not correct? (I am not at all and expert in these things). Irpen 07:39, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

From the Constitution [1]:

• The state symbols of Ukraine are the State Flag of Ukraine, the State Coat of Arms of Ukraine and the State Anthem of Ukraine.
• The State Flag of Ukraine is a banner of two equally-sized horizontal bands of blue and yellow.
• The Great State Coat of Arms of Ukraine shall be established with the consideration of the Small State Coat of Arms of Ukraine and the Coat of Arms of the Zaporozhian Host, by the law adopted by no less than two-thirds of the constitutional compositio n of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
• The main element of the Great State Coat of Arms of Ukraine is the Emblem of the Royal State of Volodymyr the Great (the Small State Coat of Arms of Ukraine).

I think the small COA is the trident, here's something else I found [2]:

The current state emblem (officially known as the "small" or "minor" coat of arms) is a gold Trident of St. Volodymyr the Great on a blue shield (much like the one shown on your rendition of the Border Guard Flag). As correctly stated in your excerpt from the Ukrainian Constitution, the small coat of arms is to become the central element in the great coat of arms. However, this decision has become stalled in parliament, mainly due to opposition from the Communists, who would like to see an emblem at least partially recalling the Soviet period.

I don't think the "Great" COA has been adopted yet... --Berkut 09:12, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Sounds convinsing. Than we should put the small CoA into main Ukraine artcle. Let's just wait a little bit for responses. I don't expect objections, so we can replace the image there soon. Thanks, guys. Irpen 16:08, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

Great CoA has not yet been adopted and even considered by the Verkhovna Rada (unlike the text of the anthem). A bill was proposed by Kuchma (26.09.2002) and another one by Lukyanenko (08.07.2003). None of them is scheduled for consideration during this session [3]. Sashazlv 20:31, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

National Motto

I tried to verify whether "Воля, злагода, добро" is the national motto of Ukraine and whether Ukraine does have the national motto. I searched the Rada's legislative database, as well as the sites of KMU and the president. Nothing. Google gives a bunch of links, but they are just cross-references to Ukraine or List of state mottos in Wikipedia.

The phrase sounds/looks great, but it does not appear in official documents, on official seals, etc. It seems to be someone's good intention to fill in the "gap", but this does not make it a true fact.

My hypothesis is that the phrase was used as a kind of a motto, maybe, at a regional level. Maybe, it was widely in the diaspora. If you know the original source, please, post it here.

I would suggest changing the National motto to none. At least, this would reflect the reality that no official motto (according to an act of the parliament or president) currently exists. Sashazlv 07:36, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I heard this motto only colloquially and never officially. I support the suggestion above. Irpen 15:53, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Layout change

I have made similar changes to tens of nations and this has been the first objection I encountered. As for the infobox being on top, I find it stylistically superior and was encouraged by the fact it remained in such a key article (as per editorial composition) as the United States. Speaking of the U.S., I agree with its editors' consensus towards the portal being in the external links rather than on top (the initial emphasis should be on the given article, with minimal distractions, although of course protals are beneficial, so I mean that in this sense). I'll use rollback to revert for convinenicne. I don't have a very strong opinion on this, but your edit summary did not indicate any reason for why the current layout is superior. I am, of course, more than open to persuasion on any of this. Thanks for reading. El_C 03:48, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

El C, thanks for the explanation but I dare to disagree. Sorry for not elaborating with my reasons last time. I was prepared to explain, but wanted to wait to see weather you feel strong enough about this to persist, before engaging into this discussion which consumes our both time.

First of all, placing portal among "external links" seems incorrect to me, since this is a link to another wiki article rather than an external site. But this thing can be worked around by placing it into a "See also" chapter (especially replacing Prometheism link someone oddly placed there). However, the lead, which is a brief summary, is more important as a brief reading than an infobox and lead's being on top seems logical. Besides, unlike the US-related topic, the UA-topics are very much under-represented in WP. Placing a portal to a prominent place is likely to bring more editors to UA-topics and issues listed at portal (please check it out and join if you have time). Admit it that you would propably not know about the portal if it was not on top. I would not spam the article (especially its top) with something less relevant just to bring attention, of course, no matter how important I would consider the matter (like a couple of my own pet articles I would like to see improved by others), but portal devoted to Ukraine itself seemed to me acceptable to be placed in a prominent spot, especially since many country articles do so too. Besides, placing an infobox AND a portal link on top together makes an ugly layout, so a lead paragraph seemed to me a logical way to separate them. I hope you find this convinsing. I do not want to revert for the second time without hearing your responce. Thanks, --Irpen 04:15, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Having the infobox on top actually looks less ugly to me, and makes the lead stands out (esp. as a country article), but that asthetic may depend on browser type (I use Firefox), its specific settings, etc. I have yet to be challenged, out of tens of countries, on these changes. As for the portal, I do take your point on both undererpresentation and externality (or rather, lack thereof), though the top of the article seems a bit excessive to me still. How about we wait to find out what other editors think? In the meanwhile, if you feel strongly on changing back one or both of these changes, I don't strongly object. And I thank you for the comprehensive explanation. El_C 04:30, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Sure, let's wait and see. And if you have any ideas of altering the layout after hearing my considerations, you may try it too of course. If the box makes indeed the lead stand out better, this would have been a good reason in itself but the issue of the portal is getting into play too. A top seems too excessive? I could see that but we can't put it in the middle. It's either top or bottom, were else? And underepresentation issue is an important one. Again, if you come up with a layout which would take into account everything we said here, feel free to try it. In the meaniwhile, we'll see what others say. Cheers, --Irpen 04:47, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good; yes, I take some of your followup points, and I'll try to think of possible solutions/imporvements. As for the infobox, at least, I'm glad you see my point that we might be seeing different things depending on our settings (this is where consensus becomes key for determining which is most suitale, as in, for the majority of readers. As for the portal, we'll see: I'm very open to suggestions on that front (though I note the limitation you alude to). Thank you again for the collaborative and collegial responses. El_C 04:53, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I've changed a lot of country articles accordingly before and since writing the above, I'm going to refrain from further such edits for a day and wait for feeedback (in general, not just specific to this article – I'm just noting it here for convienience). El_C 06:17, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

As per may edit summary, I tried a new idea. Seems to incorporate the aesthetic consern you raised (lead stands out when next to infobox) as well as the prominence of Portal's link. It is now inside the box and the box is on top, as you suggested. Let's see what the feedback will show. --Irpen 07:46, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Things to do

Feel free to add or modify. Sashazlv 03:31, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

1. History section needs subsections to improve readability.
   1. It also needs a general overhaul. 300 years (15-17 centuries) a totally missing as well as other ommissions. Ruthenia/Russia/Rus debate presented oddly, etc. Perhaps, we should start with History of Ukraine article first? --Irpen 18:04, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

We can ask specialists on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to compile something from already existing articles for this period. We can't possibly do everything ourselves. Sashazlv 20:32, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I think this we should harmonize the History of UA article, and then simple use it for this one. --Irpen 21:03, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

I have nothing against that, but... Lately, I have become seriously concerned that we want to accomplish too much with too few resources. Sashazlv 06:45, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Improvements

This article needs some work. A lot of proper nouns are not capitalized--I'll take care of that. I'm also sensing some POV. Also, is the Rus' spelling supposed to be Ruś? (unsigned by anon)

The article definetely needs more editors joining, thanks! Whatever POV you sense, bring it up, and we should correct it. As for problems with English, go right ahead! Rus' is just Rus' as it is though. Regards, --Irpen 21:14, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Please consider signing in. This would make several things easier for you and other editors.

Rus’ comes from a conventional way to transliterate the soft sign (ь) as an apostrophe, or prime mark from Cyrillic to Latin (see Romanization of Ukrainian; it's for in Russian too, but not by Wikipedia's conventional transliteration of Russian into English). A lot of academic articles retain this spelling in their text, and I find it helps identify this proper name, although I guess the apostrophe has no meaning to people unfamiliar with the subject. —Michael Z. 2005-09-23 17:29 Z

Pasted text

The Romanian Minority in Ukraine

- 150.989 are Romanian ethnics (0.33% of the country’s population) and 258,619 are Romanians/"Moldavians". Non-devised artificially in two ethnical groups, the Romanian speaking population would have been placed on the third position, after Ukrainians and Russians.

- The numerical distribution of the Romanian ethnics on regions and localities:

- In Cernauti region – 208,800 Romanian speaking population (19.78% of

the region’s population) out of which 141,600 (12.5%) declared to be of Romanian ethnical minority and 67,200 Moldavians.

- In Transcarpatica region – 32,152 Romanian ethnics – mainly living in

Teaciv rayon – 21.3 thousands of persons (12.4% of the rayon population) and Rahiv – 10.3 thousands of persons (11.6% of the rayon population).

- In Odesa region – 724 persons declared to be Romanians and 123.751 –

Moldavians.

A small number of Romanian speaking population live in different other places from Ukraine.

The editing of the books in Romanian for the Romanian teaching schools in Ukraine is being done by the Printing House "Svit" from Lvov. This is also printing books in Polish and Hungarian. The editorial office for the books in Romanian is in Cernauti: chief editor (Director) Mihai UNGUREANU.

The books in Ukrainian are being translated for all the subjects, including the history books (the translators Ştefan BROASCĂ, Dumitru COVALCIUC, Ştefan LAZAROVICI, etc).

The books of Romanian language and literature are edited in Cernauti, the authors being teachers of Romanian origin from Cernauti.

For the elementary school: Romanian language, IInd grade, Alexandrina CERNOV Reading book, IInd grade, Alexandrina CERNOV Romanian language, IIIrd grade, Natalia CIURIM Reading book, IIIrd grade, Ilie LUCEAC Romanian language, IVth grade, Ion BEJENARU Reading book, IVth grade, Alexandrina CERNOV

For the elementary school (the Ukrainian language, Romanian language and the reading books) the Editorial House Bureek has also printed books, their author being Mrs. Serafina CRIGAN.

The Romanian companies are being allocated in Cernauti region, an amount of approximately 22,000 grivne (almost 4,150 US Dollars) that their leaders consider insufficient.

The status regarding the education on Romanian in Cernauti and Trancarpatica regions

In Cernauti region: In the pre-school education, 1400 children are educated in Romanian language, within 33 pre-school permanent institutions and 175 within seasonal institutions.

In Kindergarten no. 1 of Cernauti, there is a group of 20 children of Romanian ethnical minority.

In the school education, during 2003-2004, in four rayons (Herţa, Hliboca, Noua Suliţă şi Storojineţ) and in Cernauti there are:

- 82 general schools, with Romanian as teaching language, where there are 20,837 students studying, in 1075 classes;

- 10 mixed schools with 130 classes with Romanian as teaching language, where there are 2,246 students studying.

In the schools and classes with Romanian as teaching language, all subjects, except for "the Ukrainian Language and Literature" are taught in Romanian.

Other 363 pupils in the general schools from the region study in Romanian as a compulsory subject and 750 – as optional.

In the schools with Romanian as teaching language there are 2118 educators teaching (19.2% of the total number of educators in the region.

The Romanian language and literature are being taught by 225 teachers.

The universities

The teachers for the schools having the Romanian as teaching language are trained in the National University "Iurii Fedkovici" and at the Pedagogic College from Cernauti, as well as in high education institutions in Romania and Republic of Moldova.

At the Philology Faculty of this university, there is the Department of Romanian and classical Philology, 92 students.

At the Faculty of Mathematics, there are 39 students studying in Romanian groups.

At the Pedagogical College within the mentioned university, educators and teachers are being trained for the education institutions with Romanian as teaching language – 94 students.

In Transcarpatia region

There are 13 general schools in the 13 localities with population of Romanian ethnical minority.

In Teaciv rayon, Slatina locality, there are:

- a high-school – boarding school, human sciences and exact sciences base, with 31 students Xth and XIth grades;

- a middle school of general knowledge with teaching in Romanian language, with 24 classes, 530 pupils.

There are general schools in several localities: Apsa de Jos (4 schools), Stramtura, Carbunesti, Boutul Mare and Boutul Mic.

In Rahiv rayon: At biserica Alba, Apşa de Mijloc, Plaiuţul, Dobric.

Totally there are 4,317 students and almost 380 teachers, in the pre-school education there is a kindergarten with teaching in Romanian language, with 40 children, in Slatina.

In the universities, there is the state University from Ujgorod, the Faculty of Foreign Languages, the Germanic Languages Department, the Romanian language Department, with 10 students.

- Annually, there is a contest for selecting the candidates who wish to

study at the high education institutions in Romania and Republic of Moldova.

- During the last 5 years, through such selection of the Education and

Science Department of Cernauti, 186 candidates have been admitted for studying in Romania and 104 for Republic of Moldova.

In Odesa region there are 9 national schools (174 classes) and 9 mixed schools (122 classes) with teaching on Romanian language (Moldavian language). In 7 schools with teaching in Ukrainian, 1715 pupils were studying Romanian language as compulsory suibject, and 500 – optional, totally over 8000 pupils were studying the Romanian language (2.5% of all pupils in the region). From statistic data it results that only 42% of the Moldavians’ children are educated in Romanian language.

In the village Novoseolovka, Sarata rayon, Odesa region, there was a middle general school with 11 classes, with Romanian as teaching language ("the Moldavian"), with 494 pupils and 48 teachers.

As per provisions of the Collaboration Protocol in the field of education, between the Ministry of education and Research in Romania and the Education and Science Ministry in Ukraine, for the years 2002/2003, starting with September 1, 2003, this school was to be transformed into a high-school.

Starting with the educational year 2003-2004, the progamme of the school was added the functioning, based on the options freely expressed by the students, two classes of Xth grade with teaching in Romanian language, one with human sciences profile, with 15 students and one with a mathematics profile, with 17 students. Under this circumstance it cannot be considered that in Novoseolovka there is a high-school with teaching in Romanian language.

                                X

One of the main objectives of the foreign policy of the Romanian government is the keeping of the identity of the Romanian communities located outside the boarders of the country, the maintaining and keeping of their connections with the Romanian state, totally in accordance with the provisions and principles of the international law. The issue of the development and consolidation of the relations with the Romanian communities, represents, within the Governing Programme for the years 2001-2004, a priority field, pursuing mainly, "the active support of the interests of the Romanian citizens, of the co-nationals outside the boarders and the encouraging of their relations with the country".

As far as the relations with the Ukrainian side is concerned, the issue of protecting the Romanian minority in Ukraine was constantly on the agenda of the official bilateral meetings, including at the highest level, pursuing the settlement of the existent problems, by bilateral dialogue, in the spirit of the European legal order.

Thus, on the occasion of the official visit in Romania of Mr. Konstyantyn Grischenko, the minister of foreign affairs of Ukraine, which took place on February 18, this year, the Romanian party requested the Ukrainian authorities to prove a wider availability for settlement of the problems of the Romanian minority in Ukraine, among which the returning of some buildings that used to belong to the Romanian cultural institutions until 1944, the representation of the Romanian minority in the Superior Rada in Kiev, more substantial support regarding the publishing of some books in Romanian; there was also discussed the problem on the difficulties that the Romanian party has faced due to the blocking of the donations, especially the ones concerning Romanian books for the Romanian community in Ukraine. These issues are actually permanently on the agenda of the Joint Romanian-Ukrainian Commission for national minorities.

The Romanian party transmitted to the Ukrainian one, a Romanian-Ukrainian Action Programme for Europe, containing a number of concrete proposals regarding the protection of the Romanian minority in Ukraine, including by building monuments or memorial houses or the retrocession of some assets, such as: the building of the monument of Stefan cel Mare si Sfant in Codrii Cosminului, the establishing of the memorial museum "Mihai Eminescu" in Cernauti; the transforming of the headquarter of the present General Consulate of Romania in Cernauti (subsequent to its moving in another place), into House of the Romanian Culture, library or cultural center of the Romanians; the retrocession of some immovable from Cernauti, which until 1944 belonged to the Romanian cultural institutions (the house of Aron Pumnul, the National Palace, the Cultural Palace).

The programme for the year 2004 of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, regarding the relation with Ukraine, there are in this respect a number of concrete actions, such as:

- building again the bust of the national poet Mihai Eminescu in Odesa;

- setting up some commemorative plaques on he locations where personalities of the Romanian history and culture had lived in Bucovina and naming some streets in Cernauti after them;

- Building a monument of Stefan cel Mare si Sfant in Codrii Cosminului;

- Setting up bilingual signs in the rayons Herta and Noua Sulita from Bucovina and in the regions with Romanian compact population from Transcarpatia (Slatina, Rahiv, etc.)

- Setting up the museum "Mihai Eminescu" in the House "Aron Pumnul" from Cernauti;

- Opening the "Romanian Library in Cernauti", with the support of the County Library "Gheorghe Asachi" from Iasi;

- Building monuments for the Romanian heroes who had died during the second world war in some localities of Bucovina – actions for marking and arranging the places where heroes of the Romanian Army had been berried;

- Renovating the crypts of the Romanian rulers: Stefan Petriceicu and Constantin Serban from the Monastery Starai Stambir from Lvov Region;

- Proceedings for the reconstruction of the former monastery "Peri" from the village Grusevo- Transcarpatia – the oldest Romanian foundation where the first church books had been printed in Romanian language.

Romania pursues the preservation of the cultural and linguistic identity of the Romanian communities in Ukraine, including of the spiritual and cultural Romanian patrimony which is in the neighboring country, in compliance with the provisions of the bilateral legal frame and international provisions in the field, in force.

The diplomatic missions of Romania in Ukraine organize different actions for commemorating the memory of the ancestors, through commemorative gatherings, religious services, wreaths, etc.

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The above text was copied verbatim from [4]. Is there any permission from the author to reproduce this in Wikipedia? If not, it should be removed. —Michael Z. 2005-09-29 14:45 Z

Introduction text

AndriyK, in your edit summary you wrote "rv: why Russia is "country", Poland is "country", and myny other countries in the world are "countries", but only Ukraine is "republic"? Can somebody explain?"

If you don't know what a republic is, then read the article Republic, instead of doing an unjustified revert. If you disagree that Ukraine is a republic, then why do you remove the Ukrainian pronunciation and Russian name in the same edit? —Michael Z. 2005-10-17 17:40 Z

First, I do not remove anything, I just revert to the reasonable changes made by another user. Do you disagree that Ukraine is a country? ;) Yes, Ukraine is a republic and not a monarchy, but this can be mentioned later. The first line should look like in all other articles: Russia is a country, Poland is a country. Do you have any reason why Ukraine should be different? Then please explaine.

Concerning Russian name of the country. OK you can blame me for Ukrainian nationalism (you did not do it yet, did you?). But before you do it, please make a little experiment. Just try to insert the Ukrainian name of Russia into the first line of the corresponding article. And let's see what will happen ;). --AndriyK 18:03, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

That a republic is a country is self-evident. Why are you opposed to making the introduction more informative? "The first line should look like in all other articles"? Who's rule is that? The inclusion of the Russian name here has been discussed at length, and has stood the test of time. If you want to delete it against consensus, at least explain why. Why did you remove the Ukrainian pronunciation?

". . . I do not remove anything, I just revert to the reasonable changes made by another user." M-hm. M-hm. I guess you take no responsibility for your edit. I'm just wasting time trying to discuss this with you, aren't I? —Michael Z. 2005-10-17 22:13 Z

I do take responsibility for my edits, but I would like to point out that there are other people that share my opinion (or I share their opinion). Therefore your clame concerning consensus is slightly ;) exaggerated. "Republic" is not more informative than "country". This words answer different questions. Please compare: Saudi Arabia is a country, but not a republic. Crimea is a republic (would you clame that this is a monarchy? ;) ), but not a country. The first line should give the answer to the question "What is Ukraine?" Is this country, or perhaps a province, or a region, or an autonomy, or whatever. If the reader is interested in the goverment type of the country, s/he should read further. If you would like to get the explanation, why I deleted Russian name of Ukraine, make just what I asked you in the last message: add Ukrainian name of Russia to the first line of the corresponding article, and they'll explain you everything. ;)--AndriyK 08:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Why did you remove the Ukrainian pronunciation? —Michael Z. 2005-10-18 14:22 Z

This was my mistake. I'm sorry. I've already put it back. Thanks for pointing this out.--AndriyK 15:42, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Etymology of Ukraine

Various etymologies have been suggested for the name.

I suppose that:

A. The first part of the word, the root "Uk-", is derivated by name "S-ak-a" (i.e. Sacae, Sacians, or else Scythians).

The same root occurs in words:

1. "Oxus" ( i.e. Oks-us)( = Amu Darya, ancient river, in Central Asia) (which is mentioned as Aces by ancient historian writer Herodotus).
2. "Iaxartes" (i.e. Oks-arta) ( = Syr Darya, ancient river, in Central Asia)
3. "Euxinus Pontus" (i.e. Oks-inus pontus) ( = the modern Black Sea) etc.

B. The second part of the word, "-raine", perhaps, is derived by latin word "regnum" (= kingdom, in English)).

--IonnKorr 08:15, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Does that come from a linguistic source, or just speculation? It seems counter-intuitive. It feels more natural that kraj is the root, u- is a prefix (meaning "in"), and -ina is a suffix forming a feminine noun. Is there any evidence for the Latin influence? Greek or Old Church Slavonic would appear more likely, and local rulers were called knjaz, not rex.

-Michael Z. 2005-10-30 16:05 Z.

Thanks for your answer. Your arguments seem to be more precious than mine.

You're right I dare say.

--IonnKorr 16:37, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Michael's comments. It should also be mentioned the word "Ukraine" is coming from an old-russian word meaning "outskirts, remote borderlands", e.g.: окраина.

~~ Valeri.S.

See also Name of Ukraine, which was compiled since this discussion thread started. —Michael Z. 2006-02-12 19:28 Z

I'm native russian speaker. It seems to me, that first suggestion (separating "uk") is completely wrong. For my opinion, the most probably etimology for root "krai" is edge->country->Ukraine. Today we have word "krai", wich means not only "edge", but also "country", or "place", or "site". Also we have archaic word "krayuha", which means "piece" (of bread). Intuitively it seems, that in ancient times, when Earth was imagined as some God's gift, each country was associated with piece of Earth or edge of Earth. So the word "edge" (krai) took the meaning of the word "country" and then it became evolute separately. So, for me, it seems, that Ukraine is more associated with country, but not with edge. Dims 20:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Geographic naming

Please take a look at Portal:Ukraine/Ukraine-related_Wikipedia_notice_board#Geographic_naming at the proposal of geographic naming convention. --Lysy ^(talk) 18:17, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Na/v Ukrayini—eliminating vague language

From Ukraine#Ukraine, or the Ukraine?:

"There was, however, no change in Ukrainian or Russian usage with Ukraine's independence, as there are no articles, definite or indefinite, in either language. However there is a parallel concerning the usage of the preposition na or v with Ukraine, both in Ukrainian and in Russian. Traditional usage is na Ukrayini (loosely, "at Ukraine"), but recently Ukrainian authorities have been using v Ukrayini ("in Ukraine"), as this preposition is used with most other country names. While in Ukrainian the newly introduced usage of v Ukrayini took hold, the usage in Russian varies. Russian language media from within Ukraine are increasingly using this form. However, the media in Russia mostly uses traditional na Ukrayini, maintaining that it remains a proper usage and questioning the authority of the Ukrainian government over the Russian language. (See also Kiev or Kyiv for a similar debate)."

Is there any source supporting the assertions which I underlined here? Is the Russian-language usage described universally true, or attested in a source? Have Russian media published editorials questioning a Ukrainian government mandate? This also implies that the Ukrainian government has somehow tried to assert authority over the Russian usage—anyone have details?

I already removed the phrase 'Ukrainian authorities have been pushing the usage of "в"', because it is so vague. Does anyone know how it's being pushed—by use in official documents, new legislation, political pressure, fining or arresting journalists? —Michael Z. 2005-11-15 17:26 Z

PS: also just spotted previous discussion at #In/On, above. —Michael Z. 2005-11-15 17:29 Z

It is too much falseness and antiRussian propagation

Pan Andriy,

Don't remember.

1) 1941-44

Members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), the Ukrainian insurgent army (UPA), Ukrainian troups "Nachtigal" and "Roland", Ukrainian division Waffen SS "Galicia" actively participated in a genocide of the Jewish and Polish population of Ukraine, especially in Galicia and Volhynia. The Ukrainian insurgent army has killed 100 000 Poles of Volhynia in 1942-1943.

See my discussions with Halibutt at Talk:Lviv. There are enogh information to doubt the participation of "Nachtigal" and "Roland" in any Holocost actions.

Neither of creadible sources confirm participation of SS "Galicia" in genocide. Moreover, the genicide took part mostly in the first mothes of the Nazi occupation. Most of its victims were dead by the time when SS "Galicia" was formed.--AndriyK 14:56, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Who has killed Jews of Galicia in July, 1941? It was done not by Germans. Who has killed Poles in Volhynia in 1942-1943? It was done not by Germans too. Certainly, the Polish guerrillas too were not angels. But you should not hide the truth about ethnic cleanings. Besides you have written obvious nonsense about murder of 44000 Poles in Volhynia in 1944 which was ostensibly made by the Soviet army. Your sources? Actually, the Soviet army has stopped ethnic cleanings in Ukraine. (For me this theme is not empty logomachy. Five my relatives have been killed in the Odessa area by the Romanian soldiers and the Ukrainian collaborators in 1941-1942.) Ben-Velvel 00:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

2) 1931-1933

The responsibility for famine 1931-33 is carried by Ukrainian communist heads: Stanislav Kosior and Vlas Chubar. The disaster also has captured many regions of southern Russia. An estimated 3-5 million people died.

Most of the leaders of Ukrainian SSR were not ethnic Ukrainians. If one would like to go into this issu then all leaders and their ethnicity should be listed (see WP:NPOV). In my opinion, this could hardly be reasonable.--AndriyK 14:56, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

My text in article was "The responsibility for famine is carried by communist leaders, including the Ukrainian heads: Stanislav Kosior and Vlas Chubar." Both in the Kremlin, and in Kiev bolshevist leaders had different nationalities: Georgians, Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, Russians and so on. Communists were internationalists and their purpose was not a genocide of Ukrainians, more likely class struggle, dictatorship of proletariat and receiving money for collectivization.Ben-Velvel 00:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

BTW, how do you know who carries responsibilty for famine? Why not special Molotov commision, sent by Stalin? Ilya K 20:31, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

3) 1919

In the period when the independent Ukrainian government was headed nationalist leader Simon Petlyura (1919), there were numerous Jewish pogroms. 200 000 Jews are killed.

Jewish pogroms were commited by Red Army, White Army, and Petlura Army. Simon Petlura himself tried to prevent pogroms commited by UPR forces, but did not succeed to control the situation. This topic deserves a separate article. It also may be addresed in the present article, but not in the manner you did it. (Wikipedia is not a propaganda machine).--AndriyK 14:56, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Petlyura was the head of the Ukrainian Independent State and he is responsible for pogroms. The majority of pogroms has been accomplished by the Ukrainian troups.Ben-Velvel 00:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

4) 1914-1917

During the first world war austro-hungarian authorities in territory of Galicia subject to repression ucrainians, sympathizing Russia. Over twenty thousand supporters of Russia are arrested and placed in the Austrian concentration camp in Talerhof, Stiria, and in fortress Terezien, Czechia.

This stuff belongs to the history of Habsburg Monarchy and/or World War I or write a separate article. If similar actions of other occupation powers will be mentioned this article will be unacceptably long.--AndriyK 14:56, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

It concerns that part of Ukraine which was under the control of Austria-HungaryBen-Velvel 00:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

p.s Andriy, Please do not privatize this articleBen-Velvel 00:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I do not privatize it. I just clean it from propaganda. Cheers.--AndriyK 14:56, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

On the contrary. You give the tendentious information, not confirmed by any serious independent sourcesBen-Velvel 00:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Ben-Velvel, regarding the famine: are you saying the famine was created on the initiative of Ukrainian officials, or that directives from Moscow were subject to their approval? Were they also responsible for the liquidation of the "kulaks", which is often included in the famine? This wording implies that they may have also been responsible for the famine in southern Russia. Hard to justify your view when Stalin's lieutenant Khataevich is quoted: "It took a famine to show them who is master here. . . . We have won the war!".

Regarding estimated death toll, Subtelny 1988 says estimates are 3 to 6 million, Magocsi 1996 says at least 4.8 million, our article currently says 5 to 10 million.

By the way, the so-called Great Terror of de-Ukrainization could be mentioned here too. —Michael Z. 2005-11-22 16:48 Z

You distort and simplify. Collectivization has been conceived by Stalin-Dzhugashvili. The purpose was to receive bread for city and for export to have money for industrialization. Peasants did not want collectivization naturally. They cut cattle, including draft cattle. The volume of arable works because of shortage of draft cattle was sharply reduced. The crop has fallen, but the state has taken so much bread, how many wanted. Result was the famine. The Ukrainian communist leaders did not render any help to the starving population. It is their main fault. Ben-Velvel 00:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I checked all sources. The quantity of victims of famine is estimated in 3-5 million person by the majority of researchers. The disaster also has captured many regions of southern Russia. Famine was not a problem of Ukraine only. And when you write in article about 8-12 million victims of famine, you seriously overestimate proceeding a political purpose.Ben-Velvel 00:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

de-Ukrainization is Fiction. Communists were internationalists and they struggled against any kinds of nationalism. At first they struggled against Russian nationalism, destroying Russian orthodox temples, eradicating the Don and Ural cossacks, transferring the Cossack grounds to Muslim republics. At this time (20s years) in the Soviet Ukraine the communist leaders realized a policy of Ukrainization (коренизация). Grushevsky is engaged in this business! But Kharkov, Donetsk, Odessa did not want violent Ukrainization at all. Ben-Velvel 00:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

You distort and simplify more than I do, I think. I believe the directive came from Moscow not to let kolhosp members have a single handful of grain until quotas were fulfilled.

8-12 million? I do not remember writing that. Ho do you include in the majority of researchers?

Now this figure is specified in clause(article). I ask to correct Ben-Velvel 12:58, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

In the 1920s there was a policy of Ukrainization: encouragement of the culture and language in many aspects of life—your mention of accompanying violence is new to me. In 1932–33 the policy was reversed, with massive arrests, deportations, and executions in urban areas. The Ukrainian communist who had been responsible for the Ukrainization programme, Skrypnkyk, shot himself in his office, instead of submitting to a show trial and execution as had many of his colleagues. This is well documented in history books—I can post some citations if you're not familiar with it, although you can probably find some info at the article and talk page. —Michael Z. 2005-11-23 00:35 Z

I removed the "totally disputed" tag -- this situation doesn't fall into that category. If you need outside help, please use Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. User:Bcorr

Etymology

Mikkalai, why did you remove my parallel between Ukrajina and Denmark? Please use the Talk page before undoing changes that others have used time and energy on. Semantic and morphological parallels are the most important thing in etymology. This is what helps us determine whether an explanation is plausible or not. So please, if you don't like the first of the three given etymologies, don't remove the arguments for this one but provide similar (possibly, better) arguments for the other ones. This dispute is not yet dissolved, so what an encyclopedia article has to do is provide enough information for the readers to decide for themselves. To call an opinion 'silly', as you did, is not a sufficient argument against it, and not very good style. --Daniel Bunčić 08:11, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Hallo, is there an edit war going on? Ghirlandajo, could you please use this Talk page to discuss what is wrong with my following modification?

• By one theory the name is directly translated as 'borderland, march, frontier' (cf. Russian окраина/okraina 'outskirts' or Serbo-Croatian Krajina; this would be parallel to -mark in Denmark, cf. Marches).

What exactly is wrong with this? If you want to know if an etymology is plausible, you have to look at other languages to see if something similar has gone on there. For example, the etymology of Ukrainian німець/nimec’ 'German' from німий/nimyj 'dumb' (more properly, of Proto-Slavic *němьcь from *něm-) as a word for all strangers who 'cannot speak (properly)' has to be seen e.g. in the light of the Ancient Greeks calling strangers barbaros, which is onomatopoetic, indicating 'those who can only babble'. Only on the basis of this parallel can we estimate the plausibility of the theory. Which does not mean that it is by all means correct, but this is one argument in favour.

The question with Ukraine is: Why should a nation choose a name that means more or less 'those who live on the edge, in the borderlands'? Would they not always think of themselves as 'those living in the centre'? Well, there are other peoples who use a name like this, e.g. the Danes who call their country Danmark, i.e. the march of the Danes. --Daniel Bunčić 12:25, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks for your detailed explanation. I'll restore removed section immediately. --Ghirlandajo 12:30, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that reaction, too. If there was anything misunderstandable about how I said the things I wanted to say, please make the appropriate changes. --Daniel Bunčić 12:47, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Ghirla, what's wrong with your usually sharp brains? While all explanations of Daniel are correct, the very start is wrong. Where have you seen "Ukraine" translated as "march"? mikka (t) 17:02, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Day's ending, brans're melting ;) I don't think they translate ukraine as "march", they just want to underline a parallel between Slavic and Germanic languages in this matter. Anyway, I mentioned in my summary that the arguments are tenuous, but I don't want to be accused in the hatred of ukrainians, being one myself. --Ghirlandajo 21:28, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

What is the problem with referring to marches? Although I haven't personally seen any history books using this particular example, it seems like a concrete way to demonstrate to a non-slavophone audience the relationship between the old use of okraïna and the modern country name Ukraïna. (Ukraine's etymology is often explained with the simple synonyms borderland or boundary and that's also exactly how march is commonly explained) —Michael Z. 2005-11-24 21:23 Z

There is no problem in the current version. The previous version I objected explicitely said that "Ukraine" is translated as "march", and it was clear even to a "non-linguist" that certain "linguists" have troubles. mikka (t) 17:31, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion, march is a much more adequate translation than borderland, as the region called Ukraina was a relatively clearly cut district (namely, the zemlji of Kiev and Bratslav) with a lot of fortifications (in Ruthenian, замки украинныи), rather than just any region near the border. But never mind, who needs adequacy? --Daniel Bunčić 17:57, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

The term it good as a comparison, but not as translation. One usually does not translate a culture-specific word by another culture-specific term, with very specific cultural associations. The current phrasing, "semantic parallel" is perfectly adequate. mikka (t) 08:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I think we completely agree now. Only I didn't consider march to be a culture-specific term. Have a look at Marches, it appears all over central and western Europe. Anyway, I think the current version is acceptable for everyone. --Daniel Bunčić 11:11, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I have now introduced another formulation of the semantic (of course not formal!) parallel, which is perhaps clearer for non-linguists to understand. If anyone knows how to say this in an even better, even less misunderstandable way, please do. --Daniel Bunčić 10:12, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

To avoid dispute

I ask to take into account my amendments.

1) WW1. The Austrian reprisals in Galicia against Ukrainians, sympathizing Russia 2) An antisemitic policy in days of Petlura 3) A policy of Ukrainization in 20s years 4) Famine is result of collectivization not directed particularly against ethnic Ukrainians. 3-6 millions victims of famine.(The number in article "8-12 millions" is overestimated and contradicts even to calculations of Conquest.) 5) Reprisals against Poles in Volhynia in 1942-1943, lead by UPA Ben-Velvel 13:04, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Regarding point 4, your point of view is not well accepted. Mainstream history books, and also direct quotations of Stalin and his lieutenants, attest that special attention was paid to Ukraine, in terms of economy, culture, language, etc. Your blaming of the famine on Ukrainian communist leaders, above, is also pretty far-fetched. In January 1933 Postyshev and Balitsky, along with thousands of Russian officials, were sent to essentially take over control of Ukraine, the Ukrainian communists were tried and purged, and Skrypnyk blew his own brains out. —Michael Z. 2005-11-24 21:09 Z

What did Kievan Rus comprise

I find the following:

The term "Rus'" was originally applied to the inhabitants of all Rus' principalities, today comprising Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

misleading. A more accurate would be to say: The term "Rus'" was originally applied to the inhabitants of all Rus' principalities, today comprising Central, Western and Northern Ukraine, Belarus, and Western and North-Western Russia. A map of Kievan Rus would be hlpful, especially because its heritage is disputed by so many countries :) Compay 12:21, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

User:DenisRS changes to History

I think Denis' recent edits to Ukraine#History are highly questionnable and POV-like. He should cite his sources immediately, or I'm going to revert those edits. Not only they contradict to my (vast local) knowledge, but also indirectly support the pro-Russian and separatist-driven POV - which is unuseful and inflammatory here on WP. Anyway, I know few guys who would revert that contributions ASAP, not waiting for explanations - which may not be right . Best wishes, Ukrained 22:55, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The following moved from User talk:Ukrained

Dear Ukrained,

Of course, I have nothing against Ukraine, and I corrected only a couple of things in favour of balance and historic accuracy:

1. the Eastern Urkaine was no way supporting Hitler, so I specified that it was *Western* Ukraine that had hopes on fascists to get independance.
2. During the famine of 30ties, Kazakhstan lost about 2.5 million people, southern Russia 2 million, and other republics about 0.5 million. All those facts are basics of history of those countries. Reasonable calculations of Urkainian's losses, as was mentioned in the article, are about 2.5-3 million. With this, cumulative USSR famine losses in the 30ties are about 8 million

The information that the whole Urkaine hopes on Hitler, wanting to be separate country, and the idea of representing that Urkaine was almost the only subject bad will of the evil "moscali" (to be fair, there was a Georgians and Jews in the government, yet there is nationalism against Russians in Ukraine, unfortunately), rephrasing what You said, "indirectly supports the pro-Urkaininan and nationalistic-driven POV - which is unuseful and inflammatory here on WP".

If You or Your collegues reverted my balance additions, then I would like to ask for the basis on which it is asserted that the whole Urkaine, including like 20 million Russian people that lived there by census in the late 30s, hoped on Hitler to get independance, and why Ukraine is presented as nearly the only victim of famine of 30ties.

If applicable sources of this information will not be supplied, I will have to initiate the process of locking the article with cleansing it of all the unsubstantiated nationalistic POV. Activist's articles of "RUH" members and the likes will not be accepted as legitimate source.

So I am suggesting now that my editions would stay. Within time, I will provide links for the information I cited here. Honestly, this will be fair and balanced history of Urkaine then.

Sincerely, user:DenisRS.

Dear Denis,

First of all, your post above is your own opinion and your arguments, i.e., speculations. Without any citations and references. That's why your edits were reverted by Irpen. It's that simple.

Next. Regardless of your opinion, please don't you dare to write no way regarding social/historical issues. When dealing with society, with people, there can be no no ways :). You know, some humans eat their own shit, which is definitely a no way for me :))

Next, regarding me and my talk page. I can't remember when and where did I speculate or discuss this issue. Particularly, I've never stated that the whole Urkaine hopes on Hitler, wanting to be separate country, and the idea of representing that Ukraine was almost the only subject bad will of the evil "moscali" . BTW, is that stated in the article itself? But, opposite, stating that the definite geographical part of Europe didn't collaborate with Hitler at all is evidently a propaganda. If you mean Eastern Ukraine or Russia did not - it is a Russian-side propaganda.

What is the "RUH", BTW? Are the members of it the only people who would oppose the Russian shauvenism?:) Where are you from, Denis? Why do you dare to edit important Ukrainian articles without referencing if you are not sure about the subject?

And Denis, since you logged in to Wikipedia, you are supposed to be my colleague, and vice versa. Not only the people who support your opinion. Are we OK with that? Best wishes, Ukrained 18:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Dear Ukrained,

Thanks for reply. I should clear out few matters:

1) the two points I edited are not my speculations, points are facts of history. The article tells that Ukraine as the whole country hoped that fascists would help to earn independance. That is factually incorrect, and there are no, of course, sources that would confirm such a nonsense statement. Also the article discusses the famine of 1930s as something that was mostly an Ukrainian catastrophe. The figures that I cited have nothing to do with my "speculations", ones are facts of Kazakhstan, Russian, et cetera history.

2) it very appropriate to dare to use no way phrase in the blatantly obvious cases. For example, I can say that there is no way that USA had battles the Napoleon's army, or there is no way that Stalin and Hitler were allies *during* the WWII (even taking into consideration Molotov-Rebentropp's pact; *before* WWII, both USSR and USA collaborated with fascists, mostly, in technology and industry). So when the discussed article states blatant pro-nationalistic POV lie, of course it is appropriate to use no way when discussing the nonsense that 20m ethnic Russians would have wanted to be independent from Russia and had hopes on fascists to get independance.

3) You wrote: I can't remember when and where did I speculate or discuss this issue. I did not ever assert that *You* personally speculated on the issue. However, *You* left message for me that told that my corrections will be reverted. So I simply explained that the article's information is incorrect, and added more specific data.

4) I did not ever assert that Russia and Eastern Ukraine did not collaborate with fascists at all. So please do not misquote me. However, that kind of collaboration had nothing to do in comparison to collaboration of many people in Western Ukraine and Baltic Republics with fascists. Most of people there indeed had hopes that fascists would help them to get rid of Stalin's dictatorship. They did not know the classification of races and nations that Hitler described in his Mein Kampf. Baltic nations belonged to a third sort of nations with no perspectives other than being overseers and servants in the future hegemonic Reich, and all slavic nations belonged to a fourth group, that, in perpective, was supposed to be only slaves (castrated and terminated completely as nations in the future with the time of natural extinction coming).

5) You wrote: Are the members of it the only people who would oppose the Russian shauvenism? :))))) First, where is Russian shauvenism in my two corrections? Sorry, but Your statement is off the wall, considering the things I corrected. Second, how much can be Russian shauvenist a person with the last name Solyakhov and the looks that made children tease me a chinese?

Sorry, but here we do not have a typical dichotomy that some (pro-Urkainian) nationalists try to fabricate whenever historic accuracy gets improved from shauvenistic (Ukrainian) propaganda.

6) You wrote: Are we OK with that? I am perfect with calling everybody who is registered at Wikipedia a collegue. I addressed to *Your* collegues only in because that You referred to them as *my* collegues, not our collegues.

Sincerely, 06:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC) user:DenisRS.

p.s. I would still suggest that my two changes would stay. They have the goal to improve the historic accuracy, to eliminate the propaganda.

Denis, I see your logic and don't find your edit particularly offensive or anti-Ukrainian. As you may expect, people of different views gather here and when you add the info someone might not like, you have to be prepared to back it up with sources.

As for the particular edit, I think the corrections you made are within reason but not perfect. The second one, about the War is totally on the mark. The first one, about the famine is a little more complicated. You see, this is the article about the History of UA and not the History of the USSR. As such, adding that Russia suffered from the famine too in the form you did distorts the balance. The fact is that millions of Ukrainians died due to the criminal Soviet policies. In the USSR article we will write from the Soviet-wide perspective. This one should concentrate more on Ukraine.

Besides, there are two major views on the Ukrainian famine (aside from the lunatic view that it didn't happen at all). One view is that it was a result of specifically anti-Ukrainian policies of the Stalinist government with some scholars subscribing to this view. The other view is that Stalin's policy, being anti-peasant, affected Ukraine disproportionately simply because this was a more agri-cultural nation and some scholars subscribe to this view. You could read more about the debate at the discussion of the Holodomor article as well as in the Holodomor article itself. The latter is being far from optimal or balanced either and several editors are now having the conflicting opinions about the article. --Irpen 07:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Dear Irpen,

Thanks for reply. First of all, I have to say that I did not add anything on Russia in the edition. The sentance that told that southern regions of Russia were also harmed was already there. I only added the line that Ukrainina's famine was about one third of the whole USSR disaster.

It was especially important notion because, as You correctly said, there is school that Stalin and his people had special attitude towards Ukrainians. It should be made the way that would not delude readers of the article that Ukraine was the main subject of the famine. Because like 5 million people in other regions died of hunger. That fact does not cancel the quotes that were made in Stalin's government a-la "we will punish Urkaine". That simply states that the same Stalin's government had no better attitude towards other republics and regions. And they the same would want to punish Russian Kazacs, and Kazakhs.

As You can see, it is very well possible to unite both schools of Ukrainian history: yes, there were records and quoted from authorities to punish the Ukraine, but other regiones suffered hugely too, so collectivisation-related matters were the basis for the famine. Quotes can not be seriously denied, but with the fact that there were 5 million people dead from famine in other regions, it can not be concluded that those anti-Ukrainian quotes meant to any destinguishingly worse treatement of Ukraine in the sense of famine than other regions.

The most important thing is that the article should not raise incorrectly an antogonism between Ukrainians and Russians that significantly strengthten within the last 15 years.

Pacificatory position (not necerssary for this aritcle, but in more general sense) could be that:

1) many Russians were dead from famine in Ukraine, let alone 2 million in Russia;

2) USSR government almost had no Russians there. Lenin (what applies for the earlier period, of course), directly disdained Russian nation, as well as Karl Marx. His fellow bolsheviks were no better in this.

Conclusion: there was no basis to hate Russians for the famine from very beginning. So when nationalistiс propaganda takes it's place in Ukrainian schoolbooks, it only feeds racism and hate that is unnecessary. It is too bad that some Urkainian schoolbooks still advertises anti-Russian propaganda. By the way, the same is with some Tatarstan schoolbook (their cricism that should be addressed on government actually gets also moven on Russian nationality, what is unfair).

Sincerely, DenisRS 00:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Provisional agreement suggested over the edits of Denis RS

Created a new section since the old one became too long and refuses to load in my browser. BTW, Irpen, would you please archive the above-located old talks?

Ok now... let's solve problems in order of importance. First, some anonym has restored the edits we discuss. I've reverted that. I hope this is not your IP, Denis: 24.148.169.211. Otherwise, it could be a violation of Wikipolicies. Registered Wikipedians are supposed to be honest and sign their edits.

I did not revert anything; that IP can not be mine (You can check it through whois service). DenisRS 00:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Next, I suggest a provisional agreement on the issue - until somebody will provide us with sources. So I propose the following edition reflecting the current consensus among Ukrainians:

Initially, the Germans were received as "liberators" by many Ukrainians, especially in western Ukraine. However, German rule in the occupied territories eventually aided the Soviet cause. Nazi administrators of conquered Soviet territories made little attempt to exploit the population of Ukrainian territories' dissatisfaction with Soviet political and economic policies. Instead, the Nazis preserved the collective-farm system, systematically carried out genocidal policies against Jews, and deported others (mainly Ukrainians) to work in Germany. Under these circumstances, the great majority of the population fought and worked on their country's behalf, thus ensuring the regime's survival. Total civilian losses during the war and German occupation in Ukraine are estimated between five and eight million, including over half a million Jews shot and killed by the Einsatzgruppen, often with the help of Ukrainian collaborators. Of the estimated eleven million Soviet troops who fell in battle against the Nazis, about a quarter (2.7 million) were ethnic Ukrainians. Ukraine is distinguished as one of the first nations to fight the Axis powers in Carpatho-Ukraine, and one that saw some of the greatest bloodshed during the war.

That's what I call a balanced edition. Sincerely, Ukrained 11:58, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I see no reason for quotation marks around the word "liberators" because the word simply reflects perception. Furthermore, I see no evidence that the great majority of the population fought and worked on their country's behalf. Only a small minority fought a guerilla warfare against the occupiers; it is also unclear how people on the occupied territories could work on behalf of the Soviet Union. My version would sound as follows:

Initially, the Germans were received as liberators by many Ukrainians, especially in western Ukraine. However, German rule in the occupied territories eventually aided the Soviet cause. Nazi administrators of conquered Soviet territories made little attempt to exploit the population of Ukrainian territories' dissatisfaction with Soviet political and economic policies. Instead, the Nazis preserved the collective-farm system, systematically carried out genocidal policies against Jews, and deported others (mainly Ukrainians) to work in Germany. Under these circumstances, most people living on the occupied territory provided no support for the Nazis. Total civilian losses during the war and German occupation in Ukraine are estimated between five and eight million, including over half a million Jews shot and killed by the Einsatzgruppen, often with the help of Ukrainian collaborators. Of the estimated eleven million Soviet troops who fell in battle against the Nazis, about a quarter (2.7 million) were ethnic Ukrainians. Ukraine is distinguished as one of the first nations to fight the Axis powers in Carpatho-Ukraine, and one that saw some of the greatest bloodshed during the war.--Pecher 14:10, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Pecher's version. Ukrained 15:35, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

User:70.107.234.247 expressed his disagreement with the part "often with the help of Ukrainian collaborators" (and he has got "test3" from User:Irpen in response). But I think the User:70.107.234.247 is rather correct. The word "often" is too strong and groundless in the context. There was "some" collaboration, and in my opinion that is precisely how it should be written. Uapatriot 23:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Uapatriot, that anon user could express the disagreement indeed just like you have done. "To express the disagreement" one edits the article or expresses it at talk (you've done both and it's fine). That anon's "expressing himself" was simply deletion of the phrase from the article without any explanation and without any attempt to raise the issue at talk. Unexplained deletions are generally frown upon. Once he did it for the third time, I saw a "test3" warning appropriate. Now, to your corrections, the difference between "sometimes" and "often" is rather subtle. I specifically searched and read on the issue and I beleive "often" here is warranted. In the western literature the role of Ukrainian collaborators in this crime is considered rather significant. But I need time to come up with refs and until then, or until someone else comes up with them, I will not revert your change. I hope you find this explanation satisfactory. --Irpen 00:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Ukraine vs "the Ukraine"

I made two changes to this section. One was a correction of the sentence which stated that "the Ukraine" is used "often" in English language. I disagree, but I may be wrong. Please show/cite your references. I used two google searches: 1) "the Ukraine" = 2,360,000 hits & 2) "Ukraine = 119,000,000 hits. Therefore the "often" statement is unfounded.

The second change has to do with a lexical explanation. I cite Dr. Andrew Gregorovich. The following question (and its answer) "Does English grammar require the definite article the before Ukraine?" should be kept under this section as it directly addresses what the section is about.--Riurik 06:28, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but the numbers of your Google searches are useless. The search for "Ukraine" finds any occurrence of the word "Ukraine" no matter in what context, including those cases with "the" in front of it and, what is more important, including isolated cases like the title of this Wikipedia article (which would not be The Ukraine even if this was the preferred formulation, cf. United States without "the").

So one has to look for this word in a context which shows whether there is an article or whether there is not, which gives e.g. the following figures:

"in Ukraine": 3,810,000 vs. "in the Ukraine": 1,060,000 (22%)

"of Ukraine": 2,510,000 vs. "of the Ukraine": 359,000 (13%)

"from Ukraine": 1,800,000 vs. "from the Ukraine": 219,000 (11%)

"to Ukraine": 2,190,000 vs. "to the Ukraine": 185,000 (8%)

However, these are still not the figures we are really looking for, because we have not excluded the co-text after the word "Ukraine", so the figures for "in Ukraine" and "in the Ukraine" include collocations like "in Ukraine business" (9,810 hits!) and "in the Ukraine business" (211 hits), where the use of the article has nothing to do with the word "Ukraine". One could try searches like the following:

"in Ukraine I met": 133 vs. "in the Ukraine I met": 32 (19%)

"in Ukraine you can": 2,090 vs. "in the Ukraine you can": 177 (8%)

So now we are sure that these numbers really say something about the use of the definite article with the word "Ukraine" in these contexts, but we would have to look for all possible contexts to know whether the truth is more like 19% or more like 8%.

But then comes the most serious problem: What do we mean by "in English"? How many of these collocations are written by, say, Ukrainians for whom English is a foreign language and who do not have any article in their language, so that "in Ukraine" might be ordinary interference from their native language, and "in the Ukraine" a hypercorrection?

Consequently, to solve this question one has either to make a real corpus-linguistic research (e.g. in the British National Corpus) or believe the intuition of native speakers when they say that the definite article is used "often". --Daniel Bunčić 11:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

REPLY: An interesting argument re: google search. The presimise states - the search for "Ukraine" finds any occurrence of the word "Ukraine" no matter in what context, including those cases with "the" in front of it. which yields 119,000,000 hits of all variations (in front and after). Adding definite article "the" to the google search or "the Ukraine" = 2,360,000. So no matter what comes before "the" whereas it may be "in," "around," "to," "from," "of," et cetera, the total hits will not go over 2,360,000.

Since search for "Ukraine" includes definite article "the," then to find the pure number we substract 119,000,000-2,360,000. The number we get removes "the Ukraine" from being included in a search for "Ukraine." The "pure" number is still significantly larger; therefore usage of "Ukraine" is more often than usage with a definite article in front of it. Google search is not precise, but the rough numbers 119 million vs 2 million seem to support the statement that Ukraine not the Ukraine is "often" used.

English speaking Ukrainians who translate/etc. do not make up a large enough number to affect the internet even if their work is taken into consideration. To find a scientifically supported answer, I agree we'd have to commission a study (which is out of the question for obvious reasons). Yet,the other alternative suggested or believe the intuition of native speakers when they say that the definite article is used "often" is not helpful either. If we do not know, then we ought to refrain from making the "often" remark. After all, which English speaking native are we talking about? (But we do know, if the google refutation above is accepted)--Riurik 20:07, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, please read my other arguments, too. Of course your bigger number includes the smaller number, but have a look at the first hits Google really reveals for "Ukraine". A lot of hits have "Ukraine" in the title of the page or even the URL. You wouldn't expect an article there, would you, even if you were searching for "USA"? Besides, an unspecific search includes hits like the article de:Ukraine from the German Wikipedia, the German page [5], a page from the French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique ([6]) etc. Apart from that, yes, I am quite sure that the majority of pages about Ukraine on the net is written by Ukrainians and other non-native English speakers. Just have a look at who takes part in this discussion. — A Google Search like that is not clearly relevant for linguistic research. --Daniel Bunčić 10:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I have deleted the the following whole paragraph, since the information there is not correct (and not very relevant anyway):

Does English grammar require the definite article the before Ukraine? Ukraine is the name of an independent country. There are only two groups of countries which require a definite article in English: those with plural names such as the United States or the Netherlands and those with adjectival or compound forms such as the United Kingdom, the Dominion of Canada, or the Ukrainian SSR. English grammar does not require a definite article before the names of singular countries such as England, Canada or Ukraine.

The Gambia, for example, is neither plural nor an "adjectival or compound form". "The Ukraine" might very well be treated as a parallel to the Gambia.

Apart from that, I have deleted the word "mistakenly". Please provide references, i.e. English dictionaries and/or style-guides that say that "the Ukraine" is wrong. As I see it, there is an overall tendency in English to use country names generally more and more without an article. Therefore the Lebanon and the Sudan might nowadays already seem a bit old-fashioned, and Lebanon and Sudan are preferred. But the Gambia is still the only correct form (and therefore Wikipedia redirects from Gambia to The Gambia). I am not a native speaker of English, but "the Congo" seems to be a similar case (though there are two countries with that name nowadays, which makes the case a bit more complicated), and "the Argentine" for Argentina is an older case where the article-less use prevailed long ago. (Other such cases might be former "the Oman" for Oman or "the Yemen" for Yemen, but I am not sure about them.) The Vatican is a rather different case, but nonetheless another example of a country name with a definite article.

I do not think that any English native speaker who uses the older form "the Ukraine" does so because he considers "the Ukraine" not to be an independent country. This is pure grammar: The Gambia is an independent country with a definite article, and England without an article is only a part of a country.

I have a slight feeling that those people who have written the chapter on the article usage with "Ukraine" are mostly Ukrainians who have seen a parallel to the prepositions in Russian. Be sure, there is no such parallel. --Daniel Bunčić 12:44, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

REPLY: Well that is true, Ukraine may be treated parallel to The Gambia just as it may be treated parallel to Germany, France, Italy.

In addition, the authority on the subject cited is Andrew Gregorovich (department head in the University of Toronto Library system for over 30 years. A past Chairman of the Toronto Historical Board, he is a member of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies and is on the Academic Board of the University of Toronto. He is Editor of FORUM Ukrainian Review). Will you accept as authoritative [the US State Department?]

Certainly agree that most people who use "the Ukraine" do so due to unawareness about [proper usage] and not b/c they deny its independence.

The "often" comment is unwarranted; on the contrary, "mistakenly" seems to be warranted. The Gambia is an exception and cannot be used as a rule. Gregorovich's comment seems to be very relevant as it addresses the question at hand Ukraine or the Ukraine?

--Riurik 20:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I have nothing against using sometimes instead of often. All I said was, let the English speakers decide how English is spoken. (And I am not one of them; see User:Buncic.) But remember that in this context, in an article which uses exclusively (!) Ukraine without the, the adverb often cannot mean ‘more often than without the’ but merely not rarely. --Daniel Bunčić 10:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Pending the outcome of this discussion, how does this sound:

In English, the country is sometimes referred to with the definite article, as the Ukraine. However, the usage without the article is becoming more common. Additionally, the usage of definite article with Ukraine is subject to criticism because of the alleged implication that Ukraine is merely a region rather than an independent state (see [7]).

Grigorovich is still omitted with only a link left for elaboration.--Riurik 20:19, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Dear all, this is such a minor issue that I don't think it belongs to the top of the article and I am not even sure it belongs to the article at all. Imagine the reader who finds this article and starts reading it. Do you think he expects this long discussion about "the" or is he likely to have come to read about History, Politics, Economy, etc of Ukraine? I cannot think off-hand of another article to include this info right now but so much space at the top of the article devoted to this issue looks odd. Perhaps, we could store this section at the talk page and use it at the future article Etymology of Ukraine to be written at some point, partially based on current Ukraine#Etymology section, Etymology of Rus and derivatives and many references thereof.

Maybe not the best idea but please think about it. --Irpen 02:22, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Why not? The etymology and the bear mentioning here, but the discussion about na/v Ukrayini is too much. This would make a fine little article on its own. It could also cover the history of the name in more detail. Another example is "Canada's name".

I prefer "Ukraine's name" to "Etymology of Ukraine" ("Etymology of the name Ukraine" would be more accurate). See also List of country name etymologies and Category:Country name etymology. —Michael Z. 2005-12-28 06:11 Z

I am with you and any of these names are fine with me. Etymology_of_Rus_and_derivatives#From_Rus_to_Ukraine section has some info to begin the article and we can use the refs there for the start. In the meanwhile, can we move this "the" issue to talk until we create the article? It just doesn't look good were it is. --Irpen 06:26, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's go. After a look at the other articles, I've decided to create this at Name of Ukraine (it can always be moved). Feel free to move material from here to there. —Michael Z. 2005-12-28 06:52 Z

It's good to go. I've cut down the #Name section here, but perhaps it can be cut further. —Michael Z. 2005-12-28 07:37 Z

Sounds reasonable enough to me; now the editing/discussion can take place at Name of Ukraine place --Riurik 08:06, 28 December 2005 (UTC)--Riurik 08:13, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I have moved the sentence about the article re-entered by Michael Z. to the end of the Name section, in order to comply with Irpen's statement above. In my opinion the current state is quite okay. Now let's find more about the etymology to fill up the Name of Ukraine article. --Daniel Bunčić 10:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes I agree the discussion about linguistic ought to take place at Name of Ukraine; Bunčić I will not delete the often comment, but you have to show your statistics/data; otherwise, we have to agree on a neutral word (if sometimes is not it); I will post this also at the Name of Ukraine discussion.--Riurik 19:23, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Its "Ukraine," not The Ukraine. The ukraine referred to a territory in the USSR, but all Ukranians refer to our country as Ukraine, becasue we are a free and independent country. To hear anyone refer to Ukraine as "The Ukraine" is an insult and is wrong! Slavko 00:57 12 Feb 2006

Slavko, I am sorry you are offended by our language, but as a native English speaker I can confirm that the country is indeed called The Ukraine in the nominative case by the common populace, and exclusion of the definite article is mostly an effect of establishments trying to be politically correct. A counter example is le France, which in English is simply France. This does not offend the French since they are aware that we speak different languages. As has been pointed out, Google searches are pretty much useless in this, since they do not take grammatical case into account. Perhaps if you are so offended by my language you should stop trying to use it. — Nicholas (reply) @ 10:22, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Mr.Nickshanks, to the best of my knowledge, English is a language of international communication, not regulated exclusively by any particular country. Consensus is the only solution here. So please refrain from such shauvenistic statements in future. Best wishes, Ukrained 14:59, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I edited the relevant section in name of Ukraine before reading the comments here. I felt I had to remove most of Nickshanks' edit because much of it seemed incorrect, or unsupportable. The word "the" is not normally capitalized in the middle of a sentence or heading, even when it refers to a proper noun. The statement that it is "usually" called the Ukraine is un-cited, and is contradicted by my Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2nd ed.), which is based on descriptive research about the English language, and contains the headwords "Netherlands, the" and "Ukraine ... (also the Ukraine)". The statement about "nationalists" was definitely POV; as a liberal-minded Canadian and one who pays attention to current English usage, I hope it wasn't intended as a label for people like me. Finally, "...although this is not a consideration that affects native speaker's usage" was just puzzling. —Michael Z. 2006-03-12 23:29 Z

PS: a comment like "perhaps if you are so offended by my language you should stop trying to use it" makes me wonder whether "native speaker" Mr. Shanks goes around telling people who don't look Anglo-Saxon to go back where they came from. I was born and raised in Canada, and although I'm literate in both English and Ukrainian, I hope I would never make such an arse of myself as to denigrate another Wikipedian because I thought his first language was something else.

I suggest that when you are so eager to "confirm" something about "your" language, you first make sure that you have some facts and references to back it up, so you don't get mistaken for someone who is talking out of his hat. —Michael Z. 2006-03-12 23:37 Z

My father, a native Ukrainian, is actually offended by the use of the word "the" in front of Ukraine to describe the nation. In addition, the past summer, I was in Ukraine, and many native speakers of Ukrainian told me that when they translate to English, they do not use "the". This is not comparable to France, where it is "la France", because every noun in the French langauge is preceded by an article. Many English speakers in the U.S. assume that "the" must preceed Ukraine because of parallel use of U to begin the national name of "the United States". Unfortunately, this is incorrect, because the full country name, as we know, is The United States of America, so the article is necessary. Nations like Uganda and Iran do not use the article, and from my experiences in a Ukrainian church at home (I'm a native-born English-speaking American), as well as traveling to the country itself, Ukrainians who now speak English do not use "the", and thus, I would say that calling the nation Ukraine is the correct usage. -Greg 2006-04-26 16:30 Z

As a American, I belive that taking offense to the way other cultures pronounce the name of a country, place, or a noun in general makes for useless fighting. My own father is Ukrainian and uses the term "the Ukraine", but does that mean that he is unpatriotic? In fact, I personally think that the usage stated above about using "the" in front of the word because of "the United States" makes sense, but to be perfectly honest with everyone, I think that saying "the Ukraine" works better with my average English and other people in my area of life as well. "The" Ukraine is not meant to be an insult to anyone knowledgable about which is the right way to say it, it just "rolls off the tongue". As a person who lives in a U.S. farming community, i can say my English pretty much sucks compared to other kids my age, but i still can tell that this sort of thing is going on. I see it in all kinds of translations, such as Munich and Munchen, both the same place. Yet I don't see the Germans (or Deutschlands, as I have heard from several) and Americans going at each other's necks about it. All I propose is that someone state in the article "Ukraine is sometimes preceded by the word 'the' in other cultures, but caqn be accepted either way universally." I may be an ANON, but in my perspective, this simple little sentance could ease up tensions on both sides. Or maybe I'm just stupid. -no one in particular 2006-05-11 21:58 Z

Well, there should be a notice at the top about the incorrect reference. Alex43223 ^{T | C | E} 02:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

see [link here]

This article uses it too much. IMO we should cut it down as much as possible and integrate into the tetx. It looks more professional that way. -- Natalinasmpf 06:01, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a long article, and it only uses that construction five times. If you think you can make any of them smoother, be bold. —Michael Z. 2005-12-29 08:40 Z

Division of state

Maybe this was previously discussed, but please excuse me that I don't understand what division of Ukrainian territory took place and when. There was any ancient Ukrainian state inherited somehow by the modern (Soviet and the new one) Ukrainian state? --Vasile 16:53, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Please don't troll. --Ghirla | talk 16:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

please refrain your personal comments or threats and discuss the subject or not. --Vasile 16:31, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

The list is arbitrary. Germany, France, Britain, Republic of Moldova (and Transnistria too), Hungary, Italy, Sweden, Mongolia, apparently almost every European country and some of Asia too, on a particular moment of history, all of them are missing from the list but they "divided" the actual territory of the Ukraine, the ancient land of the great Kievan Rus. --Vasile 15:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

It's true that the wording could be improved. How would you rewrite it, instead of deleting? —Michael Z. 2006-02-17 16:01 Z

I restored the text blanked by Vasile. It is a reasonable issue to discuss but fast hand deletions are unwarranted. --Irpen 18:11, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

"The territory of present-day Ukraine was a key centre of East Slavic culture in the Middle Ages, before being divided between a variety of powers, notably Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Austrian Empire, Romania and the Ottoman Empire."

• 1) I am not able to see the one millenium connection of the 10th century "center of East Slavic culture" with the 20th century Ukrainian territory. There is no significative cultural mark identifying that ancient territory (identic with "the territory of present-day Ukraine") with a cohesive state. If that connection thesis is accepted, there is no reason to reject the mythological connections between Carolingian Empire and the present-day Germany, or between Roman Empire and the present-day Italy.
• 2) As the existence of cohesive ancient Ukrainian state is not provable, it's a matter of logic that no power divided "the territory of present-day Ukraine".
• 3) As a matter of fact, Ukraine RSS (with the support of the East Slavic sister republics, and having the accept of western WWII powers) divided historical provinces like Bukovina and Bessarabia. --Vasile 23:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
• 4) The assertions in this phrase is essential fascist-type. --Vasile 00:41, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Important state

The assertion of "state" for Kievan Rus is unsourced yet, not to mention that of "important European state". Does wikipedia becoming home for the fascist Ukrainian propaganda? --Vasile 16:48, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

'...Kievan Rus impressed Europeans with its sophistication as well as its size and power' —Anna Reid (1997). Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine, p. 10, London: Phoenix. ISBN 1-84212-722-5.

'In medieval Europe, a mark of a dynasty's prestige and power was the willingness with which other leading dynasties entered into matrimonial relations with it. Measured by this standard, Iaroslav's prestige must have been great indeed. . . . Little wonder that Iaroslav is often dubbed by historians as "the father-in-law of Europe."' —Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History, 1st edition, p. 35, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-8390-0.

'By means of these marital ties, Kievan Rus' became well known throughout Europe. —Magocsi, Paul Robert (1996). A History of Ukraine, p. 76, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.

Magocsi avoids referring to Kievan Rus' as a "state" and constantly refers to the changing level of unity and disunity throughout its history. He specifically addresses the point after two chapters on its political history, in the introduction to the chapter on "Socioeconomic and Cultural Developments" by explaining "why writers continue to discuss the historical experience of Kievan Rus' as a whole..." (p. 83). "Only during the second stage, the era of consolidation (972–1132), was there a semblance of political unity . . . " "The era of consolidation was clearly an exception. It could could therefore be argued that most of Kievan Rus' history during its first three stages, and certainly during its fourth stage (1240–1349), is not that of a unified realm or state." The following chapter discusses the society, legal system, demographics, economics and culture which unify Kievan Rus'. —Michael Z. 2006-02-16 18:40 Z

Impressive sophisticated dinasty is not an important state. --Vasile 15:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

But according to Subtelny, it was prestigious and powerful, and by Magocsi, it could be considered a state during the period 972–1132. I've improved the wording in the article to reflect this. —Michael Z. 2006-02-17 16:07 Z

The Middle Ages mean also the greatness of the poetry. Words words words. I can make you a long list of "prestigious and powerful states" of the Middle Ages. (Could you realize that Moldova principality -do not confond it with the actual Republic of Moldova- was once a prestigious and glorious state?) Apparently, Mr. Subtelny is working hard the National spirit of his readers; there are a lot of them in Canada and US. --Vasile 23:47, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Is your evaluation of Subtelny based on your readings of his works or on critical reviews of them? Or are you saying that no Canadian and U.S. writers have a neutral point-of-view of East Slavic history? —Michael Z. 2006-02-20 03:32 Z

It appears questionable to me the objectivity of some books edited by a Ukrainian cultural association in Canada. The correct reference for Subtelny books are:

• Ukraine: A history
• Toronto : Published by the University of Toronto Press in association with the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1988

and

• Ukraine : a history / Orest Subtelny. 2nd ed.
• Toronto : Published by the University of Toronto Press in association with the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1994

About the institute: http://www.ualberta.ca/CIUS/about/about.htm --Vasile 12:05, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not a Ukrainian cultural association, it's an academic department of the University of Alberta. You appear to be just making up objections to good sources which don't support your point of view. Next will you claim that all experts on Ukrainian history are suspect, because they are experts on Ukrainian history? —Michael Z. 2006-02-23 17:01 Z

First, I can't see the fundamental distinction between a cultural organization and an academic department. Read this too:

http://www.ualberta.ca/CIUS/about/about-history.htm. Let me extract this part:

Ukrainian Canadian organizations had been urging governments to introduce Ukrainian studies at the secondary and post-secondary levels since the end of World War II. At that time, the very survival of Ukrainian language and culture appeared tenuous in the face of strong assimilatory pressures upon second- and third-generation Ukrainians in Canada, as well as the Soviet regime's brutal persecution of Ukrainians in their homeland.

As it is an appreciation of an academic department, I think it might be useful for the article too. --Vasile 20:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Rusych

Ghirlandajo removed the reference to Rusyn or Rusych with the edit summary "wrong: Rusich is a modern invention" [8]. I had found a hidden comment in the text, and restored it with reference to something I had read recently. This really belongs in "Etymology of Rus", but I'd like to clarify.

Magocsi (1996) "The meaning of Rus′" in A History of Ukraine, p. 67, states: "To the concept of Rus′ as the territory of Kievan Rus′ was added another dimension by the Christian inhabitans’ description of themselves collectively as Rus′ (the singular of which term was rusyn, sometimes rusych)." Magocsi is clearly referring to the historical name, and not a modern term. His books is well-researched and carefully written, and doesn't tend to make errors like this. Is there any basis for the statement that the term rusych is modern? —Michael Z. 2006-02-17 20:01 Z

Please open the PSRL and try to find the word there. I wish you good luck. Actually, "Rusichi" is a hapax legomenon confined to a single passage of The Tale of Igor's Campaign, whose authenticity is questioned. Just like "rusin", the word has become a staple of the popular literature, although arguments for its actual existence in the Old East Slavic remain tenuous, at best. --Ghirla | talk 10:13, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a copy handy. But since I'm so impressed with your appropriate use of hapax legomenon, I will drop the subject and instead create a stub for PSRL. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-02-20 03:40 Z

Is Rusyn also not attested in the old East Slavic literature? How far back does it go? —Michael Z. 2006-02-20 07:13 Z

"the" ukraine

I don't understand how "usage" can be "deprecated". I don't think that is the correct verb because it makes absolutely no sense. What is trying to be conveyed here?

Style manuals of major papers instruct writers to no longer use "the Ukraine". More details are in the main article Name of Ukraine. —Michael Z. 2006-02-24 00:58 Z

Still, "deprecated" is the wrong word to use. What about "the Yukon". Is it called "yukon" now? I mean I'd hate to offend anyone up there —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.108.0.40 (talk • contribs)

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. What would be a better wording?

Regarding the Yukon, I'm not sure. The opening line says "Yukon or Yukon Territory or (usually) The Yukon is one of Canada's northern territories...". The Canadian Oxford Dictionary just says "Yukon Territory". Perhaps the CP style guide would be the best authority. —Michael Z. 2006-02-24 21:07 Z

It's hard to say what word you should use because "deprecated" makes no sense, so the original sentence has very little meaning to me. what are you trying to convey?

The use of "the Ukraine" is recommended against by the style guides of influential journalistic sources, and has fallen out of use in most professional writing. —Michael Z. 2006-03-01 23:21 Z

The use of "the" is unfortunate, because unlike the Yukon, Ukraine is no longer a territory or part of another country. It is independent.

It's ridiculous how this fight keeps creeping up on the main page. There is no official organization that calls the country "the Ukraine", so get over it. It is "Ukraine" for now, forever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrewuoft (talk • contribs)

What's correct in English is not decided by how "official" are those who apply certain usage. The Ukraine is uncommon but still used in the media and books published by respected publishers, while slowly falling out of use. However, those who use it do so not because they imply that Ukraine is a part of another country but because the usage became established enough. "The" is used with some countries to this day. It does not mean that "the" should or should not be used and we are not qualified to judge that. All we can say is that both usages exist . In any case the issue is covered in the name section and does not belong to the lead section. --Irpen 03:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The proclaimed independence Ukraine (1917-1921)

I asked about sources presenting an independent Ukrainian state at the end of WWI. Especially, is any of the proclaimed states in the Western Ukraine received a particular sign of recognition from some Western states or powers? The simple proclamation of independence is not sufficient, in Europe or North America. The same problem at the article History of Ukraine. If there is no source presenting an independent Ukrainian state, then there were some failed attempts until Ukrainian RSS. --Vasile 01:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

As before, care to google a little before "asking for sources" especially if if you don't like reading books. See refs above about pestering. --Irpen 01:40, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability. It is the responsibility of editors adding material to provide references to sources for that material. If someone challenges statements in an article, and sources are not provided by the original editor or by someone else who wants to the material to stay in the article, then the unsourced material may be removed from the article. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 02:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Donald Albury, thank you for your valuable comment. OTOH, please also see WP:TROLL#Pestering. The user above made too many frivolous calls for sources in the past and even when the material was sourced to the most respected encyclopedias user:Vasile persisted with pestering and calling sources like Britannica and Columbia "dubious". Here, he calls for sources not of some obscure fact, but for the most basic info easily foundable in any book about the History of Ukraine. In fact, he can go to the History of Ukraine article and check the refs there. Such basic info would be very easy to find. --Irpen 02:46, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The easiest way to defend anything that has been challenged is to provide sources, even if you feel that the facts are so well known that they don't require sources. On the other hand, if someone feels that sources that are generally considered to be reliable are 'dubious' on the subject, then it is incumbent on that editor to supply other reliable sources supporting an alternative view. It is quite possible to have reliable sources disagreeing with each other. I have had to deal with that in articles on history. In such cases we need to note the different versions of history offered by reliable sources, and leave the final interpretation to the reader. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 12:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The Central Rada had its autonomy recognized by the Russian Provisional Government after the first revolution, and later issued its Third Universal announcing the Ukrainian National Republic in federation with Russia, which was also recognized by most Ukrainian soviets, except for the one in Kharkiv. The Central Rada issued the Fourth Universal proclaiming the independence of the Ukrainian National Republic on the night of January 24, 1918. Its delegates to the Brest-Litovsk conference signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers (Germany, Austro-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey) on February 9, 1918, recognizing the government of the UNR and the borders of its territory, establishing diplomatic relations and stating the intent to conduct economic relations. The terms of the treaty were recognized by Bolshevik Russia on March 3.

The Hetmanate had formal diplomatic relations only with Germany, Austro-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, but it also exchanged embassies with about a dozen countries, and conducted negotiations with Bolshevik Russia.

On April 21, 1920, the UNR was officially recognized by the Treaty of Warsaw with Poland.

The early Soviet Ukrainian government might also be considered gaining independence from 1917 through 1920, but as it gained power, it lost independence to Soviet Russia and then formed the USSR with it.

The above is gleaned from a reading of the relevant sections of Subtelny and Magocsi's histories. All the facts are easily verifiable. —Michael Z. 2006-03-02 00:33 Z

The borders and the national government recognized by Brest-Litovsk is not enough to prove the recognition of the UNR independence by Germany. (Russia admitted its lost of the authority in a former territory.) Germany had the clear and effective control over Ukrainian government. The Hetmanate continued to work under protection of Germany until its overthrown in December 1918. As it presented in various wikipedia articles and in the above citations, in 1918 Ukraine achieved a greatest level of independence as what can be described as a German protectorate until the end of the war. Directorate article is a stub. The "brief period of independence" for Ukraine brought various degrees of independence or political organisation, but never a full and recognized sovereign state over a territory. I still think that "some attempts of independent state" would describe better all those facts. --Vasile 01:58, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

If recognition of borders and government is not recognition of independence, then what is? Germany did not have control of the Ukrainian government when it signed the treaty, nor did it three months later when Bolshevik Russia accepted the terms of the treaty.

Your statement "Germany had the clear and effective control over Ukrianian government" has no basis. Provide a source before you change the article against consensus again.

And what does this sentence mean: "Russia admitted its lost of the authority in a former territory"? —Michael Z. 2006-03-02 05:24 Z

• State with borders and government

There are more than 60 North American states and provinces having borders and government but no independence. From the article Sovereignity, "the concept of sovereignty also pertains to a government possessing full control over its own affairs within a territorial or geographical area or limit, and in certain context to various organs (such as courts of law) possessing legal jurisdiction in their own chief, rather than by mandate or under supervision."

• As for independence level of 1918, from the wikipedia article Ukrainian People's Republic:
  • 1) "In the coup, the Rada was replaced by a conservative government of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky ..., a former officer of the Russian Empire, ..., although it was merely a puppet of Germany. "
  • 2) "Germany forced the Bolsheviks out of Ukraine...."
  • 3) In the wake of internal squabbles and ineffective control of the countryside, the Germans disbanded the Central Rada on 29 April 1918.

• Russia and Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

From the article Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: "Russia's new Bolshevik (communist) government renounced all claim to ... Ukraine... " Renouncing on claims for a territory is not automatically implying the independence recognition of a new state. The final statute of Ukraine was not established by the treaty: "Germany and Austria-Hungary intend to determine the future fate of these territories in agreement with their population."

--Vasile 01:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

You wrote that recognition of independence by other states was required for independence. Now you add other requirements. The UNR was not merely autonomous, it was independent from January 24, 1918, which was affirmed by Germany, Austro-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey in the treaty of Brest-Litovsk on February 9, and by Bolshevik Russia's assent to the treaty on March 3. The UNR's Central Rada was disbanded by force on April 28—this period of independence effectively ended by Skoropadsky's German-supported coup.

Your out-of-context quotes from the UNR article are artlessly butchered to change their meaning: you cut up "...although it was merely a puppet of Germany" to make it look like the article is calling the UNR a puppet, instead of Skoropadsky's regime. Why should I continue to discuss this with such a "debater" as you?

Your quote from the treaty isn't even a full sentence: hardly a basis for understanding its terms. Perhaps you can offer a bit more context before drawing conclusions from it. Here's what a historian and recognized authority on Ukraine concludes (I hope you won't resort to your empty 'state-backed opinion' argument again; this is considered one of the definitive history books on Ukraine):

"According to the provisions of the Brest-Litovsk and supplementary treaties and agreements signed between February and September 1918, both Soviet Russia and the Central Powers recognized Ukraine as a sovereign state. . . . The territory of the Ukrainian state recognized at Brest-Litovsk included not only the nine former imperial provinces previously claimed by the Central Rada (Volhynia, Podolia, Kiev, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson, Katerynoslav, and northern Taurida), but also the former province of Kholm and the southern third of Minsk and Grodno provinces, including the city of Brest-Litovsk itself." (Magocsi 1996:485–86). —Michael Z. 2006-03-03 02:21 Z

I didn't established (or added) the conditions for the independence of the states. You are acting like I am against the independence of UNR.

Please don't expect me to lecturize you about notion of "independence" or something else. Also, you can read yourself the entire articles about UNR or Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (though that should include more information about Ukraine).

Back to the subject, I read myself the treaty, and art. 6 is a clear recognition of sovereignity of the Ukrainian state. But you can notice yourself that even the "definitive history" author is using a nuance erased in your version. There is still the problem of the state authority over the territory and you didn't try to contend the idea that independent UNR was under efective protection of Germany. Then after November 1918, from the same Treaty of Brest-Litovsk article: "The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk only lasted eight months. Germany renounced the treaty in November 1918 as one of the conditions for armistice. The Bolshevik government repudiated the treaty following the armistice."

• You can not assert recognition of independence for the brief period of 1917-1921;
• You can not assert the effective authority of any Ukrainian state for the brief period of 1917-1921

--Vasile 05:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

While Poland and Finland other former Russian territories were mentioned by the Treaty of Versailles 1919, not a word about Ukraine. --Vasile 13:53, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I listed this issue on Requests for comment/History and geography. If your version is acceptable for the rest of the users, so be it. --Vasile 02:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Annexation of Galicia

From the introduction:

The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic's territory was enlarged westward after the Second World War ...

Did the annexed Polish territory not immediately become part of the URSR in the fall of 1939? The articles on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Polish September Campaign are sketchy on these details. —Michael Z. 2006-03-03 16:44 Z

I think it did, but '39 Soviet advance into what's now Western UA was done already during the WW2. Besides, '39 borders ended up not being final. Following the war, the USSR ceded to Poland some of the territory it got in '39. Also, some afjustments were made with Romania and Czechoslovakia following the war.

One can also claim, that '39 annexation was illegal from the POV of international law (I put aside the dispute for now on how fair that time's borders were to begin with and how the host countries behaved towards their minorities), but following the war the adjustments were agreed at multi-side conferences (e.g. Yalta, Paris Peace Treaties, 1947) and separate border treaties between the USSR and other countries involved. --Irpen 19:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Finally finally

I removed the "finally-finally" bad-style repetion in the second paragraph. --Vasile 17:54, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The share of receiving their education in Russian

The share of high school students receiving their education in Russian has significantly declined from 16% in 1992 to 6 % in 2005

The agitprop of the Party of Regions [9] can hardly be considered as a reliable source.

Let's make a simple estimation: roughly 10% of the population of Ukraine live in Donetsk Oblast. more than 70% of students of this region receive education in Russian [10]. Therefore, the fraction of students receiving their education in Russian in Donetsk Oblast relative to all students in Ukraine is about 7%. But there are also Crimea (almost all schools are Russian-language), Lugansk Oblast (the situation is similar to Donetsk Oblast), the fraction of Russiian-language schools is also high in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Odessa, etc. So the real number should be much larger than the 6%. BTW, the agitprop tells about all schools, not about high schools only.--AndriyK 13:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Here are completely different numbers:

із 6 млн. учнів загальноосвітніх шкіл 1 млн. 600 тис. навчаються російською мовою

That is more than 26%.--AndriyK 13:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I think your number is reasonable too. Give a ref and I will incorporate it to the article. --Irpen 18:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

If you really need the numbers, google it. :)

Here is the link that explains the previous data, which is 45% in 1995, and 29% in 2000. [11]

Also, with a reference to Razumkov center 50% in 1991/92, and 29% in 2000/01.

I may guess that the number of schools given in the Party of Region article is correct, but the percentages were probably counted wrongly (if you asked me I would estimate that there are about 5,000-10,000 high schools in Ukraine in total).

In the previous version of "Ukraine" the word "students" was used. I seemed to me that it required clarification, as there are university/college/high school students. I know that in Ukraine the most common statistic in this respect is counting high schools, I clarified it that way.

in fact more fluent in Russian than in Ukrainian

some ethnic Ukrainians while calling Ukrainian as their "native" language are in fact more fluent in Russian than in Ukrainian

The references cited do not contain any comparison of the fluency in Russian and Ukrainian of those ethnic Ukrainians that call Ukrainian as their "native" language. Please provide additional reference or remove unsourced info.--AndriyK 13:14, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Please do not troll. Take numbers from census ethnical and language compositions and the survey linked already and check for youself. 2+2=4 in not original research for most people --Irpen 18:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

There is something in what AndriyK is saying. For sure, it's wrong to substitute the lack of arguments by blaming in trolling, or in the lack of 2+2=4 knowledge.

The statement by itself is some kind of weak. For example, I know some ethnic Ukrainians which are more fluent in English, and they still claim that Ukrainian is their native language. The word some probably requires clarification. Then, it's not clear according to which criteria fluency has been measured. And, at the end, it's not clear, what's the point of this. If we can present two sets of numbers, %% for native language, and %% for the most fluent language, it would probably be enough. If the later statistic is not available, then we should not substitute it by subjective estimates. The article does give some info on language usage and it's probably sufficient. (unsigned by anon)

Clarification in necessary to avoid the readers being mislead by terminology. The numbers from the census native language answers are accurate and should be given. However, the common sense is that the native language is the language in which the person is the most fluent. If for Ukraine it is not always so, the article should state it because if we provide the census native language answers only, we create the false impression of the language usage in the country. Many respondents who wrote "Ukrainian" did so because Ukrainian is indeed their native language in the common sense, that is they grew into it and are more comfortable in it than in any other. However, other reasons may be the legacy of the Soviet tagging everyone by "nationality" (ethnic origin). The common perception is that if your "nationality" is "Ukrainian" (especially if you also live in Ukraine) than you call Ukrainian as your native language. Because Ukraine is rather urbanized and, as the article correclty points, the cities tend to be more Russophone than the villages, many ethnic Ukrainians whose ancestors moved into cities grew up in Russian language environment, including the language they mostly heard at home (we needn't take a position on the reasons behind it to agree on this simple fact). For those people it is easier to talk Russian than Ukrainian (some of them are truly bilingual, BTW, like several Ukrainian wikipedians say on their userpages). Additionally, in the Soviet times the UA Lang at schools was studied by ehtnic Ukrainians, Russians, Jews and Romanians alike as "Ridna Mova" (transation: "native language"). This contributes to perceptions and the answers people give to the "native language" question regardless of their actual relative fluency.

The best indication of fluency would be the answers of people to the question: "In which language you are most fluent". I don't remember seeing this exact question asked in surveys but we have the question for "what language do you use at home (and/or at work)". The home usage numbers are the best indication of people's fluency. This is just common sense and not original research. This data deviates from the "native language" census data. I've also seen a survey with a question: "In what language would it have been easier for you to fill out this very questionary form?" The answer was different from the "native language" answer in this very form. The language speaking situation is a relevant part of Demographic section and should be more representative of reality than just than just both percentage of people who called Ukrainian "native" or percentage of "Ukrainian schools" (I also hope that all "Ukrainian" and "Russian" schools teach Ukrainian well. It is more important than the formal school's designation).

Abuse of "fact" tags in order to strike down a disliked data is extremely disruptive. --Irpen 02:32, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Irpen:I agree with almost all of the arguments. In particular, I agree with the statement on language usage. But the conclusion that usage is the best indication of fluency, if it's such an obvious thing, should be really left to the reader. A significant group of people is fluent up to the same degree in both languages, and when asked to choose in which language they want to fill-in a form they pick a form randomly. (Personally, when I fill-in customs form on my arrival to Ukraine I don't care in which language is the form. I know, they are available in Ukr, Rus, Eng, but I pick the first available. Even if you put all three of them in front of me, I would probably pick the middle one. They are just equally easy to fill-in. Also "reading" is only one element of language proficiency, and actually in this element everyone is fluent). So, again, as it's difficult to judge, and complex to measure I would leave the corollary on fluency out.

Also, what is not mentioned in the article is that a significant number of Ukrainians are claiming Ukrainian as native language (even if they currently use Russian more) as an indication of their desire to know the language better, to use it more, and to be fluent in it. Thus, either we show all the links between native language, and language usage (with the suggestion about fluency), or we just present facts and leave interpretation to the reader. I am a supporter of the later approach.

Thanks for the link to the current Crimea constitution. I mistakenly thought that all three languages are equally recognized. (I am not sure where I picked it; may be it was before 1998)

Ideally, you know, it would be nice to have the same position with respect to all contributors. Writing the remark: "Abuse of "fact" tags in order to strike down a disliked data is extremely disruptive" here, and on the same day responding opposite to the same issue here is something that I hope we all want to avoid. --Anonymous

"The home usage numbers are the best indication of people's fluency"

This is your original research. So much "original" that it is not true. I know a family: the husband is German and the wife is Russian. They speak English at home but both are more fluent in their native languages.

According to my observation, mixed Russian-Ukrainian families tend to use more frequently Russian than Ukrainian at home. So do mixed groups of friends as well as mixed teams at work. This is likely because of the habit persisting from the Soviet times and because there are still native Russophones not fluent in Ukrainian but practically all native Ukrainophones (at least in cities) are fluent in Russian (but it does not mean that they are more fluent in Russian than in their native language).

You may agree or disagree with me on what I wrote, but you should not ignore WP:Verifiability. All info in the article should be referenced. Your own beliefs and delusions are not appropriate for the article text.--AndriyK 09:13, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

AndriyK: Please fix the article, rather than marking it with "fact" and "dubious".

I don't insist on describing the whole historical trend of Ukrainian vs. Russian schools in this article. In fact, the best would be to describe the current situation (70% Ukr school, 29% Russian) here, and move the rest elsewhere (as this is what this article is supposed to be about, i.e. current situation, with history only in the History part). --Anonymous

Etymology of Ukraine

I reedited the section because it was written in very poor English and included statements without any proof. I basically took this section from the "Name of Ukraine" article Any comments are welcome.

Estimated population accurate?

Where did the 2005 estimated population figure come from? I ask because the Population decline article lists Ukraine as one of the few countries making a notable population decline, and this contradicts the infobox in this article. Jonathan Kovaciny 22:04, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Failed GA

The article as a whole is far too nationalistic and not comprehensive enough. e.g. "For the following several centuries the territory was divided between a number of regional powers as the Ukrainians strived for their own state" ... a sentence added following a previous sentence about Kievan Rus'. Way to backdate a national concept the product of a later era. Why no discussion about the emergence of Ukrainian national identity? Just another case of assuming all present political states are expressions of eternal historical concepts, certainly not the case for the Ukraine. General things, like why is the Russian name not in the opening line, why is Kiev written with just the Ukrainian name beside it when it is a Russophone city? All that aside, the article employs no scholarly references. The sections of religion and culture are tiny, yet the portion of the history section devoted to WWII huge. Definitely not GA material yet. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 15:28, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a pro-Russian POV statement for me. I don't know what is GA yet, but I hope this guy wasn't deciding anything UA-related anywhere :(. Ukrained 21:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Oh, and Kiev is by no means a Russophone city like our Greko-Russian friend states. If this is stated anywhere on WP, feel free to add "disputed" tag. The city as a whole is definitely bilingual. I live here for all my life. Have you ever been here, Mr.Calgacus? Make less use of Russian state propaganda :). Ukrained 21:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Gentlemen, please propose how to fix the issues above. Also, please avoid referring to your opponents by nationalities. Kiev is indeed bilingual with Russian still more widely used according to published surveys. In no way this affects how to write the city name. It should be Kiev as per prevailing English usage. Similarly, Kharkiv should be Kharkiv in modern context , as per English usage, despite the latter is indeed largely Russophone. --Irpen 01:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Calgalus, I looked again. Nowhere K..v is called Kyiv except in parentheses when first introduced. There is nothing wrong with that, since Kyiv is an alternative English spelling, less used than Kiev but still used. The good discussion of the emergence of the Ukrainian national identiiy is indeed missing either here or in Ukrainians or the Ukrainian language. I have an excellent book on the issue (Wilson)[12] but never yet got to writing on it. As for history, it needs further cleanup. I cleaned it up only up to early 1920s yet. Section of religion and culture needs expansion indeed along with their separate articles. WW2 part is not cleaned up yet too because it is post 1920s and no one lese bothered yet to consistently harmonize this article with the History of Ukraine. In the latter I rewrote much of the interwar section lately but the topics need more contributors. You and Ukrained are welcome to join. --Irpen 01:41, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

The reaction lays quite clear the tendencies which produce a nationalistic article. Irpen, I know Kyiv is used in English, but only because the Ukrainian government has been pressuring various media organizations to adopt the title. I also see no non-nationalistic reason why the Ukranian name should be there, but not the Russian one. The article has further problems besides this, as I wrote above. Let's not allow this to cloud things. As Irpen acknowledges the problems with the history section and the treatment of identity, and is also in a position to remedy it, maybe the article can attain GA status in the not too distant future. The article also needs to cover things like culture and religion adequately; this should not be hard to do. Also, it could reach GA without them, but you can forget about FA without inline citations and an appropriate bibliography. These should be introduced now before it gets to GA stage. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 02:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

The reasons why Kyiv is also used are irrelevant here. Since it is also used, there is nothing wrong in mentioning it at least once in the article. The Russian name of Ukraine is not needed in the intro since it is not used in English. The country has an established English-only name (Ukraine). Having just a native name next to it would suffice. I am not in a position to remedy the article, I am sorry. I am trying my best, but I have a real life, you know. Besides, I can't devote all my Wikipedia time to this article. Any help would be welcome. Still, just moments ago I somewhat cleaned up the history section a few paragraphs further from where I stopped some weeks ago prompted by this discussion. It is now more or less acceptible, IMO, up to the WW2 time. This was the easiest task for me since I rewrote the relevant section of the History of Ukraine article not so long ago. It would take me much more time and effort to do other sections, but I will try to order the WW2 part some time soon (but I am not giving any promises). All good faith editors are welcome to help improve the article, of course. --Irpen 02:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I know Kyiv is used in English, but only because the Ukrainian government has been pressuring various media organizations to adopt the title. — I've never heard such a claim, unless publishing a transliteration standard for government use can be considered "pressuring various media organizations". Is there any foundation for this statement? Incidentally, the March 2006 issue of National Geographic contains a featured article about Ukraine in which it used Ukrainian transliterations exclusively (including Kyiv, Chornobyl, Odesa, Dnipro, and Kyivan Rus, using simplified BGN/PCGN transliteration and not the Ukrainian government standard), without any footnotes or explanations (Andrew Meier, “Endangered Revolution”, p. 32).

I also see no non-nationalistic reason why the Ukranian [sic] name should be there, but not the Russian one. — because Ukrainian is the official language of the country. —Michael Z. 2006-05-12 20:35 Z

Irpen, I don't know what GA or FA is, or what this guy Calgacus is, but don't you worry a bit about either of those. It is a good article generally, and it is getting there as people happen to have "time and inspiration". It may be developing unequally with a better coverage of some areas than of the others, but that depends on the interests of people who contribute. Time will come and someone will join who will write a great piece about culture, and so on. Recognitions are nuisance, the main recognition of the article as well as all other ones here is that they are read by people and give them useful, and as we know well by now, properly verified to the best extent possible for us information. That is the only thing that matters. Serhiy 21:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Chernobyl

I think it's a little bit strange that nothing has been said about Chernobyl disaster. The chronically ill people and the dislocated people should be cited in this article, as well as the ecological catastrophe itself. Typelighter 23:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I would like to dispute current content on Chernobyl

• Chernobyl plant is no longer in use since December 15th, 2000.
• It's highly biased statement about safety culture. There were published technical guidelines for reactor. --TAG 03:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

"Boards" on the Ukraine page

Today there were some additions to the list of external links on the "Ukraine" page, namely to various discussion forums. One was by Kuban Kazak, to a place called "Anti-Orange". Having checked some titles and content on the page that opens from that link, I cannot call that site anything but a stinking shithole. Of course, that's my personal opinion, perhaps not all people would agree. But to avoid getting into a protracted debate over which site merits to be shown on the "Ukraine" page and which one doesn't, why don't we get rid of that "Boards" section in its entirety? What is the point of having that section anyway, why does Wikipedia have to advertise various discussion forums? Is that it's purpose? Looking forward to your views. Serhiy 15:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I think all boards have to go. We don't need them in such a broad article as Ukraine. Some of them are worse, some better, many POV and even as external links they don't belong here. I don't want top spend time studying those boards and choosing which ones to remove. I will remove only those I know and can judge to be out of place here. Whoever added other, please consider removing them as well. After some time, I will take a look at every and each of what remained but I strongly encourage others to do it sooner than myself and, please, taking into account these consideration about board appropriateness. --Irpen 03:31, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

1187 reference to the name

I changed the link from Kiev Chronicle to Primary Chronicle because Magocsi (p. 171) cites the 1187 entry of the "Hypatian text of the Primary Chronicle", and later: "others in the Primary Chronicle (Hypatian text)". —Michael Z. 2006-05-12 18:42 Z

OK, I just assumed you thought that the two are one and the same and that's why changed it back. And I also thought that whoever put the Kiev Chronicle in the first place knew what he was writing about because such a chronicle, separate from the Primary Chronicle does exist. If Magosci cites Primary Chronicle, I think we can safely change it since he is a scholar who knows what he is talking about. We can also check ourselves since all the chronicles are available online, for instance here. --Irpen 18:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I was putting the name Kiev Chronicle in, and indeed it does exist :) The relationship with the Hypatian text of what you call the Primary Chronicle (have not seen that name in the Chronicles themselves) is simple: Hypathian list ("spysok") consists of three chronicles:

1) ПовЂсть временныхъ лЂтъ (from the start to 1117);

2) Кіевскій лЂтописный сводъ (from 1118 to 1200); and

3) Галицко-Волынскій сводъ (from 1201 to 1292).

It is the second Chronicle of the three that is called "Київський Літопис" in the literature. I translated that to English as "Kyiv Chronicle". As you can see, this does not involve any contradiction with Magosci. Serhiy 19:20, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so what you guys call Primary Chronicle is actually ПовЂсть временныхъ лЂтъ. Now that's clear, thanks. Serhiy 19:23, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I think I understand. The actual Primary Chronicle (PVL) only recorded events up to 1110, so Magocsi only mentions the well-known title of the Hypatian Codex for convenience, but the 1187 text in question would have originated in the Kievan Chronicle, and some subsequent mentions from the Halych-Volhynian Chronicle (see Name of Ukraine#History). Thanks, Serhiy. Sorry for the confusion. —Michael Z. 2006-05-12 20:03 Z

Government's policy towards minority languages

Does anybody have factual or POV objections regarding the two paragraphs submitted into revision 16:33, 20 May 2006?

Removed edit is Original research. In European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages are absent requirements to language of the site of the Verkhovna Rada, Central Election Commission of Ukraine or language other official site.--Yakudza 13:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

"Article 10 – Administrative authorities and public services

1. Within the administrative districts of the State in which the number of residents who are users of regional or minority languages justifies the measures specified below and according to the situation of each language, the Parties undertake, as far as this is reasonably possible:

...

b. to make available widely used administrative texts and forms for the population in the regional or minority languages or in bilingual versions;"

And anyway, it wasn't said that the government is not publishing its laws in minority languages contrary to the Charter, just that the govermnent is not publishing documents of public interest in minority languages even though it is obliged to protect them according to the constitution. How are the speakers of minority languages going to know their languages are protected, if they cannot natively read the law?

There is much other ways except internet and official government site --Yakudza 14:24, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

In what way complicating access to such an important document as the basic law (assuming it exists it all - I haven't seen any proof) serves the stated purpose of protecting the minority languages? I think we can essentially agree, that there is no official government sources for the important legal documents in minority languages. Which is what the contribution was stating.

If you mean Russian language "persecution", than any UA-editor has :). Ukrained 11:52, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I did not mean anything, just stating the cold hard facts. :)

According to at least two experienced UA-editors, the user who added those paragraphs meant to push a highly-questionnable POV, promoted by Russian govt media, and to support this pushing with ext. links, at least some of which are utterly partisan and unreliable. If it was you, shame on you, and please don't do it again unless you apply for the Russian Group. Best wishes, Ukrained 12:22, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

How dare you to call the links in the paragraphs utterly partisan and unreliable, if they are all exclusively from the official government websites - the Supreme Council, the President of Ukraine, the National broadcasting council of Ukraine?! I am an editor from UA myself, and I suggest you to apologize.

Sorry, I'm not going to apologize until you log in and start signing your posts. And remember: not every editor from Ukraine is a Ukrainian one. Some of them, in my opinion, are anti-Ukrainian. Everybody in Ukraine stating that Russian is oppressed is either a troll or a moron. What I'm going to do is to recheck that contribution. Ukrained 14:01, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Be careful, Wikipedia is not a proper forum to express your own POV about something or somebody being pro- or anti-Ukrainian. And it takes honour to apologize.

Well, let me rephrase: your links were not partisan (my mistake, took them for links to www.president.org.ua). But they were irrelevant to your statements in text. So I still dare :). Ukrained 14:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Could you be more specific about what was irrelevant? Non-relevant parts should not be there of course.

Well, I'll refrain from further topical discussion with an unregistered user, considering the fact that the issue has been discussed before en mass. This is not exactly a WP policy, but nevertheless my right. Mr. Yakudza, I advise you to do the same. Best wishes to everybody, Ukrained 18:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Concluding the discussion: I consider the four following facts (all substantiated by the linked documents) as a worthy piece of information about the government policy regarding the minority languages:

1. The government does not publish official documents in minority languages.

2. The government resists any attempts to implement the Charter on minority and regional languages.

3. The government considers specifically Russian language as "not endangered and thus not deserving protection", contrary to the Constitution and to the Charter.

4. The government attempted to ban all minority languages from the TV and radio stations that have more than a regional exposure.

I consider the topic of government policies appropriate for this article in Wikipedia. I think listing these facts is absolutely necessary for for the readers to be able to understand the whole complex political environment in Ukraine and get a balanced view, and also extremely noteworthy milestones. As a matter of fact, 3 of these facts have received wide attention in Ukrainian and international media, and so deserve to be mentioned here (the issue with the internet sites is an exception). Also, the points 2 and 3 are a fairly recent policy developement, which the article has not yet included. And I haven't heard any worthy objections in this discussion board. I think it would be good to present more facts showing the government's support of the minority languages, and I welcome everybody to do it. I did present a balanced view in my contribution.

Anonymous, first of all, register and then contninue. Second, whatever merits of your arguments are, this is too a broad article for such a narrow issue. Ukraine should cover so many things that there is no place in it for details. There are much narrower articles for that, including those linked from within this one. --Irpen 06:34, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmmm. I can see that I am jumping into the middle of a very contentions issue here, and care needs to be taken to get the right tone. At this point I don't want to suggest a specific edit to address my concern. But I will say that, as a frequent visitor to Ukraine, I get the feeling that the government is attempting to push Ukrainian (as opposed to Russian) language on me whether I like it or not. I don't think it would be fair to say that they are "repressing" Russian (they aren't). But in areas where Russian is the majority language, it seems that for the most part, anything connected with the Government is most likely going to be in Ukrainian, while something like a restaurant menu is much more likely to be in Russian.

I would like to see the article reflect this somehow. -- William Jockusch

The articles to reflect on these issue are Ukrainization, some chapters of Ukrainian language, Demographics of Ukraine, maybe History of Ukraine (but not overdo it there) as well as some others, perhaps not yet written ones. History of Ukraine article and especially this one are simply too broad to elaborate on the language policies in the last years. Wikipedia is the wrong place to grind one's axe on the favorite topics but if one really must, choose the proper articles for that. --Irpen 20:45, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Woah! That is a harsh and uncompromising attitude. To name another linguistically divided country, the article on Canada has a section on Gov't policy towards language, for instance. I can agree with you that the removed edit that was the subject of your previous debate was overdoing it for a general article on the country. But if you are saying the topic should hardly be mentioned, as is the case now, then, well, we have a significant difference of opinion. William Jockusch 06:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The number of Holodomor victims

See Talk:History_of_Ukraine#The_number_of_Holodomor_victims.

Despite what is discussed in that talk, several millions passage in the "mainest" UA-article is neutral, unambiguous and short. Instead, strict from _ to wordings pushed by the Russian Group are unspecific, instructive and redundant. To the best of my humble EN command, several may correctly refer to 3, or 3,5 or 7 millions.

By the way, if historians develop a new verified study (resulting in 7 millions of victims count) in a month, what we Ukrainian editors should do then? Start another edit war over this particular article too regarding your 3 to 3,5? Or conversely? Let's stick to NPOV wording at least here! Ukrained 20:25, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Would you mind rephrase or refactor your objections more civilly? I request you do that before I respond. --Irpen 18:58, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Famines in the Ukraine? Historical famines before 1917? Under the Czar any famines?

Population collapse

Ukraine has one of the most steadily declining populations in the world. Its relevant if a paragraph could be added to the page about this and the underlying reasons-mass emigration, low birth rate, abortion, alcohol abuse ..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leiter8 (talk • contribs)

This info referenced and properly written should be add to the Demographics of Ukraine article. We can add a brief mention here after that but not the other way around. --Irpen 05:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

water percentage

it seems not to be "negligible" % of area. Take in account "Kakhovka Sea".--Sergiy O. Bukreyev 04:33, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

According to CIA Ukraine has no water at all. You can contact them to issue correction here. Their email form list CIA World Fact book in reason select box. --TAG 06:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Funny. But if they keep wrong data - it does not meen that they should be here --Sergiy O. Bukreyev 07:11, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure they know something that we don't. This is probably becouse inland water is not counted or water area is not fully delimited. There are still issues with Romunia (Zmeinii island ?). You can see here that Ukraine is not alone with 0 sq. km water area according to CIA. If you are interested for data on inland water - you can find some here.

There are about 3 000 natural lakes in Ukraine, with a total area of 2 000 km². The largest freshwater lakes have an approximate area of 50 km² and are located in the central and southern parts of the country. In addition to these lakes, there are about 12 000 km² of swamp (peat soils) in the north. About 22 000 dams have been constructed in Ukraine for flow regulation, hydropower, irrigation and fishery purposes. The largest ones, with a total capacity of 18.5 km³ and a total surface water area of 6 888 km², are located on the Dnepr: the Krementshutskie (2 252 km²), the Kachowskie (2 155 km²), the Kiivskie (922 km²), the Dnieprodierzhinskie (567 km²), the Zaporoskie (410 km²) and the Kaniowskie (582 km²). --TAG 22:57, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Sergiy O. Bukreyev. If CIA is making a mistake by reporting 0 sq. km of water area in Ukraine, we are under no obligation to repeat that mistake. And it's clearly a mistake, because even for Moldova, CIA reports a small but a positive number of water surface [13]. CIA defines the water area as "the sum of the surfaces of all inland water bodies, such as lakes, reservoirs, or rivers, as delimited by international boundaries and/or coastlines" [14]

Per [15], "в Украине 31 тыс. кв. км водной поверхности рек, 6,8 тыс. кв. км искусственных водоемов, 6 тыс. кв. км лиманов и 1 тыс. кв. км поверхности озер". Adding these numbers, I get 44,800 sq.km of water area, which is 7% of the total area of 603,700 sq.km. Also note that Encyclopædia Britannica reports the area of Ukraine as 603,628 sq.km. [16] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.84.5.29 (talk) 04:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Clothing of 16th century Ukraine

I am looking for information on clothing styles in use in Ukraine during the 16th century. I am specifically searching for illustrations/pictures of the clothing worn in each Oblast and social class. Does anyone know of any sites that may have this type of information? English sites prefered, Ukrainian, Russian, Portuguese or Spanish sites are acceptable. Thanks for any help Vivafelis 14:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Cozacks?

Today an anomymous user changed some references to Cossacks to the spelling "cozack". I'm not sure where this comes (not in the American Heritage dictionary, only 422 hits in google...) so I reverted to the usual spelling. Comments ? Nberger 15:52, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Good edit.--Riurik ^(discuss) 19:14, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Cozacks is not the correct word. The correct one is cossacks.
NeatlookingGirl 22:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

FYI, kozak (pl. kozaky) is Ukrainian, but for accessibility we should generally use the well-established English word. —Michael Z. 2006-12-20 05:42 Z

Italics in Cyrillics

A guideline on whether or not to italicize Cyrillics (and all scripts other than Latin) is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Italics in Cyrillic and Greek characters. - - Evv 16:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

No Sarmatians?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmatians

"By the 3rd century BC, the Sarmatian name appears to have supplanted the Scythian in the plains of what is now south Ukraine."

Referring only to Scythia glosses over the reality of this time period.

-68.253.137.137 01:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Is Ukraine the second largest country in Europe?

Hello, although I am not a Ukrainian, I am a great lover of the country. However, I added this information: Ukraine is the third largest country in Europe (after Russia and France)". My brother from Ukraine Riurik told me that Ukraine is in fact the second largest. But Wikipedia says: Ukraine's land area is 233,090 sq mi, but Wikipedia also says, France's land area is 260,558 sq mi. So after Russia, doesn't France become the 2nd largest country? Or, may be, I am wrong in assuming that European Russia has the largest land area? I will appreciate if Riurik or somebody kindly correct me. Kazimostak 15:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC) Sharif

CIA can not be wrong. Read here. "second-largest country in Europe". I suspect Russia is simply excluded from European-countries list. You can see area of Russia here Europe#Territories and regions. I've found some comments that Asia will not be largest continent if Russian will be in Europe. --TAG 16:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. Russia is included. It's simply France is smaller according to CIA France is 545,630 sq km vs. Ukraine 603,700 sq km. --TAG 16:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

What about Kazachstan? It has part of the territory in Europe.--Pethr 20:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Huh? But in school I was always told that Ukraine is the biggest in Europe (and Russia is not European country) so who is wrong?Vinnitsa

jeeez

why does everyone always argue!

Jeeeze! lets have some peace!

Proposed WikiProject

In my ongoing efforts to try to include every country on the planet included in the scope of a WikiProject, I have proposed a new project on Eastern Europe at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Eastern Europe whose scope would include Ukraine. Any interested parties are more than welcome to add their names there, so we can see if there is enough interest to start such a project. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)