Hacker News Reader

Comment by rcfox | Hacker News Reader

FYI: It's just "Ukraine", not "the Ukraine".

"The Ukraine" referred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union.

"The Ukraine" is the traditional way of referring to the country/region, going back centuries. Many languages, including Ukrainian itself, have traditionally referred to the Ukraine using similar grammatical constructs.

The Ukrainian government requests that people stop putting "the" in front of the country's name, but it's difficult to force people to change the way they speak.

Fixed -- had no idea, thanks for the heads-up!

> "The Ukraine" referred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union.

This is misinformation. "The Ukraine" precedes the USSR. It comes from the fact that "Ukraine" is derived from "borderland". Hence, "the Ukraine" - "the borderland".

"The Ukraine" referred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union.

no disrespect, but there is this coming from?!

Ukrainian society is ill and this is one of the recent inflammations that hurts.

Being unable to fix roads or economy, they have directed their frustration towards symbolic things, fighting everyone who calls Kiev "Kiev" instead of "Kyiv", renaming streets, etc. Now they have decided that "the Ukraine" is somehow referencing Ukraine as a territory and not a state. God knows where any of this comes from, but any "patriotic" idea gets boosted immediately no matter how stupid.

Source: am Ukrainian.

This is false dilemma fallacy – there is no link between "unable to fix roads" and "s/Kiev/Kyiv/" renaming. "Kiev" is a transcription from Russian – which was an official language in USSR, but is not official in Ukraine.

Renaming streets is also part of decommunisation process, which is common among post-Soviet countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decommunization

Also, calling society "ill" is offensive, and if your goal is to have a meaningful discussion, you'd rather avoid offending your fellow citizens (unless you identify yourself more as Russian, of course).

Source: I'm also Ukrainian

listening to your conversation - good luck to both of you guys:)! keep spelling!

As someone who learned Russian and am interested, do you personally say "в" или "на" Украине?

Depends on the melody of the phrase. Sometimes it sounds good to say "на", sometimes "в". Traditionally, it's mostly "на", but this is slowly changing due to the fact that Ukrainians decided that this is now offensive.

на

what is the difference, really? is it all about prepositions now?

"на" refers to territory, "в" refers to state. The distinction is clear. One exception: "Ukraine". Traditionally, Ukraine was referred with "на" in Russian language and it never meant disrespect. But since a few years ago my fellow Ukrainians decided that this is now offensive and so here we are, fighting words.

> fighting everyone who calls Kiev "Kiev" instead of "Kyiv", renaming streets, etc.

It's an organized effort, part of government propaganda, not an ill society. Society is so healthy, that it didn't trust the government at all and voted all those people out. Really, it doesn't get healthier than that.

changing one oligarh for another is hardly healthy (Poroh for Benya). Ukraine deserves better.

Previous president of Ukraine was a literal power hungry oligarch, who engaged in war, war mongering, censorship, propaganda, fake comments trolling bots, policy washing through his international friends, fake-fighting of corruption to gain power over judges, ordered raids on opposing media and industries, switched politics to right-wing to ride the propaganda machine he tried to create, etc. New one is a freedom of speech supporting businessmen, not an oligarch, who found himself fighting him and the whole establishment through utopian/dystopian political tv shows over the last five years. And newly elected parliament has plenty of people who have no ties to the establishment or fought the last president too, like the head of the most active organization fighting against internet censorship (pretty successfully) who joined the new president's party.

i heard the same things 5 years ago when latest revolution in Ukraine took place, when swamp was about to be drained.

who do you think Benya is - not a power hungry oligarch? who is Ze's chief of staff? ahem, Benya's personal lawyer... will you ever see the pattern?

It doesn't work like that. They are their own people, not puppets as you try to imply. And it's not like oligarchs even have that much power to make someone into a puppet, they are not FSB.

i think that political regime in Ukraine is purely oligarch-based. Ukraine does not have strong traditional government institutions, instead the government is driven by current oligarch configuration. it used to be Yanukovich, then Poroh, now it is Benya (via his proxy Ze). just look at Groysman, the prime minister, as they say in Russian, he "changed his shoes while walking" and switched his allegiance from Poroh to Ze/Benya in no time. government in Ukraine is weak and servile. they have stronger civil society, but it shows in short outbursts, then oligarchs take over again.

> "After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians probably decided that the article denigrated their country [by identifying it as a part of Russia] and abolished 'the' while speaking English, so now it is simply Ukraine.

> "That's why the Ukraine suddenly lost its article in the last 20 years, it's a sort of linguistic independence in Europe, it's hugely symbolic."

(Oksana Kyzyma of the Embassy of Ukraine in London is being quoted in the sections of the article that I'm quoting.)

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18233844

Would've been nice if we called it Ukrainia in English from then on. It would make sense with the conventions for transliterating cyrillic country names.

How so? There's no "ia" there.

I put the i on the wrong side, then added it in one place but didn't remove it in the other.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com