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Comment by supreme_berry | Hacker News Reader

What is Russian Ukraine? How old are you?

To be fair, it was pretty common to refer to the Soviets as Russians, even if not strictly accurate. Though I don't think I'd ever phrase it as Russian Ukraine if I were writing it out.

The Eastern part of Ukraine used to be called "little Russia" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Russia); just like eastern Belarus was simply "White Russia". That's also why from 1721 the Czar was called "Emperor of all the Russias".

Belarus means white russia by itself.

Interesting fact I learned a while back. Belarus is named white russia because mongols used color based cardinal directions ( gold = center, white = west, black = north, red = south, blue = east ).

So white russia means west russia ( west of russia ). Red and black ruthenia means south ruthenia and north ruthenia. White, gold and blue hordes, you get the idea.

If you ever wonder what made white russians white as opposed to other russians, not you know. For the longest time, I thought it was because it snowed more in belarus.

Pretty sure verisimi meant to say "Soviet Ukraine".

That would be fine too - probably better

Before Ukraine became an independent country in 1991, it was part of the USSR. The plane and space shuttle etc were part of the USSR.

I'm using the term 'Russian Ukraine' because it describes the fact that it was part of the USSR when created. Its not my own term - I read this earlier today, and I think it indicates the placement in time accurately.

Do you object to the term 'Russian Ukraine'?

And what does my age have to do with it? How old are you?

Edited to say - 'Soviet Ukraine' is probably an even better term.

ukraine was pretty much always at least partially owned by russia. One of the first centralized slavic states were the kieven rus.

russia and ukraine are tied and its not offensive or wrong to say something like "russian ukraine"

If by "pretty much always" you want to completely ignore the period where large part of it used to be Polish, then sure. Pretty much always.

The entire western section of Ukraine was Polish before WW2.

Haven’t Polands borders been moved like a million times though.

Name one European country that hasn't had its borders moved a million times lol.

Don't forget the Mongols. I believe they were around for a few centuries.

This is the reason why we should never redraw lines on a map over historical claims. It gets messy fast.

Well, "Kievan Rus" was Ukraine centric state, as the name says.

Moscow, and future tsarist Imperial Russia, happened much later

I think it's up to Ukrainians to say if it's offensive to them (probably).

Is it wrong? I don't know, is it wrong to call the Sun cold, or the Universe small? Maybe not. Googling "russian ukraine" will not result with articles about Ukraine, it will result with news about the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Can you point to some respectable sources that use the term "Russian Ukraine"?

> Ukraine was pretty much always at least partially owned by russia. One of the first centralized slavic states were the kieven rus.

This is wrong on so many levels :)

In times of Kievan Rus Moscow was a far province of forests and marches. Kyiv was the capital.

What you're saying basically: "Italy (Ukraine) was always owned by France (Russia) because Roman Empire (Kievan Rus) was the first centralized state there".

If you insist on applying modern names to historical states it was the other way around - Ukraine "owned" Russia back then.

Also for a few centuries Ukraine was owned by Mongols, Lithuanians and Poles. And Russia was only starting to exist (and wasn't called Russia at first - just Muscovy). But that's besides the point.

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