For Frank and any others interested in events in the Ukraine, this is my personal and biased perspective.
Ukraine is the land of my father's ancestors, although the area from which they came was in Hungary, rather than Ukraine, when they lived there and when they emigrated. The did not consider themselves Ukrainians, by Rusyns, or Carpatho-Ruthenians. The seized by the Soviet Union during WW II, and later incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. There are large cultural, language, religious and ethnic differences between the Western and Eastern parts of Ukraine. Zakarpattia, Lviv and most of the West had long been part of Europe, and now sees its future in the European community. The eastern and southern parts of Ukraine have large Russian minorities, and historically and culturally have always been linked with Russia. The split goes back several centuries, and will not be easily resolved. There are also religious differences, with the Rusyns being Byzantine Rite Catholics, the Western Ukrainians Ukrainian Orthodox Christians, and the Eastern Ukrainians and Russians live in Ukraine Russian Orthodox. The services of all three churches look and sound very similar, but there are cultural and theological differences. The current situation has deep historical roots. When the Swedish Viking Rurik founded Rus, or Russia, in 864, he ruled from Novgorod, which then and now was the most European part of Russia. His successor, Oleg, moved his capital to Kiev in 882, better to control the trade route to Constantinople. Kiev became one of the largest and most beautiful cities in Europe, and the grand prince ruled most of Russia directly or indirectly from Kiev for four centuries. It was the religious, cultural, artistic and political heart of Russia. In 1223, the Mongols invaded Kievan Rus. Resistance proved futile, but Novgorod and Kiev struggled more than the other cities to keep the Mongols and their Tatar allies at bay. For 250 years, Russia was dominated by the Mongols, and no one could rule as "Grand Prince of all the Rus" without permission from the Golden Horde. The princes of Moscow proved most adept at placating the Mongols and acting as their tax collectors, resulting in a shift of power away from Kiev and to Yaroslav, and then Moscow. Kiev was attacked and sacked in 1240, first by the Muscovite armies and then by the main Mongol army. The city was burned, and only 2,000 of its 40,000 residents survived. Most of the buildings were leveled, and visitors described what was left as a field of bones. The remnants of the people of Kievan Rus mostly fled west and north to the Carpathian foothills. Their civilization disappeared, replaced by a more autocratic, militaristic and hedonistic Muscovy. The territory around Kiev was mostly empty. The Muscovites, to erase the memory of old Kievan Rus, named it the Ukraine, meaning the frontier or borderland. The area around Kiev was repopulated by Muscovites, Tatars, and free peasants and runaway serfs, later known as Cossacks. The western part of the Kievan territory was too far from Moscow to control, and soon fell under the control of Hungary and Austria. The people there remained Orthodox, although isolated and abandoned by the fall of Constantinople and the move of the Russian patriarch to Moscow. After the 30 Years' War, their Orthodox religion became illegal, but their church was allowed to continue their former liturgy and practices by becoming the Uniate Church directly under Rome (now the Byzantine Rite or Greek Catholic Church). As a result, the people living in what is now the Western part of Ukraine have long been ethnically, religiously and culturally quite different from those in the Eastern and Southern parts, which have always been dominated by Moscow. The Soviet Union restructured the map of Eastern Europe after WW II, creating the present boundaries of Ukraine. As long as the Ukrainian SSR was part of the Soviet Union, all "Ukrainians" were oppressed and tightly controlled by the government and the Communist Party. Millions of them died of starvation and other causes, and they had a common enemy and therefore common interests. With the fall of Communism, Ukrainian nationalism demanded and received independence for the country. Democracy seemed to flourish for a while, but the economic transition was difficult, and the Russian minority and some Eastern Ukrainians began to long for the good old days of the USSR. Straddling the fence between East and West has always been difficult, and often impossible. That has proven to be the case again. Russia became alarmed at the way Ukraine has been moving closer and closer to the EU, and has long agitated for a "reunion" of Great Russia and Little Russia. It is difficult to see any middle course. Either Ukraine will be incorporated into the new Europe, or it will again become a client of Mother Russia. If you understand what has happened to Belarus, you can see where this could go. The stakes are very high for the people of Ukraine, and the result will have a huge impact on what happens in the rest of Eastern Europe and the European Community as a whole. The Economist has a cover story about Ukraine in the current issue: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21596941-west-must-take-tough-stand-government-ukraineand-russias-leader-putins?fsrc=nlw|hig|2-20-2014|7852306|36077652| I agree whole-heatedly with the Economist's assessment of where the fault lies here. Dan Matyola http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
