Biography about Ukrainians

The article by Vladimir Putin “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians” on July 12, recently, answering during the “direct line” to the question about Russian-Ukrainian relations, said that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, a single whole. These words are not a tribute to some conjuncture, current political circumstances. I spoke about this more than once, this is my belief.

Therefore, I consider it necessary to state my position in detail, to share assessments of today's situation. I immediately emphasize that the wall that arose in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, between units, in fact, of one historical and spiritual space, I perceive as a greater common misfortune as a tragedy. First of all, these are the consequences of our own mistakes made in different periods.

But the result of the focused work of those forces that always strove to undermine our unity. The formula that is used is known to time for centuries: share and rule. Nothing new. Hence the attempts to play on the national question, to sow the discord between people. And as a super -task - to divide, and then to shake the parts of a single people among themselves. Of course, within the framework of the article it is impossible to cover all events that have occurred in more than a thousand years.

But I will dwell on those key, rotary moments about which it is important for us - both in Russia and Ukraine. And Russians, and Ukrainians, and Belarusians are the heirs of Ancient Rus', who was the largest state in Europe. Slavic and other tribes in the huge space - from Ladoga, Novgorod, Pskov to Kyiv and Chernigov - were united in one language now we call it the ancient Russian, economic ties, the power of the princes of the Rurikovich dynasty.

And after the baptism of Rus' - and one Orthodox faith. The spiritual choice of St. Vladimir, who was both the Novgorod and the great Kyiv prince, and today largely determines our kinship. Additionally, Vladimir Putin answered questions about the article “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians” on July 13, the Kiev princely table occupied a dominant position in the Old Russian state.

So it has happened since the end of the 9th century. The words of the prophetic Oleg about Kyiv: “May it be the mother of the Russian cities” - retained for the descendants “The Tale of Bygone Years”. Later, like other European states of that time, ancient Rus' was faced with a weakening of central power, fragmentation. At the same time, both know and ordinary people perceived Rus' as a common space, as their homeland.

After the destructive invasion of Batu, when many cities, including Kyiv, were ruined, fragmentation intensified. Northeast Rus' fell into the Horde dependence, but retained limited sovereignty. The southern and western Russian lands were mainly included in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which, I want to draw attention to this, was called the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russians in historical documents.

Representatives of the princely and boyar clans switched to service from one prince to another, attended among themselves, but also friends, concluded alliances. At the same time, the Grand Duke of the Lithuanian Jagiello, the son of the Tver Princess, led his troops to unite with Mamai. All these are the pages of our common story, the reflection of its complexity and multidimensionality.

It is important to note that both the Western and Eastern Russian lands spoke the same language. Vera was Orthodox. Until the middle of the 15th century, a single church administration remained. At a new round of historical development by points of attraction, consolidation of the territories of Ancient Rus', both Lithuanian Rus' and the strengthened Moscow Rus' could become.

The story ordered that the center of reunion, which continued the tradition of ancient Russian statehood, became Moscow. The Moscow princes - the descendants of Prince Alexander Nevsky - dropped the external yoke, began to collect historical Russian lands. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, other processes were underway. In the XIV century, the ruling elite of Lithuania accepted Catholicism.

The Polish Catholic nobility received significant land possessions and privileges in Rus'. According to the Brest Union of the year, part of the West Russian Orthodox clergy obeyed the power of the Pope. Dust and Latinization were carried out, Orthodoxy was replaced. The events of the time of the hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky became turning point. His supporters tried to get from the Commonwealth of Autonomy.

In the petition of the Zaporizhzhya king, the King of the Commonwealth in the year spoke of the observance of the rights of the Russian Orthodox population, that "the governor of Kiev be the people of the Russian and the Greek law, so that he does not step on the Church of God ...". But the Cossacks were not heard. The appeals of B. Khmelnitsky to Moscow, which were considered by zemstvo cathedrals, followed.

In January, Pereyaslavsky Rada, this decision was confirmed. Then the ambassadors of B. Khmelnitsky and Moscow traveled dozens of cities, including Kyiv, whose inhabitants took the oath to the Russian king. By the way, nothing of the kind was at the conclusion of the Lublin Union. In a letter to Moscow in the year B.Khmelnitsky thanked Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich for the fact that he "all the Zaporizhzhya army and the whole world of the Orthodox Russian, under a strong and high hand, deigned his royal." That is, in appeals to both the Polish king and the Cossacks called the Russian king, they determined themselves to be Russian Orthodox people.

During the protracted war of the Russian state with the Commonwealth, some of the hetmans, the heirs of B. Khmelnitsky, were “deposited” from Moscow, then they were looking for support from Sweden, Poland, Turkey. But, I repeat, for the people the war was, in fact, a liberation character. It ended with the Andrusovsky truce of the year. The final results were fixed by the "eternal world" of the year.

The Russian state included the city of Kyiv and the land of the left bank of the Dnieper, including Poltava, Chernihiv, as well as Zaporozhye.

Their inhabitants reunited with the main part of the Russian Orthodox people. Behind this area itself, the name "Malaya Rus'" Little Russia was established. The name "Ukraine" was then used more often in a meaning in which the Old Russian word "outskirts" is found in written sources since the 12th century, when it was a question of various guaranteed territories. And the word "Ukrainian", judging by archival documents, initially meant border service people who defended external lines.

On the right bank, which remained in the Commonwealth in the Commonwealth, the old orders were restored, the social and religious oppression intensified. The Left Bank, the lands taken under the protection of a single state, on the contrary, began to actively develop. Residents from the other side of the Dnieper massively moved here. They were looking for support from people of the same language and, of course, one faith.

During the Northern War with Sweden, there was no choice in front of the inhabitants of Little Russia - with whom to be. Mazepa's rebellion supported only a small part of the Cossacks. People of different classes considered themselves Russian and Orthodox. Graduates of the Kiev-Mogilyan Academy played a leading role in church life. So it was during the time of hetman - in fact, autonomous state education with its special internal structure, and then in the Russian Empire.

Little Russians largely created a large common country, its statehood, culture, science. By the way, in the Soviet period, the natives of Ukraine occupied the most significant, including higher posts in the leadership of a single state. Khrushchev and L. Brezhnev, whose party biography was most closely connected with Ukraine. They were settled by immigrants from all Russian provinces.

After the sections of the Commonwealth, the Russian Empire returned the Western Old Russian lands, with the exception of Galicia and Transcarpathia, which ended up in the Austrian, and later in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The integration of the Western Russian lands into the general state space was not only the result of political and diplomatic decisions. It took place on the basis of common faith and cultural traditions.

And again I especially note - linguistic intimacy. So, even at the beginning of the 17th century, one of the hierarchs of the Uniate Church Joseph Rutski reported to Rome that the inhabitants of Muscovy call Russians from the Commonwealth of their brothers that their written language is exactly the same, and, although it is different, but slightly. In his expression, like the inhabitants of Rome and Bergamo.

This, as we know, is the center and north of modern Italy. Literary language was enriched at the expense of the people's. Their works are our common literary and cultural property. The verses of Taras Shevchenko are created in Ukrainian, and prose - mainly in Russian. The books of Nikolai Gogol, the patriot of Russia, a native of the Poltava region, are written in Russian, are full of Little Russian folk expressions and folklore motives.

How can this legacy between Russia and Ukraine be divided? And why do it? The southwestern lands of the Russian Empire, Little Russia and Novorossiya, Crimea developed as diverse in their ethnic and religious composition. Crimean Tatars, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Karaites, Crimeans, Bulgarians, Poles, Serbs, Germans and other peoples lived here. All of them retained their faith, traditions, customs.

I'm not going to idealize anything. Both the Valuevsky circular of the year, and the Ematic act of the year, limited the publication and import abroad from abroad of religious and socio-political literature in Ukrainian are known. But here the historical context is important. These decisions were made against the backdrop of dramatic events in Poland, the desires of the leaders of the Polish national movement to use the “Ukrainian question” in their interests.

I will add that artistic works, collections of Ukrainian poems, folk songs continued to be published. Objective facts suggest that in the Russian Empire there was an active process of developing Little Russian cultural identity within the framework of a large Russian nation, connecting the Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians. At the same time, among the Polish elite and some part of the Little Russian intelligentsia, ideas arose and strengthened about the individual from the Russian Ukrainian people.