Posted by rabotiaga on April 08, 2000 at 00:08:55:
:1. Baltics are not in the EU yet.
: Baltic republics are prospective members. They are striving to be there.
: and will be some day.
: Ukraine has to strive for membership if we want Ukraine to prosper.
: Becominfg a " Novorossiysktya guberniya" of Russia will not help us do that .
Agreed. I know that they have opened borders with EU countries and (at least
in Latvija - for sure) banks accept transactions in euro and vice versa.
This was not a critical point, but thanks for the clarification
:2. Part of Odesa does speak Ukrainian. I am fro Odesa I know it first hand. Russian is still a language of choice in the city , however, many Odessiti know Ukrainian. "Russians" who speak a horrible "surzhik" are the most stubborn segment of Odesa population when it comes to accepting Ukrainian.
I was in Odesa and, like you are saying, most population uses surzhik for conversation.
What I meant is that the quality of Ukrainian language that will be spoken in offices in Odessa
and other, generally non-Ukrainian speaking regions (if it'll be mandatory for them),
will be so low, that it'll do more harm to it than good. Kuchma is a good example
of that, I spoke to some Ukrainians here in Canada and they said they felt more
shame hearing his pathetic Ukrainian than they would have if he spoke Russian, his
native tongue. I can relate to that.
:3. As of glorious Kovpak, ask the villagers of Podilya, Polissya and Karpat what they think of Kovpak. and his "heroes". Rapes, theft and death among Ukrainians trailed after his advance West. I am not saying his army did not help defeat Germans, it did, but waht was the cost for Ukrainian country side. As of Russians not supporting Hitler, read about Vlasov army.
Agreed on Kovpak, does not go against my point though.
Nowhere did I say that all Russians did not support Hitler.
However, as far as I know, Germans regarded Vlasov's army as a well-trained soldiers
who (maybe due to the fact that they did not have what to lose) fought very well.
Not what I have heard about "ukrainian police" and UPA, who, by the way, also have
brutally killed enough Ukrainians whom they suspected in sympathy to Russians.
:4. Ukrainian inventors: Sikorsky from Kiyv- Sikorsky helicopters are all over the world, just to give you a taste of it. As of prominent Ukraininas even in Russsian Empirial Court: Razymovsky, Bezborodko, Ivan Mazepa ( Peter The Great was his student), just to name a few.
To the best of my knowledge, Igor Ivanovitch Sikorsky came to the USA from Kiev.
His ethnicity was "russian", although maybe due to the fact that Kiev was a Russian
city back than.
Heavy bomber that he designed in 1915 for the russian army he called "Ilija Muromets" (not "Taras Bul'ba", for example)
Bulgakov, for example, also was from,Kiev, I don't think you'll claim him as being a "ukrainian writer", though.
People whom you have mentioned as "prominent" are indeed "prominent" but they did not make any major invention
or advancement in science. And, no surprise, they were present in the Russian Empirial Court.
Peter the Great by many is considered as a tyrant of Ukrainian people (which is arguable),
so I guess, Mazepa wasn't that good of a teacher after all.
: 5. After bombing of Serbia, "nationalistic" , as you would call them, fraction of Ukrainian parlament called for abandoning of non-nuclear status.
Yep. Guess where those nukes will come from. Mother Russia, where else. Just proves my point.
:6. Ukrainian language was supressed by decrees of Russian State since Catherine The Great. It was prohibited to write and print in Ukrainian. That is why the language was in the period of stagnation. Even Turgenev used to translate work of Marko Vovchok into Russian, so he treated Ukrainian as equal language
Agreed.Does not go against anything I said. Let me remind you, though, that Shevchenko, who is probably
the only really famous Ukrainian artist, was bought and set free from slavery by a Russian (from Ukrainian "pan") and
his personal diary and a lot of his work was also in russian.
:7. What is happening in Ukraine, with a Russian language in schools is not good. I think secondary education will suffer over all, however, Ukrainian has to be reestablished in the government and academia as an official language.
no problem here. can't make it mandatory, though.
:8. US does not have official state language at all. Its a language of choice. US Constitution has no statute on language.
I have never said anything about the state language in the US. You point goes along with what I am saying, though.
:9. On the subject of Orthodoxy : when Moscow state was established and Moscovy came to a crisis in its faith: Ukrainian clergy was invited to Moscovy to educate Moscovy clergy, redo the religious books, and give the faithful a spiritual boost. When Peter the Great was introducing reforms in Moscow state (word Russia was invented by Peter The Great), he counted on the support of Ukrainian clergy and gentry bwcause they had a closer link to the West and were more West Oriented then backward Moskovy Boyars.
I don't think there even was a separate Ukrainian language back then (when Moscow state was established) or a notion of Ukrainian nationality.
As for the Peter the Great - see my response to #4.
:"Rabotaga" , all this is to bring your discussion on a more intellectual level. So you do not have to reserve to stereotypes, rumors, ultranationalistic Russian and Soviet propaganda brochures, cheap shots, personal insults and bigotry.
Unfortunately this is the level that most people who post here understand or care to relate to.
Ne ohota metat' biser pered svin'jami.
People like you get an intelligent response.