Posted on 03/07/2014 4:46:21 AM PST by Bill Russell
Words have meaning. Sometimes even the small ones by their inclusion or omission can have a huge impact. Most readers in their first glance at the title of this article thought the word “the” was mistakenly dropped from in front of Ukraine. Over the last century, we have become used to referring the nation of Ukraine as “the Ukraine.” This writer has been guilty of the mistake, even in recent writings.
The inclusion or omission of an article of speech like “the” conveys the difference between a sovereign, independent nation of Ukraine and a region or territory claimed by Russia and the Soviet Union. Certainly, Vladamir Putin wants us to keep using “the” when referring to Ukraine, especially when he has invaded its sovereign territory.
But there are words Putin does not want us to use either. “Holodomor” is one of those words. The term Holodomor derives from Ukrainian words referring to death or execution by starvation. It is a word for the genocide of the Ukrainian people that has remained buried behind a massive wall of Soviet propaganda and western under-reporting for over 80 years.
During the years of Soviet domination of Russia and Eastern Europe, the Kremlin did its best to bury the truth of the Holodomor and its role in implementing it. Thanks to laudatory stories of Stalin’s Soviet Union written my New York Times reporter Walter Duranty during Stalin’s reign of terror, and the work of Soviet spies like Alger Hiss (a senior State Department official under President Franklin Roosevelt), the atrocities committed against the people of Ukraine by the Soviets have never been widely publicized in the west.
In 1932 -1933, during Stalin’s great “terror”, approximately 25% of the Ukrainian nation was starved to death on a grand scale. Through systematic Soviet theft of all the grain from the farmers, to include the seed grain stores, in an area known as “the bread basket of Europe,” resistance to the Soviet seizure of independent farms in Ukraine was crushed. Stalin’s point man in charge of the murder of over 8 million Ukrainians was the “Great Reformer” and Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev.
Khrushchev made extensive use of the NKVD (previously known as the Checka and OGPU, later known as the KGB, today referred to as the FSB ) in seizing grain stores and shooting any farmers who hid grain to plant or feed their families. Stalin’s proletarian socialist (Communist) genocide of the Holodomor and Gulag system was in full swing, and served as the model for Hitler’s Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) concentration camp system and “Final Solution” when it was just beginning. The very real Holocaust of the Holodomor in Ukraine was perpetrated by the same organization which gave birth to Vladimir Putin’s career.
The world turned a blind eye in witness to the Ukrainians who had their churches destroyed and many of their family members (often their entire families) starved to death on their farms, or executed if they tried to leave in search of food. The Soviets were all too happy to allow the horrific images of the Nazi death camps and testimonies of the Nuremberg Trials to obscure the suppressed truth of the Holodomor.
It is important for the world to recognize and stand with Ukrainian defiance against domination from post-Soviet Russia. The same organizations and philosophical rationalizations for domination which existed in Stalin’s Russia are alive and well in Putin’s; they just have different names. - In which case, perhaps, words have no meaning.
Das ol' skoo'
Problem is that "the Ukraine" in English goes back to at least the 1700s. It's not an invention of the Soviets.
Stalin’s point man in charge of the murder of over 8 million Ukrainians was the “Great Reformer” and Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev.
It should be noted that Khrushchev was himself Ukrainian. And that he spent the years of the Holodomor in Moscow working in the city government. He didn't arrive in Ukraine till 1937.
This article tries to portray "the Soviets" as distinct from "Ukrainians," as if Ukrainians were conquered victims of an invasion, much as Poland was conquered by the Nazis.
The truth, of course, is much more complicated. Many Ukrainians were strong supporters of the Soviet system and rose high in its ranks, as can be seen by Khrushchev himself.
I.e., almost no one says, “I went to UK...” Instead they say, “I went to the UK...” and “I live in the United States...”
Although its far from consistent, as I've never hear anyone say “the Yugoslavia”, but everyone adds the article to most of the descriptive country names, “the Czech Republic”, “the United States”, but not all, “I landed in East Timor”.
Nor are all regional names set off with an article. No one goes to, “the Tuscany” even if they live in “the South” or "the Dells".
I cannot get worked up over a situation involving two corrupt sides.
The time for intervention has long passed. We proved to be too ignorant on the history, demographics and political economics to have any moral authority to assist. It all depends on whose debt slave the citizens want to be. Whoever promises the least pain will win.
Adjectives vs nouns
United is an adjective
Czech is an adjective
South is an adjective
Ukraine is a noun
Tuscany is a noun
Yes, I mentioned the issue of descriptors (adjectives); however, South is only an adjective if you add or imply “region”, in which case Tuscany, as in “the Tuscany region” is also an adjective. Obviously we treat them differently.
So, its a mixed bag. Four Corners is a region and certainly qualifies as starting with an adjective, but people, “visit Four Corners” they do not visit “the Four Corners”.
The lack of consistancy is my point.
I am not a huge fan of the EU.
But there is an enormous difference between the EU’s bureaucratic welfare states, and the criminal tyranny of Russia under Putin.
IMO presuming moral equivalency between the two is hyperbole.
Well stated, Sherman Logan. The nation of Ukraine is a modern, artificial construct that didn’t matter when all SSRs were under Moscow’s rule. Now the longstanding status quo is being restored. Those of us who defend and espouse the Monroe Doctrine in our own hemisphere should recognize that Russia is pursuing its self interests along its strategic southern border, and that this is none of our business.
No, no, no. Not between Russia and EU, the parties in the Ukraine.
But it is no game.
Don’t entirely agree with you. Carried to its logical conclusion this principle would justify Russia re-invading Poland and the Baltics, possibly more.
But I do find it interesting that the very people who decry our being “policemen to the world” seem to automatically assume it’s our business to stick our noses into this situation.
I can buy that. Sometimes there are no “good guys.” Often, in fact.
Which doesn’t mean there is no possibility of some emerging.
Russia’s interests in Poland and the Baltics are balanced against those of Western European nations which also share their borders. Ukraine is clearly beyond the scope of Western Europe, and has always been within the Russian sphere. To NATO, Ukraine is “a bridge too far.” To Russia, Ukraine is a strategic necessity.
I do realize that the Baltics do not border Western European nations, only Poland and Russia. But they are much closer to Western Europe, and more directly affect its strategic interests.
Large nations do not have a moral right to control neighboring small countries.
They do, however, have such a right to prevent potential enemies from gaining control there.
IMO.
Yup. The EU is the weaker of the two tyrannies.
Thanks Sherman. The use of “the” in referring to Ukraine does go back a long way - to the 1700’s and at least as far as the days of Catherine and the patrician of Poland (a large portion of which is now called Ukraine). While the Russian language does not have articles like “a” or “the” many of the Russian broadcasts and discussions do make a point of using the “the” article in English messaging.
In reference to Khrushchev going back to the Ukraine in 1937,you are correct. I wrote this from memory and my time line was off. Khrushchev was a senior party member in the Ukraine in the late 1920s. In 1929 he followed Kaganovich to Moscow where he was very active in helping Stalin purge the Moscow party leadership beginning around 1934, and returned to the Ukraine as party chief in 1937. I should have gone back and checked before publishing. Going back to the Black Book of Communism, the Great Terror occurred from 1936-1938 and Khrushchev was the point man in the purge of the local communist party leaders in the Ukraine — in essence ensuring the executions of the executioners from the Holodomor, a very Soviet means of erasing evidence of atrocities. The Holodomor was part of the collectivization of farms (1932-33).
With reference to the Ukrainians committing the atrocities during the Holodomor — that is partly true. But more on that later.
But I digress. Between my timeline gaffe, and the other arguments in this post over the semantics in the use of “the” before the name of a country or region, this is turning out to be the worst work I have ever published. While I am embarrassed and humbled, my real regret is the message of what the Ukrainians have to fear from post- Soviet/ Russian domination has been lost in the discussion it created.
Never mind what the Ukrainian people want right?
There is no distinct “Ukrainian people.” It is an ethnically divided nation with a very large Russian population, and would make more sense politically if divided between East and West. I suspect that is what would happen if put to a vote.
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