The three brothers Kyi, Shchek and Khoriv were the founders of the Kievan Rus
In creating their nation, Ukrainians need to examine and analyze their own history, based on truth, verified facts, and historical events. For centuries under the rule of conquerors, Ukrainians were basically deprived of the opportunity to influence the formation of national awareness and the development of their history, with the result that Ukraine’s history was composed predominantly to the advantage of their conquerors. Especially troublesome is the question of the pretensions and demands of Moscow, and later Russia, concerning the historical legacy of Kyivan Rus.
In his historical work “The Land of Moksel or Moskovia” (Olena Teliha Publishing House, Kyiv 2008, 2009, 3 vol.) Volodymyr Bilinsky presents historical sources (predominantly Russian) which testify to the total misrepresentation of the history of the Russian Empire, which was geared to create a historical mythology about Moscow and Kyivan Rus sharing common historical roots, and that Moscow possesses “succession rights” to Kyivan Rus.
Moscow’s outright fraud that appropriated the past of the Great Kyiv kingdom and its people dealt a severe blow to the Ukrainian ethos. Our obligation now is to utilize hard facts to uncover the lies and amorality of Moskovian mythology.
Let’s examine these problems.
The tsars of Moscow and, later, Russia understood that without an imposing past it was impossible to create a great nation and empire. Therefore it was necessary to glorify their historical roots and even to hijack the history of other nations. So, starting with Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584) the tsars of Moscow applied all their efforts to appropriate the history of Kyivan Rus, its glorious past, and to create an official mythology for the Russian Empire.
This might have been less consequential if their mythology had not affected the central concerns of Ukraine and if it had not aimed at the utter destruction of Ukraine: its history, language and culture. Over time, it became clear that Russian Imperial chauvinists did and continue to do everything possible to realize this aim.
Over hundreds of years and especially starting with the early XVI century, they brainwashed and continue to brainwash everyone, saying that the origins of the Russian nation and people are the Great Kyivan kingdom. They assert that Kyivan Rus was the cradle of three sibling nations – Russians, Ukrainians and Belarus; and that because the Russians are “older brothers”, they have the right to the legacy of Kyivan Rus. To this day, Russian historians and officials make use of this woeful lie, which is repeated by the ‘fifth column’ of communists and almost all Party of Regions deputies in [Ukrainian] Parliament.
Here are the facts:
- At the time of the Kyivan Empire there was no mention of a Moscow nation. It is well known that Moscow was created in 1277 as a subservient vassal region or ‘ulus’ to the Golden Horde, established by the Khan Mengu-Timur. By that time, Kyivan Rus had existed for more than 300 years.
- There are no indications of any connection of Kyivan Rus with the Finnish ethnic groups in the land of ‘Moksel’ or later of the Moscow principality with the Principality of Kyivan Rus up until the XVI century. At the time when Kyivan Rus had officially accepted Christianity, the Finn tribes in ‘Moksel’ lived in a semi-primitive state.
How can anyone speak of ‘an older brother’ when that ‘older brother’ did not first appear until centuries after Rus-Ukrainians? He has no moral right to call himself an ‘older brother’, nor to dictate how people are to live, nor to force his culture, language, and world views. It is clear that until the end of the XV century, there was no Russian nation, there was no older brother ‘Great Russian’, nor were there any Russian people. Instead, there was the land of Suzdal: the land of Moksel, later the Moscow princedom, which entered into the role of the Golden Horde, the nation of Genghis Khan. From the end of the XIII to the beginning of the XVIII century, the people in this land were called Moskovites. And Moscow historians are silent about this question of their national origins.
The history of Great Russians starts with the ‘Beyond the Forests Land’ in Moscow, which was never Kyivan Rus. The Tatar-Mongols who entered these lands were a big element in the formulation of ‘Great Russians’. The Great Russian psychology absorbed many characteristics – the Tatar-Mongol instincts of a conqueror and despot, with the ultimate aim: world domination.
Thus by the XVI cent. was established the type of a conqueror who was horrible in his lack of education, rage and cruelty. These people had no use for European culture and literacy. All such things like morality, honesty, shame, justice, human dignity and historical awareness were absolutely foreign to them. A significant amount of Tatar-Mongols entered the makeup of Great Russians from the XIII to XVI centuries and they accounted for the genealogy of over 25% of Russian nobility. Here are some names of Tatar/Turkic origin that brought fame to the Russian Empire: Arakcheev, Bunin, Chaadayev, Derzhavin, Karamzin, Kuprin, Plekhanov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Tiutchev, Turgenev, Sheremetiev, and many others.
In order to appropriate the history of Kyiv lands and to immortalize this theft, the Great Russians had to squash the Ukrainian people, drive them into slavery, deprive them of their true name, exterminate them via famine, etc.
Ukrainians had emerged as a nation in the XI to XII centuries, and probably, even earlier. Later they were labeled ‘Little Russians’ when Russians began to brainwash the world with their ‘version’ of history. For the smallest deviation from this official version, people were tortured, killed, and sent off to the GULAG. The Soviet period was especially brutal and vicious. During that time, Ukraine lost over 25 million of her sons and daughters, who perished in wars for Russian interests, and during collectivization, tortures, and forced relocations.
This is the way the ‘older brother’ forced the ‘younger brother’, the ‘Little Russian’, to live in the savage ’embraces of love’.
This essay was first published in a collection by Yaroslav Dashkevych, PhD. in “Learn to Speak the Truth with Non-Lying Lips” – K:Tempora, 2011, 828pp. Yaroslav Dashkevych was a prominent Ukrainian historian, who during his long academic career wrote more than 950 works on Ukrainian historiography, source studies and special historical disciplines, Eastern Studies, Ukrainian-Armenian, Ukrainian-Turkish, and Ukrainian-Jewish relations.
Comments powered by CComment