Dona Ferentes
A little bit OC⚡DC
- Joined
- 11 January 2016
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I take it back to the Scythians and Pontic Greek admix. Then the Slavic hordes in their eastward quests. Sure , Kievan Rus was the beginning of nation building but this quickly moved N and E. Cyril brought Christianity and an alphabet. Then of course Chinggis (Genghis) Khan brought trauma and pillage across the land, and other migrating steppe peoples passed through. An influx of Jews (for this was part of The Pale) and the Ruthenian identity during the Polish-Lithuanian years. The Hapsburgs asserted themselves in the west . Peasantry was predominant, the elites and landlords were mainly imports. And then there were the Crimean Tatars, and their Khanate. Still struggling for an identity, 19th C nationalism and urbanisation were there in the mix, but so was Russian desire for a warm water port. Sebastopol? Balaclava? Industrial development saw Russians move into the Donetsk in big numbers. Come the 1917 revolution, the commies were well organised and took control.and the Eastern areas appear to be the more Russia -friendly areas
And how did that go? Not well, with forced collectivisation. Holodomor. Russification. WWII was messy.
But Stalin drew the borders and ceded Crimea to Ukraine. Also, during entire USSR time, they held 3 seats at the UN, including Ukraine and Belorussia.