September 16, 2026

Russian Rule in Ukraine

It is thought that Russia dominated Ukraine and that it would like to return to dominating it. But in reality, the USSR was led more by Ukrainians than by Russians (Khrushchev, Brezhnev), and Ukraine had been part of Russia since the seventeenth century. Only in the nineteenth century did Ukrainian nationalism emerge (as it did throughout Europe).

Everywhere there are statues of the poet Taras Shevchenko, but other authors whom we call Russian were, in fact, Ukrainian (Gogol, Bulgakov).