The recent conflict between Russia and Ukraine has attracted the attention of the whole world. In fact, the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine has not only emerged in recent times: relations between Russia and Ukraine have become tense since the events in Crimea in 2014. The continued tensions eventually turned into the current situation of fighting each other. It is well known that Ukraine has a special relationship with Russia in history, but the confrontation at the realpolitical level has led to a wave of de-Russification in Ukraine that has drawn a clear line with Russia.
Today, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is already self-contained and no longer affiliation with the Moscow Orthodox Church. A large number of statues of Russian celebrities, including Marshal Zhukov, were removed, and streets named after Russian historical figures were renamed. Ukraine is even liquidating its own and Russia's national names. In the early years, Ukrainians continued to call for a change in the name of the country. On August 31, 2021, Alestovich, an adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, publicly responded that Ukraine would change the name of the country to "Rus-Ukraine" in response.
As early as March 16, 2018, the Belarusian Embassy sent a note to the Chinese Embassy asking the Chinese side to replace the original "Belarus" with the name "Belarus" when translating its own country name. Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine's proposed "Rus's-Ukraine" all include the common label "Rus' "Rus". Why are Russia, Belarus and Ukraine all scrambling to put the word "Rus" in their names? In fact, the three countries of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, which are from the East Slavic lineage, are usually regarded as the same origin and the same species in the eyes of the outside world.
Here we first need to explain what a Slav is. The Slavs are actually a linguistic concept, not a national concept. The so-called Slavs are a collective term for all ethnic groups that speak the Slavic language. Under the concept of Slavs includes today's Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Bulgarian and other ethnic groups. The origins of the Slavs are first mentioned in ancient Roman texts in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries.
During the Roman Empire, the Slavs were combined with the Germans and Celts as the three barbarians of Europe. In the 5th and 6th centuries AD, the Slavs gradually divided into three branches of the east, west and south during the great migration of the Eurasian peoples caused by the westward migration of the Huns: the East Slavs gradually multiplied the three major branches of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine; the West Slavs gradually multiplied the three major branches of Poland, Czechism and Slovakia; the Yugoslavs divided into Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians, Macedonians, Bulgarians and other branches.
Among them, the East Slavs are sometimes referred to as the "Rus' people". What we call "Russia" today is actually "Rus'." The names of Russia and Belarus originally did not have the sound of "Russia". The reason why the mainland wears this "Russian" character when translating its name is related to the fact that Russia has been ruled by the Mongols for more than two hundred years in history. The name "Rus" originated in Kievan Rus' established in 882 AD, but the name "Rus" was not invented by the East Slavs themselves. It is well known that China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was formerly known as the Ukrainian aircraft carrier Varyag.
Varyag originally referred to the Vikings from the Nordic region, so why did the Soviet aircraft carriers adopt the name of Nordic origin? The Vikings were one of the most famous ethnic groups in European history: they occupied the Normandy region in northern France and established the Duchy of Normandy here. They also crossed the English Channel to conquer England and inaugurated the Norman dynasty in British history. The Vikings in their heyday fought all the way from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, leaving traces of their conquest everywhere from Iceland to Italy.
In the first half of the 9th century, an eastward branch of the Vikings began to appear in present-day Russia and established its own state – they were called Rus in Finnish, while the East Slavs at the time generally called them Varyag. At that time, there was a perennial scuffle between the east Slavic tribes: some of them invited the Rus' to help in the war in order to strengthen their own strength. It turns out that this act of attracting foreign enemies to help civil war is purely to attract wolves into the house. At first, the Rus' were mercenaries invited by the East Slavs to assist in the war, but the Rus' grew stronger and did not leave.
The Rus' elected the three brothers Rurik, Sineus, and Truvou to lead their people to Novgorod, White Lake, and Izborsk to establish states. Soon after, Sineus and Truvou died, and the powerful Rurik founded the Rurik dynasty, which ruled Russia for more than 700 years. After Rurik's death, his close associate Oleg led an army south to conquer Kiev in 882, killing the princes Ascord and Kiel who ruled there and moving the capital there. Since then, the Kievan Rus' state, ruled by the Rus' and dominated by the East Slavs, was officially born.
Thus the earliest concept of "Rus'" refers to a group of Nordic Vikings who developed eastward. After the vikings conquered Eastern Europe, they gradually assimilated with the local East Slavs, and over time, "Rus' people" and "East Slavs" gradually became two concepts that could be roughly equated in the eyes of the world. The first state established in the history of the Rus' was the Grand Duchy of Kievan Rus, born in 882 AD. This Grand Duchy of Kievan Rus is the common ancestor of today's Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians.
Kievan Rus' was not a highly centralized unified state like ancient China, but a loose alliance of feudal lords and princes. At first, these princes had more or less various kinships, but as time went on, their kinship with each other became more and more diluted. There is a saying in Chinese folklore: "One generation of relatives, two generations of watches, three generations and four generations cannot recognize it." Don't say that five hundred years ago, it was a distant relative who could not be beaten by this kind of eight rods, and the Brothers Yang Yong and Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty fought with their father and mother.
In the face of real political interests, blood kinship sometimes really has little impact. The Zhou Dynasty in Chinese history also sealed relatives with the same surname, but after a long time, did the princes of various roads still fight? At first Kievan Rus was able to maintain superficial unity, but after the mid-12th century there was a blatant civil war between the feudal lords. Just as the various princes and nobles of Kievan Rus were busy fighting a civil war, a new group of conquerors broke into the far east. At that time, the Mongol Empire in the east had successively destroyed the Western Liao, Hua lazimo, Western Xia, Jin Dynasty and other states.
In 1235 AD, the Great Mongol Khan Wokoutai ordered the various clans to send troops to Europe under the leadership of the eldest son. The Mongol armies of the Western Expedition swept through the Rus' principalities of Yarezan, Koromuna, Vladimir, Novgorod and other Rus' principalities like a whirlwind. In the winter of 1240 the Mongol armies began to besiege kiev, the capital of Kievan Rus' City. In 1242, Genghis Khan's grandson and second son of Shuchi, Batu, established the Shihe River (Irtysh River) in the east, from Huluosi in the west, from Lake Balkhash, the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea in the south, to the vast Chincha Khanate near the Arctic Circle in the north (also known as the Golden Horde because the khan's palace tent is golden).
At that time, most of the territory of Kievan Rus was occupied and annexed by the Mongols in the west, and only the Galicia-Volum Principality and the Duchy of Polotsk in the west maintained their independence with the support of Poland, Lithuania and other countries. It was this Principality of Galicia-Volum that eventually evolved into what would become Ukraine, while the Principality of Polotsk gradually evolved into what would become Belarus. The three peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus thus began to form a division. Russia was ruled by the Mongols for 240 years from 1240 to 1480.
Mongol rule had both positive and negative effects on Russia: the Mongols plundered the Russians during their reign, and it was the Mongol rule that made Russia lose touch with the Renaissance and the Great Navigation Era of the West. This led to Russia lagging behind the Western powers in recent history, but on the other hand, it was the Mongols who shaped a unified Russian nation. Before the Mongol invasion, Russia consisted of small, independent principalities. In the Rus' principality conquered by the Mongols, a Grand Duchy of Moscow arose.
The Grand Duchy of Moscow pleased the Mongol Golden Horde by levying tributes for the Mongol Khans and soliciting disobedient principalities. The Mongol rulers conferred the title of "Vladimir" on the Grand Duke of Moscow and ordered him to conquer the princes who did not obey orders. The Grand Duchy of Moscow took advantage of the power of the Mongols to level the crowd, thus gradually completing the unification of the Rus' principalities. In the summer of 1378 the Grand Duke of Moscow, Dmitry Ivanovich, led the Rus' principalities in a major battle on the Wozza River and the Golden Horde, after which the Grand Duchy of Moscow won independence from the Mongols.
However in 1383 the Golden Horde's detachment and disorientation invaded Moscow again. By 1480, the increasingly powerful Grand Duchy of Moscow was finally completely freed from Mongol rule. The Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually conquered other Rus' principalities after escaping mongol rule and gradually formed the present unified Russian nation. The Mongol period of rule contributed politically to the birth of a complete and unified Russian state; economically brought advanced technology and institutions from the East; and culturally borrowed a large number of Mongolian words in the Russian language.
Chinese's name for Russia was learned through the Mongols, who had earlier contact with the Russians. There is a difficult vibrato Р in Russian. Making this sound requires the tip of the tongue to flutter. Many people who learn Russian from scratch will always add other sounds consciously or unconsciously at a stage when they are not yet vibrato. Mongolian begins with vowels: native words cannot begin with syllables of l or r, and even foreign words generally have to move the vowels that follow immediately after them to the front and repeat it once. The Mongols used to add an o sound when translating the name of the country "Rus" (Росси́я).
The Qing government translated "Rus" as "Rus" or "Oros" according to the pronunciation in Mongolian. During the Qianlong period, when the official revision of the Siku Quanshu was first adopted, the "Russian" translation was adopted. After the late Qing Dynasty, the mainland texts gradually standardized and unified its translation as "Russia" and has been used to this day. Of course, in the strict sense, Rus' does not simply refer to today's Russia, but to the East Slavic ethnic groups including Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. It can be seen that the word "Russia" in the name of the country "Russia" is not actually part of the official name of the country, but the preposition vowel added by the Mongols when translating the name of the Rus' country.
In fact, the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty did not translate the name of the Rus' country as "Russia". In the thirty-sixth year of the Ming Dynasty (1608 AD), when Li Zhizao and the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci jointly drew the "Complete Map of all The Kingdoms of Kunyu", the Grand Duchy of Moscow had annexed the princes of Rus'. At this time, the European name for the country was russia with the Latin suffix ia after the old name "Rus". The addition of the suffix ia after the name of a people indicates the place where the people live. So Russia actually means "land of the Rus'.
Matteo Ricci and Lee translated Russia as "Russia" in the Kunyu Panorama. Japan, Korea and other countries later used the translation of the Ming Dynasty's "Kunyu Wanguo Quantu" to call Russia "Rusia". In 1877, the Russian consulate protested to the Japanese government on the grounds that the word "Lu" was easily reminiscent of blunt and stupid. Since then, Japan has retranslated the word "Rucia" to "Lucia". Therefore, what we call the Russo-Japanese War is called the "Ri-Lu War" in the Historical Records of japan. To this day, Japan and the Korean Peninsula still follow the translation of "Lucia".
From the early history of the three ethnic groups of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, it is true that they are of the same origin, but the rule of the Mongols has long caused a certain psychological gap between the three ethnic groups. Although Putin emphasizes that Ukraine is part of Russian history based on its historical ties to Ukraine, a completely different view might be taken from a Ukrainian standpoint: Since the earliest birthplace of Rus' civilization was Kiev in Ukraine, Ukrainians would of course consider themselves the legitimate successors of Rus' civilization.
When Russia was conquered by the Mongols, the Duchy of Galicia-Warren, located in present-day Ukraine, survived under the name of "Kingdom of Rus" until it was divided between Poland and Lithuania in 1349. Ukrainians believe that the first state established by the Rus' was Kievan Rus' and therefore Kiev is "the mother of the city in the land ruled by all Rus'" In other words, the Ukrainians considered themselves Rus' orthodox, while the Russians were "white Tatars" assimilated by the Mongol conquest. Of course, Russia's view of this history is very different from that of Ukraine.
Russia believed that Kievan Rus' was indeed the cradle of the Rus' nation, and later after the Mongol Conquest destroyed Kievan Rus', the Russians went north to establish the Muscovite Principality, and then Tsarist Russia, which evolved from the Grand Duchy of Moscow, became strong and brought Ukraine and Belarus under its rule. The policy of national oppression in the Tsarist era turned Russia into what Lenin called "prisons of nations." A deep-rooted concept of tsarist rule was that nations were big and small, superior or inferior. Therefore, it is natural for small nations to submit to large nations and inferior nations to subordinate themselves to superior nations.
During the Tsarist era, the Russian nation was called "Great Rus'", while the Ukrainian nation was called "Little Rus", and the people in between were called "Belarus". In fact, the name "Ukraine" itself has the meaning of border and frontier in Russian. This is outright contempt for Ukrainians: Ukrainians think they are Rus' orthodox, yet Russians have stolen Ukrainian history with their arms in their hands. The Muscovite Principality was seen by Ukrainians as nothing more than a branch of the Kievan Rus' derivation.
Some ultra-nationalists in Ukraine like to call Russians "Muscovites." In the eyes of Ukrainians, only Kiev is the orthodox origin of the Rus' nation, and Moscow is the real remote and bitter place. This is like the feeling that the princes of the Central Plains regarded Qin and Chu as barbarians during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Unexpectedly, after the passage of time, Ukraine itself was called "Borderland" and "Little Rus". In the eyes of Ukrainian nationalists, this is the result of the "nasty Moscowrs" who falsified history through power politics.
Ukrainians, of course, are unhappy with the name "Frontier" imposed by Russia during the Tsarist era. Since Ukrainians are bent on Rus' orthodoxy, they naturally want to highlight the Rus' color in the name of the country. Ukraine not only wants to highlight the Rus' color in its name, but also intends to rename Russia moscow. In fact, as early as the time when Poroshenko was president, Ukraine had said that it would change the name of the country to Kievan Rus' and Russia to Moscow. The question of who is Rus' orthodoxy has also become a major point of contention between Russia and Ukraine.
Of course, the Russian side cannot accept Ukraine and its own scramble for the country's name. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Federal Foreign Ministry, once said in response to Ukraine's intention to change its name: "Since Ukraine wants to highlight the Rus' color in the name of the country, then I suggest that it may be changed to Ukros, without thanking me." It is clear that Russia is quite dismissive of the idea that Ukraine wants to change its name. Perhaps in the Russian view of who is strong is the orthodox – after all, the real world influence of the Rus' nation began in the Tsarist era (not the Kievan Rus' era).