May 18, 2017 04:05 PM
Ukraine consists of gifts from Russian tsars and Soviet general secretaries
[Picture]
Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Volodymyr Omelyan unexpectedly announced that Kyiv can regain not only Crimea and Donbass, but also... Kuban
Roman GOLOVANOV
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One can only marvel at the appetites of the Ukrainian minister. Perhaps it's time to recall what kind of territories the current Ukraine consists of. Komsomolskaya Pravda listened to the point of view not only from
Moscow - Doctor of Historical Sciences Oleg NAZAROV, but also
from Kyiv - Academician Petro TOLOCHKO, Director of the Institute of Archeology of Ukraine.
'Okraintsy' and Little Russia
'KP': - Petro Poroshenko called Prince Vladimir Krasno Solnyshko the founder of Ukraine.
Tolochko: - I think Pyotr Alekseevich knows history poorly. Vladimir died in 1015. Ukraine appeared after 600 years. And not as a state. None of the Eastern Slavs knew that in hundreds of years they would separate and be different peoples: someone is Ukrainian, someone is Russian, someone is Belarusian.
Nazarov: - Bogdan Khmelnytsky signed an agreement with Moscow in 1654 on behalf of the Zaporizhzhya Army, and not on behalf of Ukraine. It was the Poles who at the beginning of the 17th century began to call the inhabitants of their eastern outskirts 'outskirts'. The word was then transformed into 'Ukrainians'.
[Map from before]
T .: - Then Russia and Little Russia were not united on equal terms. Ukraine became part of the empire as an autonomy. Ukrainian territory occupied several small areas on the left side of the Dnieper. There was also the right bank - the Cherkasy and Volyn regions, but the Poles were in charge there.
N .: - After the Pereyaslav Rada, which approved the entry of the Zaporizhzhya Army into Russia, another Russian-Polish war broke out. As a result, the Muscovite tsar regained the cities lost in the Time of Troubles: Smolensk, Chernigov, Dorogobuzh ... The border between Poland and the Moscow state was established strictly along the Dnieper River. There was a special article - Kyiv. We agreed that it would remain in the possession of Moscow for two years, then it would be transferred to Poland. But then Moscow simply paid compensation for him - 146 thousand rubles in gold. And left behind.
'KP': - How were those lands called under the kings?
T: - Until the destruction of the Hetmanate - by Little Russia. And they began to curtail the hetman's council under Peter I - after the betrayal of Mazepa. Then Catherine II revived it for her favorite Razumovsky. But in 1764 it broke up again. And Little Russia remained a part of Russia as one of the provinces.
New cities and lands
'KP': - It turns out that Ukraine has increased its size thanks to the gifts of Russian monarchs?
N .: - This is how we can talk now. Russian tsars perceived this as an increase in the territory of a single state. There was Siberia, the Urals, Little Russia. And the general increase in Russia was not considered gifts to Ukraine, because there was no such country.
'KP': - Under Catherine II, the lands of Novorossia and Crimea were conquered. Who did they belong to before? Why did they leave Ukraine?
T .: - Then Russia and Little Russia were not united on equal terms. Ukraine became part of the empire as an autonomy. Ukrainian territory occupied several small areas on the left side of the Dnieper. There was also the right bank - the Cherkasy and Volyn regions, but the Poles were in charge there.
N .: - After the Pereyaslav Rada, which approved the entry of the Zaporizhzhya Army into Russia, another Russian-Polish war broke out. As a result, the Muscovite tsar regained the cities lost in the Time of Troubles: Smolensk, Chernigov, Dorogobuzh ... The border between Poland and the Moscow state was established strictly along the Dnieper River. There was a special article - Kyiv. We agreed that it would remain in the possession of Moscow for two years, then it would be transferred to Poland. But then Moscow simply paid compensation for him - 146 thousand rubles in gold. And left behind.
'KP': - How were those lands called under the kings?
T: - Until the destruction of the Hetmanate - by Little Russia. And they began to curtail the hetman's council under Peter I - after the betrayal of Mazepa. Then Catherine II revived it for her favorite Razumovsky. But in 1764 it broke up again. And Little Russia remained a part of Russia as one of the provinces.
New cities and lands
'KP': - It turns out that Ukraine has increased its size thanks to the gifts of Russian monarchs?
N .: - This is how we can talk now. Russian tsars perceived this as an increase in the territory of a single state. There was Siberia, the Urals, Little Russia. And the general increase in Russia was not considered gifts to Ukraine, because there was no such country.
'KP': - Under Catherine II, the lands of Novorossia and Crimea were conquered. Who did they belong to before? Why did they leave Ukraine?
T .: - They were owned by the Crimean Khanate and the Nogai Horde. After the conquest of the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region, Russia began to develop them. And not only residents of distant Russian provinces, but also the population of central Ukraine, were drawn there.
'KP': - At the same time, the Russian emperors laid the foundations for many of today's Ukrainian cities ...
T .: - Yes, they founded Kirovograd (it was also Elisavetgrad) and Dnepropetrovsk (it was called Yekaterinoslav). And also Kherson, Nikolaev and Odessa. All major cities of the lower Dnieper region and the southern part of Ukraine were created in tsarist times.
'KP': - Who and why did it take to invent Ukraine?
N .: - The Russian Empire after the February Revolution of 1917 fell apart in a few months. Everywhere there was a struggle for power. This fuss from Petrograd could not be fully controlled. The Central Rada emerged in Kyiv. At first, she put forward modest demands for autonomy. Here in Kyiv they began to actively use the term 'Ukraine' in defiance of the former 'Little Russia'. We wanted to highlight our uniqueness. The Ukrainian nationalists became impudent, demanding more and more land, and the Provisional Government only weakened. Everything settled down by 1918. The Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed in Kyiv.
'KP': - Who then belonged to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions?
T .: - When the USSR was created, the question arose of separating Ukraine. Lenin decided that it was necessary to slaughter the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic to it, and it was part of Russia. But this, in essence, is the whole of Novorossia, Donetsk and Krivoy Rog.
N .: - Lenin and his associates transferred the industrial regions of Donbass to Ukraine. The inhabitants of Ukraine were mostly peasants, and the Bolsheviks needed proletarians.
KP: - It turns out that Lenin gave Ukraine the east and south, and Stalin also gave the west on the eve of the Great Patriotic War?
T: Yes, that's right. According to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Galicia went to us. It has always been part of Kievan Rus. And when, after the war, Khrushchev also annexed Crimea, the very Ukraine that we knew before the collapse of the USSR was formed.
Peninsula of Discord
KP: - When Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine, he clearly did not expect that this land would become a bone of contention ...
T .: - The Secretary General made the royal semi-gift for economic reasons. Who knew that the Union would fall apart? But the Crimeans themselves were not delighted, they remained nostalgic for Russia. And when an opportunity turned up - there was a coup in Kyiv - they took advantage of it and voted for Russia. We must blame ourselves for the fact that Crimea has moved away from us. We pushed him away.
'KP': - And why else in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, when the USSR was falling apart, Yeltsin did not return Crimea to Russia?
N .: - Yeltsin, when he became President of the RSFSR, thought purely about his own interests. Formally, the allied center remained above it in 1991. Gorbachev was there. And Yeltsin just wanted to get rid of the influence of the union center. Shushkevich in Minsk and Kravchuk in Kyiv were just as hungry for power. The trio quickly found a common language. After all, everyone got the opportunity to rule uncontrollably in their republic. The stakes were high. Yeltsin was not up to the Crimea.
Kyiv wants to cut itself off from Russia
'
KP': - Why are the monuments to Lenin being demolished in Ukraine today, if he actually founded their country? And gave her so much land?
T .: - We are now rewriting history. The goal is to cut yourself off from Russia. Leave for Europe. Nationalists are running the show. They proclaim Ukrainians as a special people, not related to the Russian.
N .: - Ukrainian politicians simply do not have a sense of gratitude. From the Soviet Union they got a powerful country, in terms of industrial potential approximately equal to Germany. But for the last quarter of a century they have been plundering and destroying everything. Under the Soviet rulers - under the same Brezhnev, for example, in Ukraine there was a good life. And the current leaders in Kyiv such reminders as a bone in the throat. They erase from the memory of people everything positive that was at that time.
'KP': - If Ukraine begins to crumble as a failed state, which countries can claim its territory?
N.: - All the neighbors of Ukraine along the perimeter of its borders. You can talk about Poland, Hungary, Romania. Whether they do so, time will tell. And we can claim. But the Ukrainians must gather another Pereyaslav Rada and decide to whom they want to go into citizenship. That will be more honest.
