And does it really matter considering Ukrainian doesn’t even have a definite article? The short answer: yes. The long(ish) answer, from here:
The use of “the Ukraine” stirs up intense passion among Ukrainians, in fact. Some argue that the systematic use of “the Ukraine,” especially before its independence from the U.S.S.R., was used by English-language authors and journalists to subjugate the people and nation of Ukraine by demoting it to a mere region, a mere feature of the larger U.S.S.R.
A similar issue has raised hackles in the Ukrainian language itself. The use of the preposition na ”on,” before “Ukraine,” has been scrapped for v ”in,” within Ukraine. According to this site, the Ukrainian government requested the change in 1993. Russian prescriptivists, quoted on the same site, continue to demand na, based on “tradition”:
[They say] “Literary norms cannot change overnight because of any political process.”
Some have pointed out that the style guides of many newspapers and magazines, including The Economist, have explicitly required the use of “Ukraine” rather than “the Ukraine” after its independence. (I don’t have a copy of these style guides, so I can’t confirm, but there are secondary sources online which mention the shift.)
An unsanctioned gay pride parade descended into violence Sunday as religious activists arrived to break up the demonstration and police detained protesters.
More than 10 people were arrested outside the Moscow City Duma Sunday, where gay rights activists had planned to hold to protest a new law being discussed that would ban “homosexual propaganda,” RIA-Novosti reported.
Three of those arrested were Orthodox Church activists who had come to disrupt the protest, while the other detained demonstrators were all participants of the gay rights protest, including event organizer Nikolai Alekseyev.
News media showed pictures and videos of physical altercations between the two groups in which a man holding a rainbow flag was being attacked as journalists stood by with cameras rolling.
Other pictures showed activists hold signs, including one anti-gay protester whose sign read “Moscow is not Sodom.”
After the arrests, the remaining activists were dispersed, and police stayed behind with several police buses to guard the area against further disturbances.
The organizers of the parade had planned for a crowd of several thousand to gather for a picket at the City Duma at 1 p.m. and to move to City Hall an hour later. Police had warned that demonstrators could face arrests and fines for holding an unsanctioned protest.
Poster for the 1927 Soviet film The Girl with a Hat Box.
A violent scuffle has erupted in Ukraine’s parliament over a bill that would allow the use of the Russian language in courts, hospitals and other institutions in the Russian-speaking regions of the country.
The fight broke out Thursday evening between members of the pro-Western opposition who want to take Ukraine out of Russia’s shadow and lawmakers from President Viktor Yanukovych’s party, which bases its support in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east.
At least one legislator, opposition lawmaker Mykola Petruk, suffered an apparent blow to the head and was taken to the hospital with blood streaming down his face.
…Ukraine is deeply divided into the Russian-speaking east and south, which favors close ties with Moscow, and the Ukrainian-speaking west, which wants Ukraine to join the Western club.
Oh, Washington Post, that last paragraph is quite the oversimplification.
Horror fans are in for a treat with the release this week of “Chernobyl Diaries.”
Faithful to the genre, six young American tourists go on an extreme tour to the Chornobyl fallout zone and the emptied-out city of Pripyat, with its sprawling concrete housing projects and abandoned schools and hospitals. The perky adventure-seekers get stranded and trouble ensues at the hands of radiation-mutated predators.
Fans of exploitation cinema might be happy, but support groups for victims of the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster are not.
Robert Schuettpelz, the director of Friends of Chernobyl Centers, U.S., a nonprofit that provides financial support to five community centers in Ukraine situated within or near contaminated areas, says the film is upsetting.
“I’ve been working with Chornobyl survivors for the past eight years and after what I’ve seen and after I’ve got to know them, seeing this movie and the trailers, and the information about it, it’s kind of upsetting to see that they decided to make this movie and make light of the real situation in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia,” Schuettpelz says.
“People are still living with the after-effects of this every day — even 26 years after.”
What do you think? Are you planning on seeing this film?
May 24 - Saints Cyril and Methodius Day (Orthodox churches).
Born in the 820s in Byzantine Thessaloniki, brothers Cyril and Methodius are two of the most famous and influential saints in the Orthodox Church. They were missionaries among the Slavic peoples, translated portions of the Bible into Old Church Slavonic so that people could read it, and are credited with inventing Glagolitic, the first Slavic alphabet.
Today they are widely remembered for their contribution in creating a literate public. May 24 is a public holiday in Bulgaria (where it is the Day of the Bulgarian Alphabet, Culture, and Education), Macedonia (where it is Slavonic Enlighteners Day), and in Russia (Slavonic Literature and Culture Day).
They are also saints in the Roman Catholic church, but their feast day - a public holiday in Slovakia and the Czech Republic - is in July.
Soviet citizens volunteering to join the Red Army at a Stalin factory somewhere in Leningrad, 1941
Hipster pictures of the G8 summit from Dmitri Medvedev’s new Instagram account.
Camp David looks super chill.
(H/T: FYRUPolitics)
Residents of the White Sea, off the northwest coast of Russia, as seen by photographer Alexander Semenov.
