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kraftiekortie
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23 Mar 2022, 5:43 pm

The main point of contention as far as Putin saying that Ukrainians are really "Russians" (correct me if I'm wrong)

Is that "'Rus" does not refer to Muscovite Russia----though I guess the root "'Rus" probably had a hand in "Russia" getting its name.

It refers to the political entity "Kyivan 'Rus," from which sprung the Ruthenians. It's a very complex situation---but in simplest terms the Ruthenians evolved into the Belarusians and the Ukrainians. The Muscovite Russians were not derived from the Ruthenians.

The term "Belarus" means "White 'Rus." "'Rus," in the sense of Kyivan 'Rus and its descendents, rather than the Muscovite Russians. So "White Russia" really isn't correct.



funeralxempire
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23 Mar 2022, 6:13 pm

^ That's a pretty good understanding.

The initial Rus state is the origin of the historic Rus people but the way events unfolded created multiple Rus nations, Muscovite Russia only being one of them. Shared origins don't oblige a people to a shared future, otherwise all sorts of other ethnic groups would also be solidified under a single state.


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naturalplastic
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23 Mar 2022, 10:19 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Why the two neighboring ancient Slavic tribes were called Black and White no one knows. One theory is that the "Black" Russians hadnt yet converted to Christianity and still worshipped the Pagan gods of old.


Actually the article I linked earlier explains it pretty clearly. The colour references are related to direction; using colour to indicate direction is common in much of Eurasia as well as among indigenous American peoples.

This is how the Black Sea (Karadeniz) and Red Sea got their names, it's also the source of the Turkish name for the Mediterranean (Akdeniz), it's how the Golden Horde and the Yellow River got their names and it shows up in lot of ethnonyms in the area (Aq Qoyunlu) White Sheep Turkomen, White and Red Croats, Black Hungarians, Qara Khitai (Black Khitan), etc.

Historically there was also an attempt to create 'Green Ukraine' a separate state in Russia's Far East formed by deported Ukrainians.


Yes...this color equals direction theory is ALSO just "one of the many theories" listed in articles I have seen online in Wiki etc. Direction. And the Red Sea actually gets red from algae blooms, and the Yellow gets that way from dust blown from the yellow soil of north China etc. We still dont really know.