How did the Ukrainian language originate? The truth about the origin of the Ukrainian language.

Are you here: Motherhood

How the Ukrainian language was created - artificially and for political reasons. “The truth is never sweet,” Iryna Farion recently noted, presenting her next book about the Ukrainian language on the First Channel of the National Radio of Ukraine. And in some ways, and in this it is difficult to disagree with the now widely known deputy of the Verkhovna Rada. The truth for Ukrainian "nationally conscious" figures will always be bitter. They are too far apart from her. However, you need to know the truth. Including the truth about the Ukrainian language. For Galicia, this is especially important. After all, Mikhail Sergeevich Grushevsky recognized this.

“Work on the language, as well as work on the cultural development of Ukrainians in general, was carried out mainly on Galician soil,” he wrote.

It is worth dwelling on this work, begun in the second half of the 19th century. Galicia was then part of the Austrian Empire. Accordingly, Russia for the Galicians was a foreign country. But, despite this circumstance, the Russian literary language in the region was not considered a foreign language. Galician Rusyns perceived it as an all-Russian, common cultural language for all parts of historical Russia, and therefore for Galician Russia.

When at the congress of Galician-Russian scientists, held in 1848 in Lvov, a decision was made on the need to cleanse folk speech from polonisms, this was considered as a gradual approximation of Galician dialects to the norms of the Russian literary language. “Let the Russians start from the head, and we start from the feet, then sooner or later we will meet each other and come together in the heart,” Antony Petrushevich, a prominent Galician historian, said at the congress. Scholars and writers worked in the Russian literary language in Galicia, newspapers and magazines were published, and books were published.

All this did not please the Austrian authorities. Not without reason, they feared that cultural rapprochement with a neighboring state would entail a political rapprochement and, in the end, the Russian provinces of the empire (Galicia, Bukovina, Transcarpathia) would openly declare their desire to reunite with Russia.

And then they came up with the roots of "mova"

From Vienna, Galician-Russian cultural ties were hindered in every possible way. They tried to influence the Galicians with persuasion, threats, and bribery. When it did not work, they switched to more vigorous measures. “The Ruthenians (as the official authorities in Austria called the Galician Rusyns - Auth.) did not, unfortunately, do anything to properly isolate their language from Great Russian, so the government has to take the initiative in this regard,” said the governor of Franz- Joseph in Galicia Agenor Goluhovsky.

The fight against the Russian language was carried out more subtly. Vienna attended to the creation of the movement of "young rutens". They were called young not because of their age, but because of the rejection of the "old" views. If the "old" Rusyns (rutens) considered Great Russians and Little Russians to be a single nation, then the "young" insisted on the existence of an independent Ruthenian nation (or Little Russian - the term "Ukrainian" was put into use later). Well, an independent nation should, of course, have an independent literary language. The task of writing such a language was set before the "young rutens".

Ukrainians began to grow along with the language

They did it, however, with difficulty. Although the authorities provided the movement with all possible support, it did not have influence among the people. The "young rutens" were viewed as traitors, unscrupulous servants of the government. In addition, the movement consisted of people, as a rule, insignificant in intellectual terms. The fact that such figures would be able to create and disseminate a new literary language in society was out of the question.

The Poles came to the rescue, whose influence in Galicia was dominant at that time. Being ardent Russophobes, representatives of the Polish movement saw a direct benefit for themselves in the split of the Russian nation. That is why they took an active part in the "linguistic" attempts of the "young rutens". “All Polish officials, professors, teachers, even priests began to deal primarily with philology, not Masurian or Polish, no, but exclusively ours, Russian, in order to create a new Russian-Polish language with the assistance of Russian traitors,” recalled a major public figure of Galicia and Transcarpathia Adolf Dobriansky.

Thanks to the Poles, things went faster. The Cyrillic alphabet was retained, but "reformed" to make it different from the one adopted in Russian. They took as a basis the so-called “kulishivka”, once invented by the Russian Ukrainophile Panteleimon Kulish, all with the same goal - to separate the Little Russians from the Great Russians. The letters "y", "e", "b" were removed from the alphabet, but "є" and "ї" missing in Russian grammar were included.

In order for the Ruthenian population to accept the changes, the “reformed” alphabet was introduced by order into schools. The need for innovation was motivated by the fact that the subjects of the Austrian emperor “are both better and safer not to use the very spelling that is customary in Russia.”

Interestingly, the inventor of the “kulishivka” himself, who by that time had departed from the Ukrainophile movement, opposed such innovations. “I swear,” he wrote to the “young ruten” Omelyan Partitsky, “that if the Poles print my spelling in commemoration of our discord with Great Russia, if our phonetic spelling is presented not as helping the people to enlightenment, but as a banner of our Russian discord, then I, writing in my own way, in Ukrainian, will print in etymological old-world orthography. That is, we live at home, we talk and sing songs differently, and if it comes to something, then we will not allow anyone to separate ourselves. A dashing fate separated us for a long time, and we advanced towards Russian unity on a bloody road, and now Lyad's attempts to separate us are useless.

But the Poles allowed themselves to ignore Kulish's opinion. They just needed Russian discord. After spelling, it was the turn of vocabulary. From literature and dictionaries, they tried to expel as many words as possible used in the Russian literary language. The resulting voids were filled with borrowings from Polish, German, other languages, or simply made-up words.

“Most of the words, turns and forms from the former Austro-Ruthenian period turned out to be “Moscow” and had to give way to new words, supposedly less harmful,” one of the “transformers”, who later repented, told about the language “reform”. - "Direction" - that's the Moscow word, can no longer be used - they said "young", and they now put the word "directly". “Modern” is also a Moscow word and gives way to the word “modern”, “exclusively” is replaced by the word “exclusively”, “educational” - by the word “enlightenment”, “society” - by the word “comradeship” or “suspіlstvo” ... ".

The zeal with which they "reformed" the Rusyn speech aroused the astonishment of philologists. And not only locals. “The Galician Ukrainians do not want to take into account that none of the Little Russians has the right to the ancient verbal heritage, which Kyiv and Moscow equally claim, to frivolously leave and replace with polonisms or simply invented words,” wrote Alexander Brikner, professor of Slavic studies at the University of Berlin ( Pole by nationality). - I can't understand why in Galicia a few years ago the word "master" was anathematized and the word "kind" was used instead. “Dobrodiy” is a remnant of patriarchal-slavish relations, and we can’t stand it even in flattery.”

However, the reasons for "innovation" had, of course, to be sought not in philology, but in politics. "In a new way" began to rewrite school textbooks. In vain the conferences of folk teachers, held in August and September 1896 in Przemyshlyany and Glinyany, noted that now the textbooks have become incomprehensible. And incomprehensible not only for students, but also for students. Teachers lamented in vain that under the prevailing conditions "it is necessary to publish an explanatory dictionary for teachers."

The government remained unwavering. Disgruntled teachers were fired from schools. Ruthenian officials who pointed out the absurdity of the changes were removed from their posts. Writers and journalists who stubbornly adhere to the "pre-reform" spelling and vocabulary were declared "Muscovites" and subjected to persecution. “Our language goes to the Polish sieve,” noted the prominent Galician writer and public figure, priest John Naumovich. “Healthy grain is separated like Muscovite, and the siftings are left to us by grace.”

In total, in 43 works that came out during the author's lifetime in two or more editions, experts counted more than 10 thousand (!) Changes. Moreover, after the death of the writer, “editing” of the texts continued. As, however, as well as "corrections" of texts of works of other authors. Thus, an independent literature was created in an independent language, later called Ukrainian.

But this language was not accepted by the people. The works published in Ukrainian experienced an acute shortage of readers. “Ten-fifteen years pass before the book of Franco, Kotsyubinsky, Kobylyanskaya sells 1,500 copies,” Mikhail Grushevsky, who was then living in Galicia, complained in 1911. Meanwhile, the books of Russian writers (especially Gogol's "Taras Bulba") quickly dispersed in the Galician villages in huge circulation for that era.

And another great moment. When the First World War broke out, an Austrian military publishing house published a special phrase book in Vienna. It was intended for soldiers mobilized into the army from various parts of Austria-Hungary, so that military personnel of different nationalities could communicate with each other. The phrasebook was compiled in six languages: German, Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Croatian and Russian. “The Ukrainian language was missed. This is wrong,” lamented the “nationally conscious” newspaper Dilo. Meanwhile, everything was logical. The Austrian authorities were well aware that the Ukrainian language was created artificially and was not widespread among the people.

It was possible to plant this language on the territory of Western Ukraine (and even then not immediately) only after the massacre of the indigenous population committed in Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia by the Austro-Hungarians in 1914-1917. That massacre changed a lot in the region. In Central and Eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian language spread even later, but already in a different period of history...

Alexander Karevin

How the Ukrainian language was created - artificially and for political reasons

“The truth is never sweet,” Irina Farion recently noted, presenting her next book about the Ukrainian language on the First Channel of the National Radio of Ukraine.

And in some ways, and in this it is difficult to disagree with the now widely known deputy of the Verkhovna Rada.

The truth for Ukrainian "nationally conscious" figures will always be bitter.

They are too far apart from her. However, you need to know the truth. Including the truth about the Ukrainian language. For Galicia, this is especially important.

After all, Mikhail Sergeevich Grushevsky recognized this.

“Work on the language, as well as work on the cultural development of Ukrainians in general, was carried out mainly on Galician soil,” he wrote.

It is worth dwelling on this work, begun in the second half of the 19th century.

Galicia was then part of the Austrian Empire. Accordingly, Russia for the Galicians was a foreign country.

But, despite this circumstance, the Russian literary language in the region was not considered a foreign language. Galician Rusyns perceived it as an all-Russian, common cultural language for all parts of historical Russia, and therefore for Galician Russia.

“Let the Russians start from the head, and we start from the feet, then sooner or later we will meet each other and come together in the heart,” Antony Petrushevich, a prominent Galician historian, said at the congress. Scholars and writers worked in the Russian literary language in Galicia, newspapers and magazines were published, and books were published. All this did not please the Austrian authorities. Not without reason, they feared that cultural rapprochement with a neighboring state would entail a political rapprochement and, in the end, the Russian provinces of the empire (Galicia, Bukovina, Transcarpathia) would openly declare their desire to reunite with Russia. And then they came up with the roots of the “mova” From Vienna in every possible way prevented the Galician-Russian cultural ties.

They tried to influence the Galicians with persuasion, threats, and bribery. When it did not work, they switched to more vigorous measures. “The Ruthenians (as the official authorities in Austria called the Galician Rusyns - Auth.) did not, unfortunately, do anything to properly isolate their language from Great Russian, so the government has to take the initiative in this regard,” said Viceroy Franz Joseph in Galicia Agenor Goluhovsky.

At first, the authorities simply wanted to ban the use of the Cyrillic alphabet in the region and introduce the Latin alphabet into the Galician-Russian alphabet. But the indignation of the Ruthenians with such an intention turned out to be so great that the government backed down. The fight against the Russian language was carried out more subtly. Vienna attended to the creation of the movement of "young rutens". They were called young not because of their age, but because of the rejection of the "old" views. If the “old” Rusyns (rutens) considered Great Russians and Little Russians to be a single nation, then the “young” insisted on the existence of an independent Ruthenian (or Little Russian) nation - the term “Ukrainian” was put into use later). Well, an independent nation should, of course, have an independent literary language. The task of writing such a language was set before the "young rutens".

Ukrainians began to grow along with the language

They did it, however, with difficulty. Although the authorities provided the movement with all possible support, it did not have influence among the people. The "young rutens" were viewed as traitors, unscrupulous servants of the government. In addition, the movement consisted of people, as a rule, insignificant in intellectual terms. The fact that such figures would be able to create and spread a new literary language in society was out of the question. The Poles came to the rescue, whose influence in Galicia was dominant at that time.

Being ardent Russophobes, representatives of the Polish movement saw a direct benefit for themselves in the split of the Russian nation. That is why they took an active part in the "linguistic" attempts of the "young rutens".

“All Polish officials, professors, teachers, even priests began to deal primarily with philology, not Masurian or Polish, no, but exclusively ours, Russian, in order to create a new Russian-Polish language with the assistance of Russian traitors,” recalled a prominent public figure of Galicia and Transcarpathia Adolf Dobriansky.

Thanks to the Poles, things went faster. The Cyrillic alphabet was retained, but "reformed" to make it different from the one adopted in Russian.

They took as a basis the so-called “kulishivka”, once invented by the Russian Ukrainophile Panteleimon Kulish, all with the same goal - to separate the Little Russians from the Great Russians. The letters "y", "e", "b" were removed from the alphabet, but "є" and "ї" missing in Russian grammar were included. They tried to confuse everything with the alphabet ...

Interestingly, the inventor of the “kulishivka” himself, who by that time had departed from the Ukrainophile movement, opposed such innovations.

“I swear,” he wrote to the “young ruten” Omelyan Partitsky, “that if the Poles print my spelling in commemoration of our discord with Great Russia, if our phonetic spelling is presented not as helping the people to enlightenment, but as a banner of our Russian discord, then I, writing in my own way, in Ukrainian, will print in etymological old-world orthography.

That is, we live at home, we talk and sing songs differently, and if it comes to something, then we will not allow anyone to separate ourselves. A dashing fate separated us for a long time, and we moved towards Russian unity on a bloody road, and now Lyad's attempts to separate us are useless.

Mova was made the subject of political struggle

“Most of the words, turns and forms from the former Austro-Ruthenian period turned out to be “Moscow” and had to give way to new words, supposedly less harmful,” one of the “transformers”, who later repented, told about the language “reform”. - "Direction" - that's the Moscow word, can no longer be used - they said "young", and they now put the word "directly." “Modern” is also a Moscow word and gives way to the word “modern”, “exclusively” is replaced by the word “exclusive”, “educational” - by the word “enlightenment”, “society” - by the word “comradeship” or “suspіlstvo”…”.

The zeal with which they "reformed" the Rusyn speech aroused the astonishment of philologists.

And not only locals.

“The Galician Ukrainians do not want to take into account that none of the Little Russians has the right to frivolously leave and replace the ancient verbal heritage, which Kyiv and Moscow equally claim, with polonisms or simply invented words,” wrote Alexander Brikner, professor of Slavic studies at the University of Berlin ( Pole by nationality). – I can’t understand why in Galicia a few years ago the word “master” was anathematized and the word “kind” was used instead. “Dobrodiy” is a remnant of patriarchal-slavish relations, and we can’t stand it even in flattery.”

However, the reasons for "innovation" had, of course, to be sought not in philology, but in politics. "In a new way" began to rewrite school textbooks.

In vain the conferences of folk teachers, held in August and September 1896 in Przemyshlyany and Glinyany, noted that now the textbooks have become incomprehensible. And incomprehensible not only for students, but also for students. In vain did the teachers complain that, under the prevailing conditions, "it is necessary to publish an explanatory dictionary for teachers."

And then, in general, they began to reduce the whole meaning to language. The authorities remained adamant. Disgruntled teachers were fired from schools.

Ruthenian officials who pointed out the absurdity of the changes were removed from their posts. Writers and journalists who stubbornly adhere to the "pre-reform" spelling and vocabulary were declared "Muscovites" and subjected to persecution. “Our language goes to the Polish sieve,” noted the prominent Galician writer and public figure, priest John Naumovich. “Healthy grain is separated like Muscovy, and the siftings are left to us by grace.”

In this regard, it is interesting to compare the various editions of Ivan Franko's works. Many words from the writer’s works published in 1870-1880, for example, “look”, “air”, “army”, “yesterday” and others, were replaced with “look”, “potrya”, “vіysko” in later reprints "vchora", etc. Changes were made both by Franko himself, who joined the Ukrainian movement, and by his "assistants" from among the "nationally conscious" editors. In total, in 43 works that came out during the author's lifetime in two or more editions, experts counted more than 10 thousand (!) Changes. Moreover, after the death of the writer, “editing” of the texts continued. As, however, as well as "corrections" of texts of works of other authors. Thus, an independent literature was created in an independent language, later called Ukrainian. But this language was not accepted by the people.

The works published in Ukrainian experienced an acute shortage of readers.

“Ten-fifteen years pass until the book of Franco, Kotsyubinsky, Kobylyanskaya sells 1,500 copies,” complained Mikhail Grushevsky, who was then living in Galicia, in 1911. Meanwhile, the books of Russian writers (especially Gogol's "Taras Bulba") quickly dispersed in the Galician villages in huge circulation for that era. They came, conquered and banned...

And another great moment.

When the First World War broke out, an Austrian military publishing house published a special phrase book in Vienna. It was intended for soldiers mobilized into the army from various parts of Austria-Hungary, so that military personnel of different nationalities could communicate with each other.

The phrasebook was compiled in six languages: German, Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Croatian and Russian.

“The Ukrainian language was missed.

This is wrong,” lamented the “nationally conscious” newspaper Dilo.

Meanwhile, everything was logical. The Austrian authorities were well aware that the Ukrainian language was created artificially and was not widespread among the people.

The Ukrainian language is the most successful artificial language in history.

In 1848, another ghost began to roam the territory of Austria - the ghost of Anti-Russia. The Czech politician and public figure Frantisek Palacký wrote a famous letter in 1848, in which he argued that the Danube Empire (Austria) was the only possible bastion against Russia, “a state that today, having reached enormous proportions, is increasing its power of superpowers of any Western country. ..

The Russian world monarchy would be an incredibly huge threat, an immeasurable and boundless catastrophe.

Over time, the monarch himself wrote in a letter to his mother, explaining why he refused to provide assistance to Russia in the Crimean campaign: “Our future is in the East, and we will drive the power and influence of Russia into the framework that she went beyond only because of weakness and disorganization in our camp.

Gradually, preferably unnoticed by Tsar Nicholas, but confidently, we will bring Russian politics to a decline.

Of course, it is ugly to oppose old friends, but in politics it is impossible otherwise, and our natural enemy in the East is Russia.

It was during the time of Franz Joseph that they realized that Ukraine could be the most natural defense against Russian expansion. But Ukraine without Galicia and Bukovina, which were part of the Danube Monarchy, is the so-called "Russian Ukraine". The Galicians were supposed to become an incubator of ideas for the Dnieper region... Therefore, it is not surprising that Galicia became the most nationally conscious region of Ukraine - and not least thanks to the policy of the Caesar. and especially "Ukrainian" is hard to overestimate!

As you know, the eighteen-year-old Archduke became emperor in the wake of revolutionary events that forced his uncle and father to abdicate.

Rusyns also took an active part in the struggle against the Hungarian rebels - the traditional enmity between the neighboring peoples, as well as the unreasonable policy of the Hungarian revolutionary authorities towards other peoples, also affected. The emperor for his faithful service granted the Galician division a blue and yellow flag, which in 1918 became the national symbol of independent Ukraine.

At the request of Caesar Franz Joseph, a hundred thousandth Russian army under the command of Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich came to the aid of Austria in 1848 to suppress the Hungarian uprising. The appearance in Galicia and Transcarpathia of the Russian army, speaking a completely understandable almost local language, was enthusiastically received by the Galician and Transcarpathian Rusyns and became the impetus for the beginning of the revival of Russian culture.

In addition, the Rusyns saw in the Russian army their liberators from the Magyar oppression. And this also initiated the desire for political rapprochement with Russia, which became dangerous for the unity of Austria-Hungary. The Russian emperor also added fuel to the fire, offering to exchange the Russian Galicia and Bukovina for an equal part of the Polish territory.

In the wake of revolutionary reforms, the Rusyns also demanded greater rights for themselves and received a clear answer from Count Franz Stadion, the Austrian governor of Galicia: “You can count on government support only if you want to be an independent people and refuse national unity with people outside the state , it is in Russia, that is, if you want to be Ruthenians, not Russians. It won't hurt you if you adopt a new name to distinguish yourself from the Russians living outside of Austria."

As you can see, no one knew the term "Ukrainians" yet, and no one offered Galician Rusyns (they are Russians) to become them. Before his appearance, more than forty years of hard work by the Austrian authorities, which fell just during the years of the reign of Franz Joseph, should have passed.

In 1859, a brochure by the Czech philologist Jozsef Irechek Uber den Vorschlag das Rutenische mit lateinischen Schriftzeichen zu schreiben (“On the Proposal for the Rusyns to Write in Latin Letters”) appeared in German in Vienna and was printed in a government printing house. On the title page were the words: "On behalf of the Imperial-Royal Ministry of Cults and Education." Irechek made the goal of the spelling reform very clear: “As long as the Rusyns write and print in Cyrillic, they will tend to Church Slavonic and thus Russian. Church Slavonic and Russian influence is so great that they threaten to completely oust the local language and local literature. But the scope of popular protests against the reform inexpressibly struck the authorities. The events of 1859 went down in the history of Galicia as an "alphabet war". The population of Galicia protests against the new name of the inhabitants and the new spelling: spontaneous meetings gather, articles appear in the press, petitions are composed and deputations are sent. The protest took a completely unexpected form: a mass enthusiasm for Russian culture and language began.

A literary society named after Pushkin arose in Lvov. Days of Russian culture were held throughout Galicia. The intelligentsia read Pushkin, rural communities erected monuments to Alexander Sergeevich. The cultural movement quickly developed into a political one. "Unifiers" appeared in the Sejm and the Reichsrat - this was the name given to the supporters of the unification of Galician Rus with Russia. The frightened Austrian authorities are retreating - the memories of the Hungarian uprising are still too fresh.

However, he does not refuse the idea of growing a “Ukrainian nation”. Faced with the non-recognition of the Latin alphabet, the Austrian authorities and their accomplices drew attention to the presence of yet another Ukrainian grammar. In 1860, the writer and educator of Russian Little Russia Panteleimon Kulish invented a simplified alphabet in order to facilitate the eradication of illiteracy in Ukraine. It was the “Kulishovka” that was turned into the Ukrainian script in Galicia, which we know today. P. A. Kulish himself, having learned about this, wrote angrily to Galicia: “You know that the spelling, which you called “kulishivka” in Galicia, was invented by me at a time when everyone in Russia was busy spreading literacy in simple people. In order to facilitate the science of literacy for people who have no time to study for a long time, I came up with a simplified spelling. But now they are making a political banner out of it... Seeing this banner in enemy hands, I will be the first to hit it and renounce my spelling in the name of Russian unity.”

However, Kulish's protest went unheeded. In order to make “kulishivka” even more different from Russian writing, in 1892 phonetic spelling of words was introduced in Galicia, instead of etymological. Recall that phonetic spelling means that letters are written as they are heard. If phonetics is introduced into the Russian language, then "okaya" and "okaya" dialects will turn into separate writing systems. Something similar was introduced by the Austrian authorities of Galicia. The invention of new words began, created according to one criterion - if only it did not sound like in Russian. But the Austrian authorities were not interested in the convenience and expediency of phonetic spelling, but in the destruction of the linguistic connection with Russia. The phonetic reform of the Ukrainian spelling pursued exclusively political goals.

In 1893, the Austrian Parliament officially approved the phonetic script for the "Ukrainian language". Discovery of Ukrainians It was from this moment that the term "Ukrainians" was officially put into circulation. Naturally, the "fifth column" that is inevitable in such cases, also provides all possible assistance to the Austrian authorities. It is interesting that - in 1890, from the rostrum of the Lviv Regional Seimas, the deputy of the Young Russian Party, Yulian Romanchuk, announced the onset of a "new era": "the Galician-Russian people," he declared "on his behalf," "considers himself isolated from the Russian sovereign people"

That is, Pan Romanchuk simply did not know that he was Ukrainian yet?! By the way, all these years, until the term “Ukrainians” was introduced into use, there was a fierce struggle over how many letters “s” to write in the word “Russian”. Further, the methodology was simple: with the help of police measures, they began to plant “kulishivka” in all educational institutions, select books written in literary Russian, close literary societies and dismiss all teachers who disagreed with this innovation.

"Phonetics" is used for official office work, the release of periodicals, and the printing of books. According to a later confession of the Minister of Education and Religions of the Petliura Directory, Metropolitan Hilarion (aka Ivan Ogienko), the success of the introduction of "phonetics" was due only to the fact that "their spelling had been confirmed by the order". Economic methods are also used for Ukrainization: the government generously lends money to the peasant cooperatives of the “Ukrainians”, who lend money in the villages only to their adherents. Peasants who do not want to call themselves Ukrainians do not receive loans.

And in Bukovina, where today they began to erect the first monument to Franz Joseph, they introduced the rule to demand a written commitment from graduates of seminaries: “I declare that I renounce the Russian people, that from now on I will not call myself Russian; only a Ukrainian and only a Ukrainian.” Priests who did not sign such a document were not given a parish. The new nation needs its own history.

To create it, an unknown graduate of Kyiv University Mikhail Grushevsky is invited to the newly created department of Ukrainian history at Lviv University. He, on the generous bread of the dying Empire of Franz Josef, was destined to become the "father of Ukrainian history."

Mikhail Hrushevsky proposed the following scheme of Ukrainian history: 1) Ukrainians as a separate people have existed since the early medieval (Antian) period; 2) in Kievan Rus, Ukrainians represented the core of the state, separate from the northeastern (in the future - Russian) people; 3) the heir to the statehood of Kievan Rus was first the Galicia-Volyn principality, and later - partially the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The customer paid generously - the university professor became a major owner of real estate in Galicia and Kyiv.

All the people of Kiev knew the luxurious profitable "Grushevsky's house" near the station. In the war without sentiment However, the Ukrainization of Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathian Rus progressed slowly.

Therefore, with the outbreak of the First World War, the Austrian authorities resorted to more effective methods.

“Long before the World War, the Austrian gendarmerie kept detailed lists of the “politically unreliable.” This was done in the style of that inimitable bureaucratic idiocy, which is brilliantly described in The Good Soldier Schweik.

In special tables, along with the names of the suspects, their marital status and occupation in column 8, “more detailed information” about unreliability or suspicion was entered. Such "crimes" were: "travels to Russia", "an agitator for the candidacy of Markov (leader of the Muscovite party) to parliament" or simply "Russophile".

The next column recommended what to do with this person if Austria starts not even a war, but simply mobilization. For example: "Keep a close watch, in which case - arrest." Or: "Send inland." It is easy to see that they intended to punish not even for deeds, but for views and sympathies - things that are difficult to unambiguously interpret. Arrest was considered the most reliable means. As soon as the World War broke out on August 1, 1914, about 2,000 Muscovite Ukrainians were immediately taken into custody in Lvov alone. There were so many arrestees that three prisons were packed with them at once! ..

The Presidium of the Imperial-Royal Directorate of Police in Lvov, concerned about the “overpopulation”, even petitioned the governor of Galicia to quickly take the “dangerous element” into the country “due to the lack of space” and “the indignation of those prisoners who are already now making loud threats that they, they say, will be counted”

According to the 1900 census, only 36,000 Ukrainians lived in Lvov. However, a place “inside the country” was soon found: the first concentration camps in Europe, Terezin and Talerhof, were created in the last years of the reign of Franz Joseph for Ukrainians who do not consider themselves Ukrainians or are only suspected of this “crime”. In the worst of them, Thalerhof, near the city of Graz, there were not even barracks, but it was all full of pillars for "anbinden" - of all the tortures, the Austrians preferred hanging the victim by the leg. But not everyone ended up in the first "death camps". Priest Iosif Yavorsky testified after the war: “The army received instructions and maps with villages underlined in red pencil, which gave their votes to Russian candidates for the Austrian parliament. And the red line on the map left bloody victims in these villages.”

Material evidence was found against priest Pyotr Sandovich: a handwritten letter, where "Russian flock" is written with two "s". Sentence: “Treason to be considered proven, the guilty Fr. Pyotr Sandovich and his son are to be shot.” Further, Fr. Vladimir Mokhnatsky with his son Rodion, a high school student, Fr. Theophilus Kachmarchik with his son Vladimir, a lawyer, Fr. Vasily Kurillo with two sons... You don't even have to prove the guilt of the sons - they are the fault of their fathers. Orthodox priests were shot as obviously "Russians".

And three hundred Uniate priests were killed only on suspicion that they secretly had sympathy for Orthodoxy and Russia.” Coffee as a national idea? As you can see, our current "elite", living so freely in the country, has something to thank the late Austrian monarch for. Ukraine owes its flag, language, writing and history exclusively to the policy pursued during the years of his reign!

And the "harsh methods" by which the Galicians had to be Ukrainianized serve only as an example to follow, just like the "methods" of the already "canonized" OUN-UPA and its Hauptsturmführer! So, I think, the monument in Chernivtsi is only the first sign, and “University, railway” is, excuse me, for the “seed”!

We should pay tribute to the current adviser to the main sponsor of the monument - he speaks quite frankly about the true role of Franz Joseph in Ukrainian history and the true goals of his "Ukrainian project" - the emperor "prepared the future" for his decaying monarchy. By the way, by 1914, in the bowels of the Austrian royal house, a candidate for the future Ukrainian throne was also prepared - the great-nephew of Franz Joseph, Prince Wilhelm of Habsburg, known as Vasyl Vyshyvany.

Apparently, the failure of the Habsburg project (and not only it) greatly upsets many Ukrainian patriots. Indeed, according to them, for example: “The common people simply loved Austria.

Moreover, thanks to this empire, they joined European politics, European culture, and European traditions. About a year ago a journalist from The Day wrote about her impressions of Western Ukraine.

At one of the provincial railway stations, a “poor but neatly dressed grandmother” approached her and asked for a hryvnia “for cava.” (Kost Bondarenko, "ZN" dated 19.08.2000). Let me remind you that this was written before the appearance of the revelations of the son of the most famous lover of “good coffee”. “Grandma, you probably don’t have anything to buy bread for?” the journalist asked. - “Hey, I’ll somehow live without bread. But I can't live without coffee. I'm used to it," Grandma replied. “And then I realized that I was in Europe,” the journalist sincerely admitted, “Coffee, like in Europe (as with the “owners”?), Takes on a downright sacred meaning.

Returning to the idea of monuments to all the “friends” of Ukraine, we have to admit that the entire official history of “nationally voluntary zmagans” comes down to attempts by individuals to become clerks with a good (for them) master from the West!

This idea was most clearly expressed - in relation to today - by the notorious Vladimir Yavorivsky: “For 350 years we have been the bedding of Russia, and not a single day of America, but it would be worth trying.”

They have been trying for 23 years and now they are dressing up in bedding again .....

http://telemax-spb.livejournal.com/427558.html

How the Ukrainian language was created – artificially and for political reasons “The truth is never sweet,” Irina Farion recently noted, presenting her next book about the Ukrainian language on the First Channel of the National Radio of Ukraine

1. Maksimovich, prof. Kyiv and St. Petersburg Imperial Universities - proved that the Ukrainian language is equal to Russian, and historically it is almost the most archaic Slavic language, because it has retained the largest number of arch.linguists. features, except for the nasal vowels ą, ę.
2. Kostomarov, also a laureate of the Imperial Ross. awards, added to this that the Ukrainian language, although it belongs to the Eastern Slavic group, is a separate philologist. taxon.
3. Kulish - an official in the service of Emperor Alexander 3.
4. Drahomanov, Associate Professor, Historian of Kiev Imperial University.

All of them were not nationalists, they all advocated friendship with Russia and federalist relations with the Russian fraternal people. At the same time, this is what they said about the language.

If we take more Ukrainian-centric authors, then this is both Franko and Grushevsky, but the main whale in this matter was Sherekh-Shevelev. It is important for you that the theory of the peculiarity and archaism of the Ukrainian language arose in the circle of historians and philologists of the 1st half of the 19th century. in the Russian Empire, who really studied the authentic Ukrainian dialect of the 19th century. Their critics, for the most part, did not deal specifically with Ukrainian studies.
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And these are Tishchenko's ideas, let's say. historian-philologist:

Several "initial" centuries of Slavic linguistic history were left without any written fixation by the Slavs themselves. Nevertheless, the scientific study of the Slavic languages provides grounds for determining the possible "initial" historical state from which the modern Slavic languages further developed.

The Slavic languages belong to the central group of "satems" of the Indo-European languages, from which it separated at the beginning of our era. A relatively common language of the Slavs presumably existed by the 7th century, when, as a result of dialect fragmentation and migrations, modern separate Slavic languages began to form.

However, there is every reason to argue about the falsity of the theory of an initially single Slavic proto-language. It cannot be reconciled with the etymologically obtained picture of the reconstructed Slavic vocabulary. That is, there was no solidity of the Proto-Slavic language. Proto-Slavonic was “a living language with all the attributes of the complexity of a living language, which means that there was also a dialect dol. The Proto-Slavic language also does not have a territorially limited "ancestral home". That is, the Proto-Slavic language was formed "not in one place." Along with the Slavic, there were always non-Slavic ethnic elements.

In addition, the theory of "original Balto-Slavic linguistic affinity" is subject to doubt. Particularly vulnerable is the well-known theory of the origin of the Slavic language from the Baltic, which encounters resistance from linguistic material (it is impossible, for example, to derive the very archaic Slavic vowel duty rows from the innovative Baltic rows).

The Balts are not the eternal inhabitants of the Upper Dnieper. Thus, Balto-Thracian contacts were discovered and investigated without the participation of the Slavs. Other evidence of the proximity of the ancient Balts and Thracians has also been found.

On the other hand, etymological studies bring to the fore the Central European relations of the Slavs with the ancient Italics, and the Balts remain aloof for a long time.

Only by the migration of the Balts and Slavs to the current territories does their rapprochement and later neighborhood become noticeable. Balto-Slavic language relations begin for the Proto-Slavic languages as an already established speech type with processes that are different from the Baltic ones.

At the same time, Slavic-Celtic contacts, the study of their trace and localization could contribute to the processing of a compromise between such fundamentally different concepts as the Polish autochthonic theory of the Slavic ancestral home on the Vistula and Oder and the version of the Danube ancestral home of the Slavs. Now little studied is the issue of Celtic-Slavic relations, in the solution of which A. Trubachev saw the prospect of a compromise between his theories of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs.

The language carries the history of its origin and formation in its own sound, grammatical and vocabulary material. In their "Grammatik der ruthenischen (ukrainischen) Sprache" (1913), T. Gartner and S. Smal-Stotsky were the first to question the "scientific" division of the Slavic languages into three groups. The fact that the Ukrainian language appeared directly from Proto-Slavic, and the idea of the Orthodox Slavic language (the same for Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians) is devoid of soil, became obvious to them after detailed scientific research.

In the XIX century, and now scientists and theories, not deformed by ideological prejudices, state the unique originality of the Ukrainian language among the surrounding Slavic ones. This originality is ultimately determined geographically and lies in the obvious connecting, transitional features of the Ukrainian language between the structures of both geographically northern and southern, and Western and Eastern Slavic languages.
According to 32 features out of 40, the Ukrainian language differs from Russian. Moreover, these features of the Ukrainian language do not just distinguish its phonetics from Russian: most of them simultaneously connect it with the rest of the Slavic languages.
Of the 82 specific features of the language, only Ukrainian has 34; exclusive Ukrainian - Belarusian 4, Ukrainian - Russian - no analogies, common in Ukrainian with other languages: Upper Lusatian and Belarusian 29 each, Lower Lusatian 27, Polabian 19, Slovenian 18, Russian 11.
It is significant that the rest of the Slavic languages (half: 7 out of 14) have 20-21 common features with Ukrainian in the south and 22-23 common features in the west, quite clearly shows the true historical ties of the Ukrainian language and its real place in the circle of Slavic languages .

Where is the basis for the existence of a single "East Slavic Slavic" group of languages between Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian - it is not clear.

Having studied the history of various Slavic languages, the linguist H. Schuster did not find any grounds for distinguishing traditional historical "stops" after Proto-Slavic (in particular, there was neither "Pro-West Slavic" nor "Proto-East Slavic"). At the same time, the scientist recognized the existence of three dialect complexes. We are talking about such dialect complexes:
1) PROTOSLOVAK (Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian)
2) PRALEKHITSKY (Polish-Pomeranian and Proto-Bulgarian)
3) SERBOLUZHAN, which in ancient times joins the central and southeastern parts of the Late Proto-Slavic language (the predecessors of Ukrainian, Czech and Upper Lusatian).
The Proto-Slavic language proper existed until the 3rd century BC. AD Then came the period of the Late Proto-Slavic language and the beginning of the early era of the existence of early Slavic languages (IV-V centuries / X-XI centuries). The first witness of the existence of the Proto-Ukrainian language was the Upper Lusatian language. (It should be emphasized that the old flag of the Upper Lusatian Slavs was blue and yellow).

Pliny (79) and Ptolemy (170) mention the Serbs near Meotida and the Circassians-Zikhs. It turns out that the ancestors of Ukrainians and Serboluzhichs coexisted 1800 years ago on Azov and during the Great Migration of Peoples they traveled a long way from there to the west to Serbia and Luzhychyna, retaining linguistic features common with the language of ancient neighbors - the Proto-Ukrainian.
The second witness to the existence of the Proto-Ukrainian language is the Polabian language. The Polabian language, otherwise the speech of the Drevyans in Laba, belonged to the Lechit (Northern Slavic) group of Slavic languages (along with Kashubian, Obodrite, etc.). Located in the extreme west of the Slavic world, it was until the middle of the XVIII century. in Germany on the left bank of the Laba (Elbe) in the vicinity of Lüneburg, Lyukhov and Syuten.
The researchers missed a rare opportunity, ignoring the similar to the ethnonym of the Ukrainian name of the Polabian tribe wkrzanie. Why is it so similar to the name "Vkraina"? J. Egli was the first to notice the similarity between Ukraine and Ukermark. O. Strizhak also recalls this etymology: the name Ukraine is "of the same root as the toponym Uckermark - the land of the Polabian ukrov."
The antiquity of the Ukrainian language is also proved by its common elements with the group of Celtic languages (Irish, Scottish and Mann). Researchers also note the role of the bearers of the Milograd culture in the formation of the Drevlyans and the remains of the Celtic toponymy from Polissya to the Carpathians. The historian Braichevsky, in his book on the origin of Russia, writes that the Drevlyans were preceded by a population with Celtic connections. The involvement of the Celts in the Ukrainian language was also defended by O. Shakhmatov, who analyzed some Slavic-Celtic vocabulary pairs.
Thus, none of the various methods of concrete scientific analysis manages to detect any separate, special Slavic language of the languages of the three peoples of the “heirs of the Kievan state” of the 10th-13th centuries. In their history, this state was only a general stage: “In this regard, the common formula seems unsuccessful: “Old Russian nationality is the common ancestor of three peoples - Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.”

We consider it more correct to say that Russia was a common period (or stage) in the historical development of the three East Slavic peoples. For scholars, this would be enough to close the issue of the "single language of Kievan Rus" and get down to meaningful things. The fact that these conversations go further indicates their non-scientific purpose. Meanwhile, the illusion of the "Old Russian language" is already massively scattered through thousands of books, articles, dozens of etymological dictionaries. This does not stop it from being an ideology disguised as science.
The Ukrainian language reflects the formation of Ukrainians as an ethnic group that took shape in the 6th-16th centuries. due to the integration of the descendants of three Slavic tribes - Polyans, Drevlyans, Sivertsy with the participation of groups of the steppe population - Iranian-speaking (V. Petrov, A. Strizhak) and Turkic-speaking (O. Pritsak) - and was the bearer of three local dialects of the historical continuation of the Proto-Slavic speech (Polyanskaya, Drevlyanskaya , Siveryanskaya), which only later received the name "Ukrainian language".

Ukrainian did not inherit the linguistic features of such Slavic tribes as the Radimichi, Krivichi, Vyatichi or Novgorod Slovenes: the language continuation of their dialects is the modern Belarusian and Russian languages. The real, "living" Ukrainian language has never been "Old Russian", has never been "general Russian", has never been identical with Russian, was not an ancestor or descendant, or an offshoot of the Russian language. He got up and appeared from the Proto-Slavic, forming from the VI to the XVI century. On the basis of objective facts, it becomes obvious that the Ukrainian language is the same linguistic relative of Russian as Serbian or Czech.

(Philosophy of the Ukrainian language)

Some “specialists” deduce Ukrainian almost from Sanskrit, others spread myths about imaginary Polish or even Hungarian influence, although for the most part they do not speak Polish, Ukrainian, and even less Hungarian.

Recently popular article I published about the formation of the Russian language aroused considerable interest among visitors to the UNIAN website. Readers sent us a lot of feedback, comments, questions from the field of linguistics. Having summarized these questions, I will try to answer them in the “popular language”, without delving into the scientific jungle.

Why are there many words from Sanskrit in the Ukrainian language?

Comparing different languages, scientists came to the conclusion that some of them are very close to each other, while others are more distant relatives. And there are some that have nothing in common with each other. For example, it has been established that Ukrainian, Latin, Norwegian, Tajik, Hindi, English, etc. are related. But Japanese, Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish, Etruscan, Arabic, Basque, etc. have nothing to do with Ukrainian or, say, Spanish.

It is proved that several millennia BC there was a certain community of people (tribes) who spoke close dialects. We don't know where it was or at what exact time. Perhaps 3-5 thousand years BC. It is assumed that these tribes lived somewhere in the Northern Mediterranean, perhaps even in the Dnieper region. The Indo-European proto-language has not survived to our times. The oldest written monuments that have survived to this day were written a thousand years BC in the language of the ancient inhabitants of India, which has the name “Sanskrit”. Being the oldest, this language is considered the closest to Indo-European.

Scientists reconstruct the parent language on the basis of the laws of change of sounds and grammatical forms, moving, so to speak, in the opposite direction: from modern languages to a common language. Reconstructed words are given in etymological dictionaries, ancient grammatical forms - in a writer from the history of grammars.

Modern Indo-European languages have inherited most of the roots from the time of the former unity. In different languages, related words sometimes sound very different, but these differences are subject to certain sound patterns.

Compare Ukrainian and English words that have a common origin: day - day, night - night, sun - sun, mother - mother, blue - son, eye - eye, tree - tree, water - water, two - two, might - might, cook - swear, command - will. Thus, Ukrainian, like all other Indo-European languages, has many words in common with Sanskrit and other related languages - Greek, Icelandic, Old Persian, Armenian, etc., not to mention close Slavic ones - Russian, Slovak, Polish ...

As a result of the migration of peoples, wars, conquests of some peoples by others, linguistic dialects moved away from each other, new languages were formed, old ones disappeared. Indo-Europeans settled throughout Europe and penetrated into Asia (that's why they got such a name).

The Proto-Indo-European language family left behind, in particular, the following groups of languages: Romance (dead Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Moldavian, etc.); Germanic (Dead Gothic, English, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish, Dutch, Afrikaans, etc.); Celtic (Welsh, Scottish, Irish, etc.), Indo-Iranian (dead Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Tajik, Ossetian, Gypsy, possibly also dead Scythian, etc.); Baltic (dead Prussian, Lithuanian, Latvian, etc.), Slavic (dead Old Slavonic, or “Old Bulgarian”, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Polish, Great Russian, Belarusian, etc.). Separate Indo-European branches started up the Greek, Armenian, Albanian languages, which have no close relatives. Quite a lot of Indo-European languages did not live up to historical times.

Why are the Indo-European languages so different from each other?

As a rule, the formation of a language is associated with the geographical isolation of its speakers, migration, the conquest of some peoples by others. Differences in Indo-European languages are explained by interaction with other - often non-Indo-European - languages. One language, displacing another, received certain signs of the defeated language and, accordingly, differed in these signs from its relative (the repressed language, which left its traces, is called the substrate), and also experienced grammatical and lexical changes. Perhaps there are certain internal patterns in the development of languages, which over time “detach” it from related dialects. Although, apparently, the reason for the appearance of any internal patterns is the influence of other (substrate) languages.

So, in ancient times, numerous languages \u200b\u200bwere spread in Europe, the influence of which led to the current motley language picture. The development of the Greek language was influenced, in particular, by Illyrian (Albanian) and Etruscan. In English - Norman and various Celtic dialects, in French - Gallic, in Great Russian - Finno-Ugric languages, as well as "Old Bulgarian". The Finno-Ugric influence in the Great Russian language gave a weakening of unstressed vowels (in particular, akanye: milk - malako), fixing g on the spot G, stunning consonants at the end of a syllable.

It is believed that at a certain stage of linguistic evolution, before the formation of separate Slavic and Baltic languages, there was a Balto-Slavic unity, since these languages have a huge number of common words, morphemes and even grammatical forms. It is assumed that the common ancestors of the Balts and Slavs inhabited the territories from the Northern Dnieper to the Baltic Sea. However, as a result of migration processes, this unity broke up.

At the linguistic level, this was reflected in a surprising way: the Proto-Slavic language arises as a separate language (and not a Balto-Slavic dialect) with the beginning of the so-called law of the open syllable. The Proto-Slavs received this language law by interacting with some non-Indo-European people, whose language did not tolerate the combination of several consonants. Its essence boiled down to the fact that all syllables ended in a vowel sound. Old words began to be rearranged in such a way that short vowels were inserted between consonants or vowels were interchanged with consonants, final consonants were lost or short vowels appeared after them. So, “al-ktis” turned into “lo-ko-ti” (elbow), “kor-vas” into “ko-ro-va” (cow), “medus” into “me-do” (honey ), “or-bee-tee” to “ro-bee-tee” (work) “drau-gas” to “drug-gi” (other), etc. Roughly speaking, the idea of the “pre-Slavic” linguistic period is given by the Baltic languages, which were not affected by the law of the open syllable.

How do we know about this law? First of all, from the most ancient monuments of Slavic writing (X-XII centuries). Short vowel sounds were transmitted in writing with the letters “ъ” (something between short “o” and “s”) and “ь” (short “i”). The tradition of writing “ъ” at the end of words after consonants, which passed into the Great Russian language according to the Kyiv tradition of transmitting Church Slavonic, survived until the beginning of the 20th century, although, of course, these vowels were never read in Great Russian.

What language did the Slavs speak?

This language existed from the 1st millennium BC. until the middle of the 2nd millennium AD. Of course, there was no holistic language in the modern sense of the word, much less its literary version. We are talking about close dialects, which were characterized by common features.

The Proto-Slavic language, having adopted the law of an open syllable, sounded something like this: ze-le-n lie-s shu-mi-t (it reads “ze-le-nee-so shu-mi-to” - the green forest makes noise); to-de i-down-t med-vie-d and vl-k? (it reads “ko-de i-dou-to me-do-vie-do and vly-ko? (where are the bear and the wolf going?). Monotonously and evenly: tra-ta-ta-ta ... tra-ta-ta ... tra-ta-ta ... Our modern ear could hardly recognize familiar words in this stream.

Some scholars believe that the substratum language for the Proto-Slavs, which “launched” the law of the open syllable, was the non-Indo-European language of the Trypillians, who inhabited the present Ukrainian lands (the substratum language is an absorbed language that left phonetic and other traces in the victorious language).

It was he who did not tolerate clusters of consonants, syllables in him ended only in vowels. And it was allegedly from Trypillians that such words of unknown origin came to us, characterized by the openness of syllables and a strict order of sounds (consonant - vowel), such as mo-gi-la, ko-by-la and some others. Like, from the Trypillia language, Ukrainian - through the mediation of other languages and Proto-Slavic dialects - inherited its melody and some phonetic features (for example, the alternation of u-v, i-d, which helps to avoid dissonant clusters of sounds).

Unfortunately, it is impossible to either refute or confirm this hypothesis, since no reliable data on the language of the Trypillians (as, by the way, of the Scythians) have been preserved. At the same time, it is known that the substratum in a certain territory (phonetic and other traces of the defeated language) is indeed very tenacious and can be transmitted through several linguistic “eras”, even through the mediation of languages that have not survived to this day.

The relative unity of the Proto-Slavic dialects lasted until the 5th-6th centuries AD. Where the Proto-Slavs lived is not exactly known. It is believed that somewhere north of the Black Sea - in the Dnieper, Danube, in the Carpathians or between the Vistula and the Oder. In the middle of the first millennium, as a result of violent migration processes, the Proto-Slavic unity broke up. The Slavs settled all of central Europe - from the Mediterranean to the North Sea.

Since then, the proto-languages of modern Slavic languages began to form. The starting point for the emergence of new languages was the fall of the law of the open syllable. As mysterious as its origin. We do not know what caused this fall - another substratum or some kind of internal law of linguistic evolution, which began to operate in the days of Proto-Slavic unity. However, the law of the open syllable did not survive in any Slavic language. Although he left deep traces in each of them. By and large, the phonetic and morphological differences between these languages come down to how different the reflexes caused by the fall of an open syllable are in each of the languages.

How did modern Slavic languages appear?

This law fell into disrepair unevenly. In one dialect, the sing-song pronunciation (“tra-ta-ta”) survived longer, in others, the phonetic “revolution” took place faster. As a result, the Proto-Slavic language gave three subgroups of dialects: South Slavic (modern Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Slovenian, etc.); West Slavic (Polish, Czech, Slovak, etc.); East Slavic (modern Ukrainian, Great Russian, Belarusian). In ancient times, each of the subgroups represented numerous dialects, characterized by certain common features that distinguished them from other subgroups. These dialects do not always coincide with the modern division of the Slavic languages and the settlement of the Slavs. The processes of state formation, the mutual influence of Slavic dialects, as well as foreign language elements played an important role in linguistic evolution in different periods.

Actually, the collapse of the Proto-Slavic linguistic unity could occur as follows. First, the southern (Balkan) Slavs territorially “broke away” from the rest of the tribes. This explains the fact that in their dialects the law of the open syllable lasted the longest - until the 9th-12th centuries.

Among the tribes that were the ancestors of the Eastern and Western Slavs, in contrast to the Balkans, in the middle of the first millennium, the language underwent dramatic changes. The fall of the law of the open syllable gave rise to the development of new European languages, many of which have not survived to this day.

The speakers of the Proto-Ukrainian language were scattered tribes, each of which spoke its own dialect. The glades spoke Polanian, the Derevlyans spoke Derevlyansk, the Siverians spoke Siveryan, the Uchi and Tivertsy spoke their own way, and so on. But all these dialects were characterized by common features, that is, the same consequences of the fall of the open syllable, which even now distinguish the Ukrainian language from other Slavic languages.

How do we know about how they spoke in Ukraine in ancient times?

There are two real sources of our current knowledge of ancient Ukrainian dialects. The first is written monuments, the oldest of which were written in the 10th-12th centuries. However, unfortunately, records in the language spoken by our ancestors were not kept at all. The literary language of Kyiv was the “Old Bulgarian” (Church Slavonic) language, which came to us from the Balkans. This is the language into which Cyril and Methodius translated the Bible in the 9th century. It was incomprehensible to the Eastern Slavs, since it retained the ancient law of an open syllable. In particular, it sounded short vowels after consonants, denoted by the letters "b" and "b". However, in Kyiv this language was gradually Ukrainized: short sounds were not readable, and some vowels were replaced by their own - Ukrainian. In particular, nasal vowels, which are still preserved, say, in Polish, were pronounced like ordinary ones, “Old Bulgarian” diphthongs (double vowels) were read in the Ukrainian manner. Cyril and Methodius would be very surprised to hear "their" language in the Kyiv church.

It is interesting that some scientists tried to reconstruct the so-called “Old Russian” language, which was allegedly common to all Eastern Slavs, based on ancient Kievan texts. And it turned out that in Kyiv they spoke almost the “Old Bulgarian” language, which, of course, in no way corresponded to the historical truth.

Ancient texts can be used to learn the language of our ancestors, but in a very peculiar way. This is exactly what Professor Ivan Ogienko did in the first half of the 20th century. He studied the typos, mistakes of Kievan authors and scribes, who, against their will, were influenced by the living folk language. At times, the ancient scribes “reworked” the words and the “Old Bulgarian” grammatical forms deliberately - to make it “clearer”.

The second source of our knowledge is modern Ukrainian dialects, especially those that have long remained isolated and almost not subjected to external influence. For example, the descendants of the Derevlyans still inhabit the north of the Zhytomyr region, and the Siveryans inhabit the north of the Chernihiv region. In many dialects, ancient Ukrainian phonetic, grammatical, and morphological forms have been preserved, coinciding with the misprints of Kyiv scribes and writers.

In the scientific literature, one can find other dates for the fall of short vowels among the Eastern Slavs - the 12th - 13th centuries. However, such a “lengthening of life” of the law of an open syllable is hardly justified.

When did the Ukrainian language appear?

The countdown, apparently, can be started from the middle of the first millennium - when short vowels disappeared. This is what caused the emergence of proper Ukrainian language features - as, ultimately, the features of most Slavic languages. The list of features that distinguished our parent language from other languages may be somewhat boring for non-specialists. Here are just a few of them.

The ancient Ukrainian dialects were characterized by the so-called full accord: in place of the South Slavic sound combinations ra-, la-, re-, le - in the language of our ancestors sounded -oro-, -olo-, -ere-, -ele-. For example: licorice (in “Old Bulgarian” - sweet), full (captivity), sereda (environment), darkness (gloom), etc. “Coincidences” in the Bulgarian and Russian languages are explained by the huge influence of “Old Bulgarian” on the formation of the Russian language.

The Bulgarian (South Slavic) sound combination at the beginning of the root ra-, la - answered the East Slavic ro-, lo-: robot (work), grow (grow), catch (catch). In place of the typical Bulgarian sound combination -zhd - Ukrainians had -zh-: vorozhnecha (enmity), leather (each). Bulgarian suffixes -ash-, -yushch - were answered by Ukrainian -ach-, -yuch-: howling (howling), sizzling (sizzling).

When short vowels fell after voiced consonants, in Proto-Ukrainian dialects these consonants continued to be pronounced voiced, as they are now (oak, snow, love, shelter). In Polish, stunning developed, in Great Russian too (dup, snack, lyubof, krof).

Academician Potebnya found that the disappearance of short sounds (ъ and ь) in some places “forced” to extend the pronunciation of the previous vowels “o” and “e” in a new closed syllable to compensate for the “reduction” of the word. So, sto-l (“sto-lo”) turned into “steel” (the final ъ disappeared, but the “internal” vowel became longer, turning into a double sound - a diphthong). But in forms where a vowel comes after the final consonant, the old sound has not changed: sto-lu, sto-li. Mo-stъ (“mo-hundred”) turned into mіest, muest, mіst, etc. (depending on the dialect). The diphthong eventually transformed into a regular vowel. Therefore, in the modern literary language, “i” in a closed syllable alternates with “o” and “e” in an open syllable etc.). Although some Ukrainian dialects keep ancient diphthongs in a closed syllable (kiet, popiel, rieg).

The ancient Proto-Slavic diphthongs, in particular in case endings, denoted by the letter “yat” in writing, found their continuation in the Old Ukrainian language. In some dialects, they have survived to this day, in others they have been transformed into “i” (as in the literary language): lie, on earth, mіeh, beliy, etc. By the way, Ukrainians, knowing their language, never confused the spelling “yat” and "e" in pre-revolutionary Russian orthography. In some Ukrainian dialects, the ancient diphthong was actively supplanted by the vowel “i” (lis, on earth, mіkh, white), gaining a foothold in the literary language.

Part of the phonetic and grammatical features of the Proto-Slavic language was continued in Ukrainian dialects. So, the Proto-Ukrainian inherited the ancient alternation k-ch, g-z, x-s (hand - rutsі, rіg - roses, fly - musі), which has been preserved in the modern literary language. The vocative case has long been used in our language. In dialects, the ancient form of the “fore-future” tense (I will be brav) is active, as well as the ancient indicators of person and number in past tense verbs (I - walk, we - walked, you - walk, you - holist).

The description of all these signs occupies entire volumes in the academic literature ...

What language was spoken in Kyiv in prehistoric times?

Certainly not in modern literary language.

Any literary language is artificial to a certain extent - it is developed by writers, educators, cultural figures as a result of rethinking the living language. Often the literary language is alien, borrowed, and sometimes incomprehensible to the uneducated part of the population. So, in Ukraine, from the 10th to the 18th century, the literary language was considered an artificial - Ukrainized "Old Bulgarian" language, in which most literary monuments are written, in particular, "Izborniki Svyatoslav", "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", "The Tale of Time Litas", the works of Ivan Vishensky , Grigory Skovoroda, etc. The literary language was not frozen: it constantly developed, changed over the centuries, enriched with new vocabulary, its grammar was simplified. The degree of Ukrainization of texts depended on the education and "free-thinking" of the authors (the church did not approve of the penetration of the folk language into writing). This Kievan literary language, created on the basis of the “Old Bulgarian”, played a huge role in the formation of the Great Russian (“Russian”) language.

The modern literary language was formed on the basis of the Dnieper dialects - the heirs of the dialect of the annalistic meadows (and, apparently, the Ants union of tribes, known from foreign historical sources) - in the first half of the 19th century thanks to the writers Kotlyarevsky, Grebinka, Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, and also Taras Shevchenko .

Consequently, before the formation of a national language, Ukrainians spoke different Ukrainian dialects, using Ukrainized “Old Bulgarian” in writing.

In the princely era in Kyiv, they spoke a language “commonly understood” for the inhabitants of the capital city (Koine), which was formed on the basis of various ancient Ukrainian tribal dialects, mainly polyans. No one has ever heard it, and it has not survived in the records. But, again, the descriptions of ancient chroniclers and scribes, as well as modern Ukrainian dialects, give an idea of this language. To present it, one should apparently “cross” the grammar of Transcarpathian dialects, where the ancient forms are best preserved, Chernihiv diphthongs in place of “yat” and modern “i” in a closed syllable, features of the “deep” pronunciation of vowels among the current inhabitants of the south of the Kiev region , as well as Cherkasy and Poltava regions.

Were modern Ukrainians able to understand the language spoken by the people of Kiev, say, in the first half of the 13th century (before the horde)?

Undoubtedly, yes. For a “modern” ear, it would sound like a kind of Ukrainian dialect. Something like what we hear in electric trains, in markets and construction sites of the capital.

Is it possible to call the ancient language "Ukrainian", if the word "Ukraine" itself did not exist?

You can call the language whatever you like - the essence of this does not change. The ancient Indo-European tribes also did not call their language “Indo-European”.

The laws of linguistic evolution in no way depend on the name of the language, which is given to it in different periods of history by its speakers or outsiders.

We do not know how the Proto-Slavs called their language. Perhaps there was no generalized name at all. We also do not know how the Eastern Slavs called their dialect in the prehistoric era. Most likely, each tribe had its own name and called its dialect in its own way. There is an assumption that the Slavs called their language simply “their own”.

The word "Russian" regarding the language of our ancestors appeared relatively late. This word first denoted a simple folk language - as opposed to the written "Slavic". Later, “Ruska Mova” was opposed to “Polish”, “Moscow”, as well as non-Slavic languages spoken by neighboring peoples (in different periods - Chud, Muroma, Meshchera, Polovtsy, Tatars, Khazars, Pechenegs, etc.). The Ukrainian language was called “Russian” until the 10th–8th century.

In the Ukrainian language, the names are clearly distinguished - “Russian” and “Russian”, in contrast to Great Russian, where these names are groundlessly confused.

The word "Ukraine" also appeared relatively late. It has been found in chronicles since the 12th century, therefore, it appeared several centuries earlier.

How did other languages influence the formation of Ukrainian?

The Ukrainian language belongs to the “archaic” languages in terms of its vocabulary and grammatical structure (like, say, Lithuanian and Icelandic). Most Ukrainian words are inherited from the Indo-European parent language, as well as from Proto-Slavic dialects.

Quite a lot of words came to us from the tribes that were neighbors with our ancestors, traded with them, fought, etc. - Goths, Greeks, Turks, Ugrians, Romans, etc. (ship, bowl, poppy, Cossack, hut etc.). Ukrainian also has borrowings from “Old Bulgarian” (for example, region, blessing, ancestor), Polish (cheat sheet, funny, saber) and other Slavic. However, none of these languages influenced either the grammar or the phonetics (sound structure) of the language. Myths about Polish influence are spread, as a rule, by non-specialists who have a very distant idea of both the Polish and Ukrainian languages, the common origin of all Slavic languages.

Ukrainian is constantly updated with English, German, French, Italian, Spanish words, which is typical for any European language.

The inventor of the Little Russian dialect Ivan Petrovich Kotlyarevsky (August 29 (September 9), 1769, Poltava - October 29 (November 10), 1838, Poltava).

The Ukrainian language was created in 1794 on the basis of some features of the southern Russian dialects, which still exist in the Rostov and Voronezh regions and are absolutely mutually intelligible with the Russian language that exists in Central Russia. It was created by a deliberate distortion of common Slavic phonetics, in which instead of the common Slavic "o" and "ѣ" they began to use the sound "i", "hv" instead of "f" for a comic effect, as well as by clogging the language with non-Orthodox borrowings and deliberately invented neologisms.

In the first case, this was expressed in the fact that, for example, a horse, which sounds like a horse in Serbian, Bulgarian, and even Lusatian, became known as kin in Ukrainian. The cat began to be called kit, and so that the cat was not confused with the whale, the whale began to be pronounced as kyt.

According to the second principle, the stool became a pissal, the runny nose became undead, and the umbrella became a rose. Later, Soviet Ukrainian philologists replaced the rosehip with a parasol (from the French parasol), the Russian name was returned to the stool, since the stool did not sound very decent, and the runny nose remained undead. But during the years of independence, common Slavic and international words began to be replaced with artificially created, stylized as common lexemes. As a result, the midwife became a nub-cutter, the elevator became a pedestal, the mirror became a chandelier, the percentage became a hundred, and the gearbox became a screen of a perepihuntsiv.

As for the declension and conjugation systems, the latter were simply borrowed from the Church Slavonic language, which until the middle of the 18th century served as a common literary language for all Orthodox Slavs and even among the Vlachs, who later renamed themselves Romanian.

Initially, the scope of the future language was limited to everyday satirical works that ridiculed the illiterate chatter of marginal social strata. The first to synthesize the so-called Little Russian language was the Poltava nobleman Ivan Kotlyarevsky. In 1794, for the sake of humor, Kotlyarevsky created a kind of padonkaff language, in which he wrote a playful transcription of the Aeneid by the greatest ancient Roman poet Publius Virgil Maron.

Kotlyarevsky's "Aeneid" in those days was perceived as macaronic poetry - a kind of comic poetry created according to the principle formulated by the then Franco-Latin proverb "Qui nescit motos, forgere debet eos" - who does not know words should create them. This is how the words of the Little Russian dialect were created.

The creation of artificial languages, as practice has shown, is available not only to philologists. So, in 2005, the Tomsk businessman Yaroslav Zolotarev created the so-called Siberian language, "which is an idiot from the time of Velikovo Novgorod and has come down to our days in the dialects of the Siberian people." In this pseudo-language, on October 1, 2006, a whole Wikipedia section was even created, numbering more than five thousand pages and deleted on November 5, 2007. In terms of content, the project was a mouthpiece for politically active anti-fans of "This Country". As a result, every second SibWiki article was a non-illusory masterpiece of Russophobic trolling. For example: "After the Bolshevik coup, the Bolsheviks made out Central Siberia, and then completely pushed Siberia to Russia." All this was accompanied by poems by the first poet of the Siberian dialect, Zolotarev, with the telling names "Moskal's bastard" and "Moskal's vy..dki." Using the rights of the administrator, Zolotarev rolled back any edits as written “in a foreign language.

If this activity had not been covered up in the bud, then right now we would have had a movement of Siberian separatists, suggesting to Siberians that they are a separate people, that Muscovites should not be fed (non-Siberian Russians were called that in this language), but oil should be traded independently and gas, for which it is necessary to establish an independent Siberian state under the patronage of America.

The idea of creating a separate national language on the basis of the language invented by Kotlyarevsky was first picked up by the Poles - the former owners of Ukrainian lands: A year after the appearance of Kotlyarevsky's Aeneid, Jan Pototsky called for calling the lands of Volynsh and Podolia, which had recently become part of Russia, the word "Ukraine", and the people inhabiting them should not be called Russians, but Ukrainians. Another Pole, Count Tadeusz Chatsky, deprived of his estates after the second partition of Poland, in his essay “O nazwiku Ukrajnj i poczatku kozakow” became the inventor of the term “Ukr”. It was Chatsky who produced him from some unknown horde of “ancient ukrov”, who allegedly emerged from behind the Volga in the 7th century.

At the same time, the Polish intelligentsia began to attempt to codify the language invented by Kotlyarevsky. So, in 1818 in St. Petersburg Alexei Pavlovsky published "Grammar of the Little Russian dialect", but in Ukraine itself this book was received with hostility. Pavlovsky was scolded for the introduction of Polish words, they called him a Pole, and in the "Additions to the Grammar of the Little Russian Dialect", published in 1822, he specifically wrote: "I am afraid of you that I am your united earthman." The main innovation of Pavlovsky was that he proposed to write "i" instead of "ѣ" in order to aggravate the differences between the South Russian and Central Russian dialects that had begun to blur.

But the biggest step in the propaganda of the so-called Ukrainian language was a major hoax associated with the artificially created image of Taras Shevchenko, who, being illiterate, actually did not write anything, and all his works were the fruit of the mystifying work, first by Yevgeny Grebyonka, and then by Panteleimon Kulish .

The Austrian authorities considered the Russian population of Galicia as a natural counterbalance to the Poles. However, at the same time, they were afraid that the Russians would sooner or later want to join Russia. Therefore, the idea of Ukrainianness was the most convenient for them - an artificially created people could be opposed to both the Poles and the Russians.

The first who began to introduce the newly invented dialect into the minds of the Galicians was the Greek Catholic canon Ivan Mogilnitsky. Together with Metropolitan Levitsky, in 1816, with the support of the Austrian government, Mogilnitsky set about creating elementary schools with a "local language" in Eastern Galicia. True, Mogilnitsky slyly called the “local language” promoted by him Russian. The help of the Austrian government to Mogilnitsky, the main theoretician of Ukrainianism Grushevsky, who also existed on Austrian grants, justified this: “The Austrian government, in view of the deep enslavement of the Ukrainian population by the Polish gentry, sought ways to raise the latter in social and cultural terms.” A distinctive feature of the Galician-Russian revival is its complete loyalty and extreme servility towards the government, and the first work in the "local language" was a poem by Markiyan Shashkevich in honor of Emperor Franz, on the occasion of his name day.

On December 8, 1868, in Lvov, under the auspices of the Austrian authorities, the All-Ukrainian Association "Prosvita" named after Taras Shevchenko was created.

To get an idea of what the real Little Russian dialect was like in the 19th century, you can read an excerpt from the then Ukrainian text: “Reading the harmonious text of the Word, it is not difficult to notice its poetic size; for this I tried not only to correct the text of the same in the internal part, but also in the external form, if possible, to restore the original poetic warehouse of the Word.

The society set out to promote the Ukrainian language among the Russian population of Chervona Rus. In 1886, a member of the society, Yevgeny Zhelekhovsky, invented Ukrainian writing without "b", "e" and "ѣ". In 1922, this Zhelihovka script became the basis for the Radyan Ukrainian alphabet.

Through the efforts of society in the Russian gymnasiums of Lvov and Przemysl, teaching was transferred to the Ukrainian language invented by Kotlyaresky for the sake of humor, and the ideas of Ukrainian identity began to be instilled in the students of these gymnasiums. The graduates of these gymnasiums began to train teachers of public schools, who brought Ukrainianism to the masses. The result was not long in coming - before the collapse of Austria-Hungary, it was possible to grow several generations of the Ukrovochny population.

This process took place before the eyes of the Galician Jews, and the experience of Austria-Hungary was successfully used by them: a similar process of artificial introduction of an artificial language was carried out by the Zionists in Palestine. There, the bulk of the population was forced to speak Hebrew, a language invented by Luzhkov's Jew Lazar Perelman (better known as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Heb. אֱלִיעֶזֶר בֶּן־יְהוּדָה). In 1885, Hebrew was recognized as the only language for teaching certain subjects at the Jerusalem Bible and Work School. In 1904, the Hilfsverein founded the Mutual Assistance Association of German Jews. Jerusalem's first teacher's seminary for teachers of Hebrew. Hebrewization of names and surnames was widely practiced. All Moses became Moses, Solomons became Shlomo. Hebrew was not just heavily promoted. Propaganda was reinforced by the fact that from 1923 to 1936, the so-called Gdut Meginei Khasafa (גדוד מגיני השפה) language defense units darted through British-mandated Palestine, who beat the faces of everyone who spoke not in Hebrew, but in Yiddish. Particularly stubborn muzzles were beaten to death. In Hebrew, borrowing words is not allowed. Even the computer in it is not קאמפיוטער, but מחשב, the umbrella is not שירעם (from the German der Schirm), but מטריה, and the midwife is not אַבסטאַטרישאַן, but almost like a Ukrainian cutter.לֶ

P.S. from Mastodon. Someone "P.S.V. commentator", Ukrofascist, Kontovets, was offended at me because yesterday I published in Conte a humoresque "A hare went out for a walk ...", in which N. Khrushchev, in his desire to get rid of the difficulties of Russian grammar by eliminating it, is compared with one of the inventors of the Ukrainian language P. Kulesh (he created the illiterate "Kuleshovka" as one of the original written versions of ukromova). Really offended. The creation of Ukromova is a serious collective work that ended in success. Svidomo should be proud of such work.

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