XPost: alt.politics, talk.politics.misc   
   From: campbell@neotext.ca   
      
   On Wed, 3 Dec 2025 19:10:39 +0300, Oleg Smirnov wrote:   
      
   > Dhu on Gate,    
   >   
   >> It doesn't get mentioned because everyone wants to blame Gengis   
   >> and the Mongols, but the MAIN difference between Russian and   
   >> Ukrainian was an affliction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire:   
   >> Ukraine was controlled by Vienna, Russia by Moscow.   
   >>   
   >> And it seems to me that the guys who settled WW2 understood the   
   >> importance of making (a shrunken) Austria a Neutral and Independant   
   >> buffer zone.   
   >>   
   >> Making Peace in Ukraine, and turning it into a decent place to live,   
   >> should be as easy as Austro-sizing Ukraine, not ostracizing Russia.   
   >   
   > The post-Soviet Ukraine is culturally, regionally diverse. Few   
   > times before I already posted this    
   > map, - it's pretty accurate. Every area has its specificity. A   
   > complete description of the history of all the areas would take   
   > many thick books. In the Atlanticist popular discourse today, the   
   > history of the Ukraine is nearly totally misinterpreted and / or   
   > falsified in order to serve the current political agenda.   
   >   
   > In fact, only a small, the most western part of the present day   
   > Ukraine was controlled by Vienna. It was appended to the Soviet   
   > Ukraine as a result of the WW2, and today many see that decision   
   > as a big Stalin's mistake. The region is culturally pretty alien   
   > to the rest. In the post-Soviet time, namely this area gave rise   
   > to the cult of nostalgic imitation of the German-Austrian Nazis,   
   > which later also infected far-right factions in other regions.   
   > Psychologically, the west-Ukrainian mania to mimic the Germanic   
   > Nazis means the desire of a former slave to mimic their former   
   > master, since within the Austro-Hungarian state the status of the   
   > ethnic Ukrainians were sort of lowest caste.   
   >   
   > Central Ukraine had no relation to Austria. But there was Polish   
   > colonization for 3 centuries, including within the Russian Empire.   
   > After the partition of Poland, imperial policies didn't somehow   
   > change the situation when the class of landlords (serf owners) in   
   > a large part of this territory was ethnically-culturally Polish.   
   >   
   > What is south / east of the present day Ukraine never was really   
   > Ukrainian but it was 'gifted' to the Soviet Ukrainian Republic by   
   > the early-Soviet government in the 1920s. Before the 18th century,   
   > the steppes (wild fields) were rarely populated and controlled by   
   > Turkic nomads under Crimean/Ottoman rule. That's another story.   
   >   
   > Besides these specifying remarks, the idea for - the remnants of -   
   > the Ukraine to be 'neutral / independant buffer zone' makes sense,   
   > of course.   
      
   This fits what I know of Ukraine's history.   
   I conflated Polish-Lithuania with Austro-Hungary   
   for brevity.   
      
   Dhu   
      
    --   
   Je suis Canadien:   
     Ce n'est pas Francais ou Anglais,   
     C'est une esp`ece de sauvage.   
     Ne obliviscaris: vix ea nostra voco!   
      
    *A mari ad mari ad mari*   
      
     Duncan Patton a Campbell   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)