On the history of Ukraine in Ukrainian with a young Russian (04.08.2023)
A Ukrainian-language video dialogue by the channel’s author with a young Russian from Krasnodar Krai who taught himself Ukrainian. In answer to a question about the difference between the Ukrainian lands under Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire, the historian gives a comparison of the two empires in the 19th century: in Russia — bans on the Ukrainian language (the Valuev Circular of 1863, the Ems Ukaz of 1876) and harsh serfdom “closer to slavery”; in Austrian Galicia — milder censorship and the legal development of the language, from the “Ruthenian Triad” to the Supreme Ruthenian Council and the newspaper “Zoria Halytska”. The material supplements the article on the Ukrainian language: the very language that one empire banned was codified and developed legally on the other side of the border.
Key moments
- 01:41 Until the mid-19th c. there was no particular persecution of the language; Ukrainian was regarded as a "dialect"
- 01:54 In the second half of the 19th c. in the Russian Empire — the Valuev Circular and the Ems Ukaz
- 02:26 The "Ruthenian Triad" creates a literary language from a "rural" one in Austrian Galicia
- 02:42 In the second half of the 19th c. in Austria-Hungary there was no particular suppression of the Ukrainian language
- 03:42 Serfdom in Russia was closer to slavery; in Austria it was milder, abolished after 1848
- 07:42 The Ems Ukaz effectively banned printing in Ukrainian; in the west there was no suppression of this kind
- 08:09 The Supreme Ruthenian Council in Lviv, the newspaper "Zoria Halytska"
- 08:35 Austrian censorship: "just don't speak out against the emperor, and otherwise write what you like"