{"id":147490,"date":"2021-08-23T15:20:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T12:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/?p=147490"},"modified":"2021-08-23T15:20:08","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T12:20:08","slug":"how-russia-devaluates-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine","title":{"rendered":"How Russia Devaluates Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

After 30 years of Ukrainian independence, both Russian media and politicians are still agonizing with discrediting campaigns, humiliation, and dubious jokes about Ukraine. Why is the depreciation of the Ukrainian image still an id\u00e9e fixe <\/em>for the Kremlin? The Russian Federation is known for its imperialistic traditions, such as cultural appropriation, mocking and marginalizing other nations, and imposition of inferiority complex.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, Ukrainian language, culture, history, and identity have been given a marginal status as \u201cvulgar\u201d and \u201cprofane\u201d. As a matter of fact, Ukraine is still dealing with the traumatic consequences of both the imperialistic and Soviet past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Linguicide<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The very existence of the Ukrainian language, separate from Russian, was frequently undermined by Russian linguists and politicians. As it was documented in Valuev Circular (1863) and Ems Ukaz (1876), in Tsarist Russia, the publication of educational, religious, and literary texts in Ukrainian faced numerous prohibitions. According to the authorities of the Russian Empire, a separate Little Russian (Ukrainian) language \u201chas never existed<\/a>, does not exist and cannot exist\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That approach illustrates how the separate language was relegated to the status of \u201cdialect, used by commoners\u201d, which is nothing more than \u201cjust the Russian Language, corrupted by the influence of Poland\u201d. The advantage in the opposition of \u201cGreat Russian\u201d and \u201cLittle Russian\u201d paradigms was predictably on the side of the metropolis. Therefore, the XIX century became the cradle of the myth about \u201ccommon Russian language, intelligible to both Little Russians and Great Russians\u201d which is now transformed by the Kremlin propaganda to the myth about \u201cone great language\u201d which is spoken in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus and \u201cunites three fraternal nations\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, for more than 150 years, the relations between the metropole and the colony were far from fraternal. Eventually, Ukrainian was banned in the public sphere which meant that singing national songs in the theatres, printing and importing literature and sheet music, and staging the performances in Ukrainian was impossible. However, if it was just a \u201cdialect\u201d that was no danger for Russian greatness, why was it so necessary to ban it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a historical heir of Tsarist Russia and its imperialistic strategies, the Soviet Union also inherited cultural colonialism <\/strong>so <\/strong>after a short period of \u201cUkrainization\u201d the politics of linguicide continued: the whole layer of Ukrainian words was either deleted from the vocabularies or marked as \u201cdialectal\u201d. These actions were aimed to assimilate the Ukrainian language to Russian, being a logical part of Soviet globalization<\/strong> strategy: to turn Russian into another universal language. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, Ukrainian was portrayed as \u201cunprestigious\u201d and \u201cprovincial\u201d while Russian was glorified as \u201cthe urban language\u201d as well as the language of power. Now, these historical conditions are fertile ground for the Kremlin narratives about Ukraine as a \u201cbilingual nation\u201d or about \u201caggressive Ukrainization politics\u201d when it comes to the restoration of historical justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myths about Ukraine <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Another absurd but powerful Russia\u2019s weapon of devaluation is modern mythology. Ironically, even in 2021 the Kremlin still uses the same old-fashioned Tsarist legends about the Ukrainian language being a mixture of Russian and Polish as well as the myths about Ukraine as a \u201cproject of the Austro-Hungarian empire\u201d which was \u201cinvented\u201d to undermine Russian greatness. Many of such myths are described in Vladimir Putin\u2019s article \u201cOn the historic unity of Russians and Ukrainians\u201d (which we briefly analyzed here<\/a>) and actively promoted in Ukraine. Despite all the irrationality of the \u201cfacts\u201d and \u201ctheories\u201d, these constructs are actively used in Russia\u2019s hybrid war against Ukraine to promote hatred and intolerance.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The continuation of the common Russian narrative about one nation <\/strong>is always predictable: Ukraine is unable to reach any economic or political success beyond the Soviet Union or the \u201cfraternal relationships\u201d with Russia. After years of political pressure and aggression, Russia got a renomm\u00e9<\/em> of a Big Brother, whose shadow always reminds both Ukraine and Belarus of the traumatic Soviet past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural appropriation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Another depreciation practice used by Russia was cultural appropriation. For many years, Russia reassures the world that Mykola Hohol (who published his texts in Russian but identified himself as a Ukrainian) and Taras Shevchenko (who created the vast majority of his poetry in Ukrainian and some prosaic works in Russian) are Russian authors also. As a result, even Wikipedia mentions<\/a> Mykola Hohol as the \u201cRussian writer\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such blurring of the borders between Ukrainian and Russian is an integral weapon on the Russian cultural front and is therefore used by the Kremlin to <\/strong>promote the ideological construct of Russia as a glorious state which proved its greatness in all spheres: from politics to literature. The effectiveness of that strategy can be proved, for instance, by the charts of Apple Music or Spotify that often mention Ukrainian songs as \u201cRussian hits\u201d, also symbolically making them a part of Russian heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humor<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Another \u201csoft\u201d instrument of colonization that nevertheless can\u2019t be underestimated is humor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike the bloody repressions against the Ukrainian intelligentsia, the destructive power of humor was not so evident but still very effective. During the Soviet era, in jokes and stand-up comedy shows, Ukrainians were systematically described as simple-minded, naive and sentimental. Russians (or Russian-speaking people), on the other hand, were always wise and rational, omnipotent and well-educated. This paradigm was aimed to strengthen the national stereotypes and create the inferiority complex, encouraging Ukrainians to abandon their roots and identity for the sake of \u201cprestige\u201d and reputation. One of the most representative examples is a duet of stand-up comedians, Shtepsel and Tarapunka, that was extremely popular in the Soviet Union. In this case, the roles were traditionally divided: while intelligent and sensible Shtepsel was speaking Russian, his simple-minded companion, Tarapunka, was speaking rather a macaronic language \u2014 surzhyk<\/em>, which is a chaotic mix of Ukrainian and Russian. With all its simplicity and sincerity, the show managed to create some traumas which independent Ukraine is still struggling with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the fact that Shtepsel and Tarapunka duet <\/strong>no longer exists, the destructive influence of Soviet cultural codes are still present in Ukrainian reality: urban spaces of eastern and southern parts of Ukraine still have the traumas of Russification politics, and pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians still use this fact to promote the status of Russian as a second state language and blame the authorities for \u201coppressing the rights of Russian-speaking people\u201d, which amazingly corresponds with the Kremlin rhetorics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tradition of racist, sexist, <\/strong>or other discriminative jokes<\/strong> is also rather long and even gave birth to the specific Soviet \u201cfolklore\u201d. Later, it was inherited by Russia that continued the practice of dividing people into \u201cnormal\u201d (aka Russians) and \u201cother\u201d, often portrayed as \u201cbizarre\u201d and \u201cridiculous\u201d. Russian stand-up comedians still use Soviet jokes about \u201ccunning\u201d Jews, \u201cslow\u201d Estonians, \u201cstupid\u201d Americans, and \u201cnaive\u201d Ukrainians eating salo<\/em>, and lamenting their miserable luck. This is nothing else than another colonial tactic that puts thousands of people under a permanent risk of being mocked just for being different. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusions<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Russian cultural diplomacy is inter alia supported by millions of dollars invested in promoting the idea of \u201cgreat Russian language and literature\u201d both in the Western universities and in the media, boosting the image of Russia as a global Kulturtr\u00e4ger<\/em>. However, the positive narrativization strategy is also connected to the strategy of demonization of Russia\u2019s opponents. Thus, Ukrainian culture is portrayed as marginal and profane, Ukrainian presidents are described as \u201cfar-right radicals glorifying Nazism and Russophobia\u201d, and the mocking of Ukrainian sovereignty itself intensified in the light of the approaching Independence Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the occupation and ongoing war, the Russian operations on devaluation of Ukraine are not very visible but still destructive enough. Cultural appropriation, manipulations with history and collective memory, attacks against the Ukrainian language \u2014 it all proves that Russia still lives in the paradigm of the great empire doing everything to humiliate and marginalize Ukrainian achievements in politics, economy, and sports, and Ukrainian identity itself, while humor and media remain its main instruments in this cultural war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After 30 years of Ukrainian independence, both Russian media and politicians are still agonizing with discrediting campaigns, humiliation, and dubious jokes about Ukraine. Why is the depreciation of the Ukrainian image still an id\u00e9e fixe for the Kremlin? The Russian Federation is known for its imperialistic traditions, such as cultural appropriation, mocking and marginalizing other […] More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":147498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[700,699,748],"tags":[1262,6310,1248],"section":[726],"form":[31943],"yoast_head":"\nHow Russia Devaluates Ukraine | UACRISIS.ORG<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After 30 years of Ukrainian independence, both Russian media and politicians are still agonizing with discrediting campaigns, humiliation, and dubious | Uacrisis.org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Russia Devaluates Ukraine | UACRISIS.ORG\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After 30 years of Ukrainian independence, both Russian media and politicians are still agonizing with discrediting campaigns, humiliation, and dubious | Uacrisis.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uacrisis.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/uacrisis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-08-23T12:20:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-08-23T12:20:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/60268.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"256\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@uacrisis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@uacrisis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"\u0422\u0435\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0443\u043a \u041e\u043b\u044c\u0433\u0430\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How Russia Devaluates Ukraine | UACRISIS.ORG","description":"After 30 years of Ukrainian independence, both Russian media and politicians are still agonizing with discrediting campaigns, humiliation, and dubious | Uacrisis.org","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How Russia Devaluates Ukraine | UACRISIS.ORG","og_description":"After 30 years of Ukrainian independence, both Russian media and politicians are still agonizing with discrediting campaigns, humiliation, and dubious | Uacrisis.org","og_url":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine","og_site_name":"Uacrisis.org","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/uacrisis\/","article_published_time":"2021-08-23T12:20:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-08-23T12:20:08+00:00","og_image":[{"width":450,"height":256,"url":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/60268.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@uacrisis","twitter_site":"@uacrisis","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"\u0422\u0435\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0443\u043a \u041e\u043b\u044c\u0433\u0430","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/#organization","name":"Ukraine crisis media center","url":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/uacrisis\/","http:\/\/youtube.com\/UACrisisMediaCenter","https:\/\/twitter.com\/uacrisis"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/header_logo-1.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/header_logo-1.png","width":250,"height":90,"caption":"Ukraine crisis media center"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/#website","url":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/","name":"Uacrisis.org","description":"Ukraine crisis media center","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/60268.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/60268.jpg","width":450,"height":256},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine#webpage","url":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine","name":"How Russia Devaluates Ukraine | UACRISIS.ORG","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2021-08-23T12:20:00+00:00","dateModified":"2021-08-23T12:20:08+00:00","description":"After 30 years of Ukrainian independence, both Russian media and politicians are still agonizing with discrediting campaigns, humiliation, and dubious | Uacrisis.org","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"\u0413\u043b\u0430\u0432\u043d\u0430\u044f \u0441\u0442\u0440\u0430\u043d\u0438\u0446\u0430","item":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How Russia Devaluates Ukraine"}]},{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine#webpage"},"author":{"@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/#\/schema\/person\/8c768258c5deb1bedaff100e6127596a"},"headline":"How Russia Devaluates Ukraine","datePublished":"2021-08-23T12:20:00+00:00","dateModified":"2021-08-23T12:20:08+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine#webpage"},"wordCount":1339,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/how-russia-devaluates-ukraine#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/60268.jpg","keywords":["hybrid warfare","Information war","propaganda"],"articleSection":["Information war","Politics","Society"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/uk\/#\/schema\/person\/8c768258c5deb1bedaff100e6127596a","name":"\u0422\u0435\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0443\u043a \u041e\u043b\u044c\u0433\u0430"}]}},"wps_subtitle":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147490"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147490"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section?post=147490"},{"taxonomy":"form","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/form?post=147490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}