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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31759 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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It’s clear both Ukraine and Pakistan used to be just some subregions of a greater civilisation with minor cultural differences.

Most of Ukraine was indeed a part of Poland/Lithuania for 300 years, and large parts were beyond that, as well. I'm sure that's not what is meant here, though, but it's still worth noting that the idea that Ukraine and Russia have been together forever and ever is rather tendentious - it requires an assumption that Kyivan Rus is in perfect equivalence to current Russia, for one, and the RSFSR/Ukraine relationship within Soviet Union has its own complications, as well.

Regarding Pakistan, I can't find it any longer, but I remember an interesting Quora post making the point that the territories currently forming Pakistan have actually spent surprisingly little time being a part of the same political unit as the (most of the) rest of India, and most of that time was during explicitly Muslim empires or other foreign rule - for instance, the British only managed to make headway in Pakistan starting from 1830s, and the British conquest of former Durrani territories in current Pakistan really only got going around some decades later.

Most of Ukraine was indeed a part of Poland/Lithuania for 300 years, and large parts were beyond that, as well.

I think there is a misunderstanding here. The expression "Ukraine" and "Ukrainian" has indeed been in use for hundreds of years in Russia, Poland and also Lithuania, but this is a geographic phrase applied to the same borderland or border/outer region located between the two powers and its inhabitants (this is what the word literally means).

I meant the current territory of Ukraine, here. The point being that the Ukrainian and Russian populations have lived in separate states for centuries before the formerly-Polish territories fell under the Russian Empire control.

Of course, other parts of Ukraine weren't controlled by Poland at any point, but most of those weren't controlled by Russia, either, during that period, but rather by the Golden Horde and the various other Khanates, and were then resettled - as far as I've understood - chiefly from Ukraine.

That’s true. A bit difficult for me to imagine how such a cultural divide is being bridged over by the current nationalist Ukraine. Turkey has its fair share of nation building monstrosities but at least virtually all of its peoples and territories had been the part of same empire since like forever.

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