Ukraine, The, unh?
[ by Charles Cameron — when the definite article is simply too definitive — and how about The Levant? ]
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In my ongoing, if pretty much one-sided, convo with Marc Andreessen [1, 2, 3], I’ve been arguing for Twitter to offer a format for DoubleTweeting. People do it anyway, because it’s a neat way of raising questions or making points — but it would be nice to have a format that made it both easy and elegant, and thus expand the practice. Today gave us another example of what I’ll call, for want of a better term, DoubleTweeting in the Wild:
The Vox is dumb. pic.twitter.com/KdK368wWeo
— Jimmy (@JimmyPrinceton) February 18, 2015
That was tweeted on February 18, 2015.
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I’d actually like to suggest that Vox isn’t dumb, at least as far as these two tweets are concerned — it’s learning.
Jimmy Princeton had to dig back to April 2014 to find Ezra Klein‘s use of “the Ukraine”
The three kinds of war facing the Ukraine: http://t.co/IJTQjX8zL0
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) April 24, 2014
and he then compares it unfavorably with Max Fisher ten months later, ie two days ago, on February 18, 2015 — the same day on which he posted his own DoubleTweet:
Hi Jeb — here is why it’s actually really important to call the country “Ukraine” and not “the Ukraine” http://t.co/oy0smsQZ8J
— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) February 18, 2015
Even more to the point, Fisher’s post on the importance of the distinction between “The Ukraine” and “Ukraine” was posted on Vox on September 3rd, 2014, so they hadn’t even issued their own warning at the time Klain tweeted his needless “The”.
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Cheryl Rofer had to teach me the distinction, and language being language, I still can’t promise I’ll get it right every time — old habits die hard. But for the record, here are the first paras of Fisher’s Vox “card” giving the reason for the change in name…
It used to be “the Ukraine,” but after breaking away from the Soviet Union in 1991 the name changed to just “Ukraine.” That distinction actually turns out to be pretty important for understanding the current crisis.
Ukraine has a very long history of being subjugated by outside powers, and a very short history of national independence. That may actually be why the country became known as “the Ukraine,” which many historians think meant “the borderland” in the language of ancient Slavs (it may also mean “the homeland,” a theory that Ukrainian nationalists understandably prefer). In other words, it may have been called “the” because it was considered more of a geographic region than an independent country, and one defined by its in-between-ness.
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Having said all that, I’m still grateful to Jimmy Princeton for illustrating the sort of use a DoubleTweet can be put to. And I’ll try to get my own wording right in future, now I’m reminded I haven’t always done so in the past.
February 23rd, 2015 at 5:28 pm
There’s something about this that confuses me. If we say “the Ukraine”, we’re taking sides with the Russian government. If we say “Ukraine”, we’re taking sides with the nationalist Ukrainian junta. Why is the latter better than the former?
February 23rd, 2015 at 5:28 pm
BTW, the Crimean Oblast didn’t become a part of the Ukrainian SSR until 1954.
February 23rd, 2015 at 5:38 pm
I remember this same question came up back in 1992 when we started producing Intelligence Information Reports on Ukraine. Initially we used the definite article until one of the older ops pointed out that it referred to the region, not what was then and still is the country. Today I think the use of the definite article is more part of a larger propaganda theme by the Ukrainian junta . . .
February 23rd, 2015 at 5:49 pm
Hm. Cheryl?
February 23rd, 2015 at 5:55 pm
Um, nationalist Ukrainian junta? Not too much taking sides with Russia there.
February 23rd, 2015 at 6:00 pm
John Schindler:
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February 23rd, 2015 at 6:04 pm
Given that part of the responses here, I feel that I can contribute little. But here goes.
Ukraine has been an independent country since 1991. Its official preference since 1991 has been for the name, in English, to be without the definite article. There is an equivalent in Russian, which lacks articles.
So to reopen the question, as a couple of comments above seem to, is to side with Putin’s opinion that Ukraine is not a real country and must be defined by others.
February 23rd, 2015 at 6:20 pm
Cheryl-
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I haven’t reopened anything with my comment, simply shared what happened regarding our reporting in 1992. I don’t know if what you say is Putin’s opinion or not, but that is definitely Kiev’s version of events which goes along with their “we are victims of Russian aggression” meme, which could be true or not, but would still be a propaganda theme.
February 23rd, 2015 at 6:31 pm
Seydlitz –
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I’m making the same point that John Schindler makes: independent countries should be referred to by the names they give themselves. What another country’s intelligence service thinks is immaterial, unless they decide to invade and impose their view.
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Putin has stated that Ukraine is not a real country. I agree that that may or may not represent his opinion, but it’s closer than just guessing.
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And you don’t think that invading a country is aggression?
February 23rd, 2015 at 8:52 pm
“independent countries should be referred to by the names they give themselves”
We very rarely do that. In the case of Ukraine if we did we’d be calling it “Ukraina” or something like that. We’d call Russia “Rossiya”. Finland would be “Suomen tasavalta” which I doubt will catch on. Italia. Deutschland. Espana (with an enye). Sverige. Zhong guo.
When there are established, conventional English names for countries we tend to continue to use them. “The Ukraine” has been in use for quite a while–at least since the 18th century. More recently English writers have adopted “Ukraine” more frequently but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the definite article either in the case of Ukraine or Crimea.
February 23rd, 2015 at 8:59 pm
And, Cheryl, do you honestly not recognize when people are trying to convey a point-of-view they may or may not hold themselves? The way I described the president regime in Kiev is very much the way the Russian see things. What’s the truth? I think it’s complicated but I do think the present Ukrainian regime has legitimacy problems and we should be cautious about siding with it too strongly.
At my blog I use “Ukraine” and “the Ukraine” pretty interchangeably or, sometimes, for effect. I’m old.
February 23rd, 2015 at 9:00 pm
That would be “present regime” rather than “president regime”. 😉
February 23rd, 2015 at 9:01 pm
Our invasion of Iraq was definitely aggression.