'the'.

As you could have seen in my earlier post on Syria and Yugoslavia, maps can be very delusive. They literally create their own image of the world. I am fascinated by the apparent clarification maps provide, especially when talking about multiple identities. Yet, I only realized recently that words can do the same. Geographical designations shape the identity of the people living there, or at least their image. This doesn’t necessarily mean a bad thing. Both ‘the Netherlands’ and ‘Holland’ stand for ‘low lands’, which is definitely right.

Where this post is heading at, is the use of articles in geographical names. It is used in plural forms, like the Bahamas or the Philippines. ‘The Netherlands’ is actually more complicated, since it would also refer to the collective of former statelets currently in Belgium and Northern France. It’s official name, the ‘Kingdom of the Netherlands’, explains: it is the Kingdom carved out of all of these units. Articles are also used for a specific type of state, like in the United Kingdom, or the Russian Federation. Also, it is used for geographical features. The Gambia, called after the river, is to my knowledge the only state using it as such. The story goes that it’s borders were set by the distance a British cannon could reach from it’s shores. As such, the rulers of the sea were able to control the estuary. Therefore, The Gambia is an enclave in former French Senegal. Senegal is also called after a river, but doesn’t use the article. Here's the Gambia basin: 

However, I have to admit that I tend to use adjectives for Libanon, Congo, Sudan, and, there you go, Ukraine – but this habit is simply wrong. With an adjective these names are referring to a region, and without, to a country. The Libanon is a mountain range. Only when the French carved a Christian majority mandate out of historical Syria in 1920, the modern state of Libanon was created, adding the Beqaa valley and the coastal region to Mount Lebanon. The Greater Lebanese mandate became independent in 1943. The Congo is a river, and ‘the Congo’ therefore refers to it’s basin. The modern state of the Democratic Republic of the Congo would finally use Katanga if they kept it to the Congo basin, actually. The Sudan is the region South of the Sahel, starting in modern Senegal and ending somewhere in the Darfur region of the state of Sudan. The name is derived from the Arabic ‘bilad-as-sudan’ or ‘land of the blacks’ and this epithet was copied by the French and British colonial authorities. Only after their independence French Sudan and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan became the fresh states of Mali  and Sudan. The use of adjectives is still common in the Arab world, by the way. Think about the name of Algeria, derived from ‘al-jazair’, ‘the islands’. Here’s the Sudan: 

'The Ukraine’ is a tough one, because it’s etymology is related to the current events. Most scholars agree that ‘Ukraine’ is derived from the old Slavic word ‘kraj’ meaning ‘edge’. In modern Russian and Polish ‘kraj’ still means ‘border region’, and ‘okraina’ means ‘outskirts’ in modern Russian. Therefore, ‘ukraina’ should mean something something like ‘borderland’ or ‘march’, just as in Denmark or the March of Barcelona elsewhere. And this ‘ukraina’ was a borderland indeed. The name was used for the border regions of the Tatar Horde with the Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy, which had both roots in the old Slavic principalities of Kievan Rus (also called ‘Ruthenia’). This ‘ukraine’ region stretched from modern Belarus to the Black Sea, and it’s borders moved continuously.

A problem is though, that Slavic doesn’t have adjectives. The distinction between regions and states as in English is therefore not directly clear. Translation is always a choice. Moreover, ‘borderland’ can be seen as offensive from both Poles and Russians, who treated the inhabitants of modern Belarus and Ukraine often as their periphery. Referring to the ‘larger’ (Muscovy) and ‘lesser’ territories (the ukraine) of Kievan Rus the use of ‘Little’ and ‘Great Russians’ emerged. For its inhabitants ‘Ukraine’ became a sobriquet (‘geuzennaam’), an offence to be proud of, and soon it’s use was outlawed in the Russian Empire.

The derogatory use of ‘Little Russians’ for Ukrainians has connotations with ‘White Russia’ used for Belarus. However, it is unclear where this epithet comes from. Some refer to White Russia as the parts of Ruthenia under Muscovian rule (modern Eastern Belarus), while Black Russia were the regions under the Polish king (modern Western Ukraine). Red Russia was still under the ‘Tatar yoke’ (modern Southern Ukraine). This theory might be related to the use of colours for the cardinal directions in old Slavic and Central Asian cultures. White is north, black West, red South and green East. The extremely fertile (and industrialized) ‘black earth region’ (chernozem) in Eastern Ukraine and Southern Russia has nothing to do with aforementioned.

Therefore, it might be good to emphasize once again, that Ukraine is not the periphery of either Europe or Russia, but a sovereign country, with recognized borders and an interesting modern history. Using an article might depreciate the existence of an Ukrainian state and nation. ‘The Ukraine’ is a historic region; Ukraine is a modern state.

However, many ethnic Ukrainians live in the Russian Federation, until deep in the Don region. Also, lots of Ukrainian citizens who speak Russian as their day-to-day language, aren’t Russians. And then there’s ethnic Russians living in Ukraine as well, mostly on the Crimean peninsula.

This is me punching Yanukovich, by the way. It’s close to the 'Euromaidan' Nezalezhnosti Square, in 2012. The political bloc of opposition leader and ex-boxer Vitali Klitschko is called UDAR, the acronym of the Ukrainian word for ‘punch’: 

See also: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/01/29/peter-pomerantsev/do-you-speak-surzhyk/
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-ukraine-isnt-the-ukraine-and-why-that-matters-now-2013-12?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18233844