[livinglist]

not really in favor of this characterizing countries thing. it’s like how China calls Hongkong it’s child and it finally was returned to its mother in 1997. Nowadays same terminology is applied to Taiwan, I’m just disgusted by this figure of speech, saying China is a mother and hongkong and Taiwan are her children just signals that you don’t want to treat them with respect in the first place. Same thing with this story, saying Russia is husband signals the bias in author’s mind: Ukraine is the weaker and smaller one thus the wife.

sorry for my broken English, hopefully you understand what I’m trying to say…

[Procedural]

Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union. They spoke Russian. They married Russians. It happened. But it's a history now. No one can force-continue the marriage.

[Mikeb85]

You mean Ukraine was a part of Rus and Russian empires going back 1000 years. It goes way beyond the Soviet Union...

[torstenvl]

Yes there are ethnic ties between them. That doesn't mean they are identical, or that one should rule the other. Should Scotland rule Ireland (or vice versa) because they are both Gaelic peoples that were part of the British Empire?

[Mikeb85]

I said nothing about 'should'.

Simply history. Ukraine was never a 'country' until briefly in the 20's then the 90's.

Ukrainians have been Rus, or Russians, or Ruthenians, etc... for most of their history. They were once a single people. That's just a fact.

The differences in identity are the fact that western Ukraine has at times belonged to Austria-Hungary or Poland. Or the fact the Cossacks carved out small states amidst foreign rule. And likewise Novgorod and Moscow had small states during Muslim domination which also contributed to a unique Russian identity.

It's not as simple as 'Ukraine was part of USSR for a generation.

My ancestors were Ukrainian, spoke Ukrainian, identified as Ukrainian but were from Austria-Hungary and officially were called 'Ruthenians'.

The same thing that separates Russia and Ukraine is what separates the Czech Republic and Slovakia. One people (ish), just different historical circumstances at times creating different identities and eventually states.

Ukraine should be its own country today. But not because of made up history, simply because today they want to.

[torstenvl]

Ruthenia was called Ruthenia because it was in the West, and part of the Polish-Lithuanian Empire, so went by the Latin name for Rus. Russia is derived from the Greek. Even centuries ago they were distinct.

And before then, before there were nation-states as we think of them now, the principality of Kyiv was distinct from the principality of Mosovy. Kyiv was not subordinated to Moscow until Peter, Elizabeth, and Catherine, in the 1600s and 1700s -- more than a millennium after Kyiv's founding.

The history is not made up.

https://www.timemaps.com/history/russia-979ad/

[Mikeb85]

I know about the history of Kyivan Rus... That's not what I'm referring to...

[Koshkin]

> It happened.

Well, before that there was another war (the Red Army vs. the Ukrainian nationalists around 1920); and Stalin killing millions of Ukrainians in the man-made famine in the early 1930; followed by the mass repressions in the late 1930s, with hundreds of thousands executed. It's never been a happy marriage, not really.

[Procedural]

I agree. This is another reason to stop trying to make it happen, when it wasn't a happy marriage in the first place.

[trinsic2]

Yea Politicians use that language to try and convince political states and countries are things, but they are just ideas that people can either believe in or not.

I like the idea of using the OP as a metaphor to help everyone understand the dynamics. It doesn't mean that in practice it really exists.

[jchiu1106]

Considering how mainland China (PRC) and Taiwan (ROC) are separated, they're more like siblings, with ROC being the elder one.

[AnimalMuppet]

ROC is the original government of the whole of China (mainland plus Taiwan). PRC is the johnny-come-lately rebels. So I'd say that ROC is not only the elder, the PRC is the illegitimate half-brother.

[seanmcdirmid]

Many Taiwanese see the ROC as invaders, they would rather have neither the PRC nor the ROC governing over them, and this is what the PRC is most against (at least if Taiwan is controlled by the ROC, it can still be seen as a civil dispute over who controls China, vs a question of an independent Taiwan).

Japan actually treated Taiwan more as a province rather than a colony, which led to a lot of distrust between the islanders and mainlanders when the ROC regained control of the island.