Quote:
Originally Posted by Daradon
Was going to start a thread on this but was a little hazy on the details, so thanks for starting it! Turns out I woulda written pretty much what the OP had written so I guess I have a little bit of a grasp. Anyway have been following this closely as my family is largely Ukrainian (and Eastern European when not) in decent. I don't consider myself Ukrainian as it's been 4 generations I think (3 or 4, and my grandparents never really talked about it, even as I got older and asked questions) but we did always celebrate Ukrainian Christmas, had been to Ukrainian Catholic churches on occasions, Ukrainian decorations and mementos around the house, my cousins even did Ukrainian dancing for a while.
Was speaking to a 1st generation Ukrainian about this about 10 days ago, he moved when he was in his early teens I believe, and he mentioned that while it is a big mess and he hopes they are able to distance themselves from Russia, that Russia had slowly been gaining influence for a while and he was disappointed the people hadn't done more earlier. 'No one cares till it's too late,' were his exact words.
|
That is similar to my family. I had a Rusyn grandmother on my mother's side (not to be confused with "Russian" despite the similar sounding name. Rusyns identify as Ukrainians). She converted Catholic, but we still celebrated the Orthodox holidays (commonly called "Ukrainian holidays" in Canada). I even had the Rusyn folk outfit when I was really small. I haven't kept up with that side of my family since my mother died when I was fairly young and we moved, but the one thing that I always remember is how much they disliked Russians!
A lot of historians consider Ukrainians to the be the original precursor to modern Russians and the current Russian state. It's a politically sensitive topic though, and I won't even begin to try and argue for or against it.