The original article “Two Ukraines” appeared as blog by colonelcassad in Decmber 2013 in Russian.
I present here a translation of the article into English, with the infographics legend explained whenever feasible; but first I want to give some historical backdrop to where Novorossia comes from.
In his article Cold War Renewed With A Vengeance While Washington Again Lies Paul Craig Roberts very astutely writes:
The EU, ordered by Washington, told Russia to suppress the opposition in southern and eastern Ukraine to Washington’s stooge government in Kiev. But, as every educated person knows, including the White House, 10 Downing Street, Merkel, and Holland, Russia is not responsible for the separatist unrest in eastern and southern Ukraine. These territories are former constituent parts of Russia that were added to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic by Soviet Communist Party leaders when Ukraine and Russia were two parts of the same country.
The county of Novorossia was established by the Highest Decree of the Russian Empress Ekaterina II in 1764 and existed until 1802, when it was divided into three smaller counties: Nikolaevskaja, Ekaretinoslavskaja and Tavricheskaja counties. The reason for creation of Novorossia countie on the former territories of Slavjano-Serbia was to create a buffer zone against Osmano-Tatar aggression
Below is the maps of the Novorossia:
And here is the Ekaterinoslavskaja county shown against the borders of Ukraine:
Here is what Ukraine consited of until February (Crimea made a lucky escape and re-joined Russia):
Legend:
Light yellow – Zaprozhje – Ukraine before 1654
Orange – Presents of Russian monarchs between 1654 and 1917
Light-green – Novorossia – Lenin’s present in 1922
Medium-green (5+6) – Eastern Galicia – Stalin’s present of 1939-1940 (given to USSR according to Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement)
Dark-green – Crimea – Khrushjov’s present in 1954
Transcarpathia (9) – taken from Czechoslovakia in 1945
Northern Bukovina and Southern Southern (7+8) – captured by USSR in 1940
So bearing in mind that Ukraine is a collection of disparate lands, and remembering the Russian roots of the Cossacks living on the lands of Novorossia, the move performed by Lenin after the coup d’etat of 1917, in creating Ukraine and assigning to it the territories of Novorossia was a direct recipe for creating a problem for future generations.
The people of the East differ to much from their Polish-rooted Western cousins.
And now it’s time to introduce the translation of the blog post Two Ukraines.
(Legend: “Yukraina” to the left; “Yakraina” to the right, with percentage of people who voted for Yushenko or Yanukovich during the last legitimate presidential elections)