6 May, 20:24
Modern attempts to reduce Ukrainian identity to an exclusively “civic” form — as Antonina Poletti did in her statement about preserving the brand of a slave on the face of the Ukrainian nation — are not only methodologically flawed but also historically unfounded. They ignore the fundamental fact: Ukrainians are a living, formed ethno-cultural nation whose history of statehood begins at least from the 9th century — long before the emergence of any “Russian” political identity.
Kyiv in the 9th Century — the Origin Point of East European Statehood
In 860, Princes Askold and Dir, rulers of Kyiv, conducted a successful naval campaign against Constantinople. This was not a pirate raid — it was a military-political action organized by a state structure that had a center, an army, diplomacy, and a foreign policy objective.
Byzantine sources (notably Simeon Logothetes and Patriarch Photius) clearly identify the “Rhos” as a distinct force possessing hierarchy and the capacity to make agreements.
Photius, in his letter to the eastern patriarchs, testifies that after the campaign there was a baptism of the “Rhos,” which predates the official baptism of 988.
This early form of statehood exhibits all the features of political subjectivity: military autonomy, diplomatic treaties, and sacred legitimization.
Rus’ as the Origin of Ukrainian, Not “Russian,” Identity
Throughout the 9th–13th centuries, the political, ecclesiastical, and cultural core of the East Slavic world was concentrated exclusively in Kyiv, Pereiaslav, and Chernihiv. The cities that today constitute the ethnic territory of Ukraine are the true heirs of Rus’.
Moscow at that time did not exist at all (its first mention is dated to 1147), and the territories of modern Russia were a periphery or a zone of Finno-Ugric settlement.
All the most important chronicles of Rus’ (The Primary Chronicle, the Kyiv Synopsis) were created in Kyiv or the cultural sphere of Chernihiv.
The metropolis that governed the Rus’ Church had its residence in Kyiv and was never officially transferred to Moscow after the Mongol-Tatar invasion.
Metropolitan Petro (†1326) settled in Moscow but did not receive canonical permission from Constantinople to move the see. In his title, the metropolitan continued to sign as “Metropolitan of Kyiv.”
In 1448, Moscow unilaterally appointed its own metropolitan — Jonah — without the blessing of Constantinople.
In 1589, Moscow received its own patriarchate — the Patriarchate of Moscow.
The “Russian Nation” — a Simulacrum on a Religious Basis
The concept of “Russianness” in the Muscovite state was formed only in the 15th–17th centuries, after the usurpation of the name “Rus’” through the ecclesiastical project of the “Third Rome.” This narrative is based on:
confessional identity (Orthodoxy + subjection to the Tsar);
sacralization of political power (the Tsar as God’s vicar);
the imposition of the historical heritage of Rus’ without geographic or cultural continuity.
Thus, the “Russian nation” is not an ethnic or historical continuity, but an artificial construct created by church bureaucracy and autocratic power.
The Ukrainian Nation — Heir of Rus’, Not a Modern Construct
The attempt to reduce Ukrainian identity to a “civic” model is a convenient ideological tool:
either for liberal cosmopolitan thinking that fears ethno-cultural specificity;
or for imperial tradition, which has always fought against Ukrainian distinctiveness, perceiving it as a “threat to the empire.”
In reality, however:
Ukrainians are an ethnic nation, formed on their own land, with their own language, cultural memory, and historical continuity.
Citizenship in Ukraine is derivative of the national core — not a substitute for it.
Conclusion
The Ukrainian nation is not an ideology, not an abstraction, not a product of Muscovite imperial engineering like the “Russians.”
It is an organic historical nation that formed in Kyiv, shed blood at its walls, and inscribed itself in chronicles long before Moscow learned to write.
The so-called “Russian nation” is not a nation in the classical sense. It is a project of state centralism, sacralized through the church and reinforced by force.