Russia Is the Outskirts of Ukraine |
Note: This article is a translation of my Russian-language piece «Россия — это окраина Украины» (“Russia Is the Outskirts of Ukraine”), originally written on December 15, 2025. I postponed translating it because it relies heavily on Russian- and Ukrainian-specific linguistic nuances, semantic layers, and wordplay that are difficult to render naturally in English. This version attempts to preserve not only the meaning of the original text, but also its underlying linguistic logic.
Debunking Ukrainophobic Myths
One of the most persistent Ukrophobic (Ukrainophobic) myths promoted by Russia sounds like this:
«Украина — это окраина России» “Ukraine is the outskirts of Russia.”
It is repeated with self-satisfied confidence, as if it were an established fact. As “proof,” two arguments are presented:
the word Ukraina supposedly derives from the Russian word okraina (“outskirts”);
Malorossiya (“Little Russia” — a geographical and historical term used to describe Ukraine) is interpreted as “small Russia,” something secondary, whereas Velikorossiya (“Great Russia”) is seen as the “real,” the “main” Russia.
At first glance, the scheme seems logical. But only until we look into history and language — there, where these myths fall apart literally at the seams.
Little and Great: everything is the opposite
Let us begin with the terms Little Rus’ and Great Rus’. In modern consciousness, the words “little” and “great” are automatically read as “small” and “big,” “secondary” and “main.” But in medieval Byzantine and church tradition, this meant something entirely different.
“Little” is the original, root, historical territory.
“Great” is the expanded, colonized, peripheral one.
Examples are easy to find even today:
Little Moscow — the historical center.
Greater Moscow — the agglomeration with suburbs.
Greater Tel Aviv — not “more important,” but simply broader.
Greater London, Greater Boston — the same logic.
Little Russia is the historical core of Rus’, the territory of the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Pereyaslav lands.
Great Russia is the later periphery, the developed, settled north-eastern lands centered around Moscow.
In other words, if we translate this into modern language without ideological distortions, we get a paradoxically simple formula:
«Россия — это окраина Украины» “Russia is the outskirts of Ukraine.”
What the word........