Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 7 – Across what is
now the Russian Federation, there are various places where a century ago there were
significant and, in some cases, overwhelmingly Ukrainian populations. These
were known in Ukrainian as “wedges,” and the largest and most famous o these
was in the Far East, the Zelyony klin
or “Green Wedge.”
(For background on these places, see
windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-real-wedge-issue-ukrainian-regions-in.html,
windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/06/window-on-eurasia-zelenyi-klin-isnt.html
and afterempire.info/2017/09/08/zeleni-klin/,
and the sources cited therein.)
The Soviets and the post-Soviet
Russians have done everything they could to suppress any memory of these places
as Ukrainian outposts, in many cases forcibly reidentifying ethnic Ukrainians
as Russians, which in the case of the Zelyony
klin reduced the share of Ukrainians in the population from 83 percent in
the early 1920s to three percent now.
But a certain historical memory
continues, and it has now surfaced in an unusual way. A teacher in Russian School No. 30 in the
city of Ussurisk in Primorsky kray presented her students with an award showing
the Ukrainian coat of arms and flag (politikus.ru/v-rossii/108376-dezhavyu-v-kemerovskoy-oblasti-vruchali-gramoty-s-ukrainskoy-simvolikoy.html
and www.sibreal.org/a/29272081.html).
The teacher made this “mistake,” the
After Empire portal says, when she sought the symbols on the Internet. But given Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,
this was no laughing matter for local officials who viewed it as anything but
funny that a teacher should give students a certificate “with ‘a
fascist-Banderite’ Trident” (afterempire.info/2018/06/06/gramota/).
“In fact, of course, there wasn’t
any mistake,” the portal continues. “For as is well-known a century ago,
Ukrainians formed a majority of the population of the Far East and during the
years of the Civil War, they even attempted to create [in that region] their
own Zelyony Klin Republic.”
That is something that clearly not
everyone there has forgotten.
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