Finally, for US, It’s Kyiv Not Kiev – And Moscow Laughs at Washington’s ‘Renaming’ of Ukrainian Capital

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 13 – The United States Board of Geographic Names has announced that from now on, US officials will use the name Kyiv as the Ukrainian capital is called when transliterated from the Ukrainian and not Kiev as it is designated when transliterated from the Russian.

            Although this move comes almost 28 years after Ukraine achieved its independence and can hardly be called precipitous and is consistent with US policy of using names taken from the official language of the country involved and cannot be called an exception, Russian officials, commentators and ordinary Russians are making dismissive comments and jokes about it.

            Many are saying that Washington may “’rename’” the Ukrainian capital but Russia is not going to follow it in doing so (forum-msk.org/material/news/15703644.html, stoletie.ru/lenta/sovet_ssha_pereimenoval_kijev_333.htm and  ura.news/news/1052387450). But others are treating it as the occasion for asserting Russia’s special role and derisive laughter.

            The US decision, which will go into effect on June 17, comes after a campaign by Ukrainian officials and diplomats under the hashtags CorrectUA and Kyiv not Kiev.  But for the time being, the change affects only US officials. Russian officials say they will not change the way they write the name of Ukraine’s capital (newsru.com/russia/13jun2019/kyiv_no.html).

            The Russian government both on its own and via the Inter-Governmental Council on Geodetics and Cartography of the CIS Countries maintains its own list of the proper spelling and transliteration of names. It has declared that regardless of what the Americans do, for Russians, Kiev will remain Kiev (rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/5d021f209a79472748fbf829).

            Other Russian officials reiterated that and dismissed the change as a Ukrainian-American absurdity.  Olga Kovitid of Russia’s Federation Council working group on the defense of state sovereignty said the obsession with names was one more way Ukrainians were avoiding facing up to real problems (russian.rt.com/ussr/news/640693-kiev-ssha-nazvanie-izmenenie).

            Another Russian senator, Aleksey Pushkov, said that this change in the US was of a piece with Ukrainian orthographic changes requiring Russian last names be rewritten. With Kiev becoming Kyiv, he says, “Dmitry Donskoy will be some kind of Dmytro Dons’ky,” the price Ukraine must pay to get IMF loans (twitter.com/Alexey_Pushkov/status/1139088067426496513).

            The Russian blogosphere rapidly filled up with even more dismissive comments about both Ukraine and the United States, although some bloggers offered learned disquisitions on the history of the name of the Ukrainian capital (mk.ru/politics/2019/06/13/polzovateli-socsetey-vysmeyali-pereimenovanie-kieva-amerikancami.html).