Stanford Politics

In 2014, unmarked Russian troops invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula in southern Ukraine. The justification behind it, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was simple. Ukrainians and Russians are one people. Ukraine and Russia are one nation. It was not an “invasion,” but rather a “reclaiming” of territory. 

Ukraine has been a sovereign country since it declared independence in 1991 during the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Ukrainians have been fighting to separate Ukraine from its eastern neighbor. Less than a month before Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea, the Ukrainian people rose in a turbulent revolution against ex-president Victor Yanukovych after he turned down a trade agreement with the European Union in favor of one with Russia. Roughly 125 people died fighting for Ukraine’s liberty during the Maidan Revolution, and more continue to die every day on Ukraine’s eastern border as the war with Russia rages on. After the invasion, Putin has referred to the newly claimed territory on the eastern border as “New Russia.” The international community has widely condemned Putin’s actions in Ukraine and has attempted to stand with Ukrainian independence. Yet many allies are still making a crucial error that enforces Russian domination over the region. 

Two little letters could make a significant difference in helping Ukraine establish sovereignty on the global stage and separate itself from being considered “little Russia”: the “yi” in Kyiv. Following the increasing emphasis on Ukrainian cultural distinction and independence, the Ukrainian government and people have been demanding that the spelling is corrected. Many global newspapers, organizations, and people around the world are still using the traditional Russian spelling of Ukraine’s capital city: Kiev. 

The intersection between language and Ukrainian sovereignty can be traced back centuries. Between the 18th and 20th centuries, Ukraine belonged to the Russian empire. However, prior to that, its lands belonged to Poland, who inherited the land in 1569 from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Before colonial rule, Ukraine was home to the Kyivan Rus, an extremely prosperous and flourishing state. This made control of Ukrainian territory extremely valuable, for its fertile soil and natural resources. Yet the concept of a strong, unified Ukrainian identity made the country more difficult to control; while the Poles and the Russians both wanted to claim Ukraine as their own, it was clear that Ukraine was neither Polish nor Russian. It was Ukrainian. It was in the interest of imperial powers to wipe out that distinct Ukrainian identity and culture.  

As described by Anne Applebaum in her book Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine, during Russian colonization, the Russian empire identified Ukrainian as a primary target, barring Ukrainian from being used in state schools despite it allowing the use of other non-Russian dialects. Russians treated the Ukrainian language as a dialect of the Russian language — not an independent one, despite their clear differences. Because for a large part of Ukraine’s history the country was colonized, Ukrainian was mostly spoken in the countryside as the urban centers adapted to the modes of the colonizers. The restrictions on the use of Ukrainian took a toll on the Ukrainian national movement, and Ukrainians were demoralized. They had to switch to Russian in order to survive. It was no longer useful or practical to speak Ukrainian: because most of the people occupying high-power positions were Russian, they hired Russian speaking candidates. Well-respected and influential positions all required the use of Russian. Ukrainian was being made obsolete, and it became harder and harder to stay afloat without switching to Russian.

When the Soviet Union came to power, its measures against Ukrainian sovereignty became even more drastic. Applebaum also depicts the process of Russification that continued in the early 1930s. The plan was to exterminate Ukraine by starvation and resettle the land with Russians. This plan was almost successful: Stalin’s “holodomor,” or orchestrated famine in Ukraine is said to have taken the lives of up to seven million Ukrainians. These losses were significant, particularly because most affected were rural Ukrainians who had the strongest sense of Ukrainian identity. Their traditions, songs, foods, were almost extinguished along with them. This is because of a concentrated effort, both by the Russian empire and the Soviet Union, to destroy the Ukrainian nation.

Now, once again, we see the trend continue with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The 2014 Revolution of Dignity in Kyiv was a major moment for Ukrainian national pride; Ukrainians flooded the streets, proudly waving Ukrainian flags, and the protestors’ battle cry — “glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes” — echoed throughout the country. It was a direct threat to Putin’s influence: the public was willing to put their lives at risk rather than continue allowing Russia to control them. Roughly a hundred protestors (now dubbed the Heavenly Hundred) paid that ultimate price. Putin’s invasion, if anything, only heightened Ukrainian national pride, as war often does. 

With Ukraine now making headlines around the world because of its involvement in President Trump’s impeachment, media outlets are being forced to reconsider the way that they portray Ukraine. With increased attention on the importance of military aid to Ukraine, the way that media outlets choose to report on Ukraine, and particularly how they choose to spell Kyiv, becomes especially relevant.

The U.S. government recognized Kyiv as the official spelling and Kiev as an alternate spelling in its most recent 2016 U.S. Government Publishing Office Style Manual, and media outlets have begun to make changes as well. The Associated Press made an announcement in August that it will be updating its spelling to the traditional Ukrainian spelling of Kyiv, citing it as an “important adaptation” because of the spelling’s significance to Ukraine’s “current status.” On Oct. 3, The Wall Street Journal published that after “careful consideration” it will be joining the Associated Press in its use of the Ukrainian spelling of Kyiv. On Nov. 18, the New York Times announced that it too will be revising its spelling and will no longer be using “Kiev” in response to Yuri Shevchuk, a lecturer in Ukrainian at Columbia University, who explained that the correct spelling ought to be used out of respect for the country, as well as that the Russian spelling is a sign of “old colonialist inertia.”

The difference in spelling may seem like a trivial matter on the surface, but it represents a deep history of oppression. Russian and other colonial powers have spent centuries making sure that there isn’t a Ukrainian national identity recognized on a global scale, and they are not willing to relinquish their rule. The global community is perpetuating their efforts by not recognizing the correct, Ukrainian spelling of its own capital city. The inaction in changing the way that global organizations spell Kyiv, despite Ukrainian pleas for correction, reflect an attitude of indifference around the world towards Ukrainian statehood. Major American news channels such as CNN, CBS, and Fox News have yet to acknowledge the spelling change. In 2018, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry launched a global social media campaign, #KyivNotKiev, in an attempt to bring awareness to the correct spelling of the city. In other formerly colonized countries, name changes were widely accepted. Ceylon became Sri Lanka, Bombay became Mumbai. Yet Ukraine’s objections do not seem worthy of the same consideration, as the global media has not taken action to change their language until this year. Despite years of Ukraine’s requests for international recognition of their language as official, major newspapers such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have only recently begun to listen. While their changes have marked the beginning of a turning point, it is still just the beginning. 

How the world views Ukraine is important, and not just for Ukrainians — Ukraine’s independence has been critical to American foreign policy. 

As Bill Taylor, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, described, Ukrainian independence “affects the world that we live in, that our children will grow up in and our grandchildren.” He elaborated that “Ukraine is on the front line” of a long lasting struggle to maintain the post-World War II global peace. If we allow Russia to seize Ukraine, this order will collapse. 

Continuing to refer to Ukraine’s capital city in its Russian manner is just one more concession of Ukraine to the Kremlin, and along with that comes tangible consequences. If Ukrainian statehood was more concretely defined, perhaps it would not have been as easy for Russia to dispute the borders and annex the Crimean peninsula. The Ukrainian vs. Russian language distinction was particularly important in Putin’s decision to “reclaim” Crimea and eastern Ukraine, with Putin claiming that his actions were to defend the rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine. Thanks to centuries of effort by colonial powers, especially during the 1930s, the Russian language is heavily used in parts of Ukraine, thus allowing Putin to “justify” the annexation and finally finish the process of Russification of Ukraine carefully orchestrated by Stalin a century ago. 

Kyiv is the correct, Ukrainian way to spell the capital city. Kiev is the literal translation of the Russian spelling of the city. Using that as the widely accepted way to refer to the capital is dismissive of Ukrainian autonomy.  It implies the Russian way to spell Ukraine’s capital city is “correct” and the Ukrainian way isn’t, despite that being the officially recognized and used spelling by the Ukrainian government. Those two letters embody an existential threat to the Ukrainian nation, and the way that the world chooses to spell could have significant consequences; one spelling would entrench the old colonial values and depict Ukraine as simply a Russian relic, while one would take a stand in supporting Ukraine’s independence and statehood. By continuing to use the Russian spelling one becomes complicit in the centuries-long Russian effort to erase Ukrainian national identity. This battle for two letters is just a microcosm of the historic and still ongoing cultural battle that Russia has waged for Ukraine, and the outcome will have consequences on the future of Europe and the international order.

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Catarina Buchatskiy, a freshman, is a staff writer for Stanford Politics.