Latest Posts by reindeermars - Page 4

From far away, I hear the Cossacks’ reply, Emeric Lhuisset

In 1844, in Chuhuiv, Kharkiv region, Ukrainian artist Illya Rypin (Repin) was born in a cossack family. You can see his admiration of 🇺🇦freedom and its people in one of his greatest works, "Cossacks are Writing a Letter to the Turkish Sultan" (1880–1891)

Today, on August 23th, Ukraine celebrates our National Flag Day :) To celebrate the occasion, let me share a few fun facts about our flag 🇺🇦:

The most common symbolic interpretation of the colors is that blue stands for the clear sky and golden-yellow stands for the fields of wheat. This symbolism is important for us as we are largely an agricultural society and have some of the most fertile soil on Earth, making us an important grain exporter since the times of ancient history. There also once was a religious interpretation of the colors, but it didn't stick.

However, the origin of the colors is much more trivial: they come from the heraldic coat of arms of Lviv city, which became the capital of Rus'/Kyivan Rus'/Ruthenia* after Kyiv fell to the Golden Horde (I am oversimplifying for the sake of brevity), thus dating this color combo back to at least 1256). The founder of Lviv, king Danylo of Galicia, is also known to be the first and only Ruthenian* king crowned by the Pope, which was the conventional claim to legitemacy back then. Somehow he managed to achieve that without converting to catolicism nor contributing to the crusades.

There is a neverending popular debate about the proper order of the colors in the flag: blue on top or yellow on top. One of the most popular arguments is the XX century pictures that showcase what seems like a 🇺🇦 flag with yellow on top; however, this misunderstanding largely comes frome the fact that the black-and-white cameras of that time made yellow colors appear darker than blue. Some people also argue that the flag should be flipped over because of feng shui.

During the soviet times, owning a 🇺🇦 flag was a criminal offence that could lead you to up to 2 years of prison time.

In the current russo-ukrainian war the 🇺🇦 remains a symbol of freedom and resistance to russian occupation. During the occupation of Kherson region, people would tie blue and yellow ribbons in public spaces to showcase that they do not yield to ru occupants. Although this act seems small in the grand scale of things, even such resistance was extremely dangerous if caught - owning any ukrainian symbols is a reason enough for russians to accuse you of being a spy and send you to torture basement. The start of the popular movement is attributed to Nisar Akhmad - a ukrainian activist of Afgani origin.

Even before the full-scale invasion, the flag was used as a symbol of resisting russian occupation - back in 2019 on the Constitution Day a 🇺🇦 flag was raised in the center of occupied Donetsk - an act that would, simply put, doom you with a death sentence in the russia-orchestrated terrorist quasi-respublics. The willingness of the people to risk their life for this act of resistance showcases how empty the russian propaganda about ''russian Donbas'' really is. Donetsk waits for ukrainian liberation to this day.

One of the most worldwide famous ukrainian pictures, Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks by Ilja Repin is full of ukrainian sybolism and "easter eggs"; including the ukrainian flag sneaked into the picture - you can see it in the top left quarter on one of the spears. This is historically accurate, as Zaporozhian Cossacks would often don the blue-and-yellow colors when going into battle. The picture itself is full of symbolism and political commentary, and, frankly said, deserves a full post of its own - but to put it short, Ilya Repin, who is often presented as a ''russian artist'' by russians, is actually a descendant of ukrainian cossacks, and has modeled all of the people on the picture on important Ukrainian political figers. And the picture itself was written in response to the Ems Decree - the law that banned ukrainian language from public use in the cultural sphere. If you haven't yet experienced the dramatic reading of the letter in question, narrated by one and only Peter Capaldi, please treat yourself and watch it today.

*Rus' (Русь) is the name of the medieval country in the Eastern Europe that was vaguely centered around the territory of modern Ukraine. If you are confused about the name and how is Rus' different from russia - this confusion is intentional. The chiefdom of muscowy, which was founded at least 400 years after the foundation of Kyivan Rus' and was the vassal of the Golden Horde for the most part, has appropriated the name (''Ρωσία'' is just a greek version of ''rus'') to falsify the inheritance of the high crown of Kyiv, which in actuality has gone to the western branch of the bloodline through Danylo of Galych to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (once again, oversimplifying very long and complex history for the sake of brevity). muscovies haven't been using the term ''russia'' to describe themselves before the 15th century, and all the earlier mentions of this term chronicled by foreign sources (e.g., the Byzantine empire) refer to the Kyivan Rus'.