The Russian rulers issued decrees to burn every old book in Ukrainian, to ban education in Ukrainian, to prohibit printing books and staging plays in Ukrainian. All in all, in 300 years several hundred of such orders were written. Meanwhile, they aimed to promote the Russian language, e.g. school teachers of Russian were paid bonuses in Soviet Ukraine.
Nowadays English historians mostly rely on the Russian view of Kyiv history; it was created in the 19th century to the Russian emperor’s order – again with the sole aim to justify his/her majestic rule. As Muscovy’s history had nothing to boast of, it had no roots, and it was a product of plots, uprisings, and deception, that-day historians had no other way out than to appropriate the history of Kyivan Rus. Previously even the name was stolen: Muscovy changed its name to Russia due to the decree by emperor Peter the First.
The annals by Ukrainian Cossacks keep notes of them perceiving Moscow as completely different civilization, a society that possessed features of Asian life approach. Muscovites denied right to the private property, the wife of the boyar’s servant was owned by boyar too; women were denied any rights, and education system did not exist.
The 19th century Russian Empire had voracious appetite; they approved doctrine of pan-Slavic unity under Russian rule which implied plans of Balkans conquest.
The Soviet Union, especially after WWII, developed another doctrine – that of creating a nationless “Soviet people”. Of course, it had to be based on the Russian culture. Although the local national cultures of Soviet republics appeared to be developing and flourishing, each year they were losing their identity assimilating with the Russian culture. A century ago a Russian would never call borsch his/her national dish; but the Soviets stole cultural symbols to solidify new cultural formation.
As CIA reported in 1975, despite 80% of Soviet Ukraine population were Ukrainians, higher education was at lest 65% in Russian; the same blow was done to book printing, newspaper circulation and schools. Despite the fact that in the end of the 1980s proportion of Ukrainian and Russian schools in Kyiv was almost equal, it should be remembered that one class of Ukrainian was enough to call school a Ukrainian one, even if it had 5 Russian classes the same year.
The Soviet language and culture policy has ended in Ukrainian parents having Russian children; not only they were Russian-speaking but they de facto belonged to the Russian culture. At censuses more and more people identified themselves as Russians, mostly because it was prestigious and fashionable. They wanted to belong to the ruling nation. The worst thing was that Ukrainians had to prove their loyalty – and that made them even more hawkish in persecution of Ukrainian.
Since 1991 the Baltic states managed to restore their identities by introducing strict laws to save their language and culture. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian Parliament was mostly led by the communists in the 1990s. The situation was not dealt with, the MPs seemed to be trying to keep the status quo. As we know that led to the spread of the Russian propaganda which made possible illegal annexation of the Crimea and Russian war in eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The war has caused formation and spread of the new outlook in the Ukrainian society. More than 92% population identifies themselves as Ukrainians now (http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2017/04/12/7141042/). And they are regaining their pride for the Ukrainian language and identity.
