What is actually new is the Belarusian national identity. For centuries they used to be "Lithuanians", now they accuse Lithuania of stealing it and say they were the real Lithuanians, a bit like the situation of Greece and (Northern) Macedonia. Or generally Ruthenians, if not just "Locals" (yes, you read it right - there were very many of such nationless marshdweller Miejscowi selfidentified in the Polish interwar census in today's Western Belarus).
Meanwhile the Cossack love of freedom, and unruliness, was legendary. (Of course not all Ukrainians are of Cossack ancestry, but the nationalists will all claim they have such. https://youtube.com/watch?v=-a4GXV1Y0MQ is a catchy warsong about just that.)
Yanukovych killed a few thousand
A hundred. (The "heavenly hundred", where hundred, the sotnia, is a traditional Cossack warband force.)
Ukraine is Russian Texas. There is a unique identity centered around general unruliness, but it's also an imperial territory and it would be extremely threatening for a rival empire from the other side of the world to claim it.
Maaaan, the place had been full with EXTREME TOTAL ABSOLUTE HARDCORE nationalists before you were even born.
Resulted in https://www.president.pl/news/this-is-one-of-the-most-tragic-and-painful-pages-of-polish-history-during-world-war-ii,36759
What is actually new is the Belarusian national identity. For centuries they used to be "Lithuanians", now they accuse Lithuania of stealing it and say they were the real Lithuanians, a bit like the situation of Greece and (Northern) Macedonia. Or generally Ruthenians, if not just "Locals" (yes, you read it right - there were very many of such nationless marshdweller Miejscowi selfidentified in the Polish interwar census in today's Western Belarus).
Meanwhile the Cossack love of freedom, and unruliness, was legendary. (Of course not all Ukrainians are of Cossack ancestry, but the nationalists will all claim they have such. https://youtube.com/watch?v=-a4GXV1Y0MQ is a catchy warsong about just that.)
A hundred. (The "heavenly hundred", where hundred, the sotnia, is a traditional Cossack warband force.)
Not going to read and nickpick the rest honestly.
Ukraine is Russian Texas. There is a unique identity centered around general unruliness, but it's also an imperial territory and it would be extremely threatening for a rival empire from the other side of the world to claim it.
It's because they have replaced the Eastern Ukrainians after killing them off or deporting elsewhere as "kulaks".