Thanks Sherman. The use of “the” in referring to Ukraine does go back a long way - to the 1700’s and at least as far as the days of Catherine and the patrician of Poland (a large portion of which is now called Ukraine). While the Russian language does not have articles like “a” or “the” many of the Russian broadcasts and discussions do make a point of using the “the” article in English messaging.
In reference to Khrushchev going back to the Ukraine in 1937,you are correct. I wrote this from memory and my time line was off. Khrushchev was a senior party member in the Ukraine in the late 1920s. In 1929 he followed Kaganovich to Moscow where he was very active in helping Stalin purge the Moscow party leadership beginning around 1934, and returned to the Ukraine as party chief in 1937. I should have gone back and checked before publishing. Going back to the Black Book of Communism, the Great Terror occurred from 1936-1938 and Khrushchev was the point man in the purge of the local communist party leaders in the Ukraine — in essence ensuring the executions of the executioners from the Holodomor, a very Soviet means of erasing evidence of atrocities. The Holodomor was part of the collectivization of farms (1932-33).
With reference to the Ukrainians committing the atrocities during the Holodomor — that is partly true. But more on that later.
But I digress. Between my timeline gaffe, and the other arguments in this post over the semantics in the use of “the” before the name of a country or region, this is turning out to be the worst work I have ever published. While I am embarrassed and humbled, my real regret is the message of what the Ukrainians have to fear from post- Soviet/ Russian domination has been lost in the discussion it created.
Khrushchev was an ethnic Russian born in the Eastern Ukraine.
He says so HIMSELF IN HIS MEMOIR. He notes his internal passport was marked “Russian”
“’I myself am a Russian and wouldn’t want to slight the Russian people, but 1 must attribute our success in the restoration of Ukrainian agriculture and the reconstruction of Ukrainian industry to the Ukrainian people themselves.”
No problemo.
Looks like I screwed up my own self about K. being Ukrainian ethnically. Have read it many times, but it appears to be inaccurate.