Are you calling me a Tatar?

[Alatriste]

From The Economist

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15810902&source=most_commented

You say Lwów, I say Lviv
A guide to Eastern Europe's most tedious arguments

Apr 1st 2010 | From The Economist online

LAST week’s column dealt with the arcane name squabble between Macedonia (aka FYROM) and Greece. This piece was soon the most-commented on the Economist’s website. That was no thanks to the brilliance of the prose and the lucidity of argument. The subject was one of those issues that attracts bigots, scaremongers and polemicists, with a vanishingly tangential relationship to truth, logic and courtesy.

The article described the row as “the most tedious dispute in the Balkans”. The ex-communist region sets a high standard in such matters, so the epithet is not to be bestowed lightly. Here is an outsider’s guide to a few of the other rows. All the arguments below are a) historically plausible and b) strike most outsiders as quite mad.

Moldova/Romania A sizeable number of Romanians believe that what is today called the Republic of Moldova is nothing more than a lost province of real Romania, snatched by Stalin out of spite (along with northern Bukovina, which went to Ukraine). The sooner this “pretend Moldova” rejoins Romania the better. Handing out passports to as many Moldovans as possible brings this nearer.

Bulgaria/Macedonia From a certain Bulgarian-nationalist viewpoint, the idea of a discrete Macedonian ethnicity or language is a nonsense—rather like defining “Texan” as an ethnicity in America. Yugoslav Macedonia was a historical accident, and the sooner the detritus joins Bulgaria the better. After that, it will be time to liberate the brother-Slavs of northern Greece.

Slovakia/Hungary According to hardline Slovak nationalists, the whole idea of a Hungarian ethnic minority in the country is absurd. These people (many of whom are Gypsies anyway) should shut up and get on with being Slovaks: ie, speaking Slovak and thinking like Slovaks. Any other behaviour is a sign that they are still imprisoned by their imperial mindset. If they don’t like living in Slovakia, they should go back to Hungary (where, incidentally, the Slovak-speaking minority has dwindled to nothing—proving that it is the Magyars who are the real ethno-nationalists).

Lithuania/Poland Not many people realise this, but most of the people speaking Polish and Belarussian in the area in and around Vilnius are not really Slavs but polonised Lithuanians, the legacy of centuries of forced assimilation. That is a terrible fate, so the right (and kindest) thing to do is to depolonise these people and relithuanianise them. A good way to start is to make sure that they do not get trapped into using foreign Polish letters and silly spellings when writing their names. It is Adomas Mickevicius, not Adam Mickiewicz. Let nobody forget it.

Ukraine/Poland Anyone who spells the capital of Galicia as Lwów is a Polish nationalist who bayonets Ukrainian babies for fun. Anyone who says it is spelled Lviv is a Ukrainian fascist who bayonets Polish babies for fun. Anyone who spells it Lvov is a Soviet mass murderer. And anyone who calls it Lemberg is a Nazi. See you in Leopolis for further discussion.

Among the runners-up: “Tatar” is a derogatory and invented name for the inhabitants of modern Tatarstan, who are in fact the descendants of Volga Bulgars. Kievan Rus was not Russian. Any talk of a Ruthenian nation is ill-informed, stupid, possibly mad and the product of Muscovite attempts to split and destroy Ukraine.

Outside pressure has mostly calmed these arguments within formal politics. But on the internet the rows still rage, with tortured facts, arguments and syntax, all mixed with vituperative insults, phoney politeness and seemingly RANDOM Use Of Capital letters. There is a whiff of pyjamas-at-noon, and of people who check their emails in the small hours. Time to get a life?

Note from Alatriste himself: Leopolis? I smell dirty Byzanteens at work

[The Larch]

Somebody should post that at P'dox OT and see what happens. 

[Solmyr]

Also see: Danzig/Gdansk.

[Tamas]

Oh how I would enjoy this part of the world if I wasn't living in it.

[Faeelin]

Also see: Danzig/Gdansk.

Does anyone really argue over this? What with the expulsion of all Germans, I thought it was pretty much accepted. (And the Germans feeling guilty about the whole attempted genocide of Poland thing).

[Neil]

Also see: Danzig/Gdansk.

Does anyone really argue over this? What with the expulsion of all Germans, I thought it was pretty much accepted. (And the Germans feeling guilty about the whole attempted genocide of Poland thing).

They should feel guilty for having failed.  More than anybody else, the Nazis are guilty for having subjected the world to Martinus.  Other than his parents, I suppose.

Still, a lot of problems would be solved if the old Hohenzollern, Habsburg and Ottoman empires were reconstructed.

[Malthus]

Kievan Rus was not Russian. Any talk of a Ruthenian nation is ill-informed, stupid, possibly mad and the product of Muscovite attempts to split and destroy Ukraine.

I hear rants on this subject from my wife and her relations often enough. Any historical work or even novel that (somewhat anachronistically) refers to the Rus as "Russian" sends them into a fury.

[Razgovory]

The EU is a more hopeful source of help. It is good at solving problems by being boring. Faced with the prospect of a near-death experience in a meeting room in Brussels, people often discover new possibilities for compromise.

[Solmyr]

I hear rants on this subject from my wife and her relations often enough. Any historical work or even novel that (somewhat anachronistically) refers to the Rus as "Russian" sends them into a fury.

The best part is, there is no other handy adjective in English that could substitute for "something or someone from Kievan Rus".

Anyway, the Ukrainians have only themselves to blame. Fuckers got conquered by ancestors of Martinus, and when they finally managed to free themselves they received heavy Muscovite help.

[Solmyr]

As for Gdansk/Danzig, eleven pages of archives (Lvov/Lviv has one). I rest my case.

[derspiess]

I never put 2 & 2 together re: Lemberg = Lviv 

[Solmyr]

I never put 2 & 2 together re: Lemberg = Lviv 

Germans tend to give weird and totally unrelated names to places they occupy.

[Zanza]

As for Gdansk/Danzig, eleven pages of archives (Lvov/Lviv has one). I rest my case.

Some tards fighting on Wikipedia is different from governments making policy based on names.

[Zanza]

Germans tend to give weird and totally unrelated names to places they occupy.

What would be a related name? What does Lviv (or whatever) mean?

[Solmyr]

Tards fighting on Wikipedia are often representative of the wider government policy where Eastern Europe is concerned.

As for Lvov, call it Löwenburg or something.