#UkraineHistory Ladies & Gentlemen, Below is a new article from a brand new project of The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine entitled “Cartographic Propaganda” by Ukrainian historian Kyrylo Halushko: Ukraine or Malorossiya (Little Russia)? During the 19th century, Ukraine was usually depicted on European maps the way it was done in Russia: St. Petersburg had serious cartographic services, and Europeans used them as their main source of information about the great eastern empire. The Empire put “Malorossiya” on its maps. European publishing houses followed the suit, but anyway added the name that was used in their own 200-year old tradition: “Ukraine”. Sometimes they wrote “Ukraine” instead of “Little Russia”. Let’s look at the two examples. The French “Grand atlas universel physique, historique et politique de geographie ancienne et modern. Dufour Adolphe Hippolyte. Paris: Paulin et Le Chevalier, 1860”, maps of 1854-1860: at the universal geographic map of 1855 Modern Europe (Fig. 1) we see at the same time Ukraine and Malorossiya (Petite Russie). Ukraine covers both banks of mid-Dnipro river, while Malorossiya is located on Dnipro’s left bank only. The Russian doctrine is not completely followed here, it exists along with the usual old name that can be traced back to Guillaume de Beauplan and his map of mid-17th century Ukraine (as we mentioned earlier). Therefore, the joint outline of “Ukraine” and “Little Russia” does not coincide with “Little Russia’s” limits according to Russian administrative division. Malorossiya was never to the west of the Dnipro river, because corresponding Governorate General was located to the east of the river. This means that “Ukraine” was something bigger than “Malorossiya” for French cartographers of the 19th century. The map, just as the maps 200 years ago, identified individual lands of the modern Ukraine: Volynie, Podolie, Russie Rouge. However, there was no common name for all those lands where one nation lived. Maybe the French were too traditional? It’s worthwhile to look at the Germans too. Since mid-19th century, Adolf Schtihler’s atlas became the most popular German educational geographical atlas; with some changes, it was reprinted for another half-century in Germanic countries. The atlas contained the same data from Russia as the French publications. In Schtihler’s atlas, “Ukraine” was also bigger than “Malorossiya” (Kleine Russland). Different versions of the atlas may be displayed; here we use the first Estonian atlas of 1859 as an example fully copied from Schtihler’s work. Here we can see the same outline as at Dufour’s map, but with one name “Ukraine” (Fig. 2). It’s unlikely that the Estonians of the time had any notion of Ukraine, but it’s nice to see the name in their first atlas. The Ukrainians did not get to have such a publication for a very long time. After all, the Russian Empire prohibited the publication of educational materials in Ukrainian. The education in Ukrainian folk language was impossible: Ukrainians – Malorossy (Little Russians), unlike Estonians, were too similar to Russians, therefore, they had to forget their differences.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 17:49:16 +0000
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