The Ukrainian reaction to Putin's statement about "Russian Anna" demonstrates only how far we have moved away from Russian historical mythology. One of the most grotesque - from the Ukrainian point of view - moments in the speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Versailles was his mention of the Kiev princess and the French Queen Anne Yaroslavna almost as her own predecessor.

For the Russian viewer, there is nothing extraordinary in this statement. Yes, and Putin himself - I'm absolutely sure of that - mentioned Anna Yaroslavna, not trying to hurt Ukrainians at all. Because since in his mind there is no Ukrainian statehood, as he frankly told US President George W. Bush, there is no Ukrainian history either.

The Ukrainian reaction to Putin's statement demonstrates only how far we ourselves are - and quickly-left from Russian historical mythology. We lived in the context of this myth not for decades - centuries, studied it in schools and universities, answered questions in examinations.

In the history that we were taught, Yaroslav the Wise was the "natural predecessor" of the Moscow princes and Russian tsars, and Kievan Rus - the protostate, the vestibule of Moscow Rus. Many of us still live in stereotypes of this myth, when proudly they say to Russians that this is the prince of Kiev Yuri Dolgoruky founded Moscow.

But Yuri Dolgoruky was originally not a Kiev, but Vladimir-Suzdal prince. He - like his son Andrei Bogolyubsky - did not reign in Kiev, but captured and burned Kiev. And Yury Dolgoruky was buried in Kiev not because his Fatherland and patrimony were here, but because he was poisoned by enemies - the Kiev boyars.

There are still many such stereotypes in the perception of history in our minds. But the reaction to Vladimir Putin's statement demonstrates that the society is beginning to reevaluate historical myths, return to historical reality, to normality, to what really was - and not invented by Karamzin or Kliuchevsky to the demand of the Russian royal court.

And this means that we will have a difficult battle for our own history - because the Russians do not intend to refuse their fictions and, I assure you, will never give up, even under the most liberal and democratic authorities.

YaNam will win this battle in Ukraine itself, at the level of education, science and media - because otherwise we will never become a people and will forever remain a population. And we have to win this battle in Europe and the world as a whole - because otherwise we will never become an independent country in the eyes of foreigners with our own past and that's why we have the right to our own future, and we will only look like a more or less successful "variant of Russia".

Original.