The Kremlin continues to equate the concepts of "Rus" and "Russia", ignoring historical "truism" in order to "feel comfortable in the historical field".
This opinion was expressed to the "Observer" by a senior researcher at the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, former head of the SBU archive Sergei Kokin.
According to him, the origin of the terms "Rus" and "Russia" "long ago described by historians". It has long been proven that "between Russia and Russia can not be equated". "The name of the ancient Kiev state was Rus, and its inhabitants called themselves Rusich. In fact, the very word "Russia" began to be used only from the time of Peter the Great, before that there was "Muscovy", there was direct borrowing, "Kokin recalled..
He also added: "Under Peter I all the elite were from Ukraine, they were the bearers of that very Russianness. This gave grounds for talking about the empire as such ".
"Then a well-known theory was developed that Kievan Rus is the" cradle of three fraternal peoples ", although the same Grushevsky in his works showed that the development of each nation - Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian - went in its own way, under the influence of various geopolitical factors And so on, "- continued the historian. In this context, he drew attention to the fact that "not a single average Russian understands the Ukrainian or other Slavic language, what kind of" one people "is this? Language is already an indicator of".
Answering the question why, despite these "truism", in the Kremlin allow themselves such illiterate statements, Kokin suggested: "Apparently, they are so comfortable to think that this is" one people ". They feel more comfortable in this historical field ".
As it was written, the president of Russia Vladimir Putin during a joint press conference with the French president said that Yaroslav the Wise was a "Russian prince". In addition, he remembered his daughter Anna Yaroslavna, who was the queen of France, also assuring that she had a Russian origin.