The Lviv Regional Council too has voted in favor of motion to Ukraine’s government, proposing to use the name Muscovy instead of Russia in official documents, public discussion and media. Russians, respectively, should officially be referred to as “Muscovites”.
The documents says: “For the past several hundred years, our northeastern neighbor, who is constantly encroaching on our territory, has been illegally using the stolen state and geographical name “Russia.”
300 years ago, after a series of victories over Sweden and the conclusion of the Treaty of Nishtad, on October 22, 1721, Peter I renamed the Moscow Kingdom to Russia, and proclaimed himself emperor.
Maps and atlases of the 15th, 16th and even 18th centuries do not show the country as Russia, only as Muscovy. The Moscow state was widely referred to as Muscovy, Muscovy, and sometimes even Tartary.
At the end of the 18th century, Russia occupied the entire territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and a large part of Poland, and Catherine II was faced with the task of finding a legal justification for the occupation. Therefore, there was a falsification of history to justify Russia’s claims to foreign lands:
- historical documents were altered and the peoples inhabiting Muscovy were shown as united with Slavs;
- the history of the struggle of national liberation Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish movements, which have always dreamed of becoming one country, is invented;
- the myth of Russia’s leadership as a Slavic country is spread
There are many instances in world history of countries changing name. […]
The change of the name of the Moscow Empire posed a serious challenge to the identity of the Ukrainian people and is a justification for the occupation of part of the territory of modern Ukraine.”
A similar motion has been passed by the Rivne City Council too.
Ukraine’s reorientation after the Maidan revolution in 2013 has been reshaping the entire perception of Ukrainian identity and her relations with her neighbours.
EAST AND WEST 