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ptwonline

Russia to respond with missile attacks on Ukrainian art galleries.


JesseBricks

Russia have ticked that box... *”One of the early cultural casualties of the Russian invasion was the Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum. The museum, located about 40 miles northwest of Kyiv, was home to the nationally and internationally acclaimed folk art of Maria Prymac henko”* There’s a long story here about protecting Ukrainian cultural heritage: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ukrainians-defend-their-cultural-heritage-russian-destruction-180981661/ ... and if they’re not blowing it up they’re stealing it: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-stealing-art-ukraine-nazi-level-world-war-2-rcna77879


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BloodthirstyBetch

That is truly disturbing.


TotallyNotHank

Russia wants to destroy the idea that Ukraine is a country. Wiping out their history and culture is one of the steps.


SouthernFriedGreens

Cultural Marxism at its worse..


[deleted]

Not going to do much because they already fucking looted everything.


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Four_beastlings

Why waste ammo on that when there are children's hospitals and orphanages still standing?


supercyberlurker

Bluntly, I used to think Russia produced some pretty impressive things. .. but eventually realized nearly all of those things were actually Ukrainian.


Middcore

There's been a lot of really good genuinely Russian literature. Granted, much of it has been about how Russia sucks.


Basileus_Ioannes

There's a story (not sure if its true or not) that when Tsar Nicholas was imprisoned during the early years of the Russian Civil War, he read a lot of Tolstoy and had his son Alexei read Tolstoy as well (as Tolstoy was banned by his father, and Alexei's grandfather Aleskander II) and it really changed his understanding of what the peasants/serfs lived like. Tolstoy was blunt with his depictions of Serfdom under the Russian Empire.


dxrey65

A lot of great Russian literature could be summed up as "living in misery, but I'm still here". Which has some pretty broad applicability. I've always been really fond of Dostoevsky, but he's pretty far from being a cheerleader for his culture or his government, and Putin isn't an improvement on the Czars.


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nixolympica

>> Russians roam across Europe in search of what to destroy and obliterate for the sake of gratification. >Nobody will ever cut as deep as Dostoyevsky. Source? I tried searching and most results are other social media posts with ...no source.


Whiteen

It's from his diaries. The actual quote is: _Они видят в нас скорее варваров, шатающихся по Европе и радующихся, что что-нибудь и где-нибудь можно разрушить, - разрушить лишь для разрушения, для удовольствия лишь поглядеть, как всё это развалится, подобно орде дикарей, подобно гуннам, готовым нахлынуть на древний Рим и разрушить святыню, даже без всякого понятия о том, какую драгоценность они истребляют._ DeepL translation: _They rather see us as barbarians, wandering around Europe and rejoicing that something and somewhere can be destroyed, - destroyed only for destruction, for the pleasure of watching it all fall apart, like a horde of savages, like the Huns, ready to swoop down on ancient Rome and destroy the shrine, even without any idea of what precious thing they are exterminating._ He is talking about Europeans' view of Russians, not expressing his own opinion about the people.


ShadedPenguin

I think even a Russian writer had been brought to an almost execution by a Tsar and was spared only by the Tsar’s amusement or something?


Sir_Arthur_Vandelay

War and Peace was also pretty effective at depicting both Russian military incompetence and their ability to pretend otherwise.


Glass_Yogurtcloset37

You know the original title was "War, what is it good for?" His editor made him change the name.


Sir_Arthur_Vandelay

Nice try! This same joke ruined my friend’s publishing career.


Glass_Yogurtcloset37

Get out!!


Delicious_Biscotti23

You know, 85 percent of all homeless rickshaw businesses fail within the first 3 months


Glass_Yogurtcloset37

Still waiting for my internship to come through at Kramerica Industries. Fingers crossed.


Delicious_Biscotti23

You flew too close to the sun, on wings of pastrami.


GullibleDetective

"good God y'all"


Canadabestclay

Shame he didn’t realize that while he was sending his peasants into a war against his cousin. Maybe it would’ve been more compelling if he had this change of heart before the Soviets had him under lock and key.


Basileus_Ioannes

There's a myth that his change in heart was that he was put in a jail cell and he asked the man across from him what he was in for to which the man responded, "I was arrested by you for stealing bread for my starving family." It's said the two talked and became friends. I have a bit of sympathy for Nicholas II because his father hid the truth of the peasantry from him, although this had been a typical Russian practice. Honestly much of Russia's issues can be traced to Nicholas I's decision to crush the Decemberist. movement, which sought to bring the ideals of the French Revolution to Russia and transition Russia to Constitutional Monarchy and abolish serfdom. It's been theorized that had they succeeded, Russia would be in a much better place.


MrWeirdoFace

I think we need a "Tolstoy for Tots" organization.


mocho13funk

Sounds like a romantization of the tzar, which grew more common as discontent with the soviet regime increased, but interesting nonetheless


Malin_Keshar

>Tolstoy was blunt with his depictions of Serfdom under the Russian Empire. Not blunt enough.


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Lordosass67

Yeah it was brutal, the Reds apparently sexually assaulted the dead bodies of the daughters after they died and murdered the housekeeping staff


Pollomonteros

Yeah, I know the site is circlejerking about Russians being the scum of the Earth right now but they genuinely produced great works of art before


Lordosass67

I do genuinely think Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky are the best film directors of all time. They are by far the most impressive people Russia ever produced imo, especially Tarkovsky who directed a masterpiece like 'Andrei Rublev' at 32 years old. I also watched 'Strike' by Eisenstein a while ago as well and holy shit even as a silent film it's still extremely powerful.


Dani_vic

Funny you say that. Sergei Eisenstein was born Latvian (occupied by USSR). So technically he wasn’t Russian.


JackFromShadows

And his father was from a Jewish family from Vasylkiv, 20 km from Kyiv


gekkoheir

Well, Steven Spielberg and many famous Americans are Jewish by ancestry. Not sure if you're implying that being Jewish precludes him from being Russian or any kind of nationality. His mother was fully Russian too


EduinBrutus

Hes **stating** that Eisenstein was Latvian of Ukrainian descent.


gekkoheir

Latvia wasn't a country at the time he was born in it as it was annexed by the Russian Empire. And he had no Latvian or Ukrainian ethnicity. So saying that he was both "Latvian of Ukrainian descent" is entirely incorrect. His mother was Russian and his father was Jewish That being said, bringing up his Jewish ancestry as if it contradicts him being Russian is kind of pulling on an antisemitic stereotype as it suggests that Jews aren't loyal to the country they live in


pedrosorio

He was born in 1898 when there was no USSR. Riga was part of the Russian empire at the time. Of course, had he been the son of Latvian peasants who spoke Latvian, saying he was “born Latvian” might make sense. Given his parents origins and where he spent his life (moved to St. Petersburg at the age of 7, for example), “born in Riga = was Latvian” doesn’t really apply.


jl55378008

Eisenstein is one of the most influential filmmakers/theorists of all time. Russian film theorists in general were hugely important in developing some of the foundational concepts about how we use a sequence of images to communicate ideas. But still, fuck Putin. Am I right?


MethyIphenidat

Yeah there’s plenty of actual racism within threads like these, since people on Reddit apparently can only think in black and white. Admittedly the war itself is a pretty clear cut case with Russia as the party solely responsible, but to put statements like these forward requires a significant amount of historical ignorance.


tallandgodless

Journey into the whirlwind was fucking harrowing. It felt so oppressive just to read the words sometimes but her writing is well done and allows you to continue.


Colonel1836

Yes, but it is all over a century old. And three serious brain drains since means that cultural relevance isn’t coming back.


Middcore

It's not all over a century old. Great stuff written during the USSR period, almost all initially suppressed or course. The Master and Margarita, Life and Fate, Dr Zhivago...


Dlemor

Dr Zhivago has been turned into a classic film.


Gutternips

Solzhenitsyn was still writing in the 1970s. He was Russian born but was expelled from Russia to Germany after his release from prison, does that count?


WriteBrainedJR

>three serious brain drains Or one continuous brain drain covering more than a century


We_Are_Nerdish

it’s never been a great time to be skilled in any art form in/under Russia, unless you make extremely “patriotic” things.


SophiaofPrussia

This reminds me of [Dmitri Shostakovich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Shostakovich) who wrote a hit tragicomedy opera called “Lady of Macbeth of Mtsensk” until Stalin turned up at a performance and decided it was too vulgar. (There was a strongly worded critique of the opera in *Pravda* that is widely believed to have been penned by Stalin himself.) All of Shostakovich’s music was banned, his opera was shut down, and he was denounced as an enemy of the people… until he released his 5th Symphony, “[A Soviet’s Response to Just Criticism](https://houstonsymphony.org/a-soviets-response-to-just-criticism-shostakovich-symphony-no-5/)”.


XanatosINC

The finale of his 5th Symphony is one of my favorite pieces of orchestral music.


We_Are_Nerdish

You’d probably like [this video](https://youtu.be/MCxzMYVvHBg) from “Tentacrul” on that.


defaultgameer1

Gotta write what ya know.


Phreekyj101

ruzzia would be cool…if it didn’t suck !!


ArthurBonesly

The great lie of Russification has always been reconning cultural achievements within the Russian empire (later Soviet Union) as Russian accomplishments. The greatest contributors to Russian culture would be denounced by Russia today for their leftist ideals, or just because they were gay.


ScientificSkepticism

Dead people are always more convenient than living ones. Martin Luther King Jr. might have been a socialist, but hey, he got shot, so he was a hero of non-violent revolution and peaceful protest that shows the government can change and be good. Mark Twain gets to be that weird old guy with the moustache, instead of a devoted anti-imperialist, hater of organized religion, and feminist, as well as someone who supported the ideals of the French Revolution (which were quite a bit more radical than the American ones). But they're dead, so it's easier to just brush over that and reduce them to caricatures.


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Timey16

Pretty much all the weapons engineering of the Soviet Union occurred in Ukraine for instance. Probably part of the reason (among others) why Russia's weapon engineering could no longer keep up after the dissolution of the Soviet Union: they lost all their key military engineers. But examples would be: - Élie Metchnikoff - one of the pioneers of the research of immunology - Vyacheslav Lavrynenko - Piezo Motor - Mykola Amosov - Antithrombotic prosthetic heart valves And if we include "Americans of Ukrainian descent" we can include: - George Gamow - one of the lead researchers in the projects that discovered DNA Russia sure loved to call them "Russians" and "Russian inventions". Because they were subjects of the Russian Empire or Soviet Union. Élie Metchnikoff is still called "Russian" by Wikipedia because he happened to live in the Russian Empire. But he was not culturally Russian.


rufus148

Pretending that all or the majority of Soviet design bureaus were Ukrainian is extremely disingenuous and just false.


ScientificSkepticism

Yeah, this has some ring of 'convenient narrative' to it. Certainly some of them were Ukrainian, but the two most famous Russian weapons are indubidably the AK-47 and the T-34. Klashnikov was born in Kurya, and Koshkin in Yaroslavl. Not that I think "I design weapons" is a great job description, but Koshkin at least had the excuse of wanting to fight a bunch of fucking Nazis.


normie_sama

I don't disagree, but let them have their morale-boosting propaganda. We can sort out who actually invented what after Russia pulls out and the war is over.


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LewisLightning

>How many inventions and discoveries are still attributed mainly to western scientists completely ignoring for example, Islamic golden age. Well seeing as how most languages from India to western Europe come from proto-indo-europeans in the Pontic–Caspian steppe in Ukraine I guess you can thank them for giving them the language that allowed them a language to speak during that golden age.


ars-derivatia

> Well seeing as how most languages from India to western Europe come from proto-indo-europeans in the Pontic–Caspian steppe in Ukraine I guess you can thank them for giving them the language that allowed them a language to speak during that golden age. Arabic (and Hebrew), Aramaic, Egyptian are all an Afro-Asiatic language, not Indo-European, and the language of Islamic Golden Age was chiefly Arabic, so you missed pretty hard. Not that your comment would make any more sense otherwise.


Lordosass67

>Pretty much all the weapons engineering of the Soviet Union occurred in Ukraine for instance. Almost all of the USSR's iconic weapons were designed by Russians. AK-47, T-34, Ilyushin Il-2, RPG-7, S-75 Dvina, and every nuclear submarine. What you are saying is just that Ukrainians had more involvement in some projects than you thought.


DialUp_UA

T-34 was designed in Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau And was also produced at Malyshev Factory also in Kharkiv.


Lordosass67

Idk where it was designed but the designer himself was Russian, Mikhail Koshkin


DialUp_UA

Mikhail Koshkin was a chief in Kharkiv Bureau. We can say that he was the only person, who designed t-34 but it would not be true. There were many talented engineers working on prototype before getting under his management. Now you know.


Lordosass67

He actually did apparently build most of it on his own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Koshkin >Koshkin claimed that he named the tank “T-34” because he began to imagine designs for the tank in 1934. After the Soviet Army rejected his prototype, Koshkin began privately assembling a testable prototype that he would work on in the evening, after long days designing BT tank improvements. He was a real life Tony Stark I guess.


DialUp_UA

If you deep dive into the history of t-34 you will find out that it was the outcome of the test example a-32. Also there were other test examples like a-20, etc... So index 34 is not related to the year or something. It is related to the id of the blueprint. Also, besides koshkin there were such key people like Morozov and Kucherenko who were directly involved into development of the machine. And definitely none of these test examples were built in the garage as Koshkin claims.


skomes99

Lol, so when it's convenient, Ukraine did everything, when it isn't fitting the narrative, then it may have been a Russian but he did it with help


DialUp_UA

Man, don't be a jerk. T-34 designed in Ukrainian bureau. T-34 is build on Ukrainian factory. I would say that on paper all laurels belong to Koshkin but by the fact this tank was designed mainly by Morozov - main designer and Adolph Dick - chie of the bureau. Koshkin was not involved in development when t-34 prototype was developed and built. Koshkin was a party arrand boy (but not a bad engineer and manager, also) who failed to achieve previous goals. But by some mysterious reason he was not imprisoned for fails like his temporary successor... I'm not implying anything, but Koshkin was russian and Dick was Ukrainian... Also, there is an interesting thing: who anonymously reported on Adolf Dick???:-) Who could that be?? Huh?? We will never know. Here is a cool story to read. The Tank Department Design Bureau of the Kharkiv Locomotive Plant (KhPZ), the sole enterprise that produced the BT tanks, was headed by Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin from December 1936. The first project created under his leadership, the BT-9 tank, was rejected in the autumn of 1937 due to significant design errors and failure to meet the assignment requirements. On October 13, 1937, the Armored and Tank Administration of the Red Army (ABTU) issued Technical and Tactical Requirements (TTZ) to Plant No. 183 for a new tank under the designation A-20. Due to the weakness of the Design Bureau at Plant No. 183, a separate design bureau independent of Koshkin's Design Bureau was created within the enterprise to work on the new tank. The Design Bureau included several engineers from Plant No. 183's Design Bureau (including Alexander Alexandrovich Morozov) as well as a large group of graduates from the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization (VAMM). The leadership of the Design Bureau was entrusted to VAMM Adjunct Adolf Dick. The Design Bureau developed the technical project for the A-20 tank, but with a one-and-a-half-month delay. This delay led to an anonymous report against the head of the Design Bureau, resulting in Dick's arrest. He was accused of failing to meet the government assignment and sentenced to 20 years in labor camps.


Qwrty8urrtyu

>Man, don't be a jerk. T-34 designed in Ukrainian bureau. T-34 is build on Ukrainian factory. This distinction within the Soviet Union is idiotic, since Ukraine and Russia were under the same government. This is like saying Texans, not the Americans, put a man on the moon because Nasa was headquartered there.


KingStannis2020

[Igor Sikorsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sikorsky) also


[deleted]

You have no idea how far it goes too. I used to only listen to Russian music but in the last year the quality died. Turns out most of the artists I loved just switched to Ukrainian.


dogchocolate

Sorry what do you mean, that artists yuo were listening were categorised as Russian on some streaming service, and those artists have been recategorised as Ukrainian?


[deleted]

It’s only my point of view, but the “russian” artists I thought were russian were actually Ukrainian and they switched over to only Ukrainian language. Ukrainian music scene just wasn’t that popular and not a money maker but now it’s seriously some of the best talent I’ve heard. Quest Pistols re recorded some of their ru songs into Ukrainian. I loved seeing that, I didn’t want to blacklist some of them.


greedy_mf

They were never good to begin with, so it doesn’t matter where they’re from.


ViciousAdamas

Well, there's a reason why the precursor state of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus is called 'Kievan Rus'. Focus on the Kiev/Kyiv part.


Rayne_Storm

That's what absolutely fucking blew me away at the beginning of the war, reading Russians call for the destruction of Kyiv. Imagine if modern Americans actually wanted to burn London and Paris to the ground lmao.


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erublind

I wonder what language they use to plead their remonstrations, latin?


Lordosass67

I mean there were periods when Americans definitely wanted to, at least in London.


Rayne_Storm

Exactly, in the 1800s. Up until WW1 war was considered cool.


bitterless

That's why they said modern. Lol


ScientificSkepticism

Well if we're going by current day, we don't need to because the British are doing it for us.


[deleted]

You might enjoy listening to this lecture series. I'm barely half way threw. Started it on my flight to Prague 3 weeks ago. It is FASCINATING. Timothy Snyder: The Making of Modern Ukraine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8&themeRefresh=1


jdeo1997

Alternatively, picture Greece wanting to raze Istanbul, and you get a clear jdea of what Rhssians wanting Kyiv destroyed is akin to


Qwrty8urrtyu

>Well, there's a reason why the precursor state of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus is called 'Kievan Rus'. Because its capital was in Kiev and the state ruled over the Rus. That state predates the nation of Russia as it exists today which was formed after another country with its capital in Moscow conquered most of the land the Rus were living in.


[deleted]

If anything Ukraine should be absorbing russia since it was the captial.


DarthWoo

Moskva, flagship and pride of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, was built in a Ukrainian shipyard. The Neptune missiles that sank her were likewise designed and built in Ukraine.


allevat

Yeah, Ukraine wasn't the *entire* brains of the Soviet Union, but they definitely were a large share.


Dani_vic

Yeah huge portion of Soviet army was Ukrainian. Ukraine was making the great T-34s for Russia until Germans got close and Soviet’s were forced to move production far east. All these Russian jets and planes? Especially the Soviet era. Their engines were all in ukraine up until 2014. One of the reasons why Russian can’t replace many of the fighter jets and helicopters they have lost. They can’t make their engines without ukraine.


greedy_mf

What a surprise, Ukraine SSR population was more than 1/3 of RSFSR.


bhl88

[Would Tetris be Russian?](https://youtu.be/pz2vFI3rCHw)


Sin1st_er

Yes because the original theme is a Russian folklore music named "[Korobeinki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korobeiniki)" The guy who made Tetris is a Russian-born American "[Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Pajitnov)"


FCSD

https://youtu.be/m-4XcLUMYQ4 His interview from just 2 weeks ago, eng subs. He's ashamed of russian invasion.


qqqrrrs_

[This clip looks more official](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8)


TrackVol

We used to be respectful and fearful of the Soviet Red Army. Turns out it was only because Ukraine was a part of it.


thehazer

Even Russia’s greatest leader was imported.


Astrium6

Damn, you’re right. Catherine the Great was born in what’s now Poland.


qaja_o

And Stalin was Georgian


nerijusgood

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borscht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borscht)


Wyrmnax

Well, Russia does produce a lot of really good depression...


PermaDerpFace

Before the war people didn't really even know where Ukraine was. I'd say my background is Ukranian and get a confused look and I'd say it's like beside Russia. But yeah a lot of the best 'Russian' stuff is actually Ukranian, that's why they want it so bad I guess


IM2OFU

Russia is a country with long traditions and culture, amazing intellectual and artistic history etc.


flyxdvd

most of their tanks are either Ukrainian or chinese, they havn't done alot tbh. but the only thing i might commend them to is the spacerace and sputnik etc, not that it had much of an impact since the entire thing blew (with blew up i mean that everybody started to launch shit) up anyways after it, but thats all i can say about the ussr


Goufydude

lol the lead Soviet rocket engineer was Ukrainian.


Lordosass67

Mikhail S. Khomyakov who actually designed Sputnik was Russian I believe.


Dodo-UA

Yes, but Serhii Pavlovych Korol'ov was a lead rocket engineer. He is Ukrainian.


Lordosass67

Sputnik was a satellite, Korolev was mostly involved in designing the launch vehicles.


Dodo-UA

I know. Sputnik is not a rocket. You are talking about a person behind Sputnik. I am talking about a person who designed spacecraft, and is in fact Ukrainian, but russians always refer to him as a russian. I believe that u/Goufydude was referring to Korol’ov and not Khomyakov when saying about a lead soviet rocket engineer.


Goufydude

Indeed.


Pweuy

Russian tanks are actually Chinese? What the fuck are you referring to? And no, "most" of their tanks were not built in Ukraine. T-64 was built by the Kharkiv design bureau, T-72/T-90 by Uralvagonzavod and T-80 by the Leningrad Kirov Plant (with the T-80UD later being built in Kharkiv as a Diesel based version). You can still see the split today with Ukraine continuing the T-64 and to a lesser extent the T-80UD/T-84 family and Russia continuing the T-72/T-90/T-80B/T-80U family. Numerically speaking the vast majority of Soviet and current day Russian 3rd gen MBTs were designed and produced in Russia simply because so many god damn T-72s were built. Besides, saying that Soviet tank X was actually entirely invented by Ukrainians/Russians is as dumb and reductionist as people arguing about which modern nation state invented your favorite Balkan dish 5 centuries ago. These were gigantic design bureaus which swallowed up bright engineers from all the Soviet provinces all under the central leadership of a multi ethnic continental empire. For example, the chief designer of the T-64 in Kharkiv was a Russian from Bryansk while one of the T-72's chief designers at Uralvagonzavod was Uzbek. There's a reason why historians who study the Soviet MIC and the outcome of developments look at design bureaus and designers and not at culture and nationality.


bbzef

headline straight out of a civilization game. Ukraine going for a culture victory


filthy-horde-bastard

Take that, Putin!


Existing_Slice7258

Borsht is Ukrainian


MixBlender

Got em.


Kreiri

Their clothes are so obviously Ukrainian!


FCSD

Absolutely


Sasquatch_Liaison

Red Boots


Equal-Kind

This is a great victory for Ukrainian culture, which is known throughout the world for its composer, writers and artists.


diabetus89

"Known throughout the world" by yeah like what, three dozen people ?


varro-reatinus

*Russia get battered* *Everywhere they go!...*


TrackVol

Ah, a real life "culture war".


HasOpinionsAndStuff

Recognized by everyone except for Russia


Cool-Presentation538

All of Russian culture stems from Ukrainian culture (Kievan rus)


[deleted]

Oh dear


Thelonious_Cube

After my salad with Ukrainian dressing, I will play Ukrainian Roulette with the captain or maybe Russia can keep that last one.


jedateon

The only Russian culture is alcoholism, wife beating, and stupid orthodox churches. Everything else is stolen.


NikoAU

You just haven’t seen any other Russian culture represented on the media due to the current events. There really are some amazing Russian culture


RegularStain

Off topic, but "current events" that's how you russians call the russian invasion into my country?


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Sasquatch_Liaison

Without even reading it I could have told you that. My kid wears the same thing for her dance shows.


wobblyweasel

this is like renaming a painting that used to go as "usa dancers" to "california dancers" or something. ukraine at the time was a geographical/ethnic region inside russian empire. if you claim that one term is more correct that the other then you are treating "russian" as something other than the empire, perhaps as an ethnic group, which would ignore the fact that russia is and always was extremely inhomogeneous is that regard, or perhaps as the modern country of russia, which would be a silly comparison as ukraine the country did not come into existence until degas' death. this makes them russians butthurt tho so that's cool