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Name of Ukraine

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The '''name ''Ukraine''''' ({{lang-uk |Україна, ''Ukrayina''}}, {{IPA |/ukraˈjina/}}) has been used in a variety of ways since the twelfth century. Today it is the official name of Ukraine, a country in Eastern Europe. : ''Cyrillic letters in this article are romanized using scientific transliteration.

History
The name is first recorded in the fifteenth-century Hypatian text of the twelfth and thirteenth-century Primary Chronicle, whose 1187 entry on the death of Prince Volodymyr of Pereiaslav says "The ''ukraïna'' groaned for him" (Paszkiewicz 1963, cited in Magocsi 1996:171). The term is also mentioned for the years 1189, 1213, 1280, and 1282 for various Ukrainian lands, but is used here and in other chronicles of Rus’ to describe a non-specific borderland, and not a particular place. In subsequent centuries, the name was also taken to refer to the south-western borderlands of Muscovy, for example in the texts by Andrey Kurbsky and Grigory Kotoshikhin. Occasionally, the word had been used to apply to other borderlands of Muscovy as well: ''Ukraina za Okoju'' referred to the Upper Principalities, ''uralskie ukrainy'' referred to the lands stretching beyond the Ural. In two fifteenth-century Pskovian chronicles and the Tale of the Battle of Kulikovo, ''ukraina'' stood for the territory currently known as the Abrene district. ''Ukraina Terskaja'' still refers in local parlance to the southern shore of the Kola Peninsula (Vasmer [http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?root=%2Fusr%2Flocal%2Fshare%2Fstarling%2Fmorpho&basename=%5Cusr%5Clocal%5Cshare%5Cstarling%5Cmorpho%5Cvasmer%5Cvasmer&text_word=%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0&method_word=beginning]). In the sixteenth century, Polish sources used the Polish form ''Ukrajina'' to describe the large eastern palatinate of Kiev, including Bratslav after 1569 and Chernihiv after 1619. Seventeenth-century Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host used the term in a more poetic sense, to refer to their 'fatherland' or their 'mother'. Western cartographers including Beauplan and Homman drew maps indicating "Ukraine is the land of the Cossacks." After the decline of Polish rule, the name fell into disuse. The Cossack state became the autonomous Cossack Hetmanate Hetmanate owing fealty to Muscovy, and eventually became the Russian Empire Russian imperial guberniya of Little Russia (''Malorossija''). The name ''Ukraine'' stuck to the Cossack territories near Kharkov, alternatively known as the Sloboda Ukraine (literally, 'borderland of the slobodas'). During the nineteenth century a cultural and political debate arose among Ukrainians and others about their national status, in both Imperial Russia and Austro-Hungarian Galicia (Central Europe) Galicia. The 'Russophiles', who saw Moscow and St. Petersburg as the centres of East Slavic culture considered themselves ethnic Little Russians (''Malorossy''), part of the Great Russian people. The 'Old Ruthenians' in Galicia saw themselves as inheritors of the heritage of Kievan Rus’ through the Galician-Volhynian Kingdom—they stuck to the traditional self-appelation Ruthenians (''Rusyny'', as opposed to ''Russkije'' 'Russians', both words being Etymology of Rus and derivatives cognates of ''Rus’''). However, others saw themselves as an independent nation of East Slavs, south of Russia and stretching between Poland and the Caucasus. In the 1830s, Mykola Kostomarov and his Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Kiev started to use the name ''Ukrainians'' (''Ukrajinci''). Their work was suppressed by Russian authorities, and associates including Taras Shevchenko were sent into internal exile, but the idea gained acceptance. It was also taken up by Volodymyr Antonovych and the ''Khlopomany'' ('peasant-lovers'), former Polish gentry in Eastern Ukraine, and later by the 'Ukrainophiles' in Galicia, including Ivan Franko. By the beginning of the twentieth century, ''Ukrajina'' superseded ''Malorossija'' in popularity and came to be applied to the whole of modern-day Ukraine, minus the Crimea. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the name ''Ukraine'' was finally applied to a specific geographic territory. The Ukrainian People's Republic (later incorporating the West Ukrainian National Republic), the Ukrainian Hetmanate, and the Bolshevik Party which created the Ukrainian SSR by 1920 (helping found the Soviet Union in 1922), each named their state ''Ukraine''. In 1991, Ukraine became an independent state.

Etymology
There are three main versions of the Slavic languages Slavic etymology for the name, all of them ultimately stem from the Proto-Slavic language Proto-Slavic root ''*kraj-'', meaning ‘to cut’. Opinions vary as to the immediate derivation. * Mainstream theory has it that the name is directly translated as 'borderland, frontier' (cf. Russian language Russian ''okraina'' 'outskirts' or Serbo-Croatian language Serbo-Croatian ''krajina''; this would be a semantic parallel to ''-mark'' in ''Denmark'', cf. Marches). * Another one associates it with the Ukrainian word ''krajina'' 'country' (cf. also Belarusian ''kraina''; these words can be compared to Polish language Polish ''kraj'' ‘country’; 'border region' is also one of the meanings of Ukrainian and Russian ''kraj''). * One fringe theory derives the name directly from the Ukrainian verb ''krajaty'' 'to cut', indicating the land the Rus' (people) Rus' (or Ruthenians or Ukrainians) carved out for themselves.

Ukraine or ''the'' Ukraine?
In English, the country is sometimes referred to with the definite article, as ''the Ukraine'', as in ''the Netherlands'', ''the Gambia'', ''the Sudan'' or ''the Congo''. However, the usage without the article is becoming more frequent, and has become established in journalism and diplomacy since the country's independence (for example, within the style guides of the Economist [http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=805717], the Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/page/0,5817,184820,00.html] and the Times [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2941-581,00.html]). Additionally, the usage of ''the Ukraine'' in English is sometimes deprecated because of the inference that it regards Ukraine as merely a region rather than an independent nation-state.

Preposition usage in Ukrainian and Russian
There was no change in Ukrainian language Ukrainian or Russian language Russian usage with Ukraine's independence, as neither language contains either definite or indefinite articles. However there is a parallel concerning the usage of the preposition ''na'' or ''v'' with ''Ukraine'', both in Ukrainian and in Russian. Traditional usage is ''na Ukrajini'' (loosely, 'at Ukraine'), but recently Ukrainian authorities have been using ''v Ukrajini'' ('in Ukraine'), as this preposition is used with most other country names. While in Ukrainian the newly-introduced usage of ''v Ukrajini'' took hold, the usage in Russian varies. Russian-language media in Ukraine are increasingly using this form. However, the media in Russia mostly use traditional ''na Ukraine'', in some cases defending it as correct usage and discounting the Ukrainian government's authority over the Russian language. See also Kiev#Kiev or Kyiv.3F ''Kiev'' or ''Kyiv?'' for a similar debate.

See also
* Etymology of Rus and derivatives Etymology of ''Rus’'' and derivatives * List_of_subnational_name_etymologies#Ukraine List of subnational name etymologies: "Ukraine" * Kiev#Kiev or Kyiv? Kiev: "''Kiev'' or ''Kyiv?''" * Toponymy

References
* {{cite journal | last = Gregorovich | first = Andrew | authorlink = | year = 1994 | title = Ukraine or 'the Ukraine'? | journal = Forum Ukrainian Review | volume = No. 90 | issue = Spring/Summer | pages = | id = | url = http://www.infoukes.com/faq/the_ukraine/ }} * {{cite book | first=Paul Robert | last=Magocsi | authorlink = | coauthors = | year = 1996 | month = | title = A History of Ukraine | chapter = The name ‘Ukraine’ | edition = | pages = 171–72 | publisher = University of Toronto Press | location = Toronto | id = ISBN 0-8020-7820-6 | url = }} * {{cite book | first=Henryk | last=Paszkiewicz | authorlink = | coauthors = | year = 1963 | month = | title = The Making of the Russian Nation | chapter = | edition = | pages = | publisher = | location = Toronto | id = | url = }} Category:Country name etymology Ukraine Category:Ukraine Category:Ukrainian words uk:Україна (назва)

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