The Sheila Variations

I finally know something about the 12.5% of my heritage that is Ukrainian. I'm told (unreliable oral family history alert) that my great-grandmother hated the Russians so much that she couldn't find fault with anyone who would fight them, including Hitler.

Indeed, Bill, Ukrainian troops were very easily recruited by the Germans in both World Wars. These weren't just the cannon fodder and slave labor they conscripted in some of the other countries they occupied: while there were always a few volunteers, the Ukrainians in WWII provided large numbers not just to the Wehrmacht but to the Waffen-SS, despite all their crap about Slavic inferiority.

Ukrainians, Germans, Russians both Red and White: at least they could all hold hands and happily agree on hating us Jews. ;-)

Dave,

Quite true, I was reading the other night that near the end of the war, 60% of the SS was non-German, including several Muslim regiments from Bosnia. The Germans weren't too picky from '43 on.

I wasn't doubting the history of the Ukrainians hating the Russians. But when it comes to family history, my father has a tendency to err...tell tall tales.

It's way too late to read the Ukrainian Essays, although I hope to.

My anecdotal experience with Ukrainian-Russian sentiments appears to have depended on the age of the Ukrainian. Two older Ukrainians I knew hated Russians, and became enraged if they were mistaken for Russian. I have never seen this in younger Ukrainians - who obviously did not live through the 1930's and 1940's.

Not much insight there - but the subject coincidently came up at a dinner last night, which included two Russians - who did not speak up too much, except in another context, to note that they too had difficulty in keeping track of character names in Russian literature.

"Eating your children is an act of barbarism" -- Sign posted by the Soviet government in 1933

Thank you, Walter Duranty.

Interesting essays in that my wife is Ukrainian. One thing that my wife in puzzled over is why so many people insist on referring to Ukraine as "the" Ukriane. This is something she never heard until she came here (the US) almost three years ago.

My wife is 28 years old and feels that there is a distinct difference between Russia and Ukraine. Indeed there are two different languages and many cultural differences, albeit many similarities. My wife and many of her contemporaries certainly consider themselves, Ukrainian and NOT Russian.

Daniel -

I wonder where the "the" got added in. I have always assumed that it was "the Ukraine", in the same way that you would say "the Sudan".

Thank you very much for writing, by the way.