Dear
Florian.
perhaps you are not aware of the history between Ukraine and
Russia. Let me remind you that Moscow has pursued the
destruction of Ukraine, Ukrainians and the Ukrainian language
and culture for many centuries. This ethnic cleansing continues
today with the Russification of Ukraine. Once you destroy a
nation's identity --their language, culture and history, it's
quite easy to convert them into mindless robots, who are easy
prey for the imperialist. Even in 1991, as we achieved our long
overdue independence , Ukrane was over 80-90% pro-Russian.
after two plus decades those same people, who were once slaves
to the empire, have been schooled on the true history of Ukraine
and understand just how devious Moscow was in it's ethnic
cleansing of the Ukrainian people. Little over a year ago we got
rid of the last remaining remnant of that Soviet-Russian past -
the Putin puppet Yanykovych. Our cities are nearly rid of Lenin
and Stalin - two monsters that murdered tens of millions of
Ukrainians, but as the links you provided show, that past is
still a part of the present. We are gradually getting rid of it.
The issue of Kyiv vs Kiev is precisely the past vs the present.
Kyiv is today, it's also what it was in the old
Ruthenian-Ukrainian chronicles that date back to the 9th
century. It became Kiev under Russian rule and now it's once
again Kyiv.
The war in Eastern Ukraine - the invasion by Russia, is a last
attempt too keep Ukraine under Russia's orbit. we don't want
that. My generation doesn't want that. Once again Kyiv vs Kiev
is a part of that ugly past. I can promise you that all of our
sites will one day be Kyiv and that the term will be the one
used wide-spread and worldwide. But we need to do this one step
at a time and wikipedia is a big part of this. This has to be
corrected and the general population will then become familiar
and accept the new word, it's very easy to spell and pronounce.
I kindly ask that you respect our history, our past and what is
currently happening in eastern Ukraine. it's no accident that
where the Russian population - 15% of Ukraine's population.
lives and breathes, there is a war. the same way Stalin killed
my forefathers and replaced them with Russians from Russia, we
are battling for the existence of our own unique identity.
Kyiv is and will always be the proper transliterated version of
our capital. there is no argument today that can supercede that.
Thank you kindly,
Simon Kostenko