Note 2 — Chapter V · B. Historic and Political Songs

It is a pity that until recently both the Russians (Moscovites) and some foreigners unacquainted with historical facts presented the “Word” as being “Russian” instead of Ukrainian. The language of the oldest, mistakingly so called “Russian” literature is chiefly old Slavonic with ample admixture of the early Ukrainian. The earliest Ukrainian literature written during the Kiev period of the Ukrainian Empire, which also included the present European Russia and White Ruthenia, differs linguistically from the literary documents written on the Moscovite territory at the same period. Until Peter the Great the Ukrainians and the Russians were officially recognized as two different nations with two entirely different languages. He introduced the “theory of the union of the Russian nation,” and styled the Ruthenians or Ukrainians as the “Little Russians” with a “Russian” dialect. True, that the Ukrainians were also called “Russi” and “Rossi,” but it meant not the present day Russians (Moscovites); the historic word was “borrowed” from the Ukrainians, to say it gently.