Ukraine: “Russophone Ukrainian Nationalists” · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

In this post (RUS), which has generated over a hundred comments and is now listed as the 4th most popular item on Yandex Blogs, LJ user alek-ya explains what a “Russophone Ukrainian nationalist” is:
Hard to believe that it is possible, but such people do exist. I'm one of them, I may say.
[…]
* These are the people who often spend their whole lives speaking Russian, but who think of themselves as Ukrainians and consider Ukraine their Motherland.
* We effortlessly switch from one language to another in conversation: we have friends in all parts of the country.
* When we are abroad and someone asks, “Are you from Russia?” we respond, “No! I'm from Ukraine.“
* To another question: “What is your native language?” we reply: “I'm bilingual: Ukrainian and Russian.“
* After watching a movie, we try hard to recall what language it was in, Russian or Ukrainian.
* Our keyboards have three [character set options]: Ї [UKR], Ы [RUS], S [ENG].
* We are happy to have our children attend Ukrainian[-language] kindergartens and schools.
* Aggressive attempts by some of our […] officials to impose Ukrainian language frightens us first of all because it may scare people away from Ukrainian.
* For us, [Taras Shevchenko], [Ivan Franko], [Les’ Kurbas] (the list is endless) are [as important] as [Mikhail Lermontov], [Aleksandr Pushkin], [Mikhail Bulgakov].
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