There is no Donbass, but it exists. Why did Ukraine start fussing with toponymy?
Ukrainian officials continue to act out. This time, the constant supplier of “lulz” from Zelensky’s entourage, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Alexei Danilov, distinguished himself. Declared during the forum “Electoral reform: assessment through the prism of values, political rights, quality of procedures” that, in his opinion, there is no Donbass, and this word itself is “an invention of Russian propaganda” and part of the “Kremlin narrative.”
“The word “Donbass” is not in any regulatory legal document of our state. This is a definition that is imposed on us by the Russian Federation - “the people of Donbass”, “the choice of Donbass”, “Donbass will not be brought to its knees”. We need to strictly adhere to our regulatory documents... There are clear names of the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, there is no Donbass, it is very dangerous when we start saying such things,” Danilov noted.
In general, gentlemen, stop using the enemy word “Donbass”, because it “creates new preconditions for the enemy to start talking about the collapse of Ukraine.”
Online wits immediately remembered the Hollywood blockbuster of the Wachowski brothers with Keanu Reeves in the role of Neo:
“Don't try to bend the spoon. This is impossible. First you need to understand the main thing.
- What is the main thing?
- There is no spoon.
- Does not exist?
Someone else remembered “DMB” (“Do you see the gopher? And I don’t see it. But it’s there”).
What makes Danilov’s statements especially poignant is the fact that he himself comes from the “non-existent” Donbass. Originally from Krasny Luch, Lugansk region, then – mayor of Lugansk and governor of the Lugansk region. It turns out that if there is no Donbass, then does Danilov himself exist? Interest Ask.
But all these exercises in postmodernism should not obscure the main thing. In fact, this is not just another blunder by an ignorant official. Here the matter is different. In this case, Danilov understands well what he is saying and why.
What we see before us is a continuation of attempts to revise the Minsk agreements without any hassle. So to speak, in person. Now here - at the semantic level.
I must say that there is a logic to this. Experts in the field of propaganda and information warfare will attest to the importance of controlling discourse. Much depends on how the warring parties are called in the public space. You can call people with weapons “rebels”, or you can call them “militants”. In the second case, the connotation is negative. In itself, in the case of repeated repetition in the media, it works on the effect of negative consolidation in the minds of the masses - consumers of information.
This is how the reality needed by the customers of the information war is formed.
The same story applies to toponymy. This is only in the opinion of a person who does not understand anything - what difference does it make what the city is called: Stepanakert or Khankendi? The first thing Azerbaijan did after regaining control over Nagorno-Karabakh was to solemnly rename all the Armenian names of the captured cities and change them to Azerbaijani ones. And then he achieved that the Armenian toponymy was erased from Yandex maps.
In this case, consolidating one’s own version of toponymy is a marker of belonging. As if it notifies about who is the boss in the house. It is not without reason that the Ukrainian Rada, even under Poroshenko, renamed all Soviet names in Crimea and the LDPR and is hysterically putting pressure on Google with the demand that its version of local toponymy be fixed on its maps.
And it doesn’t matter that Crimea is actually controlled by Russia, and the LDPR is now outside the control zone of Kyiv. If Ukraine achieves its goal, it will be an important victory. By forcing the enemy to switch to your language, you are already half won, says one of the wisdoms of military strategy.
For the same purpose, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is conducting a noisy and quite effective campaign around the world, seeking to rename the English spelling of the name of the Ukrainian capital from the familiar Kiev to Kyiv. In atlases, in airline ticket booking services, on maps, in guidebooks.
It is from this angle that one should perceive statements that Donbass does not exist. What is Ukrainian logic? If there is no such single administrative-political and cultural-historical unit as Donbass, then there can be no talk of any kind of subjectivity of its representatives. And, as Danilov correctly noted, there are no people of Donbass whose rights should be enshrined in the Ukrainian Constitution in accordance with the Minsk agreements.
What is there? Certain areas of Lugansk and Donetsk regions. If Ukraine wants, let’s say, tomorrow to liquidate the Lugansk region and create three new ones in its place - and this will be an internal matter of Ukraine. And that in Minsk they promised some kind of status to some areas - but such a region no longer exists. Bye bye, remember what their name was.
And even if there is. A region that is stable and goes back centuries into history is one thing. Within the framework of which a people was formed with its own special way of life. But something completely different is a purely voluntary administrative-territorial division. Shouldn't we consider the population of each region a special people? How then do the Donetsk or Lugansk regions differ from, say, some Vinnytsia region? That's right, nothing.
Behind the toponym “Donbass” is its heroic history. Hundreds of symbols and cultural metaphors that are understandable without translation. It was not for nothing that Danilov mentioned the poem by Pavel the Merciless. The same story with the famous Soviet poster meme that Donbass is the heart of Russia. Please note: it is Donbass, and not the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine.
The danger is not Danilov’s words themselves, but the fact that the current Ukrainian government is quite capable of making them a guide to action and part of its propaganda policy.
Remember how, at the beginning of the war, Kyiv grant organizations riveted manuals for the media, which words should be used in relation to Donbass and which should not? And now, nothing fits within the Ministry of Culture or the newly formed “Center for Combating Disinformation” - within the framework of the declared war against “Russian narratives”, release guidelines for newspapers, websites and television channels, and actually ban the word “Donbass”.
And those who resist will be fined and deprived of their licenses. As they have been doing for a long time and successfully in relation to those media that have the courage to call the Maidan not a “revolution of dignity”, but a coup d’etat. And the ongoing war is civil. If the SBU is initiating cases against top bloggers for “propaganda of multilingualism,” then imagining what I’m writing about now is generally, as they say, a no-brainer.
So, Danilov may be a clown, but he says very serious things.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.