Is Kiev/Kyiv the new acid test for Russo-centrism?

[Evgeny Steiner]

From: Thomas Anessi <tfa2001 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
Date: Sunday, October 22, 2006 11:39 pm
Subject: [SEELANGS] Is Kiev/Kyiv the new acid test for Russo-centrism?


...“I do feel this subject deserves a less lighthearted
response. Ukrainians may appear to be hypersensitive about
something as seemingly trivial as using a Russian word for their
capital.”...

Dear all, 

Does it mean that “grown up” nations can afford hearing their city names
“distorted” in every way (say, ‘Moscow’, ‘Moskau’, or ‘Mosukuwa’), but
the world should be overly accommodating to the sentiments of “newly
liberated” peoples? This interesting application of the Affirmative
Action might soon provoke certain activists in the academy to demand
that Jerusalem should be officially named Al-Quds.   

Back to Kiev: if the idea is to eradicate the Russian colonial
linguistic domination, why not to return ad fontes? The first time this
city was mentioned in a written source was in the Hebrew Kievan Letter
(early 10 c.). It’s not our concern here if this “kahal shel Kiyyov”
(“the community of Kiev”) consisted of Khazarian or Judean Jews. They
settled there before the Slavs and called their city in their way.
Omeljan Pritsak who, with Norman Gelb, published this document
transliterated the Hebrew letters exactly in this way: ‘Kiyyov’. And,
after all, two Y together should look even more exclusive!

Evgeny Steiner

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