March 15, 2023

Renaming Russia?


Renaming Russia?
1596 map of Moscovia. Lambert Andrea, Wikimedia Commons.

In November 2022, a petition was submitted to President Zelensky's website that proposed the renaming of Russia to Moscovia and "the Russian Federation" to "the Moscovian Federation." Since the petition received over 25,000 signatures, the Ukrainian president is legally obligated to respond to it.

On March 10, Zelensky released his long-awaited response. In his statement, he highlighted that any alterations to geographical names are subject to regulation by legislation, with the responsibility for making such changes resting solely with the Ukrainian government. Moreover, he underscored that the names of countries are firmly enshrined in official United Nations documents, thus rendering any modifications to these titles a challenging task.

Zelensky said the issue "required careful study on the level of historical and social context, as well as taking into account possible international legal consequences." The president revealed that he will direct the Ukrainian prime minister to conduct a thorough review of the petition.

According to the petition, the name Moscovia was widely used to refer to the Russian state until a few centuries ago, with the moniker "Russia" linked to imperial interventions in Kyivan Rus.

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This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
A Taste of Chekhov

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This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
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Fish: A History of One Migration

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Woe From Wit (bilingual)

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At the Circus (bilingual)

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