I have a very good friend who switched to Ukrainian in 2022. Before that, she had spoken Russian her entire life and lived in a Russian-speaking environment. It was a classic Russified Kyiv family: parents spoke Russian, the child went to a Russian-language kindergarten, then a Russian-language school, and later to a university where instruction was also in Russian.

She told me something very important. I often write about Ukrainians reclaiming their language after Russification, but this was the first time I saw this process from such a perspective. So I want to share it with you.

“You know,” she said, “when I switched to Ukrainian, I discovered so many new things that had been unknown to me before. I started watching Ukrainian YouTube — they’re so smart and creative! I began reading books to learn proper Ukrainian — and they’re fascinating. I became interested in history and traditions, went to exhibitions at the Ukrainian House. Do you understand? A whole cosmos opened up before me — wonderful and boundless — an incredible Ukrainian world I had never known existed.”

And suddenly I understood why some people consider mediocre Russian writers to be geniuses while treating Ukrainian ones as secondary. They simply never saw the Ukrainian world around them. They lived in Russian culture, watched Russian films, read Russian books. That entire cosmos of Ukrainian culture that opened up to my friend after she switched to Ukrainian remained unexplored for them — distant and completely foreign. Even though they lived in Kyiv, in Ukraine.

Because in Kyiv they lived only physically. Mentally, they lived in Moscow. In the “real” Moscow. With its “great” culture, “genius” authors, fashionable тусовки, and Russian Orthodoxy.

So when people are surprised that some bloggers throw parties themed around the Holodomor, they really shouldn’t be. Even if those bloggers are Ukrainian by passport, they live inside Russian culture. And in Russian culture, the Holodomor is something you can joke about.

That is exactly why I call on everyone to return to Ukrainian — the true native language of your Russified ancestors. Because no matter how Russian-speaking a patriot you may consider yourself, Russian culture will still hunt you and try to pull you back into Muscovy at any cost.

Russians are extremely effective at cultural occupation. It starts with funny TikToks. Then a bit of Dud, Arestovych, Dozhd, the so-called “good Russians.” Over time, you get so used to Russian content that even Solovyov starts sounding right to you on some things. Skabeyeva doesn’t seem entirely wrong either. And a few years later, you find yourself thinking that “it’s not all so clear-cut” and that “we’re one people.”

That is a truly terrible ending — because at that moment your identity shifts from Ukrainian to Russian.

Worst of all, we already see this happening. We see ethnic Ukrainians from Donbas and Crimea fighting against us in the ranks of the occupiers’ army because they consider themselves Russian. And all those “Russians” inside russia with surnames ending in -ko and -chuk — they are Ukrainians too, Russified generations ago by their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and now they are 100% Russian.

And it all began with abandoning their own native language.

I love my friend and have immense respect for her choice. For her, Russian was the language in which “mom sang a lullaby,” and switching was genuinely painful — especially in a completely Russian-speaking environment.

And I am truly happy that she discovered an entire Ukrainian world after making that choice. That is a great reward. Think about it, friends. Come back to what is truly yours. Come back to Ukrainian.

I dedicate this post to all Russian-speaking Ukrainians, ethnic Russians, Armenians, Jews, Poles, and people of other nationalities who have switched to Ukrainian. I know how hard it was, how many uncomfortable moments you endured — and may still be enduring — and I have boundless respect for you.

Author: Serhii Marchenko