Ukraine means the Borderlands
The building of Fort Loudoun followed not only one year after the Braddock disaster (which is why it was built) but building of the fort started one year after the first comprehensive dictionary of English was printed. There were dictionaries before. Even the Bible acted as a sort of dictionary. But nothing extensive was researched until Samuel Johnson published his dictionary in 1755.
The letters of the Virginia Regiment range widely in spelling, having not yet seen Samuel Johnson's dictionary. Spelling was still not standardized.
" After nine years' effort, Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language appeared in 1755 with far-reaching effects on Modern English, acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Until the arrival of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnson's was pre-eminent.
The Seven Years War was a time of solidifying and standardizing the language and of its spellings of many areas on the globe.
However, most languages followed a more standardized pronunciation of different letters.
English has many exceptions. The letter A for example can be pronounced in many different ways depending on the word. Whereas Spanish, the letter A more uniformly has one sound at all times in any of its words. A child can figure out the spelling because of that.
For that reason English is the only language in the world to conduct Spelling Bees.
We bring up these points on language because many languages during the Seven Years Wars around the globe started to solidify and standardize.
So again we look across the globe during this world wide Seven Years War to the area now called Ukraine.
For a long time, THE always preceded Ukraine, as in THE UKRAINE.
This is now frowned upon by Ukraine because THE often precedes a region or area, not a country. Ukraine wants to be identifed as a country, not a region. Although its name means the Borderlands.
Sources:
The article, "THE," did not precede the word in Radio Nederland I used to listen on shortwave . But Ukraine has a thing about that the implications of THE preceding their name. . . However this issue begs even more detail, such as The Sudan, The Congo which refers to a region. Ukraine doesn't like that "region" connotation.. . .
See more on this:
Was Ukraine a nation during the Seven Years War?
No, but its language was standardizing and solidifying during this time period of the Seven Years War.
At the time area was ruled over by the House of Wettin who "ruled Poland–Lithuania and Saxony simultaneously, dividing power between the two states. "
See Source:
Ukrainian culture and language flourished in the sixteenth and first half of the 17th century, when Ukraine was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, albeit in spite of being part of the PLC, not as a result.
After the Treaty of Pereyaslav, Ukrainian high culture went into a long period of steady decline. In the aftermath, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was taken over by the Russian Empire and closed down later in the 19th century. Most of the remaining Ukrainian schools also switched to Polish or Russian in the territories controlled by these respective countries, which was followed by a new wave of Polonization and Russification of the native nobility. Gradually the official language of Ukrainian provinces under Poland was changed to Polish, while the upper classes in the Russian part of Ukraine used Russian.
Source:
Is Ukrainian language More Polish? More Russian? Lithuanian?
Where was Ukraine during the American Revolution?
Twenty years after the Seven Years War, during the American Revolution, Poland Lithuania is getting carved up, with Russia under Catherine the Great taking the biggest chunk all the way down to the Black Sea.
She even hired John Paul Jones for a stint after the Rev war to help her beat out the Turks from the Byzantine-Ottoman Empire which had the Black Sea areas.
"After the Partitions of Poland (1772–1795) and the Russian conquest of the Crimean Khanate, the Russian Empire and Habsburg Austria were in control of all the territories that constitute present day Ukraine for a hundred years." Source is Wikipedia.
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Oh and one more by the way.
Don't forget the Cossacks in this area.
Compiled by Jim Moyer 3/6/2022
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In 1932
[the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birthday and when your 25 cent piece, the quarter started sporting his profile] ,
a spectacle of Ukrainian music and dance
delighted a Washington audience —
and conveyed an important message.
Washington Post
By John Kelly
Columnist
March 2, 2022 at 2:51 p.m. EST
A postcard from 1932 commemorates an appearance in Washington by the Ukrainian Chorus and Ballet. The 300-person troupe toured the U.S. that year in honor of the bicentennial of George Washington's birth. It was also a way to remind American audiences of Ukraine's unique culture at a time when the country was under control by the Soviet Union. (Collection of Sharon House, original photograph from Washington Evening Star)
Sharon House doesn’t remember exactly where she got the postcard. Probably at a postcard show or ephemera fair. With 1,500 cards in her collection of Washington-related subjects, it can be hard to keep track of specifics. But the card struck the District resident as especially relevant today.
On the front is a black-and-white photo of nearly two dozen people smiling for the camera. A few men are in suits, but most of the other figures are dressed in some sort of native costume: lavishly embroidered fabrics, ornate headdresses, shiny boots.
“The first word on the back is ‘Ukraine’ or some variation of 'Ukraine,’ ” Sharon wrote. “I don’t know what the rest says.”
The Cyrillic letters read: “Ukrainians greet Koshetz and Avramenko with bread and salt in Washington on our Easter, May 1, 1932, on the occasion of their performance with a concert in honor of the 200th anniversary of the first President of the United States.”
Alexander Koshetz and Vasile Avramenko. The two men couldn’t have been more different, but they shared a single aim: to convince North Americans that Ukraine was an independent country and should be free from the suffocating grasp of the Soviet Union. They did it through song and dance, the singers under the direction of arranger and choir director Koshetz, the dancers under choreographer Avramenko.
The year 1932 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of the soldier and politician who had thrown off the yoke of British oppression. Events honoring George Washington were held across the United States all year. They included a multi-city tour by the 300-member Ukrainian Chorus and Ballet.
“During the Washington Bi-Centennial Tour they were trying to use Ukrainian folk dancing and choral singing to bring Ukrainians and their struggle/demands for independent statehood to the attention of American politicians and the American public,” Canadian historian Orest Martynowych, author of “The Showman and the Ukrainian Cause: Folk Dance, Film and the Life of Vasile Avramenko,” wrote in an email.
During the brief time when Ukraine was an independent state — between the fall of the czars and the rise of the Bolsheviks — the country’s leadership supported a national chorus under the direction of Koshetz. It toured the world, introducing audiences to Ukraine’s choral tradition, an example of what we might call “soft power.”
In 1921, while the chorus was abroad, Ukraine fell to the Soviets. Now stateless, Koshetz and the singers continued performing. Twinned with Avramenko’s lavish ballet and folk dance productions, they reminded the world of Ukraine’s unique culture.
The Washington appearance was the first of their 30-city bicentennial tour. Performers arrived by bus the morning of May 1. At some point, they met members of the local Ukrainian community and snapped that photo: the bald Koshetz in a pale overcoat and a Poirot mustache; the severe Avramenko to his right in a dark shirt and jacket.
Their 8:15 p.m. show was at Washington Auditorium, a 6,000-seat venue at 19th and E streets NW. Among those in attendance were Sen. Royal S. Copeland (D-N.Y.) and the ambassadors from France, Germany and Belgium.
Martynowych said that by 1932, Koshetz and Avramenko were not on the best of terms.
“They were diametrically opposed personalities,” he wrote in the email. “Koshetz was a highly educated, disciplined conductor, arranger and ethnomusicologist; Avramenko was an uneducated, basically self-taught and undisciplined promoter.”
Though nearly every seat was full, that was primarily because Avramenko had distributed so many free tickets. The backdrop for the show, depicting the U.S. Capitol, had only recently been coated with a fireproof material, creating a stench that filled the room. An 11 a.m. rehearsal had to be postponed until 6 p.m., when the odor had cleared.
“[As] always happens, that idiot Avramenko ruined everything,” Koshetz later remarked.
Nevertheless, the critics were impressed by the spectacle. The songs, arranged by Koshetz, “proved a musical aggregation of great beauty,” wrote The Washington Post. “The terpsichorean abilities of the ballet equaled the wonderful voices of the chorus. The ballet pictures and dances … were enhanced by the dancers wearing their colorful national costumes.”
Sen. Royal said the folk art was born from Ukraine’s fertile soil, from the country’s “dramatic and tragic past.”
Martynowych said the bicentennial tour was the first collaboration between Koshetz and Avramenko — and their last. Koshetz died in Winnipeg in 1944 after teaching a summer course there. Avramenko died in New York City in 1981. Neither had ever returned to Ukraine, which wouldn’t gain independence until 1991.
Despite their differences, both men were veritable Johnny Appleseeds of Ukrainian culture, inspiring the establishment of choirs and folk dance schools in far-flung towns and cities across the continent that exist to this day.
As the cold open on last week’s “Saturday Night Live” illustrated — when a Ukrainian chorus from New York sang a hymn — music can reach the heart in ways that words can’t..
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