The western stereotype about Ukraine and Ukrainians was created by the russiacentrism in the entire field of slavic studies. Remember Yuval Harari, who in 2019 consented to have russian edition of his book censored and even rewrote some parts, because "russia is world-leading power". So it goes: russia is a "world-leading power" and Ukraine is its backyard, a bleak suburb; something that makes no difference if it exists or not. We were invisible, hidden in the shadow of this great giant.
The origin all these stereotypes come from the history textbooks. All politicians, prior to choosing whether to send us weapons or not, were sitting their asses in Oxfords, Harwards, Cambridges, etc. And when they opened the history textbooks, they learned that russian history began at the christening of Kyiv. And what was ukrainians' place in this history? Bah, that's just some primitive tribespeople running around, who cares. That's the worldview russians taught the european politicians.
In 2014 I was approached with an apology from Karl Schlögel, one of the leading german specialists in slavic history, who told me "My whole life, I only saw Kyiv as a third biggest city of the russian empire". This is a very typical situation. You can waste your entire life telling western europeans about our culture, our authors, etc., but they would only be looking through you. We remained unseen and unheard, because there was only "big russia", and who the hell you are? You have never been here. You have 72 hours to spread your legs before great russian army and appease putin, to make everything fine again.
- Oksana Zabuzhko, in and interview with BBC News Ukraine
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