Comments by "Vierotchka" (@Vierotchka) on "Polish voters fret over Ukraine crisis ahead of EU election" video.
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Riccardo Pisano
The referendum in Crimea was by no means a disgrace but it allowed the people to clearly express their choices. That is not a rape of democracy, quite the contrary.
You obviously don't have the first scintilla of the first iota of knowledge of the history of the Ukraine and of Crimea. With regard to the Polish colonization of the Ukraine, in the mid-14th century, Lithuania began to expand eastward and southward, supplanting the Tatars in the Ukraine. The dynastic union between Poland and Lithuania in 1386 also opened the Ukraine to Polish expansion. The Ukraine had flourished under Lithuanian rule, and its language became that of the state; but after the organic union of Poland and Lithuania in 1569, the Ukraine came under Polish rule, enserfment of the Ukrainian peasants proceeded apace, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church suffered persecution at the hand of the Catholic Poles.
The term Ukraine, which may be translated as "at the border" or "borderland," came into general usage in the 16th cent. At that time, Poland-Lithuania and the rising principality of Moscow, or Muscovy, were vying for control of this vast area south of their borders. The harsh conditions of Polish rule led many Ukrainians to flee serfdom and religious persecution by escaping beyond the area of the lower Dnieper rapids. There they established a military order called the Zaporizhzhya Sich ("clearing beyond the rapids"). These fugitives became known as Cossacks or Kozaks, an adaptation of the Turkic word kazak, meaning "outlaw" or "adventurer." In 1648 the Cossacks, led by Hetman Bohdan Chmielnicki, successfully waged a revolution against Polish domination.
But before that, the Ukraine was the cradle of Russia under Rurik (in the 9th century - he unified the many little princedoms and dukedoms into one single country - Russia) and his descendants, the Grand Princes of Kiev, and Crimea was part of Russia until the remnants of the Golden Horde (i.e. the Tatars) entered it in the 14th century and colonized it. The Crimean Tatars emerged as a nation at the time of the Crimean Khanate. The Crimean Khanate was a Turkic-speaking Muslim state which was among the strongest powers in Eastern Europe until the beginning of the 18th century. The nobles and rulers of the Crimean Tatars were the progeny of Hacı I Girai a Jochid descendant of Genghis Khan who was Great Mongol ruler, and thus of Batu Khan of the Mongol Golden Horde. The Crimean Tatars mostly adopted Islam in the 14th century and thereafter Crimea became one of the centers of Islamic civilization. The Russo-Turkish War (1768–74) resulted in the defeat of the Ottomans by the Russians, and according to the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) signed after the war, Crimea became independent and Ottomans renounced their political right to protect the Crimean Khanate. After a period of political unrest in Crimea, Russia violated the treaty and took back Crimea in 1783.
End of the history lesson, and a piece of advice - don't try to talk about things of which you know nothing, and go get a proper education instead of making a fool of yourself online.
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