On the information front, Moscow fights against Ukraine with various fakes and IPSO. Recently, another Moscow throw-in related to the ethnic origin of the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi. Kremlin propagandists convinced him that he was “Russian”, because he was born in the Volodymyr region.
But not everything is so simple! If you dig deeper, there were simply no “Russians” in this and neighbouring territories. From time immemorial, the Meryans, Erzyans, Mokshans, Veps and other Finno-Ugric nations lived there and were transformed into “Russians” only under imperial pressure.
So, let’s debunk the new Kremlin fake together with the famous Ukrainian journalist and one of the best experts on Finno-Hungarian identity, Rostyslav Martyniuk.
R. Martyniuk: The appointment of Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi to the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine immediately raised interest in his biography and its details. He was born in the village of Novinky, Volodymyr region. This is the territory between Volodymyr and Moscow. This is the original Finno-Hungarian territory, where the mayor’s people lived, which is considered a disappeared people, destroyed by the empire. The area where the village of Novinky is now located was, in fact, a kind of wasteland of the Meryan world, the Meryans lived there until Mazepa’s time, and even before Shevchenko.
First of all, it should be emphasized that Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi is definitely a Ukrainian, a citizen of Ukraine, because all his military service was held on the territory of Ukraine, he was born into a military family, back in the times of the USSR and already in the 70s in the 20th century, his family moved to Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrsky completed his education in Kharkiv. After his marriage to a Ukrainian woman from the city of Konotop (old Hetmanship), he is the image of a Man of the Middle Sea: Belarusian and Finno-Hungarian roots and a Ukrainian wife.
We often fall into the imperial trap, the essence of which is to call everyone born on the territory of Russia “Russian”, but this is far from the case. In order to get rid of this mistake, it is worth returning to the idea of renaming Russia to Muscovy in Ukraine, at the state level, then instead of Russians or “Russian” there will be Muscovites, as already existed in the Ukrainian tradition, and everything will fall into place.
At the same time, if we take a deeper look at the origin of General Syrskyi, then in his person we have the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, who is of Finno-Hungarian origin, his ancestors were representatives of one of the enslaved nations of Erefia. In general, the issue of Finno-Hungarian identities on the territory of the so-called federation remains rather blurred. Nevertheless, even the very appearance of Syrsky suggests that his ancestors could belong to the Erzyans – the free-loving people of Erzya, who were enslaved and continue to be enslaved by Muscovy for centuries.
So, General Syrsky’s father, most likely, comes from the old Belarusian nobility, and his mother – Erzya, the surname of grandfather Kurkin, typical only for the Ichalkovsky district of the present Republic of Mordovia. Oleksandr Syrsky has a dual national origin – Belarusian and Finno-Hungarian, Erzyan. In no way is he a “Russian” or a Muscovite (Russian).
It is interesting that the surname Syrsky itself, at one time, could also have undergone a certain transformation, that is, the letters could be changed, as often happened during the Bolshevik repressions, in order to hide one’s true noble or spiritual origin. One of the versions may be that the surname could be of priestly origin and sound like Assyrian. After all, in those regions where the ancestors of General Syrsky lived, at one time, there was a famous priest with the surname Assyrisky. By the way, people who chose a military career often came from a priestly family. Another variant of the sounding of the surname is Zyrskyi, that is, from “Zyryans”, representatives of another Finno-Hungarian people – the Komi. But all this, I repeat, is an assumption.
What is the interesting “case” of Syrskyi for Ukraine’s strategy on the territory of the Russian Federation?
The re-ethnicization of the so-called Russians on the basis of the Finno-Hungarian identity should be promoted, splitting the 80 million mass of official “Russians” into 17 Finno-Hungarian nationalities, offering attractive forms of new, non-Slavic identities.
You can learn more about the conversation here:
