Why you should say ‘Ukraine’ not ‘the Ukraine’

There's an important reason why you shouldn't be calling Ukraine 'the Ukraine' and it's one that's mired in a history of changing borders that dates back centuries.

You might have noticed people inadvertently saying it. You might even say it yourself.

But there’s an important reason why you shouldn’t be calling Ukraine ‘the Ukraine’ and it’s one that’s mired in a history of changing borders that dates back centuries.

“Ukraine appears firstly on English maps as ‘The Ukraine’ in the 16th and 17th centuries, when it was part of Poland,” says Dr. Frank Sysyn of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta.

“English picks up on that way of describing it and keeps it to the present.”

The definitive article is also associated with Soviet rule (when the area was known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic), associations which Ukraine has been determined to shake since it became independent.

It’s why you might have noticed the western city of “Lvov” becoming “Lviv” and “Odessa”, the port city, becoming “Odesa.”

International media has been clarifying their stances on pronunciations and spellings of certain Ukrainian place names in recent weeks for the same reason: to avoid using Russian names or translations.

But Sysyn says the contention around “the Ukraine” far predates the Soviets.