Iryna, a Nadazovian Greek woman, discovered her true identity only as an adult and is now striving to preserve it despite the pressure of the Russian imperial system.
“This matters. Every person must know who they are, where their roots lie. It is essential. Because only then does everything fall into place. And that is exactly what has finally happened to me.”
I concur without reservation. For the first 40 years of my life I knew nothing of my origins, and assumed I was purely English. For my childhood in South Africa I was lonely and puzzled by my unique surname (as I thought).
Now I am secure in my identity and ethnicity and where I am placed in the human family tree.
Thank you for an informative article about a people of whom I knew very little. I love learning about different cultures.
I am descended from King David, the Prophet Muhammad, the monarchs of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England and from Mark Antony (and his first wife). Three of my grandparents were descended from William the Conqueror. According to my DNA, I have ancestors who lived close nearby where I currently live around 2000 years ago. So many surprises!
Iryna's story of identity is interesting. As an American of mixed national heritages, it occurs to me that we humans seeks out the details of our ancestry for a variety of reasons, and I believe we are wired so as to have some kind of tribal loyalty. In the U.S. it was never the policy, until perhaps recently, to repress the knowledge of one's origins, although it seems to be a trend that could easily develop as our government stresses homogeneity for political purposes. The U.S. was called the melting pot as we integrated but the Soviet system, followed by the Russian wannabe empire, destroyed tribal identity? Trying to sort it out.
Thanks for your comment! You mentioned noticing a push for homogeneity in the U.S. recently, what changes have made you worry about people heading down that path?
Well, funny you ask on the day our Secretary of Defense (or war, as he prefers) just cut female and black officers from the ranks of those to be promoted, not for the first time. And, looking at some recent social media posts put out by our buffoon of a president, the streets of America are reserved for white families, not a single brown skinned person represented. I live in a part of the country that is notorious for white christian nationalism; I know people who are trying to keep persons of color out of their neighborhoods. I am afraid for anyone of Hispanic, Black or Asian origin. Having strongly believed that this country's diversity is a signal of strength, I am sad that so many of my fellow Americans see people who don't look exactly like them as "other," especially since this country has a sizeable non-white population. As a student of genetics and human evolutionary behavior it saddens me people seem to forget that all human beings are all related, and that the human family tree is not that old in evolutionary time. Tribalism had its purpose in protecting the group, to be sure, in early human evolutionary times but with so many of us inhabiting the planet it is getting in the way of the cooperation we need to survive. It's an established fact that it requires higher brain function to reason past prejudice and not succumb to the primordial lizard brain feature of racial hatred but inclusivity, connection and partnership will serve all of us better. People want/need to have an identity, of course, but hopefully not at the expense of reasoned tolerance.
Obviously the erasures of language and culture, along with ancestral land rights are aimed to take over whatever resources are held by indigenous people - or are acts of war, which do the same thing. Unfortunately, in the US this has been going on ever since Columbus. And it's still continuing, as seen when water rights of Pueblo tribes in New Mexico and Arizona are being "renegotiated." Perhaps the most telling statement, made in the 1800s, came from the head of the "Friends of the Indian" association who stated the goal of Indian boarding schools was to "Kill the Indian to Save the Man." American elementary and secondary school students read history books that make it seem that the continental US was this vast, empty land of opportunity. However, there were hundreds of native nations, each with its own language, land base, customs and spiritual relationship to the cosmos. Before Europeans arrived, estimates put the Native population at around 21,000,000 if not more. In 1890, it was around 190,000. Even against this genocide, Native peoples have endured. The younger generation is able to have classes in their grandparents' language. Many Native college graduates are lawyers. It is only recently that quantum physics has caught up to Native science. Trump and his regime are doing their best to excise these gains. But this is not the tribes' first rodeo. I'd like to see Todd Blanche try his hand at Indian horse racing. (Check it out on YouTube. Ukrainians who appreciate horsemanship might like it.)
Thanks for this comment Carol! Since you see the younger generation fighting back so hard, do you think they're finally forcing the rest of the country to look at the real history today?
Not during this administration. In fact, Trump is trying to erase history as it relates to minority groups (looting the National Archives, Smithsonian Institution, historic sites). Furthermore, a lot of what is now designated "public land," was actually what belonged to tribes. I can't speak on most of them, but having done some research on the Keres Pueblos of New Mexico and the Navajo and Hopi of Arizona, there are sites around the Grand Canyon that have religious significance that Trump wants to open up for mining and petroleum extraction - as well as Chaco Canyon, a site that figures not only in the history of the aforementioned tribes, but has religious significance. In terms of the Christian religion, it would be like drilling on the hill where Christ was crucified. The management of the sacred San Francisco peaks, or Dook'o'oosliid, allows a company to utilize it as a ski resort. During drought, it uses waste water to make artificial snow, thus desecrating the site. Mount Taylor - Tsoodzil - considered sacred by the Navajo, Zuni, Keres, Hopi and others allows cattle ranching and is fenced off. The mountain has uranium deposits that were previously mined and currently there are projections of reopening the operations. Laguna Pueblo also had uranium deposits that were mined, thus destroying the fruit orchards and contaminating the water with subsequent rises in cancer cases. The Anaconda Minerals Company (part of ARCO) was not even required to clean up the tailings or the contaminated water. The list goes on and on. President Biden installed an actual Native from Laguna Pueblo, Deb Haaland, to head the Department of the Interior which oversees tribal affairs, including resources, but Trump replaced her with Doug Burgum - anti environmentalist, anti-Indian, possibly the worst person to represent Native Americans in the country. With the Ellison family and Musk controlling a lot of the communication and media outlets, it's doubtful that much is getting out to the public.
🫂 I am fortunate to at least be aware of the Native people's situation in the US because of the close links the indigenous peoples of the world have forged, which includes the Maori of Aotearoa (New Zealand). One of our most skilled Maori writers, Witi Ihamaera, had a substantial part of one of his books about attending one such gathering in the USA, and my own Iwi (tribe) was host to a conference here - accidentally I got to transcribe some of the overseas attendees presentations which was fascinating, but also challenging with VERY unfamiliar words/spellings! I think I spent more time trying to find the original places & languages of the guest speaker so I could spell their words correctly, than the actual transcribing 🤗 Incidentally the story of Maori colonisation echoes many of the same themes - including that the younger generation have benefitted from a period of language/cultural revival & a push from their elders to go onto higher education, so recent attempts to put them down are doomed to failure against the confident stroppy lawyers & highly skilled wahine toa (warrior women) standing in their way 💪
How wonderful to hear about your warrior women. I'm sure it was challenging to transcribe the presentations since there are still many indigenous languages that are completely different from one another. What works for one language group doesn't work for others. I am so happy to learn that you and others are fighting to preserve what could be so easily lost.
I’m assuming the post is paywalled for non-subscribers. Is that correct? I have a close friend who is Greek and interested in all things Greek-related. Don’t want to send him a link if he won’t be able to read it. And I never violate paywalls by copy/ pasting contents.
🥹 Fascinating & sad at the same time. There are many reasons people should know their own family history, including understanding their parents' & grandparents' behaviour & choices, but it is an abomination of many "conquerors" who systematically try to erase languages & cultures. Objectively it causes no harm to the "state" but I guess independent thinking is a challenge when one culture is trying to impose itself on everyone else. A practical reason people should know their own ethnic history is that SOME diseases are hereditary and/or more prevalent in some bloodlines, and being aware if you are at risk can enable prevention or management of risk. But of course Putin & his predecessors wouldn't care about that, even if they knew 😢
Reading recent news about Crimea being under siege almost, you can't help but wonder what it would look like to have it fully restored to Ukraine - what damage & destruction has been done & will people want to return to live there? 🥹💙💛
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer, coined the term genocide using the words Genos (Greek - meaning race, tribe, nation, or clan) and Cide (Latin - derived from caedere, meaning killing (as in homicide or patricide). In his original definition he included the cultural destruction of a people as one example or part of genocide. When the UN was debating the Genocide Convention, cultural genocide was omitted. Some argued that it was too vague and that physical and biological destruction was more severe. And for colonial and settler states there was a fear that they would or could be prosecuted for it since they had all been practicing cultural destruction and assimilation of the Indigenous peoples within their state borders. As a side note: Canada’s Indian Act served as an initial blueprint for South Africa’s apartheid regime.
Some pushback here. Canada’s ‘Indian Act’ provided the framework for South Africa’s territorial control of Black populations (ie ‘Bantustan’) while the US’s ‘Jim Crow’ segregation served as the model for the ‘day-to-day subjugation of Black South Africans. (ie separate public amenities, restricted voting rights etc)
Thanks for that pushback, Don! You’re entirely right about the Jim Crow influence. It’s tragic how these regimes looked to different global methods for inspiration. As you pointed out, the US provided a blueprint for day-to-day subjugation and disenfranchisement. At the same time, South African architects of apartheid explicitly studied the Canadian Indian Act. Specifically, the reserve boundaries and the ‘pass system’ to design the Bantustan system of forced territorial isolation. While I found it difficult to locate an open source academic article I did find this one that provides a great breakdown of how these legal frameworks mapped out geographic and cultural control: https://cedarvia.ca/resources/our-common-laws/indian-act-of-1876###. It really shows how weaponized erasure and systemic control can take many forms, borrowing ‘best practices’ of colonial control from across the globe.
Looking at how much of this history was kept out of the official UN definitions and textbooks, how did you first start learning about the ugliness of these policies?
These topics were part of discussions held in my graduate studies. In particular, two classes I took on International Human Rights Law and Genocide. I have a Masters in Human Rights and I’m a PhD candidate (classes & candidacy exam completed) in Peace and Conflict Studies.
“This matters. Every person must know who they are, where their roots lie. It is essential. Because only then does everything fall into place. And that is exactly what has finally happened to me.”
I concur without reservation. For the first 40 years of my life I knew nothing of my origins, and assumed I was purely English. For my childhood in South Africa I was lonely and puzzled by my unique surname (as I thought).
Now I am secure in my identity and ethnicity and where I am placed in the human family tree.
Thank you for an informative article about a people of whom I knew very little. I love learning about different cultures.
Thank you for sharing such a personal and beautiful story!
Out of curiosity, what was the most surprising thing you discovered about your heritage?
I am descended from King David, the Prophet Muhammad, the monarchs of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England and from Mark Antony (and his first wife). Three of my grandparents were descended from William the Conqueror. According to my DNA, I have ancestors who lived close nearby where I currently live around 2000 years ago. So many surprises!
Iryna's story of identity is interesting. As an American of mixed national heritages, it occurs to me that we humans seeks out the details of our ancestry for a variety of reasons, and I believe we are wired so as to have some kind of tribal loyalty. In the U.S. it was never the policy, until perhaps recently, to repress the knowledge of one's origins, although it seems to be a trend that could easily develop as our government stresses homogeneity for political purposes. The U.S. was called the melting pot as we integrated but the Soviet system, followed by the Russian wannabe empire, destroyed tribal identity? Trying to sort it out.
Thanks for your comment! You mentioned noticing a push for homogeneity in the U.S. recently, what changes have made you worry about people heading down that path?
Well, funny you ask on the day our Secretary of Defense (or war, as he prefers) just cut female and black officers from the ranks of those to be promoted, not for the first time. And, looking at some recent social media posts put out by our buffoon of a president, the streets of America are reserved for white families, not a single brown skinned person represented. I live in a part of the country that is notorious for white christian nationalism; I know people who are trying to keep persons of color out of their neighborhoods. I am afraid for anyone of Hispanic, Black or Asian origin. Having strongly believed that this country's diversity is a signal of strength, I am sad that so many of my fellow Americans see people who don't look exactly like them as "other," especially since this country has a sizeable non-white population. As a student of genetics and human evolutionary behavior it saddens me people seem to forget that all human beings are all related, and that the human family tree is not that old in evolutionary time. Tribalism had its purpose in protecting the group, to be sure, in early human evolutionary times but with so many of us inhabiting the planet it is getting in the way of the cooperation we need to survive. It's an established fact that it requires higher brain function to reason past prejudice and not succumb to the primordial lizard brain feature of racial hatred but inclusivity, connection and partnership will serve all of us better. People want/need to have an identity, of course, but hopefully not at the expense of reasoned tolerance.
Obviously the erasures of language and culture, along with ancestral land rights are aimed to take over whatever resources are held by indigenous people - or are acts of war, which do the same thing. Unfortunately, in the US this has been going on ever since Columbus. And it's still continuing, as seen when water rights of Pueblo tribes in New Mexico and Arizona are being "renegotiated." Perhaps the most telling statement, made in the 1800s, came from the head of the "Friends of the Indian" association who stated the goal of Indian boarding schools was to "Kill the Indian to Save the Man." American elementary and secondary school students read history books that make it seem that the continental US was this vast, empty land of opportunity. However, there were hundreds of native nations, each with its own language, land base, customs and spiritual relationship to the cosmos. Before Europeans arrived, estimates put the Native population at around 21,000,000 if not more. In 1890, it was around 190,000. Even against this genocide, Native peoples have endured. The younger generation is able to have classes in their grandparents' language. Many Native college graduates are lawyers. It is only recently that quantum physics has caught up to Native science. Trump and his regime are doing their best to excise these gains. But this is not the tribes' first rodeo. I'd like to see Todd Blanche try his hand at Indian horse racing. (Check it out on YouTube. Ukrainians who appreciate horsemanship might like it.)
Thanks for this comment Carol! Since you see the younger generation fighting back so hard, do you think they're finally forcing the rest of the country to look at the real history today?
Not during this administration. In fact, Trump is trying to erase history as it relates to minority groups (looting the National Archives, Smithsonian Institution, historic sites). Furthermore, a lot of what is now designated "public land," was actually what belonged to tribes. I can't speak on most of them, but having done some research on the Keres Pueblos of New Mexico and the Navajo and Hopi of Arizona, there are sites around the Grand Canyon that have religious significance that Trump wants to open up for mining and petroleum extraction - as well as Chaco Canyon, a site that figures not only in the history of the aforementioned tribes, but has religious significance. In terms of the Christian religion, it would be like drilling on the hill where Christ was crucified. The management of the sacred San Francisco peaks, or Dook'o'oosliid, allows a company to utilize it as a ski resort. During drought, it uses waste water to make artificial snow, thus desecrating the site. Mount Taylor - Tsoodzil - considered sacred by the Navajo, Zuni, Keres, Hopi and others allows cattle ranching and is fenced off. The mountain has uranium deposits that were previously mined and currently there are projections of reopening the operations. Laguna Pueblo also had uranium deposits that were mined, thus destroying the fruit orchards and contaminating the water with subsequent rises in cancer cases. The Anaconda Minerals Company (part of ARCO) was not even required to clean up the tailings or the contaminated water. The list goes on and on. President Biden installed an actual Native from Laguna Pueblo, Deb Haaland, to head the Department of the Interior which oversees tribal affairs, including resources, but Trump replaced her with Doug Burgum - anti environmentalist, anti-Indian, possibly the worst person to represent Native Americans in the country. With the Ellison family and Musk controlling a lot of the communication and media outlets, it's doubtful that much is getting out to the public.
🫂 I am fortunate to at least be aware of the Native people's situation in the US because of the close links the indigenous peoples of the world have forged, which includes the Maori of Aotearoa (New Zealand). One of our most skilled Maori writers, Witi Ihamaera, had a substantial part of one of his books about attending one such gathering in the USA, and my own Iwi (tribe) was host to a conference here - accidentally I got to transcribe some of the overseas attendees presentations which was fascinating, but also challenging with VERY unfamiliar words/spellings! I think I spent more time trying to find the original places & languages of the guest speaker so I could spell their words correctly, than the actual transcribing 🤗 Incidentally the story of Maori colonisation echoes many of the same themes - including that the younger generation have benefitted from a period of language/cultural revival & a push from their elders to go onto higher education, so recent attempts to put them down are doomed to failure against the confident stroppy lawyers & highly skilled wahine toa (warrior women) standing in their way 💪
How wonderful to hear about your warrior women. I'm sure it was challenging to transcribe the presentations since there are still many indigenous languages that are completely different from one another. What works for one language group doesn't work for others. I am so happy to learn that you and others are fighting to preserve what could be so easily lost.
Thanks for a beautiful exposition of the Rumeikan-speaking community.
There are so many gems in this world.
Thank you for this fascinating look at an historic ethnic community.
Thank you for engaging!
I’m assuming the post is paywalled for non-subscribers. Is that correct? I have a close friend who is Greek and interested in all things Greek-related. Don’t want to send him a link if he won’t be able to read it. And I never violate paywalls by copy/ pasting contents.
🥹 Fascinating & sad at the same time. There are many reasons people should know their own family history, including understanding their parents' & grandparents' behaviour & choices, but it is an abomination of many "conquerors" who systematically try to erase languages & cultures. Objectively it causes no harm to the "state" but I guess independent thinking is a challenge when one culture is trying to impose itself on everyone else. A practical reason people should know their own ethnic history is that SOME diseases are hereditary and/or more prevalent in some bloodlines, and being aware if you are at risk can enable prevention or management of risk. But of course Putin & his predecessors wouldn't care about that, even if they knew 😢
Reading recent news about Crimea being under siege almost, you can't help but wonder what it would look like to have it fully restored to Ukraine - what damage & destruction has been done & will people want to return to live there? 🥹💙💛
You’re totally right, restoring Crimea after all the damage would be extremely difficult, but hopefully we’ll see those days soon 🥹
People think Russia’s main export is oil, it isn’t, it’s fuckery and misery.
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer, coined the term genocide using the words Genos (Greek - meaning race, tribe, nation, or clan) and Cide (Latin - derived from caedere, meaning killing (as in homicide or patricide). In his original definition he included the cultural destruction of a people as one example or part of genocide. When the UN was debating the Genocide Convention, cultural genocide was omitted. Some argued that it was too vague and that physical and biological destruction was more severe. And for colonial and settler states there was a fear that they would or could be prosecuted for it since they had all been practicing cultural destruction and assimilation of the Indigenous peoples within their state borders. As a side note: Canada’s Indian Act served as an initial blueprint for South Africa’s apartheid regime.
Some pushback here. Canada’s ‘Indian Act’ provided the framework for South Africa’s territorial control of Black populations (ie ‘Bantustan’) while the US’s ‘Jim Crow’ segregation served as the model for the ‘day-to-day subjugation of Black South Africans. (ie separate public amenities, restricted voting rights etc)
Thanks for that pushback, Don! You’re entirely right about the Jim Crow influence. It’s tragic how these regimes looked to different global methods for inspiration. As you pointed out, the US provided a blueprint for day-to-day subjugation and disenfranchisement. At the same time, South African architects of apartheid explicitly studied the Canadian Indian Act. Specifically, the reserve boundaries and the ‘pass system’ to design the Bantustan system of forced territorial isolation. While I found it difficult to locate an open source academic article I did find this one that provides a great breakdown of how these legal frameworks mapped out geographic and cultural control: https://cedarvia.ca/resources/our-common-laws/indian-act-of-1876###. It really shows how weaponized erasure and systemic control can take many forms, borrowing ‘best practices’ of colonial control from across the globe.
Looking at how much of this history was kept out of the official UN definitions and textbooks, how did you first start learning about the ugliness of these policies?
These topics were part of discussions held in my graduate studies. In particular, two classes I took on International Human Rights Law and Genocide. I have a Masters in Human Rights and I’m a PhD candidate (classes & candidacy exam completed) in Peace and Conflict Studies.