It’s a simple vowel, but it makes all the difference. While the French media refer to the Ukrainian capital as “Kiev”, the majority of their English-speaking counterparts have long adopted the spelling “Kyiv”. Kiev is the Russian name of the city, Kyiv its Ukrainian name, officially adopted in 1995, four years after the country’s independence.
At the turn of his intervention on the set of the show “C Politique”, February 27 on France 5, Christine Dugoin-Clément, researcher at the Institute of Business Administration at the Sorbonne, specialist in Russia and the Balkans, underlined the importance of the name “Kyiv” for Ukrainians. For many, using this Russian-speaking name would amount to validating the Kremlin’s thesis, according to which the current territory of Ukraine encompasses “parts of the historical territory of Russia”thus justifying the invasion.
Symbolic load
“In 2014, Ukraine formally requested international foreign ministries to adopt the name ‘Kyiv’, including at airports, she explains to M The magazine. Strangely, the Elysée continues to speak of “Kiev”. It may just be an effect of use. » And the researcher slips in this comparison: “ The Queen of England does diplomacy with the outfits she wears. These are small, very fine and very subtle gestures, but which send strong messages. » Christine Dugoin-Clément remembers debates with her publisher in 2015 while working on her book Ukraine: between heartbreaks and recompositions (The Harmattan, 2015). He feared that readers would not understand the spelling “Kyiv”, so she decided to explain the meaning behind this spelling at the beginning of the book.
On the language front and its symbolic weight, in particular for the names of towns or countries which attempt to assert their independence vis-à-vis foreign powers or former colonial powers, the Anglo-Saxon press is accustomed to to adapt. “Mumbai”, “Beijing” or “Chennai” have thus passed into everyday language, while French newspapers continue to write Bombay, Beijing and Madras, their Western names.
The BBC site, which “favored” the name “Kyiv” since 2019, uses it exclusively in its articles since January 29. same for me CNN, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Tea DailyMail, the New York Times, The Independent Where The Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press. The British government made it its official spelling in 2014, while, following the Maidan revolution that ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych from power, voices were raised in Ukraine to demand the use of “Kyiv”.
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