ACTION ITEM

After five years of Ukraine's independence, there are still a number of important institutions that are not properly presenting Ukraine's early history of the Kyivan Rus' period. Two important organizations, one commercial, Microsoft, and the other educational, the National Geographic Society, have attributed the history of Kyivan Rus' to Russia in their most recent publications. The February issue of National Geographic magazine, in an article by Mike Edwards titled "Sons of Ghengis the Great Khan," consistently refers to Rus' as Russia and to the people of Rus' as Russians. In the Microsoft Encarta 97 encyclopedia, the biographies of Ukraine's early leaders of the Kyivan Rus' period are placed under the topic of the history of Russia rather than under the history topic for Ukraine. This continues to perpetuate the myth that the history of Kyiv and Rus' belongs to Russia rather than to Kyiv and Ukraine.

Write to both organizations requesting that in future editions of their publications they properly attribute Kyiv's history and the history of Kyivan Rus' to Ukraine, where it belongs, and not to Russia. Letters can be sent to: National Geographic Magazine, Box 37448, Washington, DC 20013-7448 (or e-mail to: [email protected]) and Microsoft Corp., Encarta Program Manager, Consumer Division, 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399.

Submitted by the Tidewater Ukrainian Cultural Association in Urbanna, Va.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 23, 1997, No. 12, Vol. LXV

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