There are many root causes of the current Russo-Ukrainian War. One that requires better understanding is the concept of Malorossicism. Malorossicism is the idea, in the words of one Malorossicist Vladimir Putin:
Ukraine has never had its own authentic statehood. There has never been a sustainable statehood in Ukraine.
Putting it succinctly, Malorossicism is the widely held belief that Ukraine is not its own nation, but rather an inferior subdivision of the Greater Russian Nation. Many Russians would deny that they would consider it inferior, but even the word itself betrays the bias — malo is the word root for small in both Russian and Ukrainian, and Malorossiya or Malaya Rossia was used in reference to Ukraine in contrast to Russia itself, which was usually termed Velikaya Rossia, which means Great Russia.
I am going to try over the next several posts to explain the history of the term and the idea, and how it is a constant theme running throughout the history of Russo-Ukrainian history from the Late Middle Ages right through to Putin’s War. In short, one can see the history as something like a pendulum swinging between a benevolent but ultimately condescending paternalism and an outright racist outlook crossing into cultural genocide — and one infamous instance of outright genocide.