White Estonia (Finland)
It’s a historical victory over Switzerland. For the first time since Belarus gained independence our national ice hockey team has made it to the quarter finals of the world championship. We are playing Finland (Suomi) after tomorrow. What do we know about Finland, except Nokia? We know that they literally call us “White Russia” with two separate words (Valko-Venäjä). If nothing else they really deserve to be beaten by our hockey squad just for this little “misspelling.” But that won’t happen. They are a great hockey team. Oh, well, then maybe I should extend my “White X” funny game to Finns? So what shall we call Finland in our lingo? White Komi? White Sweden? White Estonia, perhaps?
May 17th, 2006 at 6:49 am
what do you say about Latvia, also calling us “Baltakrivija” (or smth like that)
May 17th, 2006 at 8:09 am
… And what about Lithuanian? Lithuania is supposed to be friendly to Belarus, but it calls you Baltarusija. And there’s also Gudija - what is it?
As for Finland, at least they dropped the root “Rus” altogether and call both Russia and Belarus with that Finnish name, whatever it means. But if you still want to have a laugh on them, call them White Karelia or White Leningrad Oblast’.
May 17th, 2006 at 8:13 am
regular reader of your blog from finland here - i’m certainly willing to help you come up for insulting names for us, we’re quite fond of that sort of thing. so in case you need a translation to taunt finnish hockey fans with, let me know.
May 17th, 2006 at 9:13 am
Hanna, can you please explain the meaning of your name for Russia - Venäjä? Thanks.
May 17th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Mirritil: what do you say about Latvia, also calling us “Baltakrivija” (or smth like that)
Baltkrievija. That’s OK. Kriwi (Kryvians, Krivians, Kryvichy, Krivichi) is an ancient tribe from North-East of modern Belarus that formed the backbone of modern Belarusan nation. So it’s cool that this root (”krievija”) is preserved in Latvian after thousand years.
So it’s actually Russians who should be complaining about that, if they want to. ;)
But I believe Russians don’t care about such little linguistic gaffes. They concentrate more on keeping up their massive state-sponsored anti-Latvian propaganda, trying to depict Latvian nation as some sort of SS and Nazi ass lickers.
May 17th, 2006 at 9:51 am
aharoni: “As for Finland, at least they dropped the root “Rus” altogether and call both Russia and Belarus with that Finnish name, whatever it means.”
Check out their White Estonian forums. They call our country “V Russia”.
For example, from the same topic (the upcoming hockey match), the title of their forum thread is “Suomi - V-Venäjä to 18.5″:
* http://keskustelu.jatkoaika.com/showthread.php?t=33617&page=3
And everywhere in the thread you can see “V-Venäjän”, “V-Venäjä”, etc…
May 17th, 2006 at 11:47 am
aharoni - the word “venäjä” is way too old to be explained really. finnish is not indo-european so our names for most of our neighbours aren’t related to their anglo-saxon or slavic names (estonia=viro, sweden=ruotsi). can’t really tell you anything more exciting abt that.
the habit of using “v-venäjä” for belarus is pretty strange. typing four more characters isn’t all that hard really. but yeah. it’s a forum for hockey fans.
“white estonian” or “white karelian” don’t work too well as insults… the problem here is that the most insulting thing to most finns would be calling them russians, so we’ve got that in common. maybe try something with sweden.
May 17th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
> “white estonian” or “white karelian” don’t work too well as insults…
Hanna, I was not trying to insult anyone. I was just trying to get a message across to the Finnish readers, in a way of a joke.
May 17th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
ah, i didn’t really worry about anyone seriously being insulted.
it’s just that aharoni said “if you still want to have a laugh on them, call them White Karelia”, but i really don’t think that works for the intended purpose - it’s too ambiguous and sounds like something a right-wing finnish nationalist might say - a bit scary instead of funny. that’s all.
May 17th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
Sink them Belorussians! Go Suomi go! Looking forward to that game tomorrow. Kippis Finland!
May 17th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Go Belarus go! :) Lol this thread really became a namecalling thread hehe. One positive thing, I finally learned which language “Suomi” is on my cellphone :D
May 17th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
Ведаеш, Рыдлю, чытаю і разумею, пра што напісана.
May 17th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
In swedish it’s “vitryssland” which is also literally “white russia.” But then again Sweden has already lost to Belarus in quarter finals once.
May 17th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Merix: In swedish it’s “vitryssland” which is also literally “white russia.” But then again Sweden has already lost to Belarus in quarter finals once.
You are right, Merix. I know. Like in most Germanic languages. That’s actually how it started. When I came to Germany, I was shocked to learn that most people call my native country “White Russia”, and that’s when I decided to come up with a funny “symmetrical” response to Germanic people, by calling Germany “White Holland”:
* http://www.rydel.net/white_holland.php
As for Finnish, I never cared about it, because it’s not Germanic, and because it’s a small nation that doesn’t have much contact at all with Belarus. It just never came up. But since there’s a big match tomorrow, I decided it’s a perfect time to play “publicity whore” and extend my joke by making this little troll-like entry. ;))
May 17th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
We Finns indeed call you Valko-Venäjä (White-Russia). The Word Venäjä is ancient one, used long before any Slavic people living in nortwest Russia. It first ment finnic (and possibly baltic) tribes living in that area and moving around the river system with one-log boats called haapio. Estonians call Russia Venemaa. That literally means boatland. I think that name White-Russia comes from 1920’s when the white forces rebelled against the Red-Russians aka communists (Slutsk?). So even you were part of the SU the name of your country says that you are antibolshevik-russia . I understand that you are not Russians but perils of the great Polatsk. Unfortunately that will not save you from losing our hockey team :)
May 17th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
> I think that name White-Russia comes from 1920’s when the white forces rebelled against the Red-Russians aka communists
ROTFL!
May 17th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Heh, the name “Valko-Venäjä” still is not an insult, but it’s origins are somewhere among the Russian revolution so it’s no use to blame the Finns of today for that :)
At least you have a popular drink named after you. “Valkovenäläinen” that is, try ordering that in a finnish bar. It’s a mix of vodka, coffee liqour and milk. And as a comparison, the name is much more flattering than “Musta ryssä”, an another drink named after your (and our) eastern neighbour…
Good luck for tomorrow’s game. Cheers.
May 17th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Ville - “The first known use of “White Russia” to refer to Belarus was in the late 16th century by European Jerome Horsey.” - Wikipedia
But hey, yours sounds like a solid theory too :)
One thing we could do is come up with different “-Russia” names for all countries that have anything to do with Russia. Finland could be Telecom Russia; then we could have Baltic Russia (3 countries in one!), and so on. This way Belarus would in fact have the coolest name, since you could at least claim that your country was named after a drink. :)
But we’ll see who laughs after the game.
May 17th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
To me White Russia is still insulting.. mostly because I hear these words spoken by ignorant people who dont even know where Belarus is.
May 18th, 2006 at 1:44 am
Antti, I’m impressed with your ignorance. That shows precisely why “White Russia” should be avoided at all costs.
May 18th, 2006 at 5:53 am
White Russia…Can anybody here, define or draw borders around this word? I mean sharp borders and concrete evidence? One of the earliest mentioning of White Russia happened somewhere in XIII century. One historical manuscript, talks about it as :
One of them,(missionaries) listening to brother Vayslan, my friend who preached in White Russia ( in Alba Ruscia ), called him to go with him…
But what did this person mean by saying Alba Ruscia? Or what territory he refered to by using this name? Fellas. there is no definite answer!!!Some might say, yes, but many will not be so absolute…For example, according to N.Vakar, term White as opposed to Black were used by historians to define different national and cultural unions that were forming in the early centuries.
In another instance, some authors reffer to the present day Belarus as “WHITE RUTHENIA”. Here is a sample:
“The White Ruthenians of the present day contain, no doubt, some polish and Lithuanian blood, as well as blood from other surrounding races…. The White Ruthenians occupy the present governments of Vitepsk, West Polock, Minsk, Mohylev, Grodno, and Vilno….where they are energetically carrying out a nationalist revival, in order to differentiate themselves from Poles and Lithuanians on the one hand, and from Russians on the other, — a policy which no doubt the Russian government has encouraged.”
And in an original copy, the first sentence contains a reference on the bottom of the page: !!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Sometimes called Byelorusses or White Russians, but incorrectly, since no White Ruthenian would ever alow himself to be called by a name which would imply that he was Russian.”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And one more thing: back in times, (up to the end of WWII) some Belarusians called themselves LITVINS as opposed to LITUVASI,( lithuanians). Honestly, I stick with Litvins and do think that modern day Belarusians, (read Litvins) have a lot of Baltic stock in them… As opposed to Slavic :)
May 18th, 2006 at 5:58 am
Antti - Funny, i’ve never thought about “White Russian” the cocktail as having something to do with Belarus.
There’s also “Black Russian” without the milk. By the same logic there could be “Great Russian”, without the coffee liquor, if you know what i mean :)
May 18th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Excerpts from the discussion on ihwc.net forums:
FireOnIce:
Valko-Venäjä or “White Russia” is just the way the name of your country is written in Finland. That doesn’t mean that we think that you are Russians. We know that you are a separate nation.
QC:
actually in german we call your country weiss-russland, (which means white-russia too),
—-
Dear QC, check out German Wikipedia, please:
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus
Belarus ist nicht Weissrussland, aber Weissruthenien.
“Der Name Belarus ist seit dem Mittelalter überliefert und wurde im 19. Jahrhundert allgemein üblich, ist aber mit „Weiße Rus“ (Ruthenien) ungenau übersetzt… Die Verwendung des Wortes Belarus bietet sich also an, um Unklarheiten zu vermeiden. Jedoch ist im Deutschen die Bezeichnung Weißrussland traditionell verbreitet. Die belarussischen offiziellen Stellen wie auch die deutsche Diplomatie bevorzugen auch in deutschsprachigen Texten den Namen Belarus, um die Unterscheidung von Russland zu verdeutlichen.”
—-
Bungee:
I have must laugh — this was good one.. splendid joke..
And they even may say to Suomi guys like
“Those who come, get drunk and then get back to White Karelia” —
this one sentence made my buddy Pekka over here verrry angrrry
But stilll FIN is still a bit too strong for BLR
—-
jäpäkyörä
If you say belarus here in Finland ,people think you mean that crap tractor
—-
> if you say “belarus” here in Finland, people think you mean that crap tractor
Let me make myself clear. I’m not saying that you should use “Belarus” in Finnish. I just pointed out that “White Russia” is wrong and misleading. What you should use is totally up to Finnish people and Finnish linguist. I simply said that it’s the same if we call you “White Karels” or “White Estonians”.
I also think those tractors are pretty crappy. But foolish Russians still buy them from us. ;))
—-
BLR:
> if you say “belarus” here in Finland, people think you mean that crap tractor
It is shows only lack of education of your people.
—-
Kawa-Belarus:
Hahaha!! %))) But the question is how do you know such tractor? I thought we sell them only to LDC like Egypt or Iran :))))
—-
prefixcaz:
Here’s a few countries you can come up with new names for as apparently all of them use a similar term regarding your country.
FIN, SWE, DEN, NOR, ICE, EST, GER, HOL, GRE, TUR, ISR
‘Rus’ were originally from either Sweden or Finland or maybe both. The historians seem to have a bit of disagreements about the issue. In SWE a russian is ‘ryss’, in ENG it is ‘russian’, in FRA ‘russe’.
In FIN we have a term ‘ryssa’ but it is decided by court order that it is a racist term, so we are not supposed to use it. This means, that according to FIN law, we are actually not supposed to use this ‘rus’-part. Instead we use the term that is thought to be more polite in FIN language.
—
Ghostsan:
we call you white russians also…so what…now?
—-
> we call you white russians also…so what…now?
read history books, perhaps?
stop being proud of your ignorance, perhaps?
—-
prefixcaz:
Show some respect and don’t come to the Finnish board and start calling people ignorant because they don’t know your country’s history.
You have your BLR board to play with your nationalistic ideas. Go play with yourself!
—-
prefixcaz:
You have made your point very clear to everyone, but I’m getting slightly pissed.
What do you want more? Talk to a mirror. He’ll listen, I’m sure.
Please write to University of Helsinki to the linguistic faculty and present your facts. Stop writing this Bullshit here on the Finnish forum.
This is a hockey forum. Show respect and stop whining.
—-
PWa:
so Belarus is not Vitryssland?
—-
> so Belarus is not Vitryssland?
Vitryssland is the Swedish name for the country known as Belarus in English and many other languages. In terms of its semantics and origin, the word “Vitryssland” is just a little “mistake”, a kind of “Lost in translation” type of misunderstanding. See for example, this discussion:
* http://www.pravapis.org/art_weissrussland.asp
It’s about German word “Weissrussland”, but it equally applies to the word “Vitryssland”.
Sorry again for a bit of an off-topic non-hockey remark.
—-
hockey-vm:
but but..
I think Vitryssland is absolutely correct
Bela means white in russian and Rus is russia (a russian coworkerker told me that)
So Belarus means exacly Vitryssland.
—-
Dear hockey-vm:
1) Root “Rus-” means “Rus’” or “Ruthenia” in Latin or English.
It’s a historic region that covers modern BELARUS, UKRAINE, a little bit of POLAND, a little bit of SLOVAKIA, and a very little part of Russia.
Thus, Belarus means “White Ruthenia”.
2) Modern Russia has almost nothing to do with “Rus”. It used to be known as Muscovy or Duchee of Moscow. But then they decided to occupy and destroy Ruthenians (Belarusans and Ukrainians), so for political reasons they also took this name “Rossia” (the Greek version of the word “Russia”). They stole the name in order to justify their “liberation” wars against Belarusans/Ukrainians.
Is it more clear now? :)
May 18th, 2006 at 10:35 am
br23 is a typical russophobe which explains why he spends his time on lecturing others on politically correct etymology. Here is a summary of his world view: Russia bad, Russians bad, EU good, US good, Lukashenko bad, Millinkevich good. Br23’s little worls is such a heartbreaking story of fighting between good and evil, I may just have to wet myself over here.
May 18th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Obviously the Germanic style of calling belarus “white russia” is why it’s called the same way in Finnish.
That reminds me of Ivory coast in Africa which is literary “Elephant bone coast” in finnish. We just don’t have a single word to describe the elefants tusks as it’s very seldom used in finland. Arguing about ignorance and insults in this matter in futile when there aren’t enough words in every language to describe everything.
“Salmon snake” is dragon in finnish for example. Are we insulting all dragons by associating them with salmon and snakes?
May 18th, 2006 at 10:53 am
Rudolph: LOL. :)) Btw, I must make a serious correction. EU is no good. It’s actually kind of bad when it comes to Belarus-related matters. ;)
Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, how does it feel to live in your black-and-white monochrome Universe?
May 18th, 2006 at 11:10 am
Hey! And you’ve seem to have missed a football! Do you guys know ALEXANDER HLEB?! the international Belarusian footballer! ALEXANDER HLEB played for Arsenal last night in the UEFA Cup final and had great match! he did belarus and arsenal proud! they should have won!
for more info on sasha:
http://www.premierleague.com/fapl.rac?command=forwardOnly&nextPage=enPlayerProfile&playerId=245107
May 18th, 2006 at 11:21 am
as: I watched it. Hleb had a nice opportunity in the second half, when he shot from a long distance. Over all, I think referee “determined” the outcome of the game by giving a red card to Lehmann in the very beginning.
May 18th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Merix: Thanks for your comments, and I apologize if you found some of the comments insulting. No offence was intended. My only intent was to provide information and a bit of historical background.
May 18th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
One more thing.
There’s another reason why ’suomalaiset’ (The Finns) might find it hard to sympathize with your discontent with the names Belarus has in different countries.
The reason is that we are accustomed that Suomi is known internationally as ‘Finland’ even though that is the country’s Swedish name. Swedish is still Finland’s second official language even if Finland hasn’t been part of Sweden for nearly 200 years and there are only 5,6% of the population speaking Swedish.
May 18th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Random Surfer: The analogy is not very good, because Swedes do not call Suomi “White Sweden”, i.e. there’s no name confusion, there’s no “Fin-something-else” or “White Finland” or any other big neighbouring country that uses the same root in its name.
May 18th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Hmm should note… this is the largest ever thread so far.
May 18th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
}T{Reme [Q_G]: I think it is. :) Btw, I just got attacked by a flood of automatic comments that bypass Spam Karma 2, so for now I switched back to the mode which allows commenting only to registered users… Sorry for the inconvenience.
May 18th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
}T{Reme [Q_G]: Here’s a sample of how it looks:
Website: phentermine
IP: different IP’s
URI : phenterminehclhere.blogspot.com
Excerpt:
phentermine
contraction chilled strands peeled championing!phentermine http://phenterminehclhere.blogspot.com/
—–
And I have “phentermine” blocked in my Wordpress, and this very typical looking spam passes nevertheless, and in Spam Karma 2 it has a very high positive ranking (like 900+), which I’ve never seen before. I guess that’s some spam bot that learned how to crack SK2. I’ve never seen this before on my blogs.
I also wonder if it is related to this entry, because several Finnish sites linked to it…
May 18th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Br23, I agree with your concern about Valko-vennäja, Weissrussland, Vitryssland etc. I think it may be worthwile trying to have these terms changed into “Belarus”. There will however be some resistance, because the former terms are more understandable to our peoples. If you want to pick a bigbrotherish name for Finland, White Sweden would probably be best since we have traditionally been a country that Finland measures itself against and has historically been part of (plus the fact that Swedish is a second official language and at least in the capital the Swedish-speaking minority is a bit upper-classy).
Tobias
(from Sweden but actually half-Finnish myself)
May 19th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Tobias, you hit the bull right in the eye :))
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