Petition to rename Russia to Moscovia attracts enough support for Zelenskyy to consider
Kremlin (Photo:REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev/File Photo)
An electronic petition calling for the renaming of Russia to Moscovia has garnered the 25,000 signatures necessary to trigger an official response from the Office of the President as of Feb. 14, according to date on the presidential website.
The petition was registered by Valeria Shakhvorostova on Nov. 23, 2022. Now President Volodymyr Zelenskyy must provide a response to it.
“The historical name of Russia is Moscovia,” the petition’s initiator said.
“The same applies to the state entities of the Moscow principality, the Moscow kingdom, and the empire. On Oct. 22, 1721, i.e. 301 years ago, Tsar Peter I of Moscow proclaimed the Moscow kingdom the ‘Russian Empire.’ ‘Russia’ has existed for only 301 years.”
According to Shakhvorostova, the name change gave grounds for further encroachment on the history of (Kyiv) Rus. In particular, for foreigners, Rus and the names Russia, Russie, Russland (Russia) look almost identical, the initiator believes.
“This leads to confusion at the international level,” the author said.
“Fictional books are being written, films are being shot where Russia is presented as Rus, which is unacceptable.”
Shakhvorostova believes that the official change of the state’s name is a powerful information move at the international level.
“This will lead to the debunking of the Kremlin’s myths about the historical past of the ‘great Russian people’ for Russians and citizens of other countries, who considered Ukraine and Russia to be ‘a single whole’ before the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine,” she added.
In November 2022, Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Serhiy Kyslytsya, called on Ukrainian officials and legislators to pass a law according to which Ukraine would officially call Russia Moscovia.
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