In a fascinating article at the Washington Post, Max Fisher explains how much of what is happening in Ukraine is about culture and language as much as politics. Two maps that illustrate the rift.

The electoral division of the country into pro- and anti-Yanukovich regions:

And into predominantly Ukrainian-speaking and predominantly Russian-speaking ones:

In other words, in the European-facing half of Ukraine, the orange half, the protests are even more widespread and severe than you might have gathered from watching the media coverage. But it’s important to keep in mind that the other half of the country, the blue half, is much quieter.

 

You may be wondering, then, why there is such a consistent and deep divide between these two halves of Ukraine. Here’s the really crucial thing to understand about Ukraine: A whole lot of the country speaks Russian, rather than Ukrainian. This map shows the country’s linguistic divide, which you may notice lines up just about perfectly with its political divide.

 

…Heavily Russian-speaking regions can tend to be more sympathetic (or at least less hostile) to policies that bring their country closer to Russia, as Yanukovych has been doing. But the Ukrainian-speaking regions have historically sought a Ukrainian national identity that is less Russia-facing and more European. So this is about politics, yes, but it’s also about identity, about the question of what it means to be Ukrainian.

(H/T: Andrew Sullivan)