Nationalitätenkarte der Ukraine 1938

A German map of Ukraine that breaks down the population of Ukraine according to national, religious and ethnic backgrounds. The map shows the population distribution by region as well as by city via the use of small pie charts. The most interesting thing about the map is how many Ukrainians are even listed as living in Ukraine. According to the key in the bottom left Ukrainians make up only a small fraction of the actual population of Ukraine and are roughly equivalent to the amount of Russians present in the country. Also interesting about this map is how the German authors chose to break down the populations, clearly identifying some nationalities but identifying religious Jewish populations by their religion as opposed to their nationality. The map also has a curious “Weißruthenen” mark which translates into English roughly as “Ruthenian” who are a compilation of smaller ethnic slavic groups who did not identify themselves as Ukrainians or any other regional nationality. The overall effort of the map seems to be to undermine the existence of a true Ukrainian nationality, treating Ukraine as the Eastern European Borderland from which the very name of the nation itself (Ukraine meaning “Borderland”) is derived.