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Originally Posted by Yustas
FYI i speak fluently Ukrainian, Polish, Russian and English. Understand most other slavic languages ( like Belorussian, Serbian, Slovak)
I din't say a word about Arian's, jews, or gurus. I don't know what they have to do with it.
My historical reference was necessary to prove that Ukraine has great military culture and heritage. Atilla, Svyatoslav Sahaydachyi have one thing in common-they are ancestors of Ukrainian people. And I don't like people's sarcasm concerning ability of Ukrainins to develope their own martial art. I don't think we are any worse than Japanese, Chinese, Brasilians, Turkish, native Americans, or any other nation in the world.
Nice to know ,my fellow countrymen are here.  |
Yustas,
Nobody here tries to demean Ukrainians. The same is true about Brits, Poles, Native Americans, Jews, Khevsoors etc, etc, etc.
Again, every nation has its roster of achievements and it would be plain silly to compare the relative magnitude of each: just like arguing which paint was the most important in a large picture.
It so happened that Central Europeans never developed a distinct style of unarmed combat. True not only about Ukrainians, bur also about Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Germans etc, etc. Hopak is only a dance; kudos to the modern Ukrainian practitioners of Tae Kwon Do ( or some other Asian system) for utilizing Hopak's rhythm and jumps to teach their students . On the other hand, Hopak was never a martial art on its own. I fully agree with you about the benefits of Ukrainian independence, and God bless you!. On the other hand, neither in the Tsarist Russia nor in the USSR was there any attempt to ban hopak or to smother any martial aspirations of the Ukrainians. The language was severely restricted, that's true, but Gogol's "Taras Bulba", the ultimate martial epic of the Ukrainian Cossacks, was a required reading in schools. There was never any attempt to hide or to ban any martial arts system of any nationality. This is the reason why I viewed the "Hopak" movie and the commentary without much enthusiasm. National pride is good and appropriate but Jingoism based on invented claims and on fanning "national superiority" usually leads to pretty bad things. It is not the matter whether Ukrainians are "worse" than Japanese or Koreans; they just developed different aspects of culture. They were great horsemen; Japanese were not. Are Japanese worse?
In short: I challenge you to find me a single manual of native Ukrainian martial arts system, preferably involving leg kicks, published before 1980. You can go back as far as you wish.
BTW: Did you see my answer to you about Ukrainian sabers? Same story.