lady_skendich

My husband's family is similar to OP's Ukrainian side, and he's lectured me on this since I met him. The borders for Ukraine have moved dramatically over the years, including Crimea originally being part of their territory at the start of the Soviet era. Wikipedia as a nice summary of this period.

Background: Husband was born in the US but deeply rooted in his Uky heritage. MIL was born in a liberated Nazi camp, so technically Uky, but not born there. Her parents told me (so I'm only secondhand) they surrendered to the Nazis because, like OP's family, they knew they were in much more danger from the Soviets (though they had watch Germans murder in cold blood as well). I wasn't really taught anything about the Cold War because we didn't talk about these things in our Midwestern public school; listening to, and traveling to Eastern Europe with, my husband's family was a real eye opener.

TL;DR American Ukrainians appear to have better access to the full historical retrospectives than those living there o_O

EDIT: I should clarify, for professional reasons I have had the benefit of reviewing the entire history of much of the region and certainly have a greater depth of knowledge than an average person :)

EDIT2: for clarity/the lazy, the region OP speaks of is in the area of modern Belgorod, Russia.

This isn't really in conflict with my understanding; it seems (I am in no way on par with historical or geographical experts) that the "teens and twenties" (of the 1900's) were very unsettled and things were changing rapidly, thus this type of administrative change being difficult to separate from other "land exchanges". The point being, it is very complex, and many in my sphere find it strange that Russia is acting as though Crimea is some "'lorn lost lover", when at best it's more like a former captive who now has Russia's babies :/ (of course, I'm being a bit flip and making over exaggerated analogies for humor)

Thanks, and thanks for doing this AMA!

"A wise man knows he knows very little"; how awesome of you to admit you don't have all the answers!!!

Or econometrics? I've just started a job in econometric modeling so I would love a good reference!