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Ukraine is located here, right below Russia and Belarus.
乌克兰位于这里，就在俄罗斯和白俄罗斯下方。
So, Ukraine is a relatively young country.
乌克兰是一个相对年轻的国家。
Like, really young.
这么说吧，建国史真的很短。
Its Declaration of Independence was only ratified in 1991, making it roughly the same age as most Millennials.
其《独立宣言》在1991年才正式生效，这让它几乎与千禧一代成了“同龄人”。
Most of this general region was historically part of either Russia or Poland.
这个国家的大部分地区在历史上曾是俄罗斯或波兰的领土。
Its very name an old Slavic routes, means borderland, which illustrates the divided frontier like nature of the land.
它的名字在古斯拉夫语里是边境的意思，也就是根据自然地理划分的边界。
Before the creation of the Kievan Rus, the Ukrainian steppes for the home of, well steppe people.
在基辅罗斯出现之前，乌克兰人一直以草原为家，是彻头彻尾的草原人。
The general area passed hands many times between large and small nomadic tribes.
这块区域多次被大大小小的游牧部落轮番接管。
The largest and most powerful of which are occasionally recorded for us by Western European scholars, who wrote about the dreadful Eastern heathens raiding their land, such as the Huns, Avars and Bulgars.
其中规模最大实力最强的部落被西欧学者偶然记录了下来，写的是诸如匈奴人、阿尔瓦人和保加利亚人这些可怕的东方外族突袭了他们的领土。
If you wanna go back further, there were the Germanic off settlements before that, and Roman before that, and Greek before that, and mammoths before that, but hell, we've got to start somewhere.
如果你想进一步追根溯源，在那之前曾有日耳曼人居住，日耳曼人之前是罗马人，罗马人之前是希腊人，希腊人之前是猛犸象，但真是见鬼，我们总得有个头。
All the while, the people, the steppes remain constant.
自始至终，那群人和草原就一直存在着。
Watching raiding and trading with their neighbors just often enough to be no worthy in the ink and paper of the Westerners.
由于乌克兰与邻邦间的虎视眈眈、突然袭击和贸易往来太过频繁，结果反而没有在西方人的书面记载中得到重视。
The Slavs and the Steppe cultures have competing legends about the precise founding of the Kiev.
斯拉夫人和草原文化对基辅建国史的准确性存在争议。
But historians generally agree it was an important trade city between many kingdoms and empires.
但是历史学家普遍认同它是众多王国和帝国之间开展贸易的重要城市。
According to the primary chronicle, which is a fancy term for "We're not totally biased, we promise this happened." The city was captured by the Ruhr Kidd dynasty in 882, from the Khazars, formally being annexed into the Kievan Rus.
编年史这个高级术语的核心要义为“我们完全没有偏见，我们保证这曾发生过。”据其记载，公元882年，鲁尔基德王朝从哈扎尔人手里夺取了这座城市，将其正式并入基辅罗斯。
The location of the city on a lucrative trade route between the north and the south enabled it to prosper, and make it rain dollar bills in the medieval ruse state.
这座城市处于连接南北的一条利润丰厚的贸易路线上，这让它越来越繁荣，并从中世纪的混乱状态中赚得盆满钵满。
From 1241, Ukraine was part of the Mongol Empire and the Golden Horde.
自1241年开始，乌克兰成为了蒙古帝国和金帐汗国版图的一部分。
But, this was not to last.
但是这种状态并没有持续下去。
Some ambitious Poles and Lithuanians were quietly building the foundations of an empire on the Baltic.
一些有野心的波勒斯人和立陶宛人悄悄地在波罗的海为帝国的建立打下基础。
The rise of the polish-lithuanian Commonwealth created a new superpower in the region,
波兰-立陶宛共和国联邦的崛起，在该区域创造了一个新的强权，
driving the Mongols out of the Ukraine from the 14th to 15th centuries, because nothing says empire like land grabs, and the amount they needed was more.
从公元14世纪到15世纪，其逐渐将蒙古人驱逐出了乌克兰，因为土地掠夺更能彰显出帝国的权势，而且他们的胃口更大。
Supposing now to take off our ethnic and nationalistic hats.
假如此刻我们脱下种族和民族的大帽子。
For moments, the Sweeney channel would like you to take note of the following disclaimer.
现在，“斯威尼”频道希望你注意到接下来的免责声明。
A lot of Ukraine's history has been influenced by a people called the Cossacks.
乌克兰的许多历史已经被一群叫做哥萨克的人所影响。
We don't know exactly where these people came from, but we do know they formed a distinct ethnic and culture minority.
我们不确定这群人来自哪里，但我们知道他们形成了一个独特的民族文化群体。
For many centuries, the most compelling origins is a likelihood of mixed ancestry between the Slavs and various Mongol and Turkic descendants,
多个世纪以来，他们最令人信服的起源是斯拉夫人、各种蒙古人和突厥人的混血后代，
many of whom remain long after the collapse of the Mongol Khanate.
他们中的许多人在蒙古汗国瓦解后仍活了很久。
There's also a theory that the collapse of the Mongol Empire began the process of Jewish migration into Europe,
也有一种理论认为蒙古王国的瓦解开启了犹太人移居欧洲的进程，
but it's pretty debatable at this point.
但在现在看来，这种说法是极具争议的。
The Cossacks did briefly win independence from Poland over annexed by Russia in the following decades.
哥萨克人从波兰赢得了短暂的独立，在之后的几十年里附属于俄罗斯。
The people of this region spoke a variety of tongues including Russian, Polish and Ruthenian.
这个地区的人会说许多种语言，包括俄语，波兰语和鲁塞尼亚语。
Ruthenian is a bit of a catch-all term for Rus' dialects related to Russian that were spoken in both Poland and Russia and heavily influenced by both.
鲁塞尼亚语是基辅罗斯方言的一种通俗语种，且和俄语有关，在波兰和俄罗斯都有人会说这种语言，并且受两者的影响很大。
Some linguists believe it to be a form of proto Lingua Franca, which gradually formed the Belarusian Ukrainian dialectal continuum.
一些语言学家认为它是原始通用语的一种形式，逐渐演变成统一的白俄罗斯乌克兰方言。
However, Ukrainian Belarusian and Russian still carry large degrees of mutual intelligibility today.
然而，乌克兰语、白俄罗斯语和俄语直到今天仍然具有极大的理解互通性。
Some linguists even suggest that all three may be dialects of the same language.
一些语言学家甚至提出，这三种语言可能都是某种相同语言的不同方言。
But the studies are still debated over.
但是研究结果仍然存在争议。
The Russians ban the use of Rossini and dialects in 1804, but the use of it stayed alive in small communities in Austria-Hungary.
1804年，俄罗斯禁止使用罗西尼和方言，但它在奥地利和匈牙利的小群落中依然活跃。
The language divide is still evident today, as many parts of eastern Ukraine have a good knowledge of, or speak Russian as their mother tongue.
直到今天，语言鸿沟仍然十分明显，正如东乌克兰的许多地方通晓俄语，或者讲俄语 ，并将其作为他们的母语。
As you know from the previous episodes, the modern Ukraine borders became completely part of the Russian Empire, and the later, USSR. The nuclear reactor explosion in Chernobyl was the worst nuclear disaster in history，
正如你从先前的视频中了解到的，现代乌克兰的边界完全变成了俄罗斯帝国的一部分，后来是苏联。切尔诺贝利的核反应堆爆炸是历史上最严重的核灾难。
releasing megatons of radioactive dust into the soil and air.
释放了数百万吨放射性尘埃进入土壤和空气。
And we're not for the brave emergency workers who sealed the leaking reactor, we might all be walking around with a few extra limbs.
如果不是勇敢的应急人员堵死了正在泄露的反应堆，我们可能会带着一些多长出来的四肢走路。
Chernobyl is still a ghost town to this day, as the radiation leak is still a credible threat to public safety.
直到今天，切尔诺贝利仍然是一座鬼城，因为核泄漏对公共安全仍然是一个实实在在的威胁。
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became a fully sovereign state for the first time in 1991.
在前苏联解体后，1991年，乌克兰首次成为拥有完整主权的国家。
Hooray! The world had a new baby!
万岁！世界又有了一个新成员！
And the world opened its arms to the new independent Ukraine,
并且全世界向新独立的乌克兰张开了双臂，
and there was peace and prosperity and, oh wait, that's not what happened.
那里充满了和平和繁荣。等一下，事实并非如此。
The modern Ukraine has lived up to its name in its oh-so brief history as a borderland.
现代乌克兰一直充当国际边界线，这在其短暂的历史中确实名副其实。
The country is divided along nationalist, linguist and political lines between a Russian East, and Ukrainian West, because no feud is worse than a family feud, and Ukrainian politics could not decide what relationship they wanted to have with big brother Russia.
这个国家在民族主义者、语言学家和政治路线上划分为俄罗斯东部，和乌克兰西部两个阵营，因为没有什么仇恨比家族仇恨更严重，而乌克兰政局无法决定他们想和老大哥俄罗斯保持何种关系。
Tensions came to a head during the Russian annexation of Crimea, and eastern Ukrainian separatist movement in 2014.
在俄罗斯吞并克里米亚以及2014年乌克兰东部的分离主义运动期间，紧张局势到达顶点。
Because Putin disliked Ukraine's temper tantrums and decided to take away her toys, the country's future is somewhat uncertain, and the conflicts in the East are ongoing.
因为普京不喜欢乌克兰乱发脾气而决定夺走它的玩具，所以这个国家的未来走向有点扑朔迷离，而东部的冲突一直在继续。
But the country still sees many tourists each year and remains an important geopolitical economic center in Eastern Europe.
但每年该国仍然有大量的游客，并且其仍是东欧重要的地缘政治经济中心。
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