Why It’s Wrong to Say “the” Ukraine

Growing up many of us heard Ukraine often referred to with the definite article “the” preceding it. Most notably news media during the Cold War used “the” and it became a habit that some have found hard to break in the modern era. Here’s a little background on how this happened and why it’s actually incorrect to say “the Ukraine”.

Ukraine has a history as part of the USSR or Soviet Union, but the name has been in use since the 12th century to describe this region. The translation of Ukraine can be interpreted as “borderlands”, which led some in the era after World War II to include “the” in the name. Ukraine borders Belarus, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova.

After a short-lived period of independence at the dawn of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ukraine did not gain sovereignty again until 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union. In the years that followed the collapse of the USSR “the” was dropped as a signal of the newfound independence of Ukraine from Russia.

Today, adding “the” to the name is thought of as a throwback to the Soviet era and is considered to be disrespectful to Ukrainians. Likewise the modern spelling of the capital of Ukraine is Kyiv, not Kiev as was the previous preferred Westernized spelling of the name.

In addition to being a Cold War verbal holdover that’s out of date, the usage of “the” before Ukraine is also considered grammatically incorrect. There are only 2 countries presently that use the word “the” before their larger titles. Those countries are The Bahamas and The Gambia.

Popular utterance of “the” before country names is wrongly used for many other nations besides Ukraine, including US, Netherlands, Sudan, and the 2 nations of Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of the Congo (which are sometimes incorrectly referred to interchangeably as “the Congo”).

If “the” isn’t in the country’s official title, then the best practice is to leave it out whenever referring to that country.