History of Ukraine
Strikingly different interpretations of the medieval state of Kievan Rus' appear in the four schools of historiography within Ukraine: Russophile, Sovietophile, Eastern Slavic, and Ukrainophile. The Sovietophile and Russophile schools have become marginalized in independent Ukraine, with the Ukrainophile school being dominant in the early 21st century. The Ukrainophile school promotes an identity that is mutually exclusive of Russia. It has come to dominate the nation's educational system, security forces, and national symbols and monuments, although it has been dismissed as nationalist by Western historians. The East Slavic school, an eclectic compromise between Ukrainophiles and Russophilism, has a weaker ideological and symbolic base, although it is preferred by Ukraine's centrist former elites.
Sloboda Ukraine
The name derives from the term "sloboda" for a colonial settlement free of tax obligations, and the word "ukraine" in its original sense of "borderland". The etymology of the word Ukraine is seen this way among Russian, Ukrainian and Western historians such as Orest Subtelny, Paul Magocsi, Omeljan Pritsak, Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Ivan Ohiyenko, Petro Tolochko and others. It's supported by the Encyclopedia of Ukraine and the Etymological dictionary of the Ukrainian language. In Russia, the name "Ukraine" (Russian: "Ukraina") is perceived as a calque of "okraina", meaning a frontier ("krai"), thus "Sloboda Ukraine" is known as a "free-settled frontier". In Ukraine, the region is accepted as a free settled region, part of the whole Ukraine.