# Yanukism

Yanukisms (Ukrainian: янукізми, romanized: yanukizmy) is a Ukrainian colloquial term for various linguistic blunders and mistakes made by former President Viktor Yanukovych, who put up a façade of a well-educated man but frequently embarrassed himself with misspellings and other mistakes.
One of the best known examples of a Yanukism is proffesor, which got started as Yanukovych misspelled the academic title in his registration form during the 2004 presidential election. It became an internet meme and a nickname of Yanukovych. In the same form, Yanukovych made in total 12 different mistakes: he misspelled the names of his wife and his hometown. In addition, Yanukovych has made so many other mistakes that his doctor's degree in economics has been called into question. Also, the fact that Yanukovych was among the best-selling authors of Ukraine in the early 2010s raised questions about the true author of his books due to all his past mistakes.
Yanukisms can also be manifested by factual mistakes instead of misspellings or other mistakes language-wise. Yanukovych has said among other things that Mount Athos is located in Palestine (actually in Greece), called the 2022 Winter Olympics 'a World Championship' and said that Israel is a European country.

## Examples

| Yanukism | Explanation |
| проффесор (proffesor [uk]) | extra ф (f) |
| Welcome in Ukraine! | wrong preposition (to instead of in); Yanukovych uttered this while on a state visit to Japan in 2011 |
| Isaak Bebel | Yanukovych mixed up the Ukrainian author Isaac Babel and the German politician August Bebel |
| йолка (yolka) | means 'a Christmas tree'. The correct Ukrainian term is ялинка (yalynka), which Yanukovych forgot. |
| прємьєр-міністр (premyer-ministr) | correct spelling: прем'єр-міністр, means 'a Prime Minister' the incorrect spelling is derived from the Russian "Премьер-министр", substituting е and и with the Ukrainian letters є and і (which carry the same pronunciation in Ukrainian as е and и do in Russian — although е and и exist in the Ukrainian alphabet as well, they are pronounced differently). |
| курасани (kurasany) | correct spelling: круасани (kruasany), means 'croissants' |
| Secretary General Clinton | while meeting Hillary Clinton, Yanukovych mistitled her as 'Secretary General' instead of 'Secretary of State' |
| People from Lviv are "the country's best genocide" | Yanukovych mixed up the words for gene pool (генофонд, henofond) and genocide (геноцид, henotsyd) |
| Anna Akhmetova | correct spelling: Akhmatova |
| "when you see with your own hands (– –) you touch it with your own eyes" | Yanukovych describes reports from regional governors |
| "revival and development of Pridnestrovie and all of Ukraine" | Yanukovych mixed up the Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk (Ukrainian: Дніпропетровська область, romanized: Dnipropetrovska oblast) and the self-proclaimed unrecognized country of Transnistria (Ukrainian: Придністров'я, romanized: Prydnistrovia), which is a part of Moldova. |
| демілітація (demilitatsija) | Yanukovych forgot the word делімітація (delimitatsiya), means ’delimitation’. |
| "Energoatom" | while visiting a power engineering company called Turboatom, Yanukovych called it "Energoatom" thrice. |
| "low-enriched Iran" | Yanukovych was meant to tell Barack Obama that a new research center in Kharkiv will focus on researching low-enriched uranium; he mixed up the words for "Iran" (Ukrainian: Іран, romanized: Iran) and "uranium" (Ukrainian: уран, romanized: uran). |
| uk:Астанавітєсь! (Astanavites!; Stop!) | Russicism for proper Ukrainian Зупиніться!, another internet-meme associated with Yanukovich. He uttered it addressing to the new Ukrainian government after he was removed from power in 2014 |