S. Lavrov: “Britain should no longer be called “Great””

Minister of Foreign Affairs Russia Sergey Lavrov stated that United Kingdom should no longer be called “Great”, since it is the only country in the world that continues to call itself that.

“I think Britain should just be called Britain because “Great Britain” is the only example of a state that calls itself great“, Lavrov said, answering questions from journalists in the context of discussing the topic colonialism and making reference to his earlier comments about Greenland.

As an example of another state that used the word “great” in its official name, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry mentioned “Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” times Muammar Gaddafi. “However, this state no longer exists,” he added.

Lavrov’s statement came against the backdrop of attempts USA under the president Donald Trump reformat relations with Moscow and advance negotiations to end the war between Russia And Ukraine. At the same time, it is precisely Britannia in Russian public discourse it is increasingly identified as the main external enemy.

On Russian state television the UK is regularly referred to as “Insidious Albion” is a term used by news anchors to describe the country as a behind-the-scenes intelligence power. In this interpretation, London is represented by a force operating from the shadows – from Washington to Iran — with the aim of undermining Russia’s interests around the world.

Editorial comment

History with the name “United Kingdom” – this is not about greatness or imperial ambitions, no matter how much one would like to give it a political connotation. It’s about geography, not self-esteem.

Term Great Britain appeared long before modern political conflicts and meant only “great Britain” – unlike Brittany in France. Word great here used in the meaning “large”, not “great”. This was a cartographic and diplomatic necessity, not an act of self-aggrandizement.

Over time, the name became fixed in the official formula United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Where United Kingdom denotes an island with England, Scotland and Wales, not political status or moral superiority.

When today this word becomes an object of irony or criticism, we are no longer talking about linguistics, but about rhetoric. In such a context, the term is deliberately stripped of its historical and geographical meaning and turned into a symbol – a convenient target for a political jab.

From an academic point of view, such an interpretation is a stretch. From a political point of view, this is a completely deliberate technique. The dispute here is not about the name of the state, but about who and how forms the image of the enemy in public space.

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