Mischa Bachinski Is A Completely Wrong Spelling Of His Name. Misha Bachynskyi Is The Correct Form.

Mischa Bachinski is a completely wrong spelling of his name. Misha Bachynskyi is the correct form.

To put it simple, it just doesn’t make sense in Ukrainian language at all. Instead of the soft “sh” (ш) that is supposed to be in the name Misha (Міша), for some reason there is “sch” (щ), which not only is less appealing to the ear, but also the name Mischa (Міща) does not exist. Could it have been just made up on purpose? Theoretically yes, but I feel icky about foreigners making up a name that sounds so ridiculous and has no background whatsoever. Besides, it is pretty obvious that they were going for the name Міша, but messed up the transcript. The surname ending -ski is an outdated Russian-sounding version, -skyi is a much more accurate one for a Ukrainian surname. Ukrainian letter "и" never translates as "i", only as "y".

Talias name was completely butchered too, more here (there's actually a wholeass rabbithole from there on). The name of the city where she comes from is spelled wrong (it's supposed to be Kyiv, not Kiev), and so is Misha's (it's Odesa, not Odessa), also it’s Chornobyl, not Chernobyl. Characters frequently say "the Ukraine", even though the name of the country is supposed to be said without the adjective. Basically, not a single Ukrainian name was spelled correctly, and many things about Ukraine also were completely messed up.

And these are not just wrong spellings! These are the remnants of Russian oppression, specifically in Soviet times, when all non-Russian names had to be transcripted from Russian, all non-Russian languages were stripped of their originality, forcefully made to sound more Russian, and advocating for the use of your language could get you deported or killed (and now the same thing is happening the occupied territories of Ukraine, Sakartvelo, Chechnya etc.). Using the correct version of Ukrainian names is at least a sign of respect and recognition.

I am not saying that back in 2008 when the musical was made the authors deliberately decided on using the Russian forms of city names and, well, people names. Back at the time the voices of people advocating for correct forms were not heard, and this didn’t seem like a big deal. But in the context of the modern world it is very important, specifically because there is a literal full-scale genocidal war in Ukraine right now. As a Ukrainian, the nuance of those names and spelling matters a lot to me, and it is the same way for other Ukrainian fans I’ve met. Some didn’t want to get into the musical specifically because of these issues, plus the fact that Misha is kind of a harmful stereotype for Slavic people in general, which is yet another topic to explore at some point in the future. And he is still the BEST representation we’ve got and I love him dearly.

I believe that using a correct form of his name is a battle worth fighting