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A lot of national identity is tied to symbolism that from an absolute point of view, is meaningless, but carries meaning because of other things that it's associated with or connected to, and because of how people think about it. In some sense most culture is probably this way. Why do we put up fir trees at Christmas? There's some symbolism, but it was mostly invented long after Jesus died and the logic is all post-hoc. Maybe it even swallowed existing pagan traditions (I've heard this claim but haven't looked into it myself). If Christianity had spread further south instead of north, it might have warm-weather symbolism instead. Similarly for nations and national anthems, which are largely full of romanticized or even fictionalized history. The opening line of "America the Beautiful" originally said "halcyon skies" instead of "spacious skies;" should we change it back? Was the decision to change it wrong originally? If removing "the" and changing "Kiev" to "Kyev" makes Ukrainians currently fighting a war for independence feel better, isn't it accomplishing a positive goal, even if it's fairly arbitrary?
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