The gap between myth and history
"Russian President Vladimir Putin told a story about the past that had nothing to do with history. Russia and Ukraine, according to him, were conceived together in a ruler’s baptism a thousand years ago. They shared the same culture, and therefore should be ruled by the same person. If anything else seemed to happen, it was not really history. Should Ukrainians not believe that they were Russians, this was the nefarious work of outsiders. Putin not only said such things; he had memory laws passed to prevent Russians from being challenged by history, and even had the word “Ukraine” stricken from textbooks.
Ukrainian history makes today’s world make more sense. Our entire Western civilization trajectory, from the Greeks forward, is clearer if we understand that Athens was fed by what is now southern Ukraine. The fantastic history of the Vikings becomes still more so when we understand that they founded a state in Kyiv. The age of exploration takes on a new dimension when we recognize that Polish and Russian powers made their empires by pushing east into the Eurasian landmass, where they ultimately met in Ukraine. The age of empire is completed by Nazi and Soviet neo-imperial projects, both of which had their focus in Ukraine. That horribly bloody confrontation made Ukraine the most dangerous place in the world during the totalitarian era of 1933 to 1945. That and the Russification that followed have made the story of Ukraine difficult to tell, including for Ukrainians."As logic, this is circular; and as politics, it is tyrannical. If I can claim that Canadians are Americans because they speak the same language, or because we share a common history, that would strike us as an idiotic reason to order an invasion. When a dictator claims the power to define other people’s identity, then the question of their own freedom never arises. If identity is frozen forever at the whim of a ruler, citizens soon find themselves without choices.[...]
Professor Timothy Snyder
in The Washington Post, February 22, 2023 *1
Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University. He is the author of The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America and also of Bloodlands. In 2022 he presented an online series of lectures on Ukrainian history which was watched by millions of people.The above interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Michael Wiser for FRONTLINE on Septembr 26, 2022. It has been edited for clarity and length (and was posted on YouTube on February 20, 2023).
*1 Read the full article of Timothy Snyder in The Washington Post here.
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