Voice of Ukraine

From: Maia Mikhaluk in Kyiv (921st day) —Dictator putin justifies his war in Ukraine by false statement, “Russia is an ancient state, and Ukraine is historically Russian land”. Timothy Snyder makes an interesting analysis of putin’s faulty logic, poor knowledge of history or crude manipulations that would not fool anyone with knowledge of history.

Timothy Snyder points out: “It all rests on a very familiar sort of tall tale: we were here first. These stories are generally complete falsehoods, from the “we” through the “were” and the “here” and the “first.” And so it is for Putin.

Before analyzing the legend that Putin loves, it would be helpful to spell out all of the claims it contains and that he draws from it.

1. There was a city called Novgorod when the Vikings known as the Rus arrived.
2. There were three Viking brothers.
3. The Vikings accepted the invitation and peacefully and durably ruled.
4. The people of this city were in some sense Russians because they were Slavs.
5. These Vikings were also in some sense Russians, since they called themselves “Rus.”
6. The existence of an ethnic group in a town more than a thousand years ago means a right to rule today by a dictator who calls himself a name that he also associates with that ethnic group.
7. The existence of the rulers of that ethnic group more than a thousand years ago means a right to rule today by a dictator who calls himself a name that he also associates with those rulers.
8. Events in one location more than a thousand years ago justify the existence and actions of a transcontinental empire engaged in a war of aggression against a neighboring state.
9. An algorithm exists whereby we can justify repression and war today via obscure, distant events.
10. This algorithm is known to dictators who tell the story, carry out the repressions and start the wars.

When spelled out like this, the claims reveal their magical character. Even if claims 1-5 were completely correct, the moral and political interpretations Putin offers in claims 6-10 are illogical and repugnant.

Such “reasoning” is why few historians will engage Putin’s legend directly. It has nothing to do with history — with assembling evidence, with questioning hypothesis, with making reasonable arguments based upon sources and traditions of interpretation. It is a claim to power, whose only sense arises from the power itself.”

If you want to understand the falsehood of statements 1-5 you can read Snyder’s blog. The link will be in the first comment. Snyder follows putin’s legend to its logical conclusion, “Were Putin to follow his own logic, he would not be invading Ukraine, but handing over European Russia to Finland or Sweden.”