Russian president Vladimir Putin doesn’t appear fascinated by peace: Sunday’s missile strike on Sumy, the worst civilian assault this yr, proves he’s decided to increase into Ukraine at any value.
This can be a warfare of concepts, narratives and myths – one that may be traced to the mid-1500s, when Ivan the Horrible, Grand Duke of Muscovy declared himself the primary “tsar” of all Russia.
As a part of his quest for energy, Ivan the Horrible challenged King Sigismund I of Poland, who as Duke of Rus, dominated over territories that now comprise elements of modern-day Ukraine.
Russian rulers have typically repurposed historical past to construct their energy, in line with historian Orlando Figes. Putin wrote a well-known essay in 2021 that known as Russians and Ukrainians “one people”. He was counting on outdated beliefs that Russia has the precise to “restore” or reunite lands it as soon as dominated.
Ukraine has survived bans on its language, pressured assimilation insurance policies, and famines just like the Holodomor, orchestrated by Stalin within the Thirties. The nation declared independence from Russia in 1991. Now, academics, artists and native leaders have joined troopers in resisting Russia.
Ukrainian servicemen react after getting back from captivity throughout a prisoner of warfare change between Russia and Ukraine.
Efrem Lukatsky/AAP
Empire and a holy mission
A broad expanse of the previous medieval kingdom of Kyivan Rus integrated territories in present-day Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, together with Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. From 1386 till 1772, the vast majority of these lands got here beneath the rule of Poland-Lithuania, ruled by the Lithuanian Jagiellon dynasty, and their successors.
In the present day, Russia typically factors to Kyivan Rus (which lasted from the ninth to the thirteenth century), claiming it’s reuniting these historical lands, as Ivan the Horrible claimed within the mid-1500s.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania, dominated by the Jagiellon dynasty within the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries.
Wikipedia, CC BY
In 1547, Ivan declared Muscovy a tsardom and Moscow to be the “Third Rome” – in different phrases, the most recent centre of true Christianity, after Rome and Constantinople. This concept made conquest seem to be a holy mission. By the late 1700s, the Russian Empire had destroyed Poland-Lithuania in a sequence of territorial annexations and wars. It had unfold far to the south and east, and now bordered with Prussia and Austria.
Ukraine, with its wealthy farmland and cultural connection to Kyivan Rus, was a high prize. Russian leaders known as Ukraine “Malorossiya”, or “Little Russia”, to assert it was only a small half of a bigger, Russian entire. They banned Ukrainian-language publications, pressured the Orthodox Church of Ukraine to reply to Moscow, and tried to stamp out any sense of a separate Ukrainian identification.
Nevertheless, Ukraine developed its personal cultural identification, formed by its Cossack traditions, its historical past beneath Polish–Lithuanian rule, and its separate experiences. Many Ukrainians argue their tradition existed lengthy earlier than Muscovy advanced into an empire.
Winter Scene in Little Russia.
Ivan Constantinovich Aivazovsky/Wikimedia Commons
In the meantime, Russia had expanded into its next-door neighbours, then pretended these lands had all the time been a part of Russia. Historian Alexander Etkind calls this course of “internal colonisation”. This technique helped Russia turn out to be an unlimited empire. However it additionally constructed lasting resentment, significantly in Ukraine.
Famine and ‘fascists’
The Soviet Union (USSR), established in 1922 within the wake of the profitable Bolshevik Coup in 1917, claimed to be a union of equal republics. However in apply, Moscow stayed firmly in management.
Ukraine had the label of “Soviet Republic”, however had little real independence. Soviet leaders demanded monumental quantities of grain, coal, and labour from Ukraine to assist the remainder of the USSR.
A postcard printed in Germany by Ukrainian Youth Affiliation for the fifteenth anniversary of Holodomor, 1933.
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
One of many darkest intervals in Ukrainian historical past was the Holodomor, an orchestrated famine that spanned 1932–33, during which tens of millions of Ukrainians died of starvation, after Stalin’s authorities seized large quantities of grain from farmers. These insurance policies aimed to interrupt Ukrainian resistance and nationalist emotions.
The Holodomor was an act of genocide in opposition to Ukrainians, although Russia disputes this interpretation.
After World Battle II, the Soviet Union took over the Baltic states and elements of Poland, together with areas now in western Ukraine. Though Ukraine grew to become one of many extra industrialised elements of the USSR, real shows of Ukrainian tradition or impartial thought had been typically met with harsh punishment. Individuals who spoke out had been labelled “fascists”, a time period nonetheless utilized in Russia’s trendy propaganda.
Starved peasants on a avenue in Kharkiv throughout the famine.
Widener Library, Harvard College
Reclaiming Ukraine
The USSR fell aside in 1991. Ukraine, together with different former Soviet republics, grew to become impartial nations. This was a serious blow to Russia’s concept of itself as a world empire. For hundreds of years, Moscow had seen Ukraine as central to its identification.
The Nineteen Nineties introduced robust financial reforms and political adjustments in Russia. Then Vladimir Putin rose to energy within the early 2000s, promising to revive Russia’s affect. He described the previous Soviet states because the “near abroad”, suggesting Moscow nonetheless had particular rights over these areas.
In 2008, Russia went to warfare with Georgia. After profitable, it recognised two breakaway provinces in Georgia, successfully conserving troops there.
In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, claiming it was defending Russian audio system. It additionally backed separatists in jap Ukraine’s Donbas area. The United Nations Normal Meeting handed Decision 68/262 in March 2014, declaring Russia’s annexation of Crimea unlawful. The Kremlin continued its insurance policies regardless.
A Putin supporter celebrates the 2014 annexation of Crimea in Sevastopol, Republic of Crimea.
Sergei Chirkov/AAP
‘Denazifying’ Ukraine?
In February 2022, Russia expanded the battle by launching an invasion of Ukraine. It described its actions as a mission to “denazify” the nation, accusing Ukraine’s authorities of being managed by Nazis – though president Zelenskyy has Jewish heritage.
There was no proof to assist these claims. Nonetheless, Russian leaders used these slogans to justify their aggressive push. Additionally they spoke of “traditional values” and “Orthodox unity”, portray themselves as defenders of a shared Slavic tradition.
The army goal was to seize the Donbas utterly, create a land bridge to Crimea, and possibly advance additional to Transnistria in Moldova, a pro-Russian separatist area.
What Russia hoped can be a fast victory has turn out to be a protracted, brutal battle. For a lot of Ukrainians, independence is extra than simply avoiding management by Moscow. It’s about making a society constructed on democracy, human rights and ties to Europe.
These values impressed the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv in 2013–14, the place demonstrators demanded much less corruption and nearer hyperlinks to the European Union. Russia used these protests to justify seizing Crimea in 2014.
Ukrainians mark the primary anniversary (in November 2014) of the Euromaidan Revolution.
Sergey Dolzhenko/AAP
A message of self-determination
The Kremlin’s insistence that Ukrainians and Russians are the identical mirrors the older imperial mannequin: increase, soak up and declare these territories had been all the time a part of Russia. Breaking free from this “mental empire” calls for a deep shift in how Russians, Ukrainians, and the world view Japanese Europe’s previous and current.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, many hoped for a brand new period of cooperation in Japanese Europe. As a substitute, authoritarian politics and outdated beliefs about empire have led to a devastating battle.
By refusing to be pulled again into Russia’s orbit, Ukrainians ship a message about self-determination. They reject the declare larger nations can soak up smaller ones just by invoking a shared previous.
