Serhii Plokhii, 'The Return of History: The Russo-Ukrainian War Through the Eyes of a Historian'

Part of George Mason University's "Russia's War on Ukraine in Historical Perspective"

Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the start of the largest European conflict since the end of World War II came as a shock to the world at large. Putin’s de facto declaration of war on Ukraine, delivered in conjunction with his official recognition of the independence of the puppet states created by Russia in eastern Ukraine, was dubbed a history lecture, and few observers outside Russia could make sense of it. How important have been the misuse and abuse of history in the perpetration and justification of this war, and what are the actual historical causes of the conflict? The lecture provided answers to these and other related questions by tracing the origins of the newest European war and explaining the reasons for the return of the Cold War to the very same part of the world where it ended thirty years earlier.

Serhii Plokhii is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and the director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. A leading authority on Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe, he has published extensively on the international history of World War II and the Cold War. His books won numerous awards, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best English-language book on the international relations and the Ballie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction (UK). His latest book, Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters was released by W.W. Norton in US and penguin in UK in May 2022.

This session was moderated by Steven Barnes, Director of the Program in Russian and Eurasian Studies and Associate Professor in the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University. He is the series organizer and teaches and researches broadly on the history of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, modern Russia, Kazakhstan, and the other independent countries from this imperial space.

[johnries]

The inhabitants of what now called the Byzantine Empire did consider themselves to be Romans long after it lost control of Italy, even though the dominant language was Greek instead of Latin. And the Frankish king now known as Charlemagne allowed himself to be proclaimed Emperor of Rome over three centuries after the demise of the Western Roman Empire, even though he did not personally rule Rome (which was governed by the Pope). So historic continuity is frequently highly probematic and disputed; and modern conceptions of nationhood are quite different from those of past centuries. In any case, Rus was a dynastic state, not a nation in the modern sense.

[momchilyordanov]

Next time, when something like that lection is planned, could you PLEASE provide the lector with adequate internet connection. This is TORTURE for me as a listener. Despite my strong desire to hear what the lecturer had to say.

[marinaburrell]

It would be really important for the historian to provide some excerpts from the texts I of 17th and 19th20th CC as supportive evidence of the speaker’s statements.

[danielhutchinson]

Historians should be capable of noticing how many returning Russian Soldiers were employed in Donbas as the effort to reconstruct the area after Nazi occupation, in 1945.
The economics of operating Mines and Industry that was suddenly left without a sponsor to pay to keep the area operating, Kyiv appeared to have no spare Change to offer.
But when Putin announced that a new BRICS Bank would be offering IMF style loans, the US began to arm Kyiv.
The affair is economic, and the $22 billion the INF provided, appeared to leave the country in suitcases and Fiat Dollars in the pocket of Oligarchs like Rinat Akhmetov.
Installing Saakashvili as Odessa Governor appeared to be an asset to the US like the CIA Former Nazi soldiers who began to sneak into Ukraine in 1950.

The Historians pick the stories they want to describe.
Viking roots like Persian, Greek, Mongolian, Austrian or Polish heritage shaped a very well mixed population.
The ability to appeal to the desire for the return of Galicia, or the Golden Horde, seemed to be simple?

The events on March 16 2021 that the NATO Forces demonstrated in Poland and Romania, appeared to get Russian attention, as did the NATO Artillery falling for 8 years on Donbas.
The Russians started deploying Troops along their Borders after the NATO mini Operation Barbarossa was noticed.
Historians appear to say what they are supposed to

[marinaburrell]

Correction to one of the speaker’s statements: Ukrainian was not among Soviet republics to declare independence (1 Dec 1991). Lithuania and the other two Baltic republicans did that in 1989!

[sciencetechnology]

Людей нужно учить. Сами они ничего не поймут.
Например : Ответ россиянам, которые заявляют, что они Русь, просто Маасковская...
Гийом де Рубрук, посланник французского короля Луи IX к монголам. Отчет брата Вильгельма Рубрука о его поездке на восток в годах от 1253 до 1255: K северу от Перекопа лежит Русь, в которой всюду леса, она протянулась от Польши и Венгрии до Танаиса (Дона). Эта река является восточной границей Руси. Роджер Бэкон, английский философ, Великое произведение, 1266-68 r. А к северу от Кассарии (Крыма) расположена великая Русь, которая простирается от Польши, с одной своей стороны, и тянется к Танаису (Дону) ... А на восточной границе Руси с Аланией, куда приходят купцы и прочий люд, идущий из Венгрии, Империи, Польши и Руси, есть поселения, где на кораблях переправляются через реку Танаис. Именно поэтому, настоящая Русь, как тогда, так и сегодня - від Сяну до Дону

Миф разрушен ☝

Сразу после завоевании Ростово-Суздальской земли, которая в те времена называлась Мещерой, хан Батый закрепил большую часть Мещерского улуса, ставшего неотъемлемой частью Золотой Орды, за своим братом Чилаукуном и его родом.
На территории Мещерского улуса Золотой Орды в течение 1238-1239 годов хан Чилаукун переселил четыре рода: ширинов, аргынов, барынов, татар. Общая численность переселенных в Мещерский улус тюркских племен составляла 60000 человек. В то время, когда местное финское население насчитывало около 50-60 тысяч.

Именно из этого конгломерата финских и тюркских племен впоследствии появились московиты, которые сами назвали себя в XVIII веке русскими.

Никакой "России" в 1710 году не существовало, это ещё было Московское царство.

Московиты, до конца 18 века ещё не европейское, а азиатское государство, условную границу между Европой и Азией перетянут с Дона, где ее признавали тысячелетиями на Волгу, а позже и вообще в середину северной Азии на Урал только под конец 18 века.

Московиты узурпировали имя России. Они не славяне, а монголы и финны. Московию от орды освободило Крымское Ханство. "Россия" - владелица краденной собственности.

[marinaburrell]

Demographic evidence is needed: the data on ethnic groups in Ukraine from Census during 19th and 20th cc.

[marinaburrell]

Sorry, Ukraine was not THE FIRST to declare independence.

[fi]

This talk is biased. I learned Russian History in the early 90s and then the continuity between Kievan Rus and Muscovy was taught as an undisputed fact. In other words, this idea is NOT "Russian Imperial Propaganda"; it was what all WESTERN historians believed until recently. It is funny enough to see that Russian history is still presented as having started in Kiev on Wikipedia, for example (and in almost all manuals). There are plenty of reasons supporting this view. For example, the Patriarchate of "all Russia" was transferred from Kiev to Moscow in the 14th century (after a stay in Vladimir during the 13th century). The reason for this was the Mongol Invasions and the consequent destruction in and around Kiev. In many ways, the expansion of Muscovy southwards was not a conquest but a Spanish-type reconquista against the Tatars and the Poles. During the Middle Ages, when ethnic identity did not exist yet as such, its main equivalent was religion. In the respect, it is obvious that most of the lands around Kiev remained Russian orthodox and not Muslim (like the Tatars) or Catholic (like the poles). Linguistically, Ukrainian is, by far, closer to Russian than to any other Slavic language. After the Kievan period and before its absorption into Muscovy, Ukraine never existed as a state. It was a buffer zone disputed between the Tatars, the poles, independent Cossacks and a number of ephemeral central European polities. None of these ever claimed to be "Ukrainian". Another argument for continuity between Kievan Rus and Russia is that the rise of Muscovy occurred in the framework of the "Apanage" feudal system initiated by Kiev. In other words, the fundamental institutions did not change. I understand that one wants to stand up to Putin and his aggression, but is it the best way to do this to re-write history in such a ridiculously blatant way?

[RimaFair]

"Plokhii", translated ftom Ukrainian, means "bad". Im a Ukrainian and can tell you, that guy lives up to his name! And his opinions are truly nationalistic, rather than fair.