Motherland
Kyiv monument (1981), dedicated to the memory of those who lost their
lives in the Second World War. Its base is the Kyiv WWII Museum’s Hall
of Glory, inside which one can find the names of over 11,000 soldiers
and workers who earned the title of Hero of the Soviet Union or the Hero
of Socialist Labor during the war engraved on massive marble slabs. The
statue itself is 62 meters tall and is made entirely of stainless
steel. For more information: [https://destinations.com.ua/news/big-cities-life/915-the-observation-platform-at-the-motherland-monument-in-kyiv]
For
the last five days as this is written, everyone who understands the
gravity of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been riveted to the news.
Most Americans — with the exception of the insensate, incensed Trumpist
right — are rooting for the Ukraine resistance. Fox News wavers between
attempts to blame Biden for the situation and, forgetting its decades
of anti-green tirades funded by petrodollars, asks why isn’t the US
energy-independent? Rhetorical questions based on false premises and
predetermined conclusions are, of course, the demagogue Tucker Carlson’s
infuriating stock in trade.
The outcome is far too early
to predict. A few days ago, the massive advantage of the Russians in
troops, material, and high-tech weaponry seemed to be the decisive
factor. Now, after a determined, heroic resistance by Ukraine by its
menfolk ages 18 to 60, armed with Molotov cocktails, light arms, and
Javelin and Stinger missiles, the Russian blitzkrieg has slowed. (The
fiercely independent Cossacks apparently survive in the Ukrainian DNA.)
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered this message
on social media: "I need ammunition. I don't need a ride."
Putin
has agreed to negotiate with Ukraine without preconditions while
simultaneously brandishing nuclear weapons against Ukrainian allies. He
retains a single military ally in his vassal state Belarus; it is there
that the negotiating teams have now met (let us not get our hopes up for
a quick settlement). Contrasting with this bluster is the quiet,
determined courage of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the onetime
comedian and actor (and Jeremy Renner lookalike) who has rebuffed
attempts to spirit him to safety: “I need ammunition. I don’t need a
ride.” Already he has been compared in Western media to Winston
Churchill standing up to Hitler, and the gladiator Spartacus taking on
the slave-holding Roman Empire. Is Putin now playing the nuclear madman
(as Nixon thought himself clever to do, once upon a time)? Or is he just
engaging in KGB/GRU brinksmanship — being "smart,” in Trump’s words,
pulling off this daring coup attempt at the low cost of only a few
“two-dollar sanctions?”
I
had originally intended to write a brief précis of Ukrainian history
leading to the present crisis, but, silly me, the complexity of the
area’s history defies an easy synopsis. Putin’s claims that Ukraine was
never a real nation; that it was founded by a diplomatic error on the
part of Lenin after The Great War; and that Ukraine was, is and will
always be an indissoluble part of Mother Russia and that the Ukrainians
and Russia are “one people” are absurd. Why decimate your own people?
All national origin stories tend to be vastly over-simplified myths in
any case. Both Russians and Americans suffer from propaganda gone viral —
from a 24/7 barrage of “fake news“ (Trump) and “alternate facts” (Kelly
Anne Conway) — and fear of facticity. The opposition to critical race
theory and the censorship of “disturbing” books are arguments for
ignorance and serfdom.
Vasily
Vereshchagin, “The Apotheosis of War,” 1871. Courtesy of Tretyakov
Gallery, Moscow, dedicated “to all great conquerors, past, present, and
to come.” Pyramids of skulls refer to Mongol “shock-and-awe” practices
of 1220. — Wikipedia
Ukraine,
a vast, Texas-sized steppe bereft of natural barriers but rich in
agricultural soil and industrial resources, has been fought over for
centuries by various regional powers. Think of Anselm Kiefer’s painted
panoramas of mud occasionally mixed with the blood of indigenes and
invading armies. Ukraine entered history with the creation of Kievan Rus
(more properly in Ukrainian, Kyivian Rus), a Slavic/Baltic/Finnic
empire united by a Norse or Slav Prince Rurik (d. 879). His descendants,
the Rurikids, ruled the geographically blessed “small city on a hill”
sitting on the Dnieper River astride several trade routes, for
approximately four centuries, from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.
Russia takes its name from Rus, as does Belarus. Vladimir the Great (r.
980-1015) was the Constantine of the Rurik empire, converting it to
Christianity — for aesthetic reasons:
…when
Vladimir had decided to accept a new faith instead of the traditional
idol-worship (paganism) of the Slavs, he sent out some of his most
valued advisors and warriors as emissaries to different parts of Europe.
They visited the Christians of the Latin Rite, the Jews, and the
Muslims before finally arriving in Constantinople. They rejected Islam
because, among other things, it prohibited the consumption of alcohol,
and Judaism because the god of the Jews had permitted his chosen people
to be deprived of their country. They found the ceremonies in the Roman
church to be dull. But at Constantinople, they were so astounded by the
beauty of the cathedral of Hagia Sophia and the liturgical service held
there that they made up their minds there and then about the faith they
would like to follow. Upon their arrival home, they convinced Vladimir
that the faith of the Byzantine Rite was the best choice of all.
(Wikipedia)
Vladimir
Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy are Vladimir the Great’s current
namesakes. Dynastic quarrels (including the 1015 familicide of
Syvatopolk the Accursed), the increasing power of clans, and constant
warfare weakened the principate, which fragmented into twelve
principalities that succumbed to the Mongol (or Tartar) invasions of
1223 and 1237-42, becoming tribute-paying vassals of the Golden Horde.
Kyiv was sacked by the Mongols in 1240, ”reduced almost to nothing,” in
the words of one witness. It was Mongol rule, however, that created
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moscow, which threw off the “Mongol yoke”
centuries later, in 1480:
Moscow's
eventual dominance of northern and eastern Rus' was in large part
attributable to the Mongols. After the prince of Tver joined a rebellion
against the Mongols in 1327, his rival prince Ivan I of Moscow joined
the Mongols in crushing Tver and devastating its lands. By doing so he
eliminated his rival, allowed the Russian Orthodox Church to move its
headquarters to Moscow, and was granted the title of Grand Prince by the
Mongols. As such, the Muscovite prince became the chief intermediary
between the Mongol overlords and the Rus' lands, which paid further
dividends for Moscow's rulers. (Wikipedia)
After that colorful prelude we
fast-forward through centuries of domination by Polish, Lithuanian,
Austrian and Russian overlords. Ukrainians who resisted serfdom imposed
by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and later the Russian tsar rose in
periodic revolts that were eventually suppressed in the late 18th
century.
With the rise of nationalism
in the early 19th century, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian intellectuals
extolled Ukrainian culture, publishing dictionaries and histories,
writing new works in Ukrainian, and advocating the teaching of Ukrainian
despite official efforts to suppress ukrainopihila. These had begun
earlier, with Catherine the Great (ironically, a Rurikid) in about 1768,
when she gained control of Ukraine from the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth. By that time her youthful fascination with the
Enlightenment had yielded to realpolitik. This trend continued under the
tsars until the Russian Revolution in 1917. Under the new tsars of
Communism, in the 1930s, Ukraine suffered purges of dissenting
intellectuals and the tragic Great Famine, caused by Stalin’s ruthless
expropriations of grain, a drought, and a labor force decimated by the
Great War and the Russian civil wars. Whether the famine was planned
genocide is a matter of contention; its effect, however, was as
genocidal as the relocations of Native Americans in this country.
Viktor Vasnetsov, “The Invitation of the Varangians.” Rurik and his
brothers Sineus and Trevor arrive at the lands of the Novgorod Slavs.
Vladimir I of Kiev (c. 958-1015)
The
massive protests in Russia against Mr. Putin’s “war of choice,” in
President Biden’s words, serious matters to a dictatorship, give us a
flicker of hope that Putin’s time may be ending. If Ukraine can stay in
the fight, and create another military morass similar to Afghanistan,
and the eight (or is it now seven?) oligarchs turn on the Vozhd so as to
render him and his imperial fantasies void, then Russia may escape
becoming an irrelevant declining power. The future is calling. For the
moment, remember that after 9/11, people all over the world claimed to
be Americans. Right now, we are all Ukrainians. Glory to Ukraine!
