Tans Lecture | The Historical Origins and Mythologies of Putin’s War against Ukraine | Prof. Figes
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- Опубліковано 6 лис 2023
- Putin’s war against Ukraine is based on a view of history that has deep roots in the Russian consciousness. Putin’s 2021 essay on the 'Historical Unity of the Russians and Ukrainians’ - in effect his declaration of the war - is consistent with nineteenth-century Russian imperial historiography, which continues to inform the Russian view of Ukraine and the West.
In this lecture, the famous British historian and award-winning writer Orlando Figes, known for his works on Russian history, will unpack the ideas of this historiography and explain their influence in the context of Russia’s own experience since 1991.
Orlando Figes is the author of ten books on Russian and European history which have been translated into over thirty languages. In September 2022 he published The Story of Russia, a general history of Russia from the earliest times to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Other books include: The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia; Just Send Me Word; Crimea: The Last Crusade; The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture.
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The Tans Lecture is organised every year to honour Dr. J. Tans (1912-1993), the founding father of Maastricht University.
Mr. Joll, on behalf of all barbarians I thank you.
A terrific lecture by a world-class expert on Russia...but you will note a gratuitous, and indeed absurd comparison halfway through of the "Palestinians" with the Russians and Israel with Ukraine one month after Oct 7th.
In 2014 Ukraine decided to resist Russian support of Donbass separatism. This allowed the West to dilly-dally in integrating the Ukraine into Western Institutions like NATO and the EU while enjoying all sorts of economic benefits by trading with Russia. I thought back then and posted to that effect they should have let the Donbass go and end their war with Russia so that they could join NATO. Maybe that wasn't possible, maybe a country cannot tolerate such a loss of territory carried out by an imperialist oppressor on their doorstep, but I think very soon they will have the same decision to make. Sign a bitter peace, give up territory and stake everything on a West more willing now to support it with treaties and even troops on the ground. I looked at Ukraine's GDP and internal problems (corruption was number 1) back in 2015. Ukraine and Poland had the same per capita income in 1990. Now Poland's is multiples higher. How could Ukraine sustain a war?
The better analogy to make with israel is actually with Putin's Russia. Support for Netanyahu's war is a support for an increasingly illiberal and religious-ethnocentric Israeli democracy whose goal is indeed to annex the West Bank, damaging the West and ITS democracy in the process. Netanyahu is a natural ally of Modi, Orban, Meloni, Le Pen, and above all Trump. It is VERY likely that this Israel, increasingly rejected by the more progressive elements of the West, those believing in an international order governed by law and human rights, will trade and worse quite happily with Putin's Russia. As will ALL of those Right-Populist Leaders I mentioned.
Apart from the appalling suffering of Gazans, The other terrible result of backing Netanyahu's war is that it drives, at least morally, the Global South back into China's arms as the supposedly real 'anti-imperialist' power just as so many emerging nations embraced the USSR in the face of the US support for dictatorships and as the replacement power for old European imperialists in the 50s and 60s.
The wisest leaders, like Sadat, played the game smartly and dropped the USSR when it served their purposes, of course. It is complex, being against Israel's war does not mean you are pro-Hamas, in fact they have been as much an obstacle to peace as the Israeli Right Wing. But Figes' analogy is simply not credible given who is flattening cities and who is not able to.
The South Africans surely have not forgotten that Israel was the last western power to withdraw support for the Apartheid regime in the late 80s, for instance, after being very much their closest ally from the late 70s.
Honestly I do not understand why the west is not staring to support Ukraine better. Yes, they got a lot, and that is good, but the Ukraine supporter countries have to spin up their millitary production to enable Ukraine to win back their territories or effectively protect Ukraine.
Why is this my problem as a Westerner? Ukraine, Russia, Israel and Palestine are not my people nor my concern.
@@notsocrates9529 that's the line a lot of people in the West used around the time of the Munich agreement in 1938 - they just abandoned Czechoslovakia. And look what happened afterwards.I'm not saying it's a perfect comparison, but there are many similar points and frankly, do you want to risk another european war just because you think Ukraine is not your problem?
I'm not even twenty minutes in and the tacit implications of what a state is or is not (tax collecting warriors? What else is a state?), what Europe is (what is Europe if not a place where several cultures melt into a distinct other one with connections from Byzantion to Scandinavia? Is Europe only Britain, France and Germany for him?) and, not least, the typical ignorance about the importance of antiquity and medieval history for the understanding of our recent world so common in people like him; newer and newest history is just the very tip of an iceberg he blithedly dismisses. King Alfred is no less important to understand modern Britain than Rishi Sunak is. To reduce him to a quaint children's story, as he reduces the Rus to a bunch of nebulous slave traders nobody knows anything about, betrays only one thing: A narrow-minded, wilful ignorance in Professor Figes. I understand he is retired now as a professor, but surely he could have popped down some doors at his former university and find some actual experts on early medieval history who could tell him something of substance, beyond burned cakes and "print" in the 12th century.
Because if his argument is that both sides are misusing history, then he jolly well ought to KNOW and TEACH the actual history, and not just dismiss it like this.
much of your talk is as much polemic as history. that said a real historiography is there isn’t a country on the planet that would allow a hostile foreign military residence along its borders if they would have the option to stop it. russia has that option and as expected has taken it.