Putin's Russian History Lesson

Let's see. What do I know about Russian history?

I know that, back in the day, the Vikings were running slaves down the Volga. I know there was a thing called the Kievan Rus. I know about the Mongols and how they rolled over Russia, leaving behind the Golden Horde.

Then I know about Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and the Nicholases.of the Romanov dynasty. And somewhere in there the Prussian Frederick the Great was fighting with Russia over Eastern Europe when he wasn't playing the flute in the evening.

And the pogroms and Fiddler on the Roof.

Then came World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War between the Reds and the Whites, followed by Lenin's New Economic Policy and Stalin's famines and purges. Then World War II and the occupation of Europe. Then the Cold War. Then the breakup of the Soviet Union into separate nations like Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, etc. Then the Russians retake the Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

And now the US is involved in stirring things up between Russia and the Ukraine and Hunter Biden is using his dad's connections to pay for his cocaine.

And that's about it.

But did you know that Vladimir Putin has just published an article about Russian history, in particular how Russia and Ukraine have united and divided over the centuries? Nor did I until prompted by "The Saker."

Putin's article is called "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians." You can see what his angle is: hey, we Russians and you Ukrainians have always been part of the same religion and the same culture going all the way back to the Ancient Rus. We should get together again!

Well, of course he does. But the article -- obviously not written by Putin -- was remarkable. Here are my takeaways:

Putin's article at least pretends to be history, rather than ideological narrative, Nikole Hannah Jones, the wokies and all the ships at sea.

Here are a couple quick takes:

• Egad, what a mess Russian history is, with all kinds of conquests, divisions, reunitings, religious divisions. 
• And what's this Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that was forever encroaching from the west into the sacred Russian lands?

Wow, I had no idea that the civil war after the Bolshevik revolution was so complicated. Not just Reds against Whites, no indeed. There were, instead, all kinds of minor political entities and rebellions and local political entities rising and falling until everything was united, by fair means and foul, into the USSR.

From the perspective of Putin, the invasion of eastern Poland in 1939 was a recovery of Russian lands.

In 1939, the USSR regained the lands earlier seized by Poland. A major portion of these became part of the Soviet Ukraine.

See back in the 19th century, says Vlad, Russia's pals to the west, Poland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were interested in stirring up the idea of a separate Ukraine. Because, of course they were.

At the same time, the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians started to form and gain ground among the Polish elite and a part of the Malorussian intelligentsia. 

"Malorussia" means "Little Russia" and includes a lot of what is now the Ukraine. 

Since the late 19th century, the Austro-Hungarian authorities had latched onto this narrative, using it as a counterbalance to the Polish national movement and pro-Muscovite sentiments in Galicia. 

Galicia is a region between Poland and Hungary and Ukraine and includes the city of Lviv (or Lvov). Back in the day when Austrian economist (and Jewish) Ludwig von Mises was born there in 1881 Lviv was called Lemberg and was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now it is part of Ukraine.

But the really big take was that Putin aims to sound reasonable, not taking a the straight ideological line that we know and love from our lefty pals. He starts the article with this statement:

First of all, I would like to emphasize that the wall that has emerged in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, between the parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space, to my mind is our great common misfortune and tragedy. These are, first and foremost, the consequences of our own mistakes made at different periods of time. But these are also the result of deliberate efforts by those forces that have always sought to undermine our unity.

Whoever imagined that a Russian leader in our lifetimes would speak with such an obvious effort at "on the one hand, on the other hand" rhetoric? I found it shocking. Or this:

Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe. Slavic and other tribes across the vast territory – from Ladoga, Novgorod, and Pskov to Kiev and Chernigov – were bound together by one language (which we now refer to as Old Russian), economic ties, the rule of the princes of the Rurik dynasty, and – after the baptism of Rus – the Orthodox faith. 

An ex-KGB guy writing in an avuncular way about Orthodox Christianity. Who woulda thunk it?

He's right, of course. You don't solidify and unify a country with reckless talk about America's or Russia's Original Sin. You talk about the shared culture, the shared sacrifice, and the shared history of the past.

Obviously, Putin wants Ukraine and Belarus back in the Russia. But so would we want to reunite the good old USA if the left coast decided to split off in the the Woke States of America.

Stay tuned. This ain't over.