Rancid wrote:Yale course on Ukrainian history:
Mentioned this back in the very early days of the war. Worth a watch.
I liked his Greek & Jewish mention.
He says: "The Greeks are the longest continuous and oldest inhabitants of Ukraine, next are the Jews, so in regards to Ukrainian history we see the interplay between Greek historical narratives and Jewish narratives and we know that is solid real history".
He also says that Ukraine was in the past a contest between the Greek, Jewish and Muslim religions. He also talks a lot about the foundation of nations which is a very interesting topic and one in which I consider myself to be a kind of authority.
People have very little idea of what it is that actually makes a nation. His freudian slip let it out in the previous post when he said "bad history is just political memory". Political memory is precisely what defines a nation. A community built around the same political memory which ethnologists call the "national mythos".
Greeks and Jews today are considered by ethnologists to be the most well-defined examples of ethnic-nations precisely because they have a very solid political memory or national mythos. The Jews have Moses and King David while the Greeks have Homer, Alexander, Jesus, Ceasar, Justinian and so many powerful historical totems. One could say Greeks invented history so they can preseve their political memory and national myths.
Hence why I have no issue calling Cyprus a fake nation because it is indeed a totally fake nation. But why do I say that?
Because if it was not for Turkish and British Imperialism in Cyprus, the state of Cyprus would never exist. This is not just something that comes out of my behind, it is actual historical fact that no Cypriot person ever considered an independent country, they all fought and bled for unification with Greece by and large. Of course that does not mean that Cyprus has not developed a national mythos or that since the 60's defenders of independence and the Cypriot national mythos have not come to be. Of course they have as people adapt to new situations they create new national myths. Greece and Greek Cypriots had to swallow the bitter pill of "independence" as a compromise with Britain who wanted to maintain its sovereign bases in Cyprus and Turkey who wanted to instrumentalise the 15% Turkish minority of the island to federalise and break up the island. 15% minority of Turks in Cyprus want their own state, 90%+ of ethnic Russians in Crimea, Donbass want the same.
In Ukraine we see a distinct historical situation going on. We have 2 people largely resembling the parallel between Greeks and Greek-Cypriots, Russians and Ukrainians openly worship the same national heroes and
openly agree that they do worship the same national heroes.
Americans do not worship Queen Victoria for example even though they do share the same national origins as the English and that is in fact the ONLY MAIN thing that actually makes them distinct from the English, the US Constitution(the biggest totem) logically follows right exactly
by rejecting Queen Victoria as part of the national myth. Greeks and Greek Cypriots both worship King Constantine of Constantinople, the Marbled King, both believe God turned him into Marble and that in the second coming he will be de-Marbled and crush the Turks into oblivion. In reality he fell into battle as he was last seen charging against the enemy after having refused to abandon the City. But this potent national mythos defines "bad history=political memory=national identity".
Both Ukrainians and Russians worship Catherine the Great. This should give you a hint as what the Ukranians actually are, as they themselves admit via their own politico-historical memory. And there are several more historical facts that buttress the Russianess of Ukranians. Even Ukraine the state itself asks its people these basic questions: "Do you feel more Ukrainian or more Russian?", in its national elections the pro-Putin candidates more often than not consistently win, the entire country, not just the East.
Of course some people will say but there was a "Ukrainian poet who spoke of Ukraine, blah blah", sure there is always 1 or 2 or 3 or more people that try to capitalise on possibilities especially when politics allow, just like there are Cypriots who spoke up in favour of independence vs union with Greece and who developed a narrative to make that possible as that was the only available political option for the leadership of the island, but ask yourself without British, Turkish and international pressure would the Cypriots have ever created a country of their own? Absolutely not. Without Soviet, British and US meddling in Ukraine would Ukraine ever have existed? 100% not because there has never been a critical mass of people that did not feel Russian, or that they felt non-Russian enough to take up arms against Russia. This critical ingredient of fighting a war to claim your land titles, never actually happpened in Ukraine and now that it has happened, it's happened only due to third-parties interfering and not natively nor organically.
We can pretend either for PC purposes or because of narratives, but historical reality is quite inescapable.
Snyder of course who knows all of the above has to seriously do some massive mental acrobatics to prevent his own self from blurting out freudian slips.
EN EL ED EM ON
...take your common sense with you, and leave your prejudices behind...
. Muscovy is a fascist - STALINIST , ORIENTAL EMPIRE WHICH JUST WANT TO EXTERMINATE US , AMERICANS AND EUROPEANS
- By Rich
- By Verv