Ironic that Putin accuses the Ukrainians of “nazification” since his goals are very consistent with those of the German Nazi’s of the 30’s and 40’s. His tactic of removing the legitimacy of sovereignty of Ukraine is also reminiscent of the holocaust. The current behavior of the Russian leader fits with the concept of “eternity” politics that you discuss in “the road to unfreedom”.
I also think that underlying his behavior is Hitler’s concept of lebensraum. Russia has historically been in need of a warm water port and the agricultural means to feed its people. The Ukraine solves both these problems - the takeover of Crimea has made the Black Sea a virtual Russian lake and the Ukraine will supply large food supplies.
Truly history is repeating itself and more people need to recognize it.
Thank you for calling it what it is. Your words are good medicine for Putin's attempts at mind-numbing.
Quotations:
We also have to recognize that, for a certain kind of tyrant, being wrong to the point of perversion is actually the point…
And that is exactly why Putin talks about "denazifying" Ukraine. He doesn't want to make sense. He wants to deprive these crucial concepts -- Nazis and genocide -- of any meaning, to wear them out, to make them impossible to use in a reasonable way…
They are to mean whatever he wants, and allow him to do whatever he wants. That is evil enough, but we have still not reached the bottom...
We now see Putin actually wants to do. He is not simply hollowing out the concepts of "genocide" and "denazification." He is apparently planning to mock the judicial institutions created around those concepts...
This seems to be the most apt reading of his promise to "to bring to court those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians." If Russian forces capture Ukrainian political and civic leaders, it seems most likely that he will have them show tried before some perversion of a tribunal, and executed or sent to a special regime prison for a long term. It appears that he intends to delegitimate the whole idea of war crimes -- by committing a real one in the name of punishing a fictional one…
Empty atrocity talk prepares the way for full atrocity. This is the style of the Putin regime: get inside the concepts and institutions that are necessary for decent public life, make a mockery of them, and thereby clear the way for murderous nihilism.
It takes a major effort to keep translating what Putin actually means. He intends to wear everyone down, but no one should let him do it. I think the other thing I consider with all that is going on just how much the former "president" of the United States sounded like Putin and continues to sound like him. We're living in a terrible time of slippery language used intentionally to confuse.
Thank you, again, Dr. Snyder, for this and for your appearances on tv this week. You and Ruth Ben-Ghiat are keeping me grounded in historical context that is, in this tragic moment, some kind of cold comfort. To others in this earnest community, if you have access to PBS, I recommend as well the compelling 6-episode series called ‘The Dictator’s Playbook’ for a primer on the pattern of these strongmen leaders, and of course Ben-Ghiat’s book ‘Strongmen’. I feel more prepared to understand whatever comes next having learned from these resources, and less vulnerable to the ‘firehose of falsehoods’ swirling around us.
"This is the style of the Putin regime: get inside the concepts and institutions that are necessary for decent public life, make a mockery of them, and thereby clear the way for murderous nihilism."
A perfect description of the trump regime as well.
I have put a link here from a piece I read which was written by Ilya Kaminsky, a Ukrainian poet born in Odessa now living in the United States since 1993. This article comes from 2020 and it is still completely pertinent to what is happening in the United States.
Professor Snyder, I just came across this linked article on Olga Tokariuk's twitter account. I know you can read Polish, but I can't, so I put it through google translate. This is what Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Germany, claims he was told by German officials: "Andrij Melnyk gave an interview for the German ZDF television, in which he told about the reaction of German politicians to the request to donate equipment and ammunition to the Ukrainian army fighting against the Russians. The diplomat admitted that he was "crying for the first time in many years", not only because of the war in his country, but also because of the "coldness and indifference" that the Ukraine issue is causing in Germany. The ambassador said that he had spoken with several German ministers and asked them to support the Ukrainians. However, the answer he heard made him "speechless". - In our opinion, you Ukrainians have a few hours. Now there is no point in helping you." https://dorzeczy.pl/amp/268312/melnyk-zszokowany-po-slowach-niemieckich-politykow.html
You hit it on the nail as usual Professor. I feel like if I had a fitness watch measuring my learning, after reading your essays or listening to your lectures, I'd get a message saying "You have increased your understanding of a subject and opened yourself to new ideas. Good job." :) I am thinking myself of President Zelenskyy in terms of a piece I read in Maslow on Management (I may have title wrong) but where Abraham Maslow said what is considered acceptable communication in business (and I'd assume he'd say the business of government too) is too limited to the structured, logical, realistic and he wondered why we leave out the poetic, the metaphorical, the archaic in the Jung sense. Of course he meant the poetic . . coming from a place of honesty and our sense of our humanity (as opposed to propaganda or written by a speech writer reading from the latest polls. ) I am thinking of what I read of President Zelenskyy's appeal to European leaders and the personal case he made and the fact he did appeal to higher ideals and values - I doubt he had an advisor sitting there telling him what buttons to push and what phrases would resonate; it was real -- and it apparently moved them. I think it worked because it was earnest. And I think what is helping the world (or more of the world anyway) to finally "get" Putin is that we see a stark contrast between earnest goodness in Zelenskyy - striving to be true to highest values of humanity/putting others first - and bad in Putin - appealing to the worst in people and taking what is good -- how we communicate in stories and a shared history -- and misusing it for evil - his own greed, desire for power over people, his pride. I am sure I am over-simplifying - sigh - I am not the intellectual you are. But I hope that is what is happening.
Putin will soon face a choice: either start blasting the cities into submission, causing massive civilian casualties, or settle into a stalemate. The second alternative certainly isn't what he wants, but he might be able to live with it; it would effectively put all of Ukraine into the "contested" column like the Donbas is now. Very expensive in many ways--but it would force Ukraine to negotiate to get its own sovereignty, much reduced, back. Putin has time. He doesn't have to worry about elections and he can crush dissidence. He will pass the problem of smoldering Ukrainian nationalism on to the next generation, his conscience serene because he has saved Mother Russia.
Thanks very much for the invaluable commentary you're providing on this subject, specially in these terrifying times for Ukraine. Thanks in turn for all the links you've provided. I've been unable to comment for a number of weeks but I've been following all your writings here and some of your interventions elsewhere as well. Not to sound cliched but there's something singular about this invasion at this late date in history. For all the reasons you've mentioned. 'The West' such as it still is needs to draw the hardest possible line in the sand about this invasion and candidly do more than applying all the necessary economic or final pressures. Otherwise this will sadly become a terrible, game-changing example going forward. At least for the foreseeable future. And wherever one might stand on the question of 'US decline' (and I tend to think this point is sometimes overstated inasmuch as -- in my view -- empires spend more time in decline than not! this is of course not to deny the changing playing field vis-a-vis China and so on) it would certainly constitute an enormous loss of face for this 'superpower'. Irrespective of whatever happens to Putin or not. I certainly share the idea that he's made an enormous blunder. But it's something of an irony that the US with its own questionable recent history on this score now finds itself more hamstrung than it otherwise might have been. I don't mean to sound naive about all the complications connected with this crisis. I just believe that a diluted approach will prove to be a very bad choice here. One can only hope this isn't the case.
Ironic that Putin accuses the Ukrainians of “nazification” since his goals are very consistent with those of the German Nazi’s of the 30’s and 40’s. His tactic of removing the legitimacy of sovereignty of Ukraine is also reminiscent of the holocaust. The current behavior of the Russian leader fits with the concept of “eternity” politics that you discuss in “the road to unfreedom”.
I also think that underlying his behavior is Hitler’s concept of lebensraum. Russia has historically been in need of a warm water port and the agricultural means to feed its people. The Ukraine solves both these problems - the takeover of Crimea has made the Black Sea a virtual Russian lake and the Ukraine will supply large food supplies.
Truly history is repeating itself and more people need to recognize it.
Thank you for calling it what it is. Your words are good medicine for Putin's attempts at mind-numbing.
Quotations:
We also have to recognize that, for a certain kind of tyrant, being wrong to the point of perversion is actually the point…
And that is exactly why Putin talks about "denazifying" Ukraine. He doesn't want to make sense. He wants to deprive these crucial concepts -- Nazis and genocide -- of any meaning, to wear them out, to make them impossible to use in a reasonable way…
They are to mean whatever he wants, and allow him to do whatever he wants. That is evil enough, but we have still not reached the bottom...
We now see Putin actually wants to do. He is not simply hollowing out the concepts of "genocide" and "denazification." He is apparently planning to mock the judicial institutions created around those concepts...
This seems to be the most apt reading of his promise to "to bring to court those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians." If Russian forces capture Ukrainian political and civic leaders, it seems most likely that he will have them show tried before some perversion of a tribunal, and executed or sent to a special regime prison for a long term. It appears that he intends to delegitimate the whole idea of war crimes -- by committing a real one in the name of punishing a fictional one…
Empty atrocity talk prepares the way for full atrocity. This is the style of the Putin regime: get inside the concepts and institutions that are necessary for decent public life, make a mockery of them, and thereby clear the way for murderous nihilism.
It takes a major effort to keep translating what Putin actually means. He intends to wear everyone down, but no one should let him do it. I think the other thing I consider with all that is going on just how much the former "president" of the United States sounded like Putin and continues to sound like him. We're living in a terrible time of slippery language used intentionally to confuse.
Thank you, again, Dr. Snyder, for this and for your appearances on tv this week. You and Ruth Ben-Ghiat are keeping me grounded in historical context that is, in this tragic moment, some kind of cold comfort. To others in this earnest community, if you have access to PBS, I recommend as well the compelling 6-episode series called ‘The Dictator’s Playbook’ for a primer on the pattern of these strongmen leaders, and of course Ben-Ghiat’s book ‘Strongmen’. I feel more prepared to understand whatever comes next having learned from these resources, and less vulnerable to the ‘firehose of falsehoods’ swirling around us.
Thank you for the linguistic eloquence!
"This is the style of the Putin regime: get inside the concepts and institutions that are necessary for decent public life, make a mockery of them, and thereby clear the way for murderous nihilism."
A perfect description of the trump regime as well.
I have put a link here from a piece I read which was written by Ilya Kaminsky, a Ukrainian poet born in Odessa now living in the United States since 1993. This article comes from 2020 and it is still completely pertinent to what is happening in the United States.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/03/opinion/ilya-kaminsky-privacy-poem.html
Professor Snyder, I just came across this linked article on Olga Tokariuk's twitter account. I know you can read Polish, but I can't, so I put it through google translate. This is what Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Germany, claims he was told by German officials: "Andrij Melnyk gave an interview for the German ZDF television, in which he told about the reaction of German politicians to the request to donate equipment and ammunition to the Ukrainian army fighting against the Russians. The diplomat admitted that he was "crying for the first time in many years", not only because of the war in his country, but also because of the "coldness and indifference" that the Ukraine issue is causing in Germany. The ambassador said that he had spoken with several German ministers and asked them to support the Ukrainians. However, the answer he heard made him "speechless". - In our opinion, you Ukrainians have a few hours. Now there is no point in helping you." https://dorzeczy.pl/amp/268312/melnyk-zszokowany-po-slowach-niemieckich-politykow.html
You hit it on the nail as usual Professor. I feel like if I had a fitness watch measuring my learning, after reading your essays or listening to your lectures, I'd get a message saying "You have increased your understanding of a subject and opened yourself to new ideas. Good job." :) I am thinking myself of President Zelenskyy in terms of a piece I read in Maslow on Management (I may have title wrong) but where Abraham Maslow said what is considered acceptable communication in business (and I'd assume he'd say the business of government too) is too limited to the structured, logical, realistic and he wondered why we leave out the poetic, the metaphorical, the archaic in the Jung sense. Of course he meant the poetic . . coming from a place of honesty and our sense of our humanity (as opposed to propaganda or written by a speech writer reading from the latest polls. ) I am thinking of what I read of President Zelenskyy's appeal to European leaders and the personal case he made and the fact he did appeal to higher ideals and values - I doubt he had an advisor sitting there telling him what buttons to push and what phrases would resonate; it was real -- and it apparently moved them. I think it worked because it was earnest. And I think what is helping the world (or more of the world anyway) to finally "get" Putin is that we see a stark contrast between earnest goodness in Zelenskyy - striving to be true to highest values of humanity/putting others first - and bad in Putin - appealing to the worst in people and taking what is good -- how we communicate in stories and a shared history -- and misusing it for evil - his own greed, desire for power over people, his pride. I am sure I am over-simplifying - sigh - I am not the intellectual you are. But I hope that is what is happening.
Putin will soon face a choice: either start blasting the cities into submission, causing massive civilian casualties, or settle into a stalemate. The second alternative certainly isn't what he wants, but he might be able to live with it; it would effectively put all of Ukraine into the "contested" column like the Donbas is now. Very expensive in many ways--but it would force Ukraine to negotiate to get its own sovereignty, much reduced, back. Putin has time. He doesn't have to worry about elections and he can crush dissidence. He will pass the problem of smoldering Ukrainian nationalism on to the next generation, his conscience serene because he has saved Mother Russia.
Do you think we should take more risks in helping Ukraine?
Thanks very much for the invaluable commentary you're providing on this subject, specially in these terrifying times for Ukraine. Thanks in turn for all the links you've provided. I've been unable to comment for a number of weeks but I've been following all your writings here and some of your interventions elsewhere as well. Not to sound cliched but there's something singular about this invasion at this late date in history. For all the reasons you've mentioned. 'The West' such as it still is needs to draw the hardest possible line in the sand about this invasion and candidly do more than applying all the necessary economic or final pressures. Otherwise this will sadly become a terrible, game-changing example going forward. At least for the foreseeable future. And wherever one might stand on the question of 'US decline' (and I tend to think this point is sometimes overstated inasmuch as -- in my view -- empires spend more time in decline than not! this is of course not to deny the changing playing field vis-a-vis China and so on) it would certainly constitute an enormous loss of face for this 'superpower'. Irrespective of whatever happens to Putin or not. I certainly share the idea that he's made an enormous blunder. But it's something of an irony that the US with its own questionable recent history on this score now finds itself more hamstrung than it otherwise might have been. I don't mean to sound naive about all the complications connected with this crisis. I just believe that a diluted approach will prove to be a very bad choice here. One can only hope this isn't the case.