To disappear a country filled with individuals’ is harder than Putin thought. The Ukrainian’s fight is for something. It’s for freedoms of thought which is stronger than a foot on a neck.
To your being sanctioned, i agree that even more people will listen to your class. The pen is stronger than the sword.
The loss of life is staggering and removing mothers and children, Genocide. May those lives be our reminder that we must never give up supporting Ukraine.
Great to see your name on UNITED24, Professor Snyder. Just donated, for the time being for the war effort. Then comes the rebuilding of Ukraine. I hope you treat your being sanctioned by the Russians as an honour, an acknowledgement of all that you do for the Ukrainian people. I'm hoping to meet my virtual airbnb hosts in Kyiv next summer. Maybe you'll be passing by?
Hello, Elizabeth my dear. I hope this day finds you well. We had a good blast of cold air yesterday here in Austin, which pushed out all of the warm, humid air. Thanks for the reminder about UNITED24. I'm going to donate right now.
Professor Snyder, this column was a revelation and I want to thank you for it as it puts into perspective so much of what's on with Putin and his drones vis-a-vis Ukraine and does so clearly, cleanly, and intelligently. I subscribe to Robert Reich on Substack and am now happy to say that I subscribe to you as well.
Thank you! Not having much of a background in Eastern European History, just Western. I subscribed to your history lessons for a deeper understanding. I subscribed off a link in Heather Cox Richardson's , "Letters From an American" blog also on Substack. Believe me when I say that I am certainly getting my money's worth! Thank you again!
Eastern European history is endless fascinating, isn't it? Where else can you find in a region's early history paganism, Roman Catholicism, Uniate, Eastern Orthodoxy, protestantism, Judaism, and Islam all in the same place? And the music! Even before I knew about the Ottomans living in southern parts of what is now Ukraine (near the northern littoral of the Black Sea and Crimea), I knew that they must have been there because I could hear the influence in today's popular music in Ukraine. I've also been listening to the music of the bandurists of Ukraine, who were murdered by Stalin. There is layer upon layer of complexity in this region. I'll never reach the end of it.
I am much more of a novice in Eastern Europe History. I used to love music of all kinds but my preferences ran toward Classical and Folk. Now in my older years since I am becoming quite deaf, I just don't get the same pleasure from it. Unfortunately, even with very good digital hearing aids, I find distortion.
Thanks so much for your keen awareness and teaching the rest of us about this amazing culture of Ukraine. Thanks for our lectures. I enjoy them immensely and I am grateful for having access to them.
Is being sanctioned but not noticing akin to the tree falling in the uninhabited forest?
I had mentioned this before, but the similarities between the Russian views of Ukraine (especially its rights to sovereignty, its history and culture) and the Arab countries view of Israel (until perhaps the ongoing sea changes wrought by the Abraham Accords) is startling. And it may be no coincidence that Iran’s longstanding rhetoric (the US as the Great Satan and Israel as the Little Satan) finds an echo in Russia’s use of the Old Scratch trope.
I had read that among the things Russian soldiers had stolen and brought back to Russia were Prince Potemkin’s bones themselves. I wonder if the average Russian notices the irony. He was the one who saw to Crimea’s annexation in 1783 and now he’s returning within the frontiers of Catherine the Great’s Russia before he helped her expand them.
I don’t understand why you feel the need to find an equivalence that is based on fantasy. It does not bring peace between the two people any closer.
As far as governmental action, delegitimization runs in only one direction. As just one example, Israel’s educational system recognizes the Palestinians’ aspirations and teaches co-existence. The PA and Hamas don’t accept Israel’s right to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people and teach their children that they will conquer Israel by force and expel any surviving Jews.
In his speech before the EU Parliament, Abbas famously accused Israel of seeking to poison Palestinian wells. No Israeli equivalent official would ever suggest that Palestinians act in such despicable ways.
I can understand your frustration in not being able to solve the current impasse between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. I suspect the new Saudi plan to create a Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine could point the way forward to creating a state with an even greater supermajority of Palestinian Arabs than Jordan already possesses.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing about your comment Mr. Knapp. You give me only Israel's talking points, propaganda, and at that, they are cherry picked, and selectively go back in time. Since 2000, 87% of the deaths in the conflict for instance have been Palestinian, 13% Israeli. The hope for Palestinians to become Jordanian, not new, for the final solution is delegitimizing. The Abraham Accords, so far have done next to nothing for the Palestinians. It seems to be a business deal, a betrayal of Palestinians- putting off annexation of the West Bank.
You don't seem to compare Russia's ACTIONS and Israel's ACTIONS which would make a better case because Israel is behaving like a colonial power. As well you might mention what some Israelis teach THEIR children in school and in their homes (hate of Arabs "death to Arabs"). My frustration is with the insistence here at every opportunity to what seems to me to be a false comparison to bring your politics about Israel into this discussion.
You are entitled to your own thoughts, just not your own facts. The world does not revolve around the Palestinians, that’s what, among other things, the Abraham Accords and the Saudi rapprochement suggest.
As to your playing with statistics, you really need to separate out those Palestinian deaths to allow everyone to see how many died in terror attacks or in warfare, as opposed to innocents shot down in cold blood. Numbers alone prove nothing.
As far as Jordanian citizenship is concerned, all Palestinians living in the territories Jordan illegally occupied (and annexed) between 1949-67 were Jordanian citizens or offered that citizenship. Only in 1988 was that citizenship unilaterally revoked by Jordan making them effectively stateless … with the exception of high ranking PA, Hamas and well connected businessmen. So it’s unclear why restoring that citizenship is a form of delegitimization.
You should also be aware that in the 1950s, the Arab League passed a series of resolution, culminating in 1957, prohibiting its member states - with the lone exception of Jordan - to offer citizenship to any refugee from the 1948-49 War the Arabs had launched.
Finally, I think we all agree that there is a significant difference between government sponsored and supported hatred (such as the PA and Hamas consistently foment), and the disgusting views of individuals that not only do not reflect the views of Israel’s government or society but - and here’s the significant difference - are roundly and publicly rejected when they become known.
To follow your logic on this, the US as a nation would be seen as supporting the “Jews will not replace us” chant by the neo-Nazis in the Unite the Right March in Charlottesville. There is no such connection to be drawn.
Since your responses to this thread (and in an earlier one) is to mischaracterize easily checked facts as propaganda only reveals the dearth of facts you have to support your argument. Finally, for what it’s worth, I’ll assume that your choice of the phrase “final solution” was unintentional even if unintentionally revealing.
We agree about facts versus thoughts. Yours are cherry picked and I am filling in what you omit conveniently to make your case which I think fails grossly. Israel has enormous military power that it wields against "Palestinian terror". Some call Palestinian's violence resistance and some call Israel's use of that power state terrorism.. the way Russia is using it's power against Ukrainian citizens deliberately. You MISS entirely all those Palestinian innocents killed in the various operations and small and large, those jailed and held as well, no trial. You also deny or skip over GOVERNMENT member's hatred and fomented hatred of Palestinians including, Netanyahu's for many years. This is an artificial separation and your own fact.. which you agree you are not entitled to.
"Final solution" is not owned by Israel, nor is genocide. For years Israel has been looking for a way to get rid of the Palestinians. Israeli opposition to Palestinians having self determination is more similar to Putin/Russia's opposition to Ukraine. You can draw your own conclusions about the use of "final solution" but if it makes you think that I am suggesting an irony about Israel's actions towards Palestinians and what happened in Germany, I am.. and I am not the first regarding those, some of my own, who have been so mistreated by history.
Thank you for your fact-free response. You have not responded substantively to any of my points. I do not share your upset that, after two millennia, the Jewish people can defend themselves from those who wish them ill or worse.
I suggest you research the UNSC resolutions relating to the suppression of terrorism. You will quickly discover that international law provides no exception for “national liberation movements”. Calling such attacks against civilians “resistance” is a political stance meant to deflect from the acts inherent and undeniable criminal nature.
These are no “talking points” or “cherry picking.” They are among the reasons you have yet to provide anything close to a compelling response. I doubt any of this might cause you to rethink your positions, given your suggestion of genocide against a people whose purported population has increased from perhaps a million in 1948 to over 14 million (according to Abbas) today. In contrast, the world Jewish population has not recovered to its pre-WWII numbers.
On the other hand, so long as the Palestinian rulers themselves refuse to say “yes” to anything, our entire discussion is a bit beside the point. Ultimately, you can only play the hand you’re dealt. The Arabs were dealt a decent hand in 1948 to wipe out the Jewish state, but have since misplayed it catastrophically and Palestinians are left holding the bag. That’s the reality.
I too appreciate your insight and depth of knowledge about both Russian and Ukrainian history and culture. I’m very glad the US and EU are supporting the really “good guys” in this war.
I wonder what percentage of russian citizens actually pay any serious attention to Soloviev. Just the morons? More or less to what goes on in the US - millions tuning in to the CNN and FOX talking heads to get their daily fix of predictable opinions and anti-opposite-side dribble?
Actually, the real threat comes from those who do not listen consciously to this stuff, but who imbibe it unconsciously while occupying their conscious mind with other stuff.
These are the ones who follow a dictator without knowing why. The phenomenon is observable not only in the US with figures such as Trump; it can be observed also in the UK in the entirely irrational self-harm of the Brexit vote.
This is the reason why, in serious schools of progressive spiritual training, students are exhorted to bring their full attention to whatever occupies their field of consciousness at a given moment. That way lies heightened self-awareneness.
The other way—continuously playing background music you didn’t consciously select, having the radio DJs on all the time while you're cooking, at the computer, driving, etc.—that way opens the door to subliminal indoctrination and brainwashing. It creeps in the back door while you're doing something else in the front parlour.
How many people today are terrified at the sound of silence, reaching frantically, desperately, at anything to distract them?
While reading the last paragraphs about the looting of the documents of history and the distortions of history that Russians receive about Ukraine, I am reminded that some states in the south are not teaching about slavery and banning books and of course limiting the civil liberties of people of color, students, etc. Aren't these parallel universes? Danger invites a rescue.
Along those lines the Atlantic is having a program on Zoom next Friday about lessons we in the US might learn from Germany in confronting our past. To start with, we could tear down all the statues of insurrectionists and ban the public display of their flag. (In Germany there are no statues of WW2 personalities, no streets named after them, and public display of the Hakenkreuz flag is banned.) Then we could take steps to make our history books more reflective of reality.
But of course there would be lots of pushback. "Freedom of speech" and all that.
> The sooner and more decisively Russia loses this war, the better it will be for the Russian future.
No, "The sooner and more decisively Muscovy loses this war, the better it will be for the indigenous peoples and/or nations inside the muscovitian federation and for the world community."
Some of your views on the Ukrainian history are what Ukrainian historians, and also I (me) as an enthusiast, disagree with you about. But ...
You have not answered my question. Specifically, in a few sentences, what is it you disagree with?
We cannot advance the discussion if you will not provide information requested. Not links to elsewhere and not vague allegations—clear specifics, please.
One of the things that stood out to me was your link to Marci Shore's interview with Volodymyr Rafeyenko. The question, "where does evil come from" and Rafeyenko's, "Truth desires that we be its creators." This, of course, is applicable to the U.S. elections, to Kari Lake's toxic pronouncements against John McCain, for one. Wednesday morning I cried at our results, this morning I have a big smile on my face that we won the Senate and most probably will have that 51st seat by Warnock. I will be writing letters as I did the last time he had a run-off, and contributing. I think he will win by a bigger margin than in 2020. Thank you so very much for having access to your Yale classes online. You are a gift and I thank you, professor.
If anyone is interested in writing letters for Sen. Warnock, go to VoteForward.com. We have a very small window of time to do this.
This is quite brilliant writing and I'm incredibly grateful for it. But still, at the centre of it all, for me, is a huge void. What would the Russia that Putin imagine he is fighting for look like? I mean, suppose he won? It seems in a very way to have no content at all. It is all negative. It feels in fact not gloriously nationalistic but nihilistic, a longing for an apocalypse.
Snyder does describe in this article the content-void, the nihilism, of Putin's world-view. In Putin's "us vs. them", Snyder says, the "us" is never defined. It is empty.
But Putin is not looking to an apocalypse: that pertains to the future. Extremist protestant evangelicals are the ones occupying that ground, described in the biblical Book of Revelation.
Rather, Putin wants to return to an imagined lost primordial purity, before the enemy came and spoilt it all. Putin apparently identifies with conjoined Adam–Eve before the Fall into the flesh and division of the sexes. This exclusive pre-lapsarian focus robs him of any foot in the grounded present and denies him any path into the future.
An afterthought: could it be that this unnatural psychological desire to disincarnate backwards in time out of the flesh may be reflected on the physical level in some sort of congenital cryptorchidism?
Or conversely, could some possible type of physical male sexual dysfunction perhaps be reflected back psycho-socially in a desire to keep firing masses of hugely potent missile-sperm at the enemy, in order to prove one's biological superiority?
I will never forget watching footage of Oppenheimer having an orgasm as he watched the early testing of the atomic bomb. It told me more about the male sex than miles of academic tomes.
Professor Snyder. Each one of us who is following your, The Making of Modern Ukraine, has probably told everyone they know. There is a huge number of people who cannot deny Ukraine exists. Thank you. Slava Ukraine
Thanks kindly Professor Snyder for continuing to keep the intellectual process moving ever forward in support of Ukraine. Slava Ukraini.
To disappear a country filled with individuals’ is harder than Putin thought. The Ukrainian’s fight is for something. It’s for freedoms of thought which is stronger than a foot on a neck.
To your being sanctioned, i agree that even more people will listen to your class. The pen is stronger than the sword.
The loss of life is staggering and removing mothers and children, Genocide. May those lives be our reminder that we must never give up supporting Ukraine.
Thank you.
Great to see your name on UNITED24, Professor Snyder. Just donated, for the time being for the war effort. Then comes the rebuilding of Ukraine. I hope you treat your being sanctioned by the Russians as an honour, an acknowledgement of all that you do for the Ukrainian people. I'm hoping to meet my virtual airbnb hosts in Kyiv next summer. Maybe you'll be passing by?
Hello, Elizabeth my dear. I hope this day finds you well. We had a good blast of cold air yesterday here in Austin, which pushed out all of the warm, humid air. Thanks for the reminder about UNITED24. I'm going to donate right now.
Thank you, Rose. In fact, some of us, like-minded people, should have a reunion in Kyiv, don't you think? :-)
Oh, how I would love to meet you in person in Kyiv!
That makes two. Let's talk about it closer to the time, perhaps other people from among the usual suspects may wish to join us :-)
Professor Snyder, this column was a revelation and I want to thank you for it as it puts into perspective so much of what's on with Putin and his drones vis-a-vis Ukraine and does so clearly, cleanly, and intelligently. I subscribe to Robert Reich on Substack and am now happy to say that I subscribe to you as well.
Russia? I call it Moscovia.
Thank you! Not having much of a background in Eastern European History, just Western. I subscribed to your history lessons for a deeper understanding. I subscribed off a link in Heather Cox Richardson's , "Letters From an American" blog also on Substack. Believe me when I say that I am certainly getting my money's worth! Thank you again!
Eastern European history is endless fascinating, isn't it? Where else can you find in a region's early history paganism, Roman Catholicism, Uniate, Eastern Orthodoxy, protestantism, Judaism, and Islam all in the same place? And the music! Even before I knew about the Ottomans living in southern parts of what is now Ukraine (near the northern littoral of the Black Sea and Crimea), I knew that they must have been there because I could hear the influence in today's popular music in Ukraine. I've also been listening to the music of the bandurists of Ukraine, who were murdered by Stalin. There is layer upon layer of complexity in this region. I'll never reach the end of it.
Hi,
I am much more of a novice in Eastern Europe History. I used to love music of all kinds but my preferences ran toward Classical and Folk. Now in my older years since I am becoming quite deaf, I just don't get the same pleasure from it. Unfortunately, even with very good digital hearing aids, I find distortion.
Thanks so much for your keen awareness and teaching the rest of us about this amazing culture of Ukraine. Thanks for our lectures. I enjoy them immensely and I am grateful for having access to them.
Is being sanctioned but not noticing akin to the tree falling in the uninhabited forest?
I had mentioned this before, but the similarities between the Russian views of Ukraine (especially its rights to sovereignty, its history and culture) and the Arab countries view of Israel (until perhaps the ongoing sea changes wrought by the Abraham Accords) is startling. And it may be no coincidence that Iran’s longstanding rhetoric (the US as the Great Satan and Israel as the Little Satan) finds an echo in Russia’s use of the Old Scratch trope.
I had read that among the things Russian soldiers had stolen and brought back to Russia were Prince Potemkin’s bones themselves. I wonder if the average Russian notices the irony. He was the one who saw to Crimea’s annexation in 1783 and now he’s returning within the frontiers of Catherine the Great’s Russia before he helped her expand them.
And more so Israel's own delegitimization of the Palestinians.
I don’t understand why you feel the need to find an equivalence that is based on fantasy. It does not bring peace between the two people any closer.
As far as governmental action, delegitimization runs in only one direction. As just one example, Israel’s educational system recognizes the Palestinians’ aspirations and teaches co-existence. The PA and Hamas don’t accept Israel’s right to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people and teach their children that they will conquer Israel by force and expel any surviving Jews.
In his speech before the EU Parliament, Abbas famously accused Israel of seeking to poison Palestinian wells. No Israeli equivalent official would ever suggest that Palestinians act in such despicable ways.
I can understand your frustration in not being able to solve the current impasse between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. I suspect the new Saudi plan to create a Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine could point the way forward to creating a state with an even greater supermajority of Palestinian Arabs than Jordan already possesses.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing about your comment Mr. Knapp. You give me only Israel's talking points, propaganda, and at that, they are cherry picked, and selectively go back in time. Since 2000, 87% of the deaths in the conflict for instance have been Palestinian, 13% Israeli. The hope for Palestinians to become Jordanian, not new, for the final solution is delegitimizing. The Abraham Accords, so far have done next to nothing for the Palestinians. It seems to be a business deal, a betrayal of Palestinians- putting off annexation of the West Bank.
You don't seem to compare Russia's ACTIONS and Israel's ACTIONS which would make a better case because Israel is behaving like a colonial power. As well you might mention what some Israelis teach THEIR children in school and in their homes (hate of Arabs "death to Arabs"). My frustration is with the insistence here at every opportunity to what seems to me to be a false comparison to bring your politics about Israel into this discussion.
You are entitled to your own thoughts, just not your own facts. The world does not revolve around the Palestinians, that’s what, among other things, the Abraham Accords and the Saudi rapprochement suggest.
As to your playing with statistics, you really need to separate out those Palestinian deaths to allow everyone to see how many died in terror attacks or in warfare, as opposed to innocents shot down in cold blood. Numbers alone prove nothing.
As far as Jordanian citizenship is concerned, all Palestinians living in the territories Jordan illegally occupied (and annexed) between 1949-67 were Jordanian citizens or offered that citizenship. Only in 1988 was that citizenship unilaterally revoked by Jordan making them effectively stateless … with the exception of high ranking PA, Hamas and well connected businessmen. So it’s unclear why restoring that citizenship is a form of delegitimization.
You should also be aware that in the 1950s, the Arab League passed a series of resolution, culminating in 1957, prohibiting its member states - with the lone exception of Jordan - to offer citizenship to any refugee from the 1948-49 War the Arabs had launched.
Finally, I think we all agree that there is a significant difference between government sponsored and supported hatred (such as the PA and Hamas consistently foment), and the disgusting views of individuals that not only do not reflect the views of Israel’s government or society but - and here’s the significant difference - are roundly and publicly rejected when they become known.
To follow your logic on this, the US as a nation would be seen as supporting the “Jews will not replace us” chant by the neo-Nazis in the Unite the Right March in Charlottesville. There is no such connection to be drawn.
Since your responses to this thread (and in an earlier one) is to mischaracterize easily checked facts as propaganda only reveals the dearth of facts you have to support your argument. Finally, for what it’s worth, I’ll assume that your choice of the phrase “final solution” was unintentional even if unintentionally revealing.
We agree about facts versus thoughts. Yours are cherry picked and I am filling in what you omit conveniently to make your case which I think fails grossly. Israel has enormous military power that it wields against "Palestinian terror". Some call Palestinian's violence resistance and some call Israel's use of that power state terrorism.. the way Russia is using it's power against Ukrainian citizens deliberately. You MISS entirely all those Palestinian innocents killed in the various operations and small and large, those jailed and held as well, no trial. You also deny or skip over GOVERNMENT member's hatred and fomented hatred of Palestinians including, Netanyahu's for many years. This is an artificial separation and your own fact.. which you agree you are not entitled to.
"Final solution" is not owned by Israel, nor is genocide. For years Israel has been looking for a way to get rid of the Palestinians. Israeli opposition to Palestinians having self determination is more similar to Putin/Russia's opposition to Ukraine. You can draw your own conclusions about the use of "final solution" but if it makes you think that I am suggesting an irony about Israel's actions towards Palestinians and what happened in Germany, I am.. and I am not the first regarding those, some of my own, who have been so mistreated by history.
Thank you for your fact-free response. You have not responded substantively to any of my points. I do not share your upset that, after two millennia, the Jewish people can defend themselves from those who wish them ill or worse.
I suggest you research the UNSC resolutions relating to the suppression of terrorism. You will quickly discover that international law provides no exception for “national liberation movements”. Calling such attacks against civilians “resistance” is a political stance meant to deflect from the acts inherent and undeniable criminal nature.
These are no “talking points” or “cherry picking.” They are among the reasons you have yet to provide anything close to a compelling response. I doubt any of this might cause you to rethink your positions, given your suggestion of genocide against a people whose purported population has increased from perhaps a million in 1948 to over 14 million (according to Abbas) today. In contrast, the world Jewish population has not recovered to its pre-WWII numbers.
On the other hand, so long as the Palestinian rulers themselves refuse to say “yes” to anything, our entire discussion is a bit beside the point. Ultimately, you can only play the hand you’re dealt. The Arabs were dealt a decent hand in 1948 to wipe out the Jewish state, but have since misplayed it catastrophically and Palestinians are left holding the bag. That’s the reality.
I too appreciate your insight and depth of knowledge about both Russian and Ukrainian history and culture. I’m very glad the US and EU are supporting the really “good guys” in this war.
I wonder what percentage of russian citizens actually pay any serious attention to Soloviev. Just the morons? More or less to what goes on in the US - millions tuning in to the CNN and FOX talking heads to get their daily fix of predictable opinions and anti-opposite-side dribble?
Actually, the real threat comes from those who do not listen consciously to this stuff, but who imbibe it unconsciously while occupying their conscious mind with other stuff.
These are the ones who follow a dictator without knowing why. The phenomenon is observable not only in the US with figures such as Trump; it can be observed also in the UK in the entirely irrational self-harm of the Brexit vote.
This is the reason why, in serious schools of progressive spiritual training, students are exhorted to bring their full attention to whatever occupies their field of consciousness at a given moment. That way lies heightened self-awareneness.
The other way—continuously playing background music you didn’t consciously select, having the radio DJs on all the time while you're cooking, at the computer, driving, etc.—that way opens the door to subliminal indoctrination and brainwashing. It creeps in the back door while you're doing something else in the front parlour.
How many people today are terrified at the sound of silence, reaching frantically, desperately, at anything to distract them?
While reading the last paragraphs about the looting of the documents of history and the distortions of history that Russians receive about Ukraine, I am reminded that some states in the south are not teaching about slavery and banning books and of course limiting the civil liberties of people of color, students, etc. Aren't these parallel universes? Danger invites a rescue.
Along those lines the Atlantic is having a program on Zoom next Friday about lessons we in the US might learn from Germany in confronting our past. To start with, we could tear down all the statues of insurrectionists and ban the public display of their flag. (In Germany there are no statues of WW2 personalities, no streets named after them, and public display of the Hakenkreuz flag is banned.) Then we could take steps to make our history books more reflective of reality.
But of course there would be lots of pushback. "Freedom of speech" and all that.
Yes, I had that exact thought also.
Excellent reflection, so fair and sensitive. Thank you Professor Snyder.
> The sooner and more decisively Russia loses this war, the better it will be for the Russian future.
No, "The sooner and more decisively Muscovy loses this war, the better it will be for the indigenous peoples and/or nations inside the muscovitian federation and for the world community."
Some of your views on the Ukrainian history are what Ukrainian historians, and also I (me) as an enthusiast, disagree with you about. But ...
Pr. Timothy Snyder, I thank you for this article!
З повагою. (Lit. "Respectfully".)
What is it you disagree about?
What I personally disagree about is partly covered by me on my YT channel ("Daniel Poirot").
As for the Ukrainian historians, they also disagree with Pr. Snyder about his view on the Ukrainian Nationalists' organizations of the 20th century:
https://www.istpravda.com.ua/columns/2022/11/11/162030/
You have not answered my question. Specifically, in a few sentences, what is it you disagree with?
We cannot advance the discussion if you will not provide information requested. Not links to elsewhere and not vague allegations—clear specifics, please.
1) Are you Pr. Timothy Snyder?
2) I didn't initiate this discussion with you.
3) If you want to advance the discussion, follow at least the above link first.
I was simply interested to know more about why you made your comment.
Because I believe Pr. Timothy Snyder listens to what other people think.
One of the things that stood out to me was your link to Marci Shore's interview with Volodymyr Rafeyenko. The question, "where does evil come from" and Rafeyenko's, "Truth desires that we be its creators." This, of course, is applicable to the U.S. elections, to Kari Lake's toxic pronouncements against John McCain, for one. Wednesday morning I cried at our results, this morning I have a big smile on my face that we won the Senate and most probably will have that 51st seat by Warnock. I will be writing letters as I did the last time he had a run-off, and contributing. I think he will win by a bigger margin than in 2020. Thank you so very much for having access to your Yale classes online. You are a gift and I thank you, professor.
If anyone is interested in writing letters for Sen. Warnock, go to VoteForward.com. We have a very small window of time to do this.
This is quite brilliant writing and I'm incredibly grateful for it. But still, at the centre of it all, for me, is a huge void. What would the Russia that Putin imagine he is fighting for look like? I mean, suppose he won? It seems in a very way to have no content at all. It is all negative. It feels in fact not gloriously nationalistic but nihilistic, a longing for an apocalypse.
Snyder does describe in this article the content-void, the nihilism, of Putin's world-view. In Putin's "us vs. them", Snyder says, the "us" is never defined. It is empty.
But Putin is not looking to an apocalypse: that pertains to the future. Extremist protestant evangelicals are the ones occupying that ground, described in the biblical Book of Revelation.
Rather, Putin wants to return to an imagined lost primordial purity, before the enemy came and spoilt it all. Putin apparently identifies with conjoined Adam–Eve before the Fall into the flesh and division of the sexes. This exclusive pre-lapsarian focus robs him of any foot in the grounded present and denies him any path into the future.
An afterthought: could it be that this unnatural psychological desire to disincarnate backwards in time out of the flesh may be reflected on the physical level in some sort of congenital cryptorchidism?
Or conversely, could some possible type of physical male sexual dysfunction perhaps be reflected back psycho-socially in a desire to keep firing masses of hugely potent missile-sperm at the enemy, in order to prove one's biological superiority?
I will never forget watching footage of Oppenheimer having an orgasm as he watched the early testing of the atomic bomb. It told me more about the male sex than miles of academic tomes.
Professor Snyder. Each one of us who is following your, The Making of Modern Ukraine, has probably told everyone they know. There is a huge number of people who cannot deny Ukraine exists. Thank you. Slava Ukraine