19 Comments

Ruth Windle

Thank you for this, Professor Snyder. I am looking forward to reading it. I also want to thank you for your recent lecture ‘The Perils of Slowness’. It was entirely apropos and gave me much food for thought, as did your testimony to Congress around China, Russia and Disinformation. One of the things I feel I can do is listen out for disinformation in conversations and do what I can to refute it and suggest its sources. Personal conversations open up the possibility of changes in people’s perceptions and awareness of the facts - ripples in the pond that hopefully have wider effects.

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A useful link thankyou: I watched "The Peril of Slowness" and found it quite different from Dr Snyder's other videos. Something about the VIP audience and solemnity of the occasion, perhaps. Snyder's pent-up intensity was unmistakeable and impressive.

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The Ukraine aid bill -- what a profound relief. I still don't get MMJ's about face, but we got there.

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Security briefings did the trick 😎

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It took 6 months of security briefings to finally bring him around? I am not impressed.

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Maybe they finally got that the Ukraine war can’t be won without the US.

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Just like WW2.

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Except now we have the EU and NATO ☮️

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And that was Biden’s idea!

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Be glad we have a skilled statesman at the wheel. 😎 #DarkBrandon

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When I receive a new book, I tend not to set aside the one I'm reading to start reading the new one because if I did, I'd never be able to finish any book. The usual ritual is to look at the front and back of the title page, the table of contents, flip through it a bit, look at the maps, look through the bibliography, then find a place for it on the shelf. I'm not sure I'll have the self-discipline to do that when your new one arrives in September.

In my comment on your last Substack post, I reported that I'd just barely started Yaroslav Hrytsak's new book on Ukraine, and that I could tell it was going to be very different from any general book on Ukrainian history I'd read before, and it is. I do love it! The approach he takes to writing history is refreshing. His love of uncertainty and ambiguity very much reflects my own comfortableness with uncertainty and ambiguity, in history as well as life in general. There is so much that is good about this book: his monologues on the names of things, including trees and place-names; how maritime vocabulary--names for fishing, types and names of waterways, etc.--came to languages that had no use for such things; his speculations on Rus'; and so on.

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When we face the possibility of so many threats to democracy here and abroad, it is important to give a demoralized contingent reason to hope. The road to freedom passes through the landscape of engagement, not apathy.

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Ordered the book a couple weeks ago; I’m very excited to read it!

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Something to look forward to!!!

Hans G Wesslau, Sweden

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Pre-ordered. Eagerly awaiting.

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Yep, mine too !

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Thank you for this up-coming publication as an opportunity to better approach understanding of what any person means when using the word 'freedom', when any person chooses to defend 'human freedom', living in a condition of 'freedom'.

In this context of the active living and active support for living in a condition of 'freedom', we can witness the Ukrainians in their many choices and actions to secure 'freedom' by the active pursuit of self-defense against the Russian military aggression and Russian occupations which Putin and his regime direct against the Ukraine and its people.

President Zelenskyy and other Ukrainians are choosing to take conscientiously formulated actions, including with international partners:

Argentina Plans to Join the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, 25 May 2024,

https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/argentina-planuye-doluchitisya-do-mizhnarodnoyi-koaliciyi-91129 ;

We Are Waiting for the African Leaders at the Peace Summit, and We Wish You All Peace – the President of Ukraine Addressed African Nations on the Africa Day, 25 May 2024 https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/ochikuyemo-lideriv-afriki-na-samiti-miru-i-vsim-vam-bazhayem-91125 .

Putin Not Only Wants to Disrupt the Peace Summit, but He Is Also Afraid of What the Summit Can Bring – Address by the President, 24 May 2024 https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/putin-ne-prosto-hoche-zirvati-samit-miru-vin-she-j-boyitsya-91113 .

Thanks, Prof Snyder, for providing this forum for sharing and discussing issues and choices and for assisting any of us to join in supporting the Ukrainian people in their self-defense and their partnership in a democratic and international preparation of a set of understandings and cooperative projects for a post-war condition based on mutual cooperation.

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Hi I wanted to recommend a book and the author. Iryna Vushko, “Lost Fatherland, Europeans between Empire & Nation-States 1867-1939. I haven’t finished reading this but the texture and Ms Vushko’s insight into the I am using players who were involved in the Habsburg Empires end had really contributed to my understanding of how Ukraines identity formed. Her earlier book “The Politics of Cultural Retreat Imperial Bureaucracy in Austrian Galicia. 1772-1867,” pairs well with Lost Fatherland. Our Professor Snyder is mentioned in both books. I have been centering of Austrian Galicia. Included with many wonderful books I have been reading Ms Vushkos style has cracked open my understanding of how the Ukrainian Nation-State came to life

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I love the vignette titles. They read like a gallop through life, the universe and everything. Possibly written by Richard Feynman.

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