Timothy Snyder, The Making of Modern Ukraine, Lecture #10: Global Empires
For those who are not familiar with Timothy Snyder, he is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He speaks five and reads ten European languages, including both Ukrainian and Russian.
His book, “Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin,” which I highly recommend, is not only meticulously researched, it is essential reading for a complete understanding of WWII as well as Europe today.
I have undertaken to summarize all of Snyder’s lectures. I am also following along in the reading (see syllabus link below), which has not only been enlightening, but enjoyable. As always, my summaries are meant to be a guide, rather than a substitution for Snyder’s lectures.
Timothy Snyder’s tenth lecture for his class, The Making of Modern Ukraine, was entitled ”Global Empires.” In this lecture, Snyder focused on how Ukraine fits into the history of empires and globalization.
Snyder had several overarching points to make in this lecture. The first was that the Age of Exploration, beginning at the end of the 15th century, when Columbus stumbled upon the New World, gathered steam as technology provided more opportunities for expansion (such as the musket, which allowed the relatively insignificant state of Muscovy to sweep across Central Asia, transforming itself into the Russian Empire). Ukraine was at the center of several of these imperial expansions: Notably, the Swedish Empire, the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Lithuania, Poland, and eventually, Germany.
Before diving into a thousand years of history, Snyder wanted to establish the conceptual basis for a discussion about globalization. Empires, he pointed out, are the antithesis of republics. Empires are autocracies, whereas republics are supposed to represent the “public.” (But clearly not all of the public. Serfs were not taken into consideration.)
The other feature of empire building that Snyder brought into focus was slavery, which has been an integral part of every empire in history. The primary value of slavery for empires is free labor, but in addition to working for free, slaves are a source of income. They are bought and sold like any other commodity. And, unlike citizens, slaves pose no political threat. They have no power of any kind, whereas the inhabitants of a state or empire may decide they want rights.
This is where Ukraine fits into world history. Slavs were enslaved by the Ottoman Empire, and before that, by Vikings. Once Ukraine was absorbed by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569, it was partially protected from slave raids. However, Ukrainians. most of whom were peasants, were not protected from their overlords — the Polish aristocracy. This was the impetus for the Cossack uprising, which led to the formation of a state they called “Ukraine.”
Sadly for the Cossacks, the competing empires surrounding Ukraine— the Ottoman Empire, the Polish-Ukrainian Commonwealth, and Muscovy — split the Cossack state apart after conflicting interests divided the Cossacks and set off a civil war known as The Ruin.
What Synder hoped to demonstrate was that the notions of empire and state are intertwined. While they are based on different concepts, they have a strong influence on one another: states expand to become empires, and empires jump-start states, as occurred in Italy under Napoleon.
Where does this leave Ukraine, which for centuries has been dominated by competing empires, but which has repeatedly attempted to establish itself as a state? The question which we must ask is, what happens after empire? Right now, Russia is attempting to re-establish itself as an empire, through the time-honored method of military invasion. But that approach isn’t working, for the simple reason that the state of Ukraine is firmly established in a world that not only recognizes independent statehood as a “right,” but supports it. We are already in the post-colonial era, even though Putin doesn’t seem to realize it.
You can watch the tenth lecture of The Making of Modern Ukraine here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdn0zcCXjQY
The syllabus for the course is here: https://snyder.substack.com/p/syllabus-of-my-ukraine-lecture-class
You can watch all of Timothy Snyder’s lectures for The Making of Modern Ukraine here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNewfxO7LhBoz_1Mx1MaO6sw_
You can read my summaries of his lectures here: https://ericaverr.medium.com/
Erica Verrillo is the author of the Phoenix Rising Trilogy (Random House). Her short work has appeared in over a dozen publications. She is also the author of the definitive reference guide for treating myalgic encephalomyelitis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Treatment Guide, now in its second edition (first edition, St. Martin’s). She holds degrees from Tufts University (BA — History) and Syracuse University (MA — Linguistics) as well as doctoral work in Linguistics, Anthropology, and Speech Communication. Her professional life includes: Spanish language editor for the journal Mesoamerica, linguistics instructor (Dartmouth), Spanish and ESL instructor (Syracuse University), classical musician (Oxford Symphony Orchestra), Mayan linguist (SUNY Albany), and director of a non-profit NGO for Mayan refugees. She is the president of the American Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Society, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to to serving the needs of patients and caregivers through support, advocacy, and education. Her blog for writers, Publishing … and Other Forms of Insanity, has received nearly 8 million page views. You are welcome to visit.
