Timothy Snyder, The Making of Modern Ukraine, Lecture #13: Republics and Revolutions
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 13th lecture for his course The Making of Modern Ukraine was entited “Republics and Revolutions.”
One of Snyder’s main points in this lecture was that revolutions often follow wars, and that these revolutions are not “new.” Every revolution has a weighty inheritance. The inheritance that Synder is referring to, in this case, is several centuries of imperial conquest, not just globally, but over the territory now called Ukraine.
The competing forces in Ukraine during the 19th and 20th centuries were no longer based in the north and south, as they had been when the Ottoman Empire and the Swedish Empire/Vikings were struggling for domination. Now they were to the east and west. To the east was the Russian Empire, and to the west were the Habsburgs and Poland. This east-west competition effectively split Ukraine into two parts along the Dnieper River.
To the west of the Dnieper, where Poland was dominant, land was the major issue. The serfs had been freed in 1861, but they still had no choice but to work for the Polish landlords, who continued to own all the land. In the west, new cities based on industry were being established, notably in the Donbas. Raw materials, such as iron and coal, which is plentiful in this region, were exported to Russia. Then the finished products were sent back to Ukraine at inflated prices. (That is the classic colonial model.) The Donbas was populated by Russian speakers, largely because Ukrainians preferred to farm, rather than move into the new cities.
The split was not just secular and economic, but religious as well. In the west, the Uniate Church, aka Greek Catholic Church, was officially established. The Uniate Church became increasingly Ukrainian while the eastern Orthodox church remained strongly Russian. Between the two religious groups, there was a split in both practice and language. (There still is.)
The way all of this fits into Snyder’s contention that “revolutions follow wars” is that WWI, which, to use Synder’s terminology was a “sorting out of empires,” immediately led to the revolution in Russian. And, more importantly, it led to not one, but two Ukrainian states, along eastern and western lines.
(At this point in the lecture, Snyder asked the question, “What was World War I about?” He immediately followed up with, “This is not a question I’m going to make you answer.” I had to laugh, because it was the only question on my Early 20th Century European History final exam. The professor asked us to come up with a new explanation for WWI. Mine happened to correspond with Snyder’s “sorting out” of empires. Touché.)
In sum, WWI made a “mess” of Ukraine. It was not only torn between Russia and Poland, as well as by the Red Army and the White Army after the Russian Revolution, but despite all this upheaval Ukraine had to supply Germany with enough grain to feed the German Army, due to Russia’s pact with Germany. (The same thing happened in WWII.)
The question that Snyder raised at the end of the lecture was: “What happens after empire?” The answer he gave was “national self-determination.” However, nobody seems to have been able to define exactly what that is, even though Ukraine is, and has been, struggling tooth and nail for it.
You can watch the 13th lecture for The Making of Modern Ukraine here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9ciocrFK8w
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 writing blog, Publishing … and Other Forms of Insanity, has received nearly 8 million page views. You are welcome to visit.
