155. Ukraine and Russia

概览

This episode uses Vladimir Putin’s claim that “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia” as the starting point for a long historical survey. The hosts argue that Ukraine’s history is deeply entangled with Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Austria-Hungary, the Mongols, and the Soviet Union, but that entanglement does not mean Ukraine lacks a distinct identity.

The discussion moves chronologically from Herodotus and the Scythians through Kievan Rus, the Mongol destruction of Kiev, Polish-Lithuanian rule, the Cossacks, Russian imperial absorption, nineteenth-century Ukrainian nationalism, the catastrophe of the early Soviet and Second World War years, and finally independence in 1991.

A recurring conclusion is that Ukrainian national consciousness existed before the Bolsheviks and survived repeated attempts at suppression. The hosts present Putin’s historical argument as selective, especially because it omits periods when Ukrainians asserted autonomy, language, culture, and statehood.

分段落总结

[00:10] Putin’s Historical Claim

[事实] The episode opens with Putin’s statement that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia. [事实] The hosts say Putin used this historical claim as part of his justification for invading Ukraine. [事实] They reject the idea that Ukraine was simply created by the Bolsheviks, noting earlier Ukrainian national sensibility and a sense of Ukraine as a distinct place. [推测] The episode frames history itself as part of the present geopolitical conflict.

[02:25] Why Ukrainian History Is So Contested

[事实] The hosts describe Ukraine’s history as complicated because borders repeatedly shifted, empires absorbed territories, and names and identities were contested. [事实] They compare Ukraine’s entangled relationship with Russia to Britain and Ireland. [事实] They say Ukraine’s twentieth-century suffering has often overshadowed its cultural achievements. [推测] The complexity of Ukraine’s borders helps Putin make a selective argument, but does not prove that Ukraine lacks identity.

[04:53] The Scale of the 2022 Crisis

[事实] Dominic argues that the crisis is greater than the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan. [事实] He compares the seriousness of the moment to the Cuban Missile Crisis and notes that many people compare it with the 1930s. [事实] He says a war in Europe could involve huge casualties, the siege or bombing of Kiev, and major effects on ordinary people through markets and oil prices. [推测] The hosts treat the crisis as a turning point in modern European security.

[06:20] Borderlands, Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk

[事实] The hosts discuss Putin’s recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. [事实] They describe eastern Ukraine as heavily industrialized and containing many Russian speakers. [事实] They note that Crimea had been annexed by Russia and had a history that was closely connected to, but also somewhat distinct from, the rest of Ukraine. [推测] The geography and history of shifting borders make Ukraine especially vulnerable to competing imperial narratives.

[07:15] Herodotus, Scythians and the Steppe

[事实] Tom says the land now called Ukraine appears in Herodotus’ Histories. [事实] Herodotus describes Darius trying and failing to conquer the Scythians. [事实] The hosts characterize the region for many centuries as a land of nomadic peoples and loose, shifting powers. [推测] The open steppe landscape is presented as an early explanation for Ukraine’s recurring border instability.

[08:50] Vikings, Kiev and Kievan Rus

[事实] The hosts describe Vikings moving down the Dnieper and Volga and helping create Kievan Rus. [事实] Kiev becomes the center of a large riverine empire connected economically and culturally to Constantinople. [事实] The word Rus is linked in the discussion to rowers or oarsmen. [事实] The hosts emphasize that both Ukrainian and Russian historical narratives often begin with Kievan Rus.

[11:32] Volodymyr, Orthodoxy and Slavic Culture

[事实] Volodymyr converts to Orthodox Christianity after comparing different religions. [事实] The hosts describe this conversion as a defining moment in East Slavic culture. [事实] Viking elites in Kiev gradually become more Slavic, comparable to Norman rulers becoming French. [事实] Yaroslav the Wise develops law codes and dynastic connections with European royalty.

[14:27] Decline and the Mongol Sack of Kiev

[事实] Kievan Rus declines in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries due to internal succession problems, feuding, and the weakening of Constantinople. [事实] The Mongols sack Kiev in 1240, kill large numbers of people, and destroy much of the city. [事实] The destruction breaks the power of Kievan Rus. [事实] Muscovy later rises as a different Orthodox Slavic center and a client or intermediary under Mongol power.

[17:35] Poland, Lithuania and Crimea

[事实] By the fourteenth century, the lands associated with Ukraine are divided among the Golden Horde, Poland, and Lithuania. [事实] The Crimean Khanate emerges from the Golden Horde. [事实] Lithuania and Poland form a dynastic alliance in 1385 and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. [事实] Much of present-day Ukraine becomes part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth rather than Muscovy.

[20:38] Ruthenians, Religion and the Uniate Church

[事实] The people later called Ukrainians are described as Ruthenians, a term linked to Rus. [事实] The Ukrainian lands under Polish rule have Orthodox populations ruled by Catholic elites. [事实] In 1596, religious elites create the Uniate Church, under the Pope but retaining Eastern rites, Slavonic liturgy, and married clergy. [事实] The hosts say this becomes a major dividing line for centuries, especially once Russia rules Ukrainian lands.

[23:17] Printing, Culture and Early Ukrainian Distinctiveness

[事实] The hosts refer to a cultural center with a printing press and the publication of a Slavonic Bible around the late sixteenth century. [事实] They describe a distinctive religious and intellectual culture emerging in the Ukrainian lands. [事实] They place this development within wider European patterns of print, literacy, and cultural self-definition. [推测] The hosts suggest it is somewhat anachronistic to call this fully “Ukrainian,” but see it as part of the prehistory of Ukrainian identity.

[24:18] The Cossacks

[事实] The Cossacks are described as freebooters, outlaws, runaway serfs, exiled nobles, and soldiers of fortune living in the southeastern steppe. [事实] They gather around the lower Dnieper and become known as the Zaporozhian host. [事实] They are Orthodox, fiercely autonomous, and hostile to being controlled by Polish authorities. [推测] The hosts present the Cossacks as a major source of later Ukrainian freedom mythology.

[26:40] Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the 1654 Treaty

[事实] Bogdan Khmelnitsky leads a Cossack rebellion against Polish landowners and makes a deal with the Russian Tsar in 1654. [事实] Russians and Ukrainians interpret the deal differently: Russians see it as submission to Moscow, Ukrainians as an alliance preserving autonomy. [事实] The hosts say the exact terms remain contested by historians. [推测] The treaty matters less as a settled legal fact than as a symbolic battleground in modern historical memory.

[29:03] Ukraine and the Britain-Ireland Analogy

[事实] The hosts compare Russia and Ukraine’s intertwined but distinct histories to Britain and Ireland. [事实] They say it would be absurd to deny Ireland’s distinct identity despite its entangled history with Britain. [事实] They note that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is a Russian speaker, and that speaking Russian does not automatically mean being pro-Russian. [推测] The language issue in Ukraine is presented as more complex than Putin’s framing allows.

[33:01] The Ruin

[事实] After Khmelnitsky, Ukraine enters a period known as “the Ruin.” [事实] The hosts describe it as a chaotic seventeenth-century period of war involving Cossacks, peasants, Poles, Russians, Crimeans, and Ottomans. [事实] Ukraine is eventually partitioned along the Dnieper, with Poland taking the western side and Russia the eastern side. [推测] The name “the Ruin” captures how repeated foreign and internal wars became central to Ukrainian historical memory.

[35:02] Mazepa, Poltava and Russian Imperial Power

[事实] Ivan Mazepa, a Cossack Hetman, seeks an independent state in Ukrainian territory. [事实] Mazepa turns against Peter the Great and allies with Charles XII of Sweden during the Great Northern War. [事实] The Russians defeat Mazepa and the Swedes at Poltava in 1709. [事实] Mazepa becomes a hate figure in Russian memory but a patriotic figure in modern Ukraine.

[38:17] Catherine the Great and Novorossiya

[事实] Catherine the Great gradually removes the autonomy of the Cossack Hetmanate. [事实] She annexes Crimea in 1783 and calls the region Novorossiya, or New Russia. [事实] The hosts note that Putin also sometimes uses the term Novorossiya. [事实] Russians and Ukrainians are settled in areas previously associated with Tatars.

[39:31] Galicia and the Austrian Connection

[事实] Galicia remains Polish before Poland is partitioned and disappears as a state. [事实] Most of modern Ukraine becomes part of the Russian Empire, while Galicia belongs to Austria-Hungary. [事实] The hosts describe Galicia and Lviv as more Central European and more distinct from Russian influence. [事实] They note that Ukrainians have often looked westward toward Galicia during trouble with Russia.

[42:04] Russification and the Donbass

[事实] In the nineteenth century, Russia tries to Russify Ukrainian lands by suppressing the Uniate Church and Ukrainian language. [事实] The Donbass becomes heavily industrialized, with coal, steel, and Russian-speaking migration. [事实] Donetsk is linked to a Welsh industrial figure named Hughes. [事实] The hosts distinguish between Russian speakers and pro-Russian political identity.

[44:15] National Revival and Shevchenko

[事实] Ukrainian national consciousness grows through universities, intellectual circles, folklore, literature, and peasant culture. [事实] Taras Shevchenko is described as a major nineteenth-century writer and peasant figure. [事实] Shevchenko writes about Cossacks, folklore, and opposition to the Tsars. [事实] Alexander II bans Ukrainian books, recitals, education, and public use of the language in 1876.

[46:40] Lviv as a Refuge for Ukrainian Culture

[事实] Ukrainian writers and activists flee to Lviv and Galicia when Russian repression intensifies. [事实] The Austrian authorities are described as less severe than Russian authorities, though not entirely tolerant. [事实] The hosts say there was clear Ukrainian sentiment among the intelligentsia and peasantry before the First World War. [推测] Galicia functions in the narrative as a cultural reserve for Ukrainian identity.

[47:50] The First Political Demand for Independence

[事实] In 1900, the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party publishes a pamphlet calling for a single, indivisible, free, independent Ukraine. [事实] The pamphlet appears in Kharkiv. [事实] The hosts note that Kharkiv later becomes one of the cities claimed by Putinist narratives as properly Russian. [推测] The location of this early independence demand complicates claims that eastern Ukrainian cities are simply Russian.

[48:50] World War I and the Ukrainian Revolution

[事实] During the First World War, Russia initially advances into Galicia and suppresses Ukrainian institutions and Ruthenian language. [事实] After the Russian war machine collapses in 1917, Ukraine enters an extremely complex period from 1917 to 1922. [事实] The hosts list multiple competing entities and forces, including Ukrainian republics, Bolsheviks, anarchists, Germans, Poles, White Russians, and others. [事实] Kiev changes hands 16 times in two years.

[51:00] Civil War, Pogroms and Jewish Ukraine

[事实] The hosts say the First World War’s horrors do not stop in Ukraine but mutate into civil war. [事实] They describe horrific pogroms during this period. [事实] Ukraine is described as one of Europe’s great centers of Jewish culture. [事实] The hosts mention Lviv and Philip Sands’ work on the extermination of Jews there.

[53:34] The Soviet Union and Recognition of Ukraine

[事实] The hosts reject Putin’s claim that the Bolsheviks invented Ukraine. [事实] They say the Bolsheviks recognized the Ukrainian national idea as too strong to admit Ukraine merely as part of Russia. [事实] Ukraine becomes a constituent part of the Soviet Union rather than simply being folded into a Russian Empire. [推测] Soviet recognition of Ukraine is presented as evidence that Ukrainian identity already had political force.

[54:37] Collectivization and the Holodomor

[事实] Stalin launches collectivization at the beginning of the 1930s. [事实] Ukraine, as the breadbasket of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, suffers catastrophically. [事实] The hosts say around five million people died in the Soviet famine, about four million of them Ukrainians. [事实] The famine is identified as the Holodomor and a major trauma in modern Ukrainian consciousness.

[56:14] Stalinism and Repression of Ukrainian Identity

[事实] Ukrainian self-expression initially receives some space in the early Soviet years. [事实] Stalin reverses this through Russification, repression of the Ukrainian church, and purges. [事实] Ukraine suffers disproportionately during the Great Terror of 1937-38. [事实] The hosts say Stalin is intolerant of nationalist sentiment, especially in places such as Ukraine and Georgia.

[58:01] Nazi Invasion and Bandera

[事实] Stalin is described as paranoid about Ukraine because it is a borderland and buffer for Russia proper. [事实] When the Nazis invade in 1941, some Ukrainian nationalists initially welcome them as liberators from Soviet rule. [事实] Stepan Bandera is cited as a figure hated by Russian nationalists and initially supportive of the German invasion. [事实] The hosts say Bandera later turns against the Nazis.

[59:30] Nazi Occupation and the Second World War

[事实] Hitler wants Ukraine as Lebensraum and regards Ukrainians as inferior. [事实] The hosts say the whole of Ukraine is occupied by Nazi rule for roughly three years. [事实] Ukraine becomes a major battlefield between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht. [事实] Many Ukrainians join the Red Army when it returns.

[61:22] The Scale of Ukrainian Wartime Losses

[事实] The hosts say more Ukrainians died fighting with the Red Army than British, French, and American casualties combined. [事实] They state that seven million people from Ukraine were killed, including Jews murdered in the Holocaust. [事实] Ten million people were left homeless and Ukraine lost about half its national wealth. [推测] The hosts treat Ukraine’s twentieth-century suffering as almost beyond ordinary historical comparison.

[62:40] Khrushchev and Crimea

[事实] After Stalin dies in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev takes over. [事实] Khrushchev had been party boss in Ukraine in the late 1930s and had helped orchestrate Stalin’s purges there. [事实] For the 300th anniversary of the 1654 Cossack agreement, Khrushchev gives Crimea to Ukraine. [事实] The hosts describe Crimea’s transfer as a later “ticking time bomb,” while noting Russia accepted it in the 1990s.

[64:06] Ukraine in the UN and Chernobyl

[事实] Ukraine becomes a member of the United Nations even while still part of the Soviet Union. [事实] Chernobyl occurs in Ukraine in 1986. [事实] The hosts say Moscow’s attempt to cover up and deny Chernobyl creates anger and discredits Soviet leadership. [事实] They compare Chernobyl with the Holodomor as an important moment in Ukraine’s sense of distinctiveness.

[65:48] Late Soviet National Revival and Independence

[事实] In the late 1980s, there are demonstrations in Lviv and Kiev calling for greater Ukrainian autonomy. [事实] A 1989 language law makes Ukrainian the state language. [事实] The Union Church revives, and calls for independence begin in 1990. [事实] In December 1991, Ukraine holds an independence referendum and the independence side wins 90 percent of the vote in every oblast, including Crimea.

[67:30] NATO, Budapest and the 1990s Collapse

[事实] The hosts say there may have been verbal Western assurances in the late 1980s and early 1990s about not pushing NATO to Russia’s borders, but no formal treaty. [事实] They identify the 1994 Budapest agreement as a written guarantee connected to Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons. [事实] Russia is named as one of the countries that guaranteed Ukraine’s borders. [事实] Ukraine suffers severe economic collapse in the 1990s, losing 60 percent of GDP and experiencing extremely high inflation.

[69:51] Orange Revolution, Euromaidan and 2014

[事实] Since independence, Ukraine’s history is described as difficult and tortured. [事实] The Orange Revolution happens in 2004. [事实] The Euromaidan movement in 2014 is described as a popular uprising against pro-Russian president Yanukovych after he refuses to sign a deal with the EU. [事实] The hosts say this triggers Putin’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatism in Donetsk and Luhansk.

[70:27] Closing Reflection

[事实] The hosts say Ukraine’s history is not cheerful and that Ukrainians deserve a break after so much suffering. [事实] They connect the episode directly to current events and recommend earlier related episodes on Vikings in the East and English-Ukrainian history. [推测] The closing tone suggests the hosts see the present crisis as another tragic repetition in a long pattern of violence imposed on Ukraine.

播客点评/总结

This episode’s value lies in its broad sweep. It does not treat the 2022 crisis as a sudden event, but places it inside more than a millennium of contested borders, imperial rule, religious division, cultural revival, and national self-assertion.

Its strongest point is the challenge to simplified historical claims. The hosts repeatedly show that Ukraine’s identity cannot be reduced to Russian creation, while also acknowledging that Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Jewish, Austrian, and Crimean histories are deeply interwoven.

The limitation is that the episode moves very quickly through dense and contested material. Many periods, especially 1917-1922, the Holodomor, the Holocaust, and post-1991 politics, are summarized rather than deeply analyzed.

[推测] This episode is best suited for listeners who want a historically grounded introduction to why Ukraine’s sovereignty and identity are contested, rather than a detailed specialist account of any single period.