Thank you for this Alexander. Real history is so important to understand and preserve. Too many world leaders are destroying children's lives to propaganda for power. Here too. May every thing that exalts itself above God be crashed to the ground.
Haha, it's so funny when Putin claims that Ukrainian doesn't have its own culture while Moscow inherited most of it from Kyiv after 1648 when West bank Ukraine was assimilated into the Grand Dutchy of Muscovy (the East remained in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). There was no religious disputation in Muscovy and the literacy was low. And now, they have the nerve to say that there is no Ukrainian culture when it's where most contemporary Russian culture grew out from. Truly, in the Russian mindset, everything gets turned upside down. Even the idea that Russia has inherited Orthodoxy from the Byzantines was first coined in Kiev, when it's priests said that they inherited it.
It’s amusing to me that the same Americans who might be inclined to believe Putins thoughts on the subject are also likely to roll their eyes at discussions of Native American “land acknowledgments.”
Knowing the history is interesting and important. But it’s never going to justify military invasion and occupation. Whether or not people who lived on the land 500 years ago thought of themselves as Russian is irrelevant. People live there now. And showing up with tanks and forcing them from their land is not cool.
I suppose you skipped all the parts in recent history about repeatedly asking NATO not to come any closer, or the part when peace talks were skuppered by American and British diplomacy. The lack of self reflection from Americans (and from Brits and I'm a Brit) is actually outstanding. Fuck Putin but jesus when are we in the west going to take a grain of responsibility for this war.
nothing to do with what I wrote right? I wrote about culture and I mentioned about politics as well, did you read whole article? I literally wrote at that Im skipping commenting on politics.
There's trickery and obfuscation on both sides, isn't there, and a mutual desire for war to further the reset of the financial system globally and usher in the brave new digital world.
Feb 9Liked by Deborah T. Hewitt, Alexander Semenyuk
Thank you very much for this! It’s clear Putin would like Ukrainian culture and language- such a vital part of anyone’s culture - to be subsumed or rather subjugated. It’s not just a war with tanks and bombs. It’s a way of humiliating one’s enemy. It’s good that you can write about it in this even-handed and open way.
I wouldn’t assign Putin any motives that fall under the rubric of “just because he’s a bad evil crazy person” - he learned his nation’s history through the lens of his nation, just as Americans learn their history through the US lens. Because the victors write the history, the stories are always about how the dominant power “civilized” the other culture, and how ‘our side’ was always the good guy in all conflict (and how, when we weren’t, it was an unfortunate misstep.) US schoolchildren are taught that the US single handedly won WW2 and saved the Jews. We are not taught that we could not have succeeded without the blood of Russian soldiers and the resistance movement’s in Italy, France, Belgium etc (those movements were communist to a large extent.)
Putin is a political leader, and as the world is now led by monsters, he’s also monstrous. But, I wouldn’t say he is necessarily more monstrous than Macron, Meloni,or Xi Peng or Erdogan or the rest - and that unlike our own monster-in-chief, at least he can speak in complete sentences.
Some really weird stuff said about the history, but it’s all a game created for the masses, sly tricks in the language and then children’s lives are ruined forever, these people don’t care.
By the way, I have just recorded a podcast about the Ukrainian language and culture with a fellow historian that contradicts Putin's narrative. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/7ydveF99jjY?si=BEgDV0gsd2DjLJmc
We all need peace of mind to survive.Thanks for your story Alexander you were there you know.We all need a better way of life for our sanity and wellbeing and our children and generations to come God help us all in this beautiful place as always it's evil people.Thanks for your story.♥️🕊️🙏.
Thank you for your correct and sincere comment about this interview. I didn't look and won't look - I can't even see that face. It is thanks to this person and his disgusting ignorance that we broke all our life plans and normal lives, left our homes and had to flee abroad with our children. And most of my family is in Kyiv, working and risking their lives daily. He deserves not an interview, but a sentence by a court in The Hague as an international criminal, terrorist and murderer. I stop myself at this point because my words take on a cruel meaning. Thank you, Oleksandr, for being with Ukraine.
I’m glad you called out Putins intentional inaccuracies. My highly educated Ukrainian mother in law and husband would have scoffed at his words, yet not have been surprised at this typical propaganda. I learned quite a bit About Ukrainian culture and history from them.
Yea, well, it was all intentional sly analysis by him to get to portion of easily influenced people in the west. I already see comments on Substack that they “learned history”, lol.
Good point, really the best place to learn history is not from politicians but from books, so that said any textbooks or history books you might recommend good sir on Russian and Ukrainian histories (Preferably in English or French).
Ahh okay, d'accord I don't mind being recommended pricey stuff, might be interesting to look into that stuff once I'm settled and comfortable in a few months.
As to your own book, I'll have to look into it. And this book is one I'll see about.
Thanks for the thoughtful and honest essay. I deeply respect your decision to avoid mentioning politics and loved the part about loving the Russian people. I feel the same way about most people. I can remember how optimistic we all were after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Meeting Russians, the Chinese and the occasional Ukrainian and thinking we could all get along.
Our leaders really screwed us over. They get that Great man of history mindset in their head, the desire to remembered for something significant in history, paired with the agenda driven national jostling of the group dynamic, and it's like they divorce themselves from their humanity. I think fear and suspicion are key- as is the failure to recognise that other leaders are also under the influence of the same humanity distorting group dynamic.
Don't get me wrong. I'm dead set against supranational agendas. In many ways they are worse than national leadership- the tendency to make decisions from afar, deferring to ideological handpicked experts, without any thought to individual circumstance or knowledge of the real facts on the ground.
But still, for a brief moment in history it looked as though everything was going to be great. It's like we woke up with a stinking and permanent psychic hangover in 2008 and it never seems to shift...
Thank you for this Alexander. Real history is so important to understand and preserve. Too many world leaders are destroying children's lives to propaganda for power. Here too. May every thing that exalts itself above God be crashed to the ground.
Cultural history is often ignored.
100% agree, must keep our eyes on God
Haha, it's so funny when Putin claims that Ukrainian doesn't have its own culture while Moscow inherited most of it from Kyiv after 1648 when West bank Ukraine was assimilated into the Grand Dutchy of Muscovy (the East remained in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). There was no religious disputation in Muscovy and the literacy was low. And now, they have the nerve to say that there is no Ukrainian culture when it's where most contemporary Russian culture grew out from. Truly, in the Russian mindset, everything gets turned upside down. Even the idea that Russia has inherited Orthodoxy from the Byzantines was first coined in Kiev, when it's priests said that they inherited it.
Great comment, might have to take it and share haha
It’s amusing to me that the same Americans who might be inclined to believe Putins thoughts on the subject are also likely to roll their eyes at discussions of Native American “land acknowledgments.”
Knowing the history is interesting and important. But it’s never going to justify military invasion and occupation. Whether or not people who lived on the land 500 years ago thought of themselves as Russian is irrelevant. People live there now. And showing up with tanks and forcing them from their land is not cool.
yup, exactly, makes no sense.
I suppose you skipped all the parts in recent history about repeatedly asking NATO not to come any closer, or the part when peace talks were skuppered by American and British diplomacy. The lack of self reflection from Americans (and from Brits and I'm a Brit) is actually outstanding. Fuck Putin but jesus when are we in the west going to take a grain of responsibility for this war.
nothing to do with what I wrote right? I wrote about culture and I mentioned about politics as well, did you read whole article? I literally wrote at that Im skipping commenting on politics.
I'm sorry Alexander I feel like this comment was meant for another post and not directed at you, I'm new to this substack thing!!
no problem!
Somehow politics got dragged into it! 😞
Nothing at all inconsistent between what you are saying and what I am saying. NATO expansion was provocative.
There's trickery and obfuscation on both sides, isn't there, and a mutual desire for war to further the reset of the financial system globally and usher in the brave new digital world.
I agree, Dan!
Also, I’d like to add that my Ukrainian husband told me that the Ukrainians were descended from the Rus tribes, not the Russians.
Thank you very much for this! It’s clear Putin would like Ukrainian culture and language- such a vital part of anyone’s culture - to be subsumed or rather subjugated. It’s not just a war with tanks and bombs. It’s a way of humiliating one’s enemy. It’s good that you can write about it in this even-handed and open way.
Thank you for the great comment, yes, it’s a lot of sly trickery involved in all this, cruel game for the powerful, and the children suffer for it.
It certainly leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth. How cruel it is, to be sure. And to what end, all the trickery? I wonder.
I wouldn’t assign Putin any motives that fall under the rubric of “just because he’s a bad evil crazy person” - he learned his nation’s history through the lens of his nation, just as Americans learn their history through the US lens. Because the victors write the history, the stories are always about how the dominant power “civilized” the other culture, and how ‘our side’ was always the good guy in all conflict (and how, when we weren’t, it was an unfortunate misstep.) US schoolchildren are taught that the US single handedly won WW2 and saved the Jews. We are not taught that we could not have succeeded without the blood of Russian soldiers and the resistance movement’s in Italy, France, Belgium etc (those movements were communist to a large extent.)
Putin is a political leader, and as the world is now led by monsters, he’s also monstrous. But, I wouldn’t say he is necessarily more monstrous than Macron, Meloni,or Xi Peng or Erdogan or the rest - and that unlike our own monster-in-chief, at least he can speak in complete sentences.
I agree.
If I could repost your words, I would. Maddening how few people understand this, and you nailed it.
Thanks for your thoughts. I know too many Ukrainians to believe Putin’s propaganda.
Some really weird stuff said about the history, but it’s all a game created for the masses, sly tricks in the language and then children’s lives are ruined forever, these people don’t care.
By the way, I have just recorded a podcast about the Ukrainian language and culture with a fellow historian that contradicts Putin's narrative. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/7ydveF99jjY?si=BEgDV0gsd2DjLJmc
We all need peace of mind to survive.Thanks for your story Alexander you were there you know.We all need a better way of life for our sanity and wellbeing and our children and generations to come God help us all in this beautiful place as always it's evil people.Thanks for your story.♥️🕊️🙏.
Thanks for the support, can be tough writing on these subjects.
Thank you for your correct and sincere comment about this interview. I didn't look and won't look - I can't even see that face. It is thanks to this person and his disgusting ignorance that we broke all our life plans and normal lives, left our homes and had to flee abroad with our children. And most of my family is in Kyiv, working and risking their lives daily. He deserves not an interview, but a sentence by a court in The Hague as an international criminal, terrorist and murderer. I stop myself at this point because my words take on a cruel meaning. Thank you, Oleksandr, for being with Ukraine.
So sorry for you and your family. We had family members who died and also became crippled. Some friends died as well.
I’m glad you called out Putins intentional inaccuracies. My highly educated Ukrainian mother in law and husband would have scoffed at his words, yet not have been surprised at this typical propaganda. I learned quite a bit About Ukrainian culture and history from them.
Yea, well, it was all intentional sly analysis by him to get to portion of easily influenced people in the west. I already see comments on Substack that they “learned history”, lol.
Good point, really the best place to learn history is not from politicians but from books, so that said any textbooks or history books you might recommend good sir on Russian and Ukrainian histories (Preferably in English or French).
You can actually start with my own, Everlasting Candle, it’s fully on here. It’ll give you a small feel for the culture at the time.
Just for basic stuff you can start with a link I’ll post if youd like, there are more in depth ones, but really pricy, because of translation I presume. https://www.amazon.com/Great-Book-Ukraine-Interesting-Ukrainian/dp/B0B6LCSHQD/ref=asc_df_B0B6LCSHQD/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=598358772602&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3932593391876714356&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9008150&hvtargid=pla-1718304806613&psc=1&mcid=ced1099ad94e3268b5fa9f2cfebe1546&gclid=CjwKCAiAt5euBhB9EiwAdkXWO-8p86I4IFMlyA83HD06uSllwxLQesqAcGxiXqWu3pJJfKQF8c4bFRoC_3gQAvD_BwE
Ahh okay, d'accord I don't mind being recommended pricey stuff, might be interesting to look into that stuff once I'm settled and comfortable in a few months.
As to your own book, I'll have to look into it. And this book is one I'll see about.
Thanks for the thoughtful and honest essay. I deeply respect your decision to avoid mentioning politics and loved the part about loving the Russian people. I feel the same way about most people. I can remember how optimistic we all were after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Meeting Russians, the Chinese and the occasional Ukrainian and thinking we could all get along.
Our leaders really screwed us over. They get that Great man of history mindset in their head, the desire to remembered for something significant in history, paired with the agenda driven national jostling of the group dynamic, and it's like they divorce themselves from their humanity. I think fear and suspicion are key- as is the failure to recognise that other leaders are also under the influence of the same humanity distorting group dynamic.
Don't get me wrong. I'm dead set against supranational agendas. In many ways they are worse than national leadership- the tendency to make decisions from afar, deferring to ideological handpicked experts, without any thought to individual circumstance or knowledge of the real facts on the ground.
But still, for a brief moment in history it looked as though everything was going to be great. It's like we woke up with a stinking and permanent psychic hangover in 2008 and it never seems to shift...
Yes, it’s interesting to see how human nature takes over and everything is a rollercoaster.
People can be sublime at an individual level, but our group dynamics can turn us into monsters.
Very true
Thank you for the clarification! This is what is so desperately needed.
Thank you for reading!
Thank you Alex for love to Ukraine.
It was very boring interview. No any good questions, just siting quality and listening dictator.
I think Tucker was nervous, too scared to push.
Thank you for sharing your viewpoints. I listened to most of the interview, and I appreciate your commentary. It helps me to have more understanding.
Thank you, glad you did!
This context is fascinating. Thank you for sharing 🙏🏾
Thanks for reading!