How Slavophile Ideology and Russian Nationalist Narratives Flatten Kyivian Rus’ into a "Russian State"
In this reflection I highlight two opinion pieces. Both were written in March 2022 and both draw attention to how Russian nationalist reconstructions of history in the 19th century continue to influence the present Russian regime’s false and dangerous narratives about and actions against Ukraine. The first piece is written by my colleague, Dr. Debra Romanick Baldwin, and is entitled “Students of Russian and Ukrainian Literature Could Have Seen Putin Coming: Russian Slavophile ideology continues to confront Westernization.” In her essay, Baldwin argues that when we understand Kyiv’s diverse history and significance, it can help us to make sense of not only the 19th-century Slavophile ideology of Fyodor Dostoevsky but also enables us to better understand Russia’s full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine, which is now past the nine-month marker. As Baldwin explains, Kyivan Rus’ “was a separate state founded in the 10th century, well before the creation of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1283. Yet it was Moscow that later appropriated the name, changing ‘Rus’ into ‘Russia,’ and expanding across Eurasia to create the Russian Empire. The Russian Empire took the city of Kyiv by force in the late 17th century.” Importantly, Kyiv was also the site where the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was established in 988 and whose founder was Prince Volodymyr, who is said to have converted to Christianity that same year.
Baldwin notes that these historical points about Kyiv are crucial for us to keep in mind when reading the 19th-century Russian author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, with a view to better understanding Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Baldwin brings to our attention that Dostoevsky was a foremost advocate “of the Russian Slavophile movement. The Slavophiles were Russian nationalists hostile to ‘Europeanism,’ as Dostoevsky referred to it, seeking instead to strengthen Russian national identity, appealing to what they saw as the unique character of Russian religious, cultural and political tradition. Disdaining Western ideas and influence, they supported the idea of a ‘Great Russia,’ one that — as seen in the very choice of term ‘Slavophile’ — subsumed and unified under one Russian czar all the Slavic nations, including Ukrainians, Poles, Bulgars, Serbs, Croats, Slovenians and others.” Here we should hightlight the obvious, but nonetheless frequently overlooked, point that the rich diversity of Slavic nations and cultures is flattened and homogenized in the Russian Slavophile ideology. Baldwin goes on to state, “[c]ultural and political appropriation, Russification, is at the heart of the Slavophile vision. As Dostoevsky explained to his friend, the poet A.N. Maikov, ‘if that great [spiritual] mission is to be fulfilled, the political power and leadership of the Great Russian tribe over all Slavdom must be achieved definitively and indisputably.’ To this end, Dostoevsky wrote Maikov in 1869 that he planned to write an epic poem that ‘every Russian schoolchild will learn,’ and that culminates with a vision of ‘Russia in two hundred years alongside torn and darkened Europe with all its civilization reduced to a brutish state.’” (As a related aside, this Russification “mission” is being enacted in many of the Ukrainian cities that Russia currently occupies. A recent article in the Guardian reported that Ukrainian teachers must either quit their teaching jobs or be forced to teach a Russian (propogandist) curriculum to their students. The Kremlin’s goal is to “shape a new generation of loyal subjects who will accept a Russia-centric view of Ukrainian history.”)
The opinion piece, “Vladimir Putin’s war is banishing for good the outdated myth that Ukrainians and Russians are the same,” is written by Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy. Plokhy argues that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine not only shows the lie to his repeated claims that Russia and Ukraine are “fraternal peoples, or even worse “one and the same people” but also is strengthening Ukraine’s unity and identity. Plokhy points to fissures that have arisen within the highest echelons of the Eastern Orthodox Church. For example, Plokhy cites Metropolitan Onuphry, previously an ally of Moscow Patriarchate, who recently spoke against Patriarch Kirill’s failure to condemn Russia’s unjust war. (As noted earlier, both essays were written in March 2022. Since then, in case anyone is still deluded about where Kirill’s loyalties lie, he has preached sermons glorifying and spiritualizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For example, in a sermon on September 25, 2022, he proclaimed that Russian soldiers who sacrifice their lives in the course of their military duties for Mother Russia would have their sins washed away.)
Plokhy also comments on a statement by Putin in which he describes Kyiv as “the mother of Russian cities.” Here it is worth citing a few passages from Plokhy’s analysis of the consequences of this linguistic sleight of hand, which violently homogenizes and reconstructs Kyiv into a Russian city and the rich diversity of Kyivan Rus’ into a Russian state. As Plokhy explains: “That quote comes from the medieval Kyiv chronicle, which refers to Kyiv as the mother, or capital, of the Rus’ rather than Russian cities. There is a profound difference between the Rus’ tribes of the medieval era, which included all eastern Slavs and the Russians of today. But Putin has been following in the footsteps of the Russian imperial tradition that treated Kyivan Rus’ as a Russian state. In the 19th century some Russian historians argued that medieval Kyiv was in fact settled by ethnic Russians, who out-migrated from the area during the Mongol invasion of the 13th century. No such outmigration had actually taken place, as has been proven by the historical and linguistic data. There is also no proof to suggest the existence of a unified nationality in the medieval Kyivan state, which extended from the Carpathians in the west to the Don in the east, and from the Baltic in the north to the shores of the Black Sea in the south. It was originally ruled by the Viking princes and included Slavs and non-Slavs alike. But the imperial mythology claimed that there was one such nationality, and it was Russian.
That 19th century understanding of history has been at the core of Putin’s claim about the existence of one Russian people that includes the Russians and Ukrainians. It faces its final death now in the skies of Kyiv.”
Hopefully, these excepts will motivate you to read both articles in full, as it is well worth your time and helps to create a more accurate historical framework to understand how Putin’s imperial war of aggression has much in common with Dostoevsky’s Slavophilic dream of Russification.
Lastly, if you are seeking a way to help support Ukrainians during this incredibly difficult time, check out United24 which raises funds for Ukraine in three areas: defense and de-mining, medical aid, and rebuilding. You can choose which area you want your funds to be applied.
Many thanks for reading!