By Ed West

Putin’s ‘historian, here’ talk refers to the Soviet Union’s policy of affirmative action.

You know that nations are all just artificial creations, mostly Victorian inventions designed for political purposes? That your loyalty and patriotism is entirely false? The now-popular argument of post-war academics, that countries are modern constructs without any real ancient bonds, seems to have found an influential follower in Vladimir Putin.

In his somewhat-terrifying speech on Monday, Russia’s president justified military intervention in the eastern Ukraine by sounding like one of those ‘historian here’ threads about why those out-group idiots who call themselves ‘nationalists’ don’t understand history.

‘Let’s start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia, more precisely, Bolshevik, communist Russia,’ Putin said: ‘This process began immediately after the revolution of 1917. As a result of Bolshevik policy, Soviet Ukraine arose, which even today can with good reason be called “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s Ukraine”. He is its author and architect. This is fully confirmed by archive documents … And now grateful descendants have demolished monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. This is what they call decommunisation. Do you want decommunisation? Well, that suits us just fine. But it is unnecessary, as they say, to stop halfway. We are ready to show you what real decommunisation means for Ukraine.’

The story of Ukraine’s origins are as fascinating as they are contested, deeply entwined with what it means to be Russian. They are also complicated by the legacy of the Soviet Union, which among its many hairbrained ideological schemes pioneered the idea of affirmative action. This had a particular impact in Ukraine, which initially under the Bolsheviks had something of a cultural flourishing (although it’s safe to say that the Communists had an otherwise not-entirely-perfect record in the country).

Ukrainian identity was discouraged under the tsars. Indeed it was even illegal to print the word ‘Ukraine’, the correct term being ‘Little Russia’ (Ukraine itself is believed to derive from ‘borderland’, which is why Ukrainians object to the definite article, although I find myself instinctively using it). The Russification policy from 1881 meant the repression of minority languages from schools, courts and street signs, and even lowly railway porters had to learn Russian. In 1907 the medical committee in Kiev province refused to allow cholera warnings to be published in Ukrainian and as a result many peasants died from drinking infected water. For people who ever complain about the spiteful and petty language disputes in Belgium, I’m pretty sure even the Flemish and Walloons would not give each other cholera over the issue (although I wouldn’t bet my savings on it).

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