- The world got another taste of Putin’s view of history on February 6, when the Russian leader was interviewed by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
- Putin began this two-hour interview with a lengthy monologue about the medieval history of Russia and Ukraine.
- As far as Putin’s narrative about Rurik goes, modern scholars interpret the people behind Novgorod’s “invitation” as a literary invention.
- Those principalities were ruled over by different branches of the Rurik dynasty, who often fought with one another.
- The language of Kyivan Rus was Old East Slavic (OES), the language from which modern-day Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian derive.
- For example, in OES “the Rus land” is “ruskaya zemlya”, while in Russian the strikingly similar “russkaya zemlya” means “the Russian land”.
Blame it on Poland
Putin then skipped forward a few centuries, suggesting to Carlson that the idea of Ukraine was really invented by the Poles. From the late 16th century, part of what had been Kyivan Rus was incorporated into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Although this area would later become Ukraine, Putin implies that it was actually Russian, and that the Poles invented the idea that it was Ukrainian as a way of undermining Russia.
- This culture was unique in its innovation of conservative religious tradition and development of new cultural forms.
- His book also presented western-inspired images that stood in stark contrast to Russia’s Byzantine-style icons, introducing new and provocative ways of envisioning Christ.
- Putin painted a picture of this area as fundamentally Russian and its people as passive, shaped by their imperial overlord Poland.
- Ever since Russia began forming around Moscow from the 14th century, it saw itself as a continuation of Kyivan Rus.
Nick Mayhew does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
