Ottoman Empire

• During his much-publicized recent interview with American right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined his perception of Russian history as the second anniversary of his invasion of Ukraine approaches.
• During his interview with Carlson, Putin traced Russian history to the ninth century.

Putin: Russia saved Europe from Nazis

• Russia’s identity today is closely connected to the Second World War, or to use Russian parlance, the Great Patriotic War.
• The fact that 4.5 million Ukrainians fought in the Red Army is largely ignored as Russia argues it alone saved Europe from the Nazis.

Neo-Nazi takeover?

• News outlets link the war to the invasion of Ukraine, alleging the country was taken over by neo-Nazis in 2014.
• At the behest of the West, so goes the allegation, Ukrainian protesters overthrew the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, and installed a neo-Nazi regime.

‘Cleansing’ Ukraine

• Lavrov recently claimed the Russian invasion of Ukraine has “cleansed” Ukrainian society of those “who do not feel they belong to Russia history and culture.” Medinsky, who authored the Grade 10 history textbook for Russian high school students, has advanced a new interpretation of the Second World War that focuses on the “genocide of the Soviet people.” New graves of Russian victims have suddenly been discovered and excavated, and Soviet losses continue to be counted.
• As for the Holocaust in neighbouring Belarus — a subject several western scholars are studying — Jews and other minorities are now subsumed under the term “Soviet people.” Just as history is continually being rewritten and propagated in Russian schools, it’s happening in Belarus, too.
• The two countries will soon produce a common textbook featuring new theories about the “genocide of the Belarusian people.” The memory of the Second World War is alive and well in both nations.

Justifying authoritarianism

• If it did, why did Putin refrain from denouncing Sweden and Finland when they joined the alliance?
• They lie in the past, in a narrow, distorted perception of Russian history and Russia’s claims to lands it once ruled.
• Read more:
  The legacy of the Euromaidan Revolution lives on in the Ukrainian-Russian war

A return to colonialism?

• Carlson provided Putin with a forum to outline his imperialist dreams.
• Carlson failed to call out the facile nature of Putin’s claims during the interview.
• We are a peaceful and free nation.” Mongolia may be.

David Roger Marples 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.

• Turkey has condemned Russia’s invasion and extended diplomatic and material assistance to Ukraine’s war efforts.
• At the same time, the country’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has pointedly opted not to join the Western-led sanctions against Russia or cut ties with Moscow.
• In September 2023, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Turkish companies and a businessman accused of helping Russia to circumvent U.S. sanctions.
• But this balancing act is becoming increasingly difficult the longer the war goes on.

The middleman strategy

• Failure to utilize a balancing strategy in the First World War facilitated the empire’s demise.
• In contrast, in World War II, a strategy of neutrality helped Turkey to weather the war unscathed.
• Against mounting Soviet threat during the Cold War, Turkey took refuge under Western security guarantees, joining NATO in 1952.

Splintered support

• But U.S. support to Kurds in northern Syria, aligned to the militant separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and the 2016 coup attempt against Erdoğan marked the beginning of a more confrontational relationship between Washington and Ankara.
• Blaming the U.S. and its Persian Gulf allies for complicity in the coup, Erdogan began to court Putin, who openly stood behind him during and after the attempted coup.
• Ankara’s acquisition of Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missiles led to its removal from the U.S.‘s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and a set of U.S. sanctions on Turkey’s defense industry.
• However, the Biden administration hesitated to reset relations due to concerns over Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian rule.

The balancing act and Ukraine

• War in Ukraine offered a new boost to Erdoğan’s balancing act.
• Turkey’s control of two major straits and established ties with Ukraine and other states along the Black Sea provided significant leverage for a multifaceted and neutral approach.
• Erdoğan seemingly hoped that maintaining trade relations with Russia and arms sales to Ukraine would bolster the struggling Turkish economy and rehabilitate his image in the West.
• As the Ukraine conflict continued and Erdoğan’s domestic popularity dipped in the lead-up to the May 2023 elections, the sustainability of Turkey’s balancing act seemed uncertain again.
• They add a new layer of complexity for Erdogan’s balancing act, but also more room for him to maneuver.

Ozgur Ozkan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• These concepts have been at the forefront of our minds for over three years now.
• Having lived through the height of the COVID pandemic, it would be easy for us to imagine we have just experienced something unique in human history.
• In Foreign Bodies, Schama demonstrates that the histories of medicine and public health are deeply entwined with broader understandings of social history.
• This is what Schama does best: he uses the macro history to highlight the intricacies of the micro histories.

The ‘other’

• We have a natural tendency to look for an “other” to blame – people from other cultures that we do not truly understand.
• This is exemplified by Waldemar Haffkine, the central figure in much of Schama’s narrative.
• Of Jewish origin, Haffkine was the “other”: a person whose ancestors have often borne the blame for pandemics throughout European history.
• In the 14th century, for example, at the time of the Black Plague, it was believed that Jewish people were poisoning wells.

Inoculation

• During her time in Turkey, Lady Montagu was exposed to the traditional practice that would come to be known in European medical circles as inoculation (or variolation).
• Inoculation was seen as counterproductive to many in the English medical establishment and viewed with suspicion in broader society.
• Schama highlights that the form of inoculation Lady Montagu introduced to English society was not, in fact, an entirely new concept within the British Isles.
• He touches on the fact that versions of inoculation were already practised in Wales and the Scotish Highlands.

Medicine and politics

• Foreign Bodies is heavily invested in the history of the intersection of medicine and politics.
• Schama examines the role of the great European powers of the 18th and 19th centuries in the management of pandemics and the proliferation of life-saving medical procedures, such as vaccination.
• Of course, the rules of quarantine did apply to non-European travellers, as Schama demonstrates, indicating once again where the blame was being squarely placed.
• There is an extensive list of disease outbreaks that Schama could have chosen to explore this concept.
• If you want to believe scientific knowledge will eventually prevail, he observes, “it is probably best not to ask a historian”.

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