Norman Davies

Prior to Russia’s invasion in February 2022, few westerners knew much about Ukraine, and even less about Kazakhstan. We all suffer from Moscow-centred perceptions and the bad habit of equating the Soviet Union with Russia.  But now we know that Putin is driven by spurious historical theories, in which Ukraine has no right to exist, one needs to ask how they might apply to other ex-Russian provinces. Nowhere is more affected than European Russia’s eastern neighbour, Kazakhstan, which separates Muscovy from China, in the same way that Ukraine and Belarus divide it from the EU and Nato.   Ukraine is half as big again as France or Germany. But ‘KZ’ dwarfs it. From end to end, Kazakhstan covers the same space as from Portugal to Poland.

The question of ‘why’ Russia invaded Ukraine has been forgotten amid war’s fog. Greed and malice partially explains it. History, geopolitics and culture reveals more. A country which has more land than anyone else on Earth is not grabbing territory for territory’s sake. Logically, Russia should be giving away land to anyone who might manage it better. But that’s not how Putin thinks. He is pursuing a dogged policy of annexations – first in Georgia, then in the Crimea, and now of four further Ukrainian districts.

It’s not often that ex-KGB officers blame Lenin for anything. But in his speech of 21 February 2022, on the eve of his 'special military operation', Vladimir Putin rounded on the founder of Bolshevism for creating the artificial Ukrainian state.  'Modern Ukraine was entirely created by…Bolshevik, Communist Russia,' he declared; 'and…in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia…Soviet Ukraine can rightfully be called ‘Vladimir Lenin’s Ukraine’. He was its creator and architect.'  This false line of thought could equally accuse the Bolsheviks of having created the Ukrainian language. In reality, the concept of a separate Ukrainian nation and language long preceded the Bolsheviks.

After six months of war in Ukraine, most observers agree that the roots of Russian aggression lie in the country’s deep-rooted attitudes to culture and history. In line with Russia’s nationalist traditions, Putin denies any place for a separate Ukrainian identity. The Ukrainians, in contrast, see themselves as a proud nation with their own history, culture, centuries long struggle for independence, and, of course, language. And while Ukrainian has been dismissed as a dialect of Russian in Moscow, it in fact has a long history – and is very much a language in its own right. That independence can be seen in the genesis of the word ‘Ukraine’ itself.

Za in Ukrainian – and other Slavic languages – means ‘Beyond’, and porohi means ‘the Rapids’; so Zaporizhia stands for ‘the place beyond the rapids’. It a nice irony that the place, whose threatened nuclear power plant has put it in the headlines, is connected to one of Europe’s most venerable historico-geographical sites. The Dnieper rapids rank with other spots, like the Bosphorus or the ‘Pillars of Hercules’ at Gibraltar, where pre-historic travellers were presented with an emotional rite of passage from one sphere of the world to another.

Since the outbreak of war in February there has been an overwhelming focus on the historical links between Russia and Ukraine, partly to counter Putin’s grand assertions that Kyiv belongs to Moscow. But this spotlight on Russia has meant the important history of Poland and Ukraine has been fatally overlooked. Ukraine was part of the Polish state for longer than it was inside Russia – and this is key to understanding why Ukrainians are different from Russians. In other words, it is impossible to comprehend Ukraine’s history without examining the impact of both Poland and Russia. A thousand years ago the people who now call themselves ‘Ukrainian’ had not yet adopted this term.