William Tyler
Russia Before the Czars: Kievan Rus to Muscovy

William Tyler | Russia Before the Czars Kievan Rus to Muscovy | 05.02.22

- Thank you very much, and welcome to everyone, especially those in Britain who’ve given up part of their bank holiday to be with us at this time. It’s half past five here, and the sun is still shining on the south coast, and it’s rather a nice day, which is more than you can say about the politics of the world at the moment. But let me dive straight to this first talk on a series I’m giving on the history of Russia. And I want to begin with a quotation from Putin. In a speech about the teaching of history in Russian schools, Putin said the following, “A deep understanding of our history and a respectful, thoughtful attitude to the great, patriotic, spiritual and cultural heritage of the Fatherland enables us to draw correct conclusions from the past.” And my only comment is, if it only did let Russians draw correct conclusions, if only it did. Now together and as individuals over the next month or two months or so, we’re going to do precisely that.

That is to say, as objectively as we can, we’re going to look at the history of Russia. So as to give us a better understanding of the present situation of Russia, and hopefully a glimpse into the future of where we might be going. You’ve always heard me say that history is important because it throws light on the present and the present throws light on the future. But let me begin with a Russian view and Professor Geoffrey Hosking’s reflection on that view. This comes from a mediaeval Russian text called the “Primary Chronicle.” We are short, I have to say, of primary source material from the early history of Russia. And this is one of the few we’ve got, the mediaeval primary chronicle. And in that, we read of the Mongol invasion of 1237, and their sacking of the town of Suzdal, northeast of Moscow, which at the time was the capital of the region around Moscow. And then subsequently Moscow itself, which was a small trading village at the time, was itself sacked in 1238.

But this is what the Primary Chronicle says of the arrival of the Mongols. “In 1237 Mongol invaders attacked the town of Suzdal. They plundered the Church of the Holy Virgin, and burned down the prince’s court, and burned down the Monastery of St. Dmitrii. And the others, they plundered. The old monks and nuns and priests and the blind, lame, hunch-backed, and sick, they killed. And the young monks and nuns and priests and priests’ wives and deacons and deacons’ wives and their daughters and sons were all led away into captivity.” And on that, Professor Hosking comments, “Such images have haunted the minds of Russians over the centuries. They have been reenacted within living memory in the German invasion of 1941. Whatever else they may have wanted, Russians have always longed for security, from terrifying and murderous assaults across the flat, open frontiers of Russia, both from the east and from the west.” And I’m going to make a number of points today from this early history, which feed in to our understanding of Putin’s Russia in 2022. And that’s the first one. Security of borders has been a prevailing question, issue for Russians. They don’t have natural borders. Those of us who live in Britain, we know we have natural borders. It’s called the sea. And America has safe borders in terms of two at the sea and one with Canada and one with Mexico.

But Russia hasn’t got secure borders, and it’s everlastingly been worried about them. And that may have been the situation in 1237-38, but it’s also the situation in 2022. Listen, if you will, to a man called Yevgeny Popov, who’s a member of the Russian Duma, that is to say the Russian Parliament today, and he’s also a TV host in Russia. And he told the BBC on the 19th of April this year, “Of course, NATO plans for Ukraine are a direct threat to Russian citizens. Ukraine and its allies, including London, are threatening Russia for the last 1,000 years to move NATO to our borders, to cancel our culture. They have bullied us for many, many years.” You can’t get a better explanation than that of Russia’s fear that its borders are not secure. And that lies behind, or at least it partly lies behind, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia fears incursions from the West, as well as from the East, where the Mongols attack from. Listen to Martin Sixsmith, who in this one-volume history of Russia, I’m sure you’ve all found that on my blog, I put a very large selected history of books about Russia, as I was asked to do by some of you, and you can read it. This is a fantastically good book as a one-volume history.

And he says, Martin Sixsmith says in this book, “Those who regard Russia as a proto-European nation miss the point. Russia looks both ways, to the democratic, law-governed traditions of the West, but at the same time, and with more of this inherited DNA in her makeup, do the Asiatic forms of government she imbibed in the early years of her history, what Russians refer to as the iron fist of centralised power.” In other words, despite talk of democracy in the late 19th century, early 20th century, despite Marxists talking about democracy, and despite Gorbachev and Yeltsin and even Putin talking about democracy, in fact, Russia has always been an autocracy with one brief interlude, I would argue, between the first and the second revolutions of 1917. And the autocracy comes from the East, and the democracy which they have claimed to have, and which they clearly don’t have, comes from the West. Russia looks both ways, it’s Janus-like, it looks both East and it looks West. And we see this autocracy being played out on our television screens nightly with Putin. I don’t know how many of you read recently that Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, was only informed hours before Putin launched the attack on Ukraine. It’s a one-man autocracy.

Now finally, in this little introductory piece of mine, I want to gain read from Martin Sixsmith. Quite a short piece, but I think worth sharing with you, and he writes this, “If we can grasp Russia’s history, we can uncover the roots of her sometimes puzzling behaviour.” In other words, the attack on Ukraine this year doesn’t come from nothing. It comes, if we accept, which I do, Martin Sixsmith’s sentence there that I just read, it comes from deep within the Russian psyche, or Russian DNA, or Russian history, whatever phrases you wish to make. And that’s our task, to try and understand what makes Russia, Russia’s leadership, and Russians themselves, tick. Why? Why are they still acting in 2022 in a way that they’ve acted for centuries, fear of the West under an autocracy? I worked for a charity, a Jewish charity, that was doing work in Russia after the collapse of communism. We were attempting to help set up schemes for the elderly, for example. And there was a Russian colleague there, and the person running the charity asked the Russian colleague of ours at the first democratic election they had in Russia, whether she was going to vote for Putin or not, and she had, throughout her life, been anti-Marxist. And as you know, Putin was a member of the KGB in East Germany. And her reply was shocking. She said, “I will vote for Putin.” And my friend said, “But you can’t vote for Putin. He’s ex-KGB. Don’t you understand what you’re voting for?” And her reply was, “He is the only Tsar we have.” The only Tsar we have, the only autocrat. I find that deeply depressing, because she was a Democrat.

So that’s all my way of introduction, just to set the scene, if you like, about Russia, and what I’m hoping to draw out in this course, and to help all of us try and understand the situation in Russia today better than perhaps we would have done before. But our story begins not in Moscow, and certainly not in St. Petersburg, which is 18th century. Our story begins not even in Russia itself, but it begins in Kiev, or Kiev, and present-day Ukraine. The story of Russia begins in Kiev and the Ukraine. Now you can see, why to Putin, the capture of Kiev, and indeed the capture of Ukraine, and its forcible re-inclusion within Russia is so important. This is where it all began. You have to think, if you’re American, in terms of Philadelphia being in the hands of the French. If you’re British, you have to think of London being in the hands of the Germans. And wherever you live, you can think of examples. That is how important it seems to Russia in 2022. And although Ukraine, as we all know, is a sovereign nation, recognised by the United Nations, Russia doesn’t accept that. To Russia, it’s Russian, and it should always be Russian.

It is here in Ukraine that the very word “Russia” and thereby “Russians” comes from. It actually derives not from the Slavic language, but from Old Norse, a Scandinavian language, a Viking language. And “Rus” simply means, very briefly, if you translate it into English, as “rowers.” And the first Rus were the Vikings, who rowed down and sailed down the rivers of Europe until they reached the town and city, which we call Kiev, and the country which we today call Ukraine. They did so in the mid-9th century AD. I hope that doesn’t offend people, but I really can’t get my head around CE. And if you think about it, it means the same thing. So if I use BC and AD, you know where I’m at. So they reach Ukraine in mid-9th century AD. We can’t give a specific date because we don’t have chronicles that are reliable enough to be able to give a date. There’s nothing like, for example, that we have here in England, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which is totally reliable. There is nothing like that. If you want to think about mid-9th century, thinking English history terms, we’re in the time of King Alfred, again, facing Viking attacks. These Vikings weren’t like the English Vikings. The Vikings who came to England came from Norway and Denmark.

But the majority of Vikings that came to Ukraine, the Rus were from Sweden. They’re Swedish. They came first to trade. And why they made it so far south is they wanted to trade with the great empire of Byzantium, the Greek empire of Byzantium that had survived the fall of Rome in the 5th century and which is to survive itself until the middle of the 15th century. It was this great, great place. In fact, the Greeks called Byzantium, later Constantinople, and later still Istanbul, they called Byzantium in Greek, “Hi Polis,” the city, with the emphasis on “the.” It was the city. But although they came to trade, they also came and settled, as indeed they did, the Vikings in England. And they established their base at Kiev in something like, if you want a date, about 868. So late 860s, early 870s is a date if you’ve gone to Kiev, you would have found Vikings there. Bit of a shock really, isn’t it? To think they came so far south. They intermingled with the peoples they found, largely Slavs, but also others. If you want to drive yourself mad, have a read about some of the peoples they met. It’s mind-blowing.

I’m trying to make this story as clear as I can. And it’s the Slavs that they married and intermingled with, which are important. And it’s why Russia has a Slavic language today, and not a Scandinavian language. Think of the difference that would have made. If Russians spoke a language that was understandable in Denmark and Sweden, Norway, instead they have a Slavic language. So that makes them look East in terms of Europe, makes them look to Eastern Europe, to Slavic Europe, rather than to Western Europe. So that’s an important point as well. I’m using a book which I didn’t put on the list. I’m sorry, I’ll keep adding to the list as we go through. This is “Armies of Mediaeval Russia” in the Osprey series. And in that, David Nicolle writes this, “It would be wrong to see the creation of Kievan Rus,” That’s how this country is called. Kievan, because it’s from Kiev, Kievan Rus, “solely as a Scandinavian venture. Existing Slav tribal elites were involved. And the elite of Kievan became a mixture of Scandinavian and Slav.”

Well, that’s just saying what I’ve said, but it gives some proof that what I’m saying is correct, I hope you feel, anyhow. One of the great early leaders in this area was Vladimir, known as Vladimir the Great, who ruled in Kiev between 980 and 1015. In English history terms, that’s the end of Viking and Saxon England just before half a century before the Normans come. He ruled from 980 to 1015. And what is important, rather than the wars and gaining of territory, because throughout the period of Kievan Rus, they gained territory, they lost territory, they regained, they re-lost and so on. And it’s a very confusing story. That’s not important. What is important is Vladimir introduced in 988 Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium. Now at the time, it hadn’t split with Rome, but it was very different. It was a very different form of Christian religion. And it was Orthodox Christianity that Vladimir adopted. And so today, this Orthodox Christianity that Putin calls upon to support an invasion of Ukraine. Why did he choose Orthodox Christianity? Well, the stories don’t really tell us the real answer.

According to a Slavic chronicle called “Tale of Bygone Days,” it says Vladimir sent his envoys throughout the world to look at all the major religions, Islam, Christianity in the West, which is to be Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and what is to become Byzantine Orthodoxy. And the story says in the “Tale of Bygone Years” that the envoys were most impressed by what they found in Byzantium. Quote, “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. We only know that God dwells there among the people, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations.” In other words, the ritual of the church in Byzantium, of the Eastern Church, was far more elaborate than the ritual of the Catholic Church in Western Europe, or of Islam, or of Judaism. And these were, to some extent, backward people, and they were dazzled by the beauty of the churches in Byzantium, and they were dazzled by the services of music, and the costumes of the priests, all of this. And that is the reason it is said in the “Tale of Bygone Years” why Kievan Rus became Orthodox.

There’s another story from the Primary Chronicle, which I mentioned just now. In that mediaeval document, the story is that Vladimir sent his envoys throughout the world, and they reported back that Islam was undesirable because it banned alcohol. And Vladimir said, “Well, the Rus’ can’t live without alcohol.” So they rejected Islam. They also say that he rejected Judaism because he said they’d lost Jerusalem, so God had abandoned them. He rejected the Western European Roman Christianity because he said it wasn’t as beautiful as Orthodox Christianity, and that is why, so this Chronicle says, he accepted Orthodox Christianity as the new religion for previously pagan Rus. So the two stories are somewhat similar, but they’re not true. It’s propaganda. He wanted to ensure that he was taken seriously as a major ruler, and so he sought the hand of the Greek emperor in Byzantium’s sister, a woman called Anna.

Never before had a Byzantine princess married someone who they regarded as barbarian, but it suited Byzantium, as well as it suited Vladimir, to do a deal. If Vladimir was backed by Byzantium, the trade would flourish, and he would be seen as someone of importance. To Byzantium, Kievan Rus would provide protection from potential attacks, and would provide, remember we’re talking Vikings here, a significant improvement in the Greek army of Byzantium, and so the deal was struck. They married, he was baptised the day before his wedding, and he introduced Orthodox Christianity to replace paganism in Kievan Rus, but as ever, it’s about politics, not about religion. He could have chosen any of the religions. How fascinating to think, had he chosen Western Christianity, then Moscow would have been subservient to Rome. That would have been interesting.

If he had chosen Judaism, well that would have been interesting, and had he chosen Islam, that would have been extremely threatening, and I doubt whether Western Europe could have resisted a twin invasion of Islam from the Ottoman Empire and the Russians, but he chose Orthodox Christianity, and that is of vital importance to the history. Why? Well, because the Russians, with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks and to Islam, and it’s remained an Islamic city ever since, they regard Moscow as the Third Rome. In Christian terms, Rome is first, St. Peter established the church there. Second was Byzantium, but that is gone, and third is Moscow. And to the Russians, since 1453, they fought wars in order to recover Constantinople, Byzantium, Istanbul. In fact, in World War One, the Tsar was promised by Britain and France that he could have Istanbul at the end of the war, the Turks being allied to Germany. As it happened, revolution occurred in 1917 before the war ended in 1980, and thank God, the Russians never took Istanbul.

So that’s another note we have to make. The Russian Orthodoxy began in Kiev and Ukraine, another reason for the invasion in 2022 of Ukraine, and also a strong factor in Russian foreign policy through the centuries, the recovery of Istanbul, and by the way, by doing that, having direct entry into the east of Mediterranean. Now, I cannot answer, and I’ve been asked many times, is Putin genuinely a convert to Christianity? I simply don’t know. He may be, but on the other hand, he may not be. Yeltsin was a genuine convert to Christianity. His wife had been a Christian long before the revolution in Russia that overthrew communism, and it was through his wife that Yeltsin became Christian. I don’t doubt Yeltsin’s Christianity. Putin’s, make your own. Clearly, he is using the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church is only too pleased to be used by Putin because it gives them a status in Russia that they had lost, well, definitely lost under the USSR, but had lost in a big way, really, under Peter the Great. We will come to all that in due course.

The internal politics of Kievan Rus were always divisive. If you want to think about Kievan Rus on the map you’ve been given, think about mediaeval Germany, or indeed Germany before 1870, a mixture of tiny little princelets which owed, from time to time, fealty to Kiev, and sometimes not. Sometimes Novgorod, the second city of Kievan Rus, broke completely away from Kiev, and at other times it was subservient to it. It is a confused history which will drive you mad to untangle, and you don’t need to do that. All we need to do is to say that Kievan Rus was always politically unstable. It was religiously stable, with Christianity moving northwards to Novgorod. It was religiously stable. It was, to a large extent, culturally stable, but it was never politically stable. It reached its peak in the 11th and 12th centuries, so the Norman period in England. At that time in Kiev, there were 400 churches, eight markets, and more than 50,000 inhabitants. If we look at Western Europe, London, Hamburg, and Gdansk were the largest cities, and they only had a population of 20,000, less than half that of Kiev. Kiev was really important, and Kievan Rus was important. So you might say, “But William, okay, we follow you, we understand what you’re saying, but why on earth is Kiev not the capital of present-day Russia? What happened?”

Well, what happened was the Mongol invasions from east. In the 13th century, in the 1200s, Mongols invaded the lands of Kievan Rus. They also invaded the lands to the north around what is today Moscow. We saw how they destroyed Suzdal, the town that was the capital of that very northern part of what is today Russia, in 1237, and they actually burnt Moscow to the ground, which was a small trading town, really village, in 1238, and they also destroyed Kiev. They did never destroy Novgorod, interestingly, but they did. And the story moves, not from Kiev to Novgorod, but from Kiev to the state that we call Muscovy, the state of Moscow, Muscovy. And it’s there in the Moscow River basin that from the 13th century, Moscow began to dominate, to dominate what had been Kievan Rus, and to dominate other parts around it, and it spreads itself out. And so today it is Moscow, not Kievan, not Novgorod, which is the centre of Russia. In 1240, Novgorod was attacked by the Mongols, and they appealed for help. Kiev was gone. They needed help, and they appealed to Muscovy. And the grand prince of Muscovy was sent to help defeat the Mongols, which he did. And you all know his name, Alexander Nevsky, called Nevsky because that was the place where he defeated the Mongols.

Two years later, he was asked to come back and defeat not an enemy from the east, but now an enemy from the west, the Christian Order of Teutonic Knights from Germany. And thus begins another long history of Slav, Russia, and Teuton, German, conflict, which takes us right in to the 20th century and arguably the 21st century. And Alexander Nevsky defeated them, and Novgorod became eventually part of Russia, and it’s remained so since. Kie, however, in 1362, became part of another empire, that of Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth that spread south. At this point, you don’t throw your hands up in horror. The story is quite clear. Kiev lost power and finds itself in the 14th century under the control of the Lithuanian-Polish empire, whereas Novgorod finds itself part of the Russian Empire. We’ll leave the story of Novgorod and Kiev at that point. We shall come across the histories again, particularly of Kiev, in later talks.

That’s where it began, but the baton had passed to Muscovy. It had passed to Moscow, and that’s where the new story begins. In 1325, the head of the Orthodox Church in Kievan Rus left Kiev and finally settled in Moscow. And this gave new credibility to the rulers in Moscow, and Moscow claimed subsequently to be the third road. We all know we cannot discount the role of religion in any history, and we certainly can’t in Russian history. And so we can see that this new country, which is at this date called Muscovy, with a Grand Prince, is also the base for Orthodoxy, which is going to become Russian Orthodoxy, in contrast to Greek Orthodoxy in Constantinople. And please, don’t say, “But Ukraine has a separate Orthodoxy.” Yes, it does. And I will talk about Eastern Orthodoxy in due course, but for now, let’s just make it simple. Moscow becomes the centre of what is to become Russian Orthodox Church, and also the centre for the Grand Princes of Muscovy. And it is from Moscow that it extends, they extend their power.

And the person I want to introduce to you as extending the power is Ivan III of Russia. Ivan III was born in 1440, but he became Grand Prince of Moscow in 1462, and remained such until his death in 1505. So in British terms, we’re talking English terms, we’re talking about the Wars of Roses, Ivan III. He extended the state of Muscovy through war, through dynastic relatives. He ended any threat from the Mongols from the east. He rebuilt the Kremlin. He introduced a new legal code. And he laid the foundations of the modern, tsarist Russian state between his accession to the throne in 1462, and his death in 1505. The Russians regard him and regard his victory over the Mongols in 1480 as the restoration of Russian independence 240 years after fall of Kiev to the Mongols. Well, that’s one way of looking at it. It doesn’t really matter how you look at it. By the beginning of the 16th century, Muscovy has been expanding. Its church is well established in Moscow. And it’s big and important. Oh, and the Orthodox Church brings from Constantinople two things. St. George, patron saint of Russia to this day. They also bring the double-headed eagle of the emperors of Byzantium.

So that Russia today still displays a double-headed eagle, which partly says, “We are the inheritors of Rome, east and west.” And partly says, the title that Russian rulers carried up to 1917, the Tsar, a Russian, Caesar, in Latin, the Tsar, Caesar, same as whatever, these words are interrelated. And remember, my friend in Moscow described Putin as the only Tsar we have. So the concept of a Tsar, the double-headed eagle, all comes from Orthodoxy. And by the beginning of the 16th century are the hallmarks of the independent and growing state of Muscovy under Ivan the Third. Let me read you what one historian said. “Following his second marriage, Ivan developed a complicated court ceremony on the Greek model, Byzantium model, and began to use the title Tsar and autocrat.” Tsar and autocrat. “Also during the reign of Ivan the Third and his son, Vasili the Third,” whom I’ll talk about next week, “Moscow came to be referred to by spokesman as the Third Rome. A monk from Pskov developed the idea of Moscow as the true successor to Byzantium and hence to Rome.”

The Russians see themselves as superior to the West, but at the same time have always been brought up short by the fact that the West technologically, militarily, scientifically, any words you want to use, has always been ahead of Russia. And one of the things we need to note, and we shall see this more spectacularly after the reign of Peter the Great, who tried a big catch up to become a Western European state, that Russia has always struggled to keep up. Think of the Cold War and Russia’s attempt to keep pace with America in the Space Race. It’s always playing catch up. And that’s what annoys people like Putin so much because sometimes they get close, like Peter did, and then they’re forced back again. And then they get close again, and they’re forced back again. If you think about being forced back, think about the Crimean War in the 1850s when the Russian army was even more incompetent than the British and French armies. And it nearly led to revolution then.

Think about the fact that Russia was the first Western power to be defeated by an Asian power in the war with Japan in 1905. And there is again a humiliation here about what has happened already in the Ukraine. We’ve all seen pictures of how incompetent the Russian senior officer corps has been and how inadequate Russian planning, Russian logistics has been, and Russian arms as well. It’s the same story as the Crimean War. If only Putin had studied the Crimean War, he would not have made these mistakes. History is important. One of the reasons Russia incidentally lost the Crimean War is it had too long a line of communication and supply, whereas the British and French simply brought things by sea to the Crimea. And that’s the same problem as he’s had in Ukraine. So what can we say? Let me quote a historian. “The development of the modern day Russian state is traced from Kiev and Rus through the Grand Duchy of Muscovy to the Tsars of Russia and finally the Russian Empire.”

And whether that Russian Empire be Tsarist, Soviet, and we refer to the Soviet Empire, or Putin’s new Russia, and Putin’s attempt to redraw the map so that a Russian Empire emerges once again. That’s the story. Now, I hope that’s fairly simple. It begins in Kiev with Vikings, mainly Swedes, intermarrying with Slavs. That Kiev and Rus also included far to the north, Novgorod. It fell because of the Mongols, and out of it emerged Muscovy in the north with its centre on Moscow, hence Muscovy. And by the time of Ivan III dying in 1505, he is using the title, not an official title, but he’s using the title “Tsar and Autocrat.” “Tsar” is Caesar. He’s claiming something back to Byzantium. And then next week we come to the first real Tsar, Ivan III’s grandson, Ivan IV, whom we all know as Ivan the Terrible. He is the first Tsar of all the Russia. And that is what Putin is. And Putin has attracted to him, rather like Macron in France and Napoleon, Putin has gained the sort of trappings of Tsarism not least with the picture of him in church on his own, as though he was the Tsar. And the presence of Orthodox bishops and archbishops around him, and the double-headed eagle, and all the rest of it. He is the Tsar without the title.

I want to read, as I come towards an end, I want to read a piece again from Martin Sixsmith’s book. And he writes interesting there. I told you it began in Kiev, and I ended with its ending with Putin. And he says, “What would have happened if Muscovy had not succeeded Kiev, but Kiev itself had defeated the Mongols and the Russian state was based on Kiev?” And he writes fascinatingly this, “The period of Kievan Rus was a potential turning point, the first of several in Russian history, at which the country could have gone either way. If the Kievan model had been allowed to develop, if the forces of autocracy had not ultimately gained the upper hand, Russia today might be a very different place.” And a few pages later, he says, “The period of Kievan Rus was the first of Russia’s moments of unruly destiny. The first key juncture at which he could have gone either way, down the path of civic society and participatory government,” which Kievan Rus was developing, “or down the route of centralised autocracy of Asiatic despotism.”

And it chose, or it went towards the despotism of the East. And there it is today. The autocracy of Putin looking east and away from the democracy of Western Europe to which Yeltsin looked. And that’s a fundamental problem that we have. Just before I come to my final piece, I want to read something that takes me further on than I’m reaching today, because it’s the end of this story of Kievan Rus. And that’s 1453, when the Ottoman Turks sack Byzantium Constantinople. And from that moment on, May 1453. What to the Russians is the centre of Christianity becomes Islamic. And closes the way for the Russian fleet to reach the Eastern Mediterranean. It’s very interesting how the Russian fleet is operating out of the Sea of Azov and into the Black Sea, what they would give to go further south. None of us know what Putin may or may not do.

My last reading from Martin Sixsmith this evening is this. “In 1453, the destruction of Christian Byzantium by the Turks left Muscovy as the sole remaining bastion of the Orthodox faith, directly exposed now to the expanding empire of Islam. The sense of a God-given mission to defend the civilised world against the impotent was embraced by the emerging Russian nation. It was a time of fear, but also of pride and opportunity. And Moscow used the crisis to cement its claim to religious and political supremacy.” That seems to have all sorts of knock-ons to what we’ve been discussing this evening or today. As I finish, I want to introduce you to a book, a Russian book, translated now into English. Again, that’s on my blog in my list of Russian books. The book is called in English, “The History of a Town,” and it’s by a man called Saltykov. And it was first published in 1870, and Saltykov is one of the great writers of 19th century Russia, who’s little known in the West. And this “History of a Town” is a satire.

It’s a satire upon Russia and Russian history. And he sets the story in a town called Glupov, and Glupov is from the Russian word meaning stupid. And so this is the story of a stupid town and a stupid people, but Saltykov really uses it to talk about Russia as a stupid country and Russians as stupid people. And very much at the beginning of the book, he tells a story about a prince of Muscovy who tries to make sense of this town of Glupov, which is full of stupid people. Then the prince, eyes bulging, cried out, “There is no stupidity worse than stupidity.” And he came himself to Glupov and cried in a loud voice, “I’ll flog you!” and Saltykov writes, “And with these words, the era of history began.” Tsarism, and subsequently Marxism, and subsequent in Putinism, is based on a government that governs by violence. Why should we expect Putin to show mercy in Mariupol? And Saltykov tells us we shouldn’t, because he simply says, “‘I’ll flog you!’ And with these words, the era of history began.”

And that gives us another note about violence. And then in “The Times,” in “The Times” of the 28th of April, that’s last Thursday, in a comment piece in “The Times” by David Aaronovitch. There’s a heading which in itself is frightening. Russia’s casual savagery, Russia’s casual savagery is seared into its soul. Russia’s casual savagery is seared into its soul. There are so many things that we can comment on in terms of what we’ve talked about today. All of these things where Russia’s current history has its origins in the past. And that’s the big point I’m trying to make. That without understanding the history, you cannot understand Russia today, because it isn’t only one man. We’re told that Putin may be going into hospital for a cancer operation. And then the head, I think of the FSB, the successor of the KGB, will be taking over.

Don’t expect anything to change. That’s why Russians accept the propaganda or the majority. It’s a Russian problem, not a Putin problem. If we see it as a Putin problem, I believe we are misconstruing Russian history. How do we deal with Russian history? That’s another question. And we’re trying to answer that as we go through. Now, I’m going to stop there, because I’m sure there’s lots of people who want to argue and have, oh, yes, I’ve got lots of questions. Can I go straight into the questions?

• [Judi] That would be great, thank you.

Q&A and Comments

• I always thought that Russia is motherland and not fatherland. Well, yes, they talk about mother Russia. You’re absolutely right. But the quotation I read you, Putin used the word fatherland, which, of course, makes us think of Hitler’s Germany. I don’t know why he chose to use that. I have no idea. But you’re right. They usually talk in terms of mother Russia.

Q: Oh, what is your take on Lavrov’s statement in the news today? A: I’m assuming about, that some Jews are the most anti-Semitic of all. It’s just nonsense. Lavrov, the question is with Lavrov, does he believe what he’s saying? Or is he saying it to keep, well, to keep, to keep in power, to keep his life? I don’t know. Of course, it’s nonsense. And how do we call that nonsense out is important.

Q: Aren’t the seas to the north and east of Russia considered secure? A: Certainly not the seas to the east, because of China and Japan. The seas to the north are less secure than they were because of the melting of the ice. And it’s why Putin, Victoria, is putting so much money into military defence of the Arctic. And that is a worry for all of us. If you’re Canadian and listening to this, you know darn well what he’s about.

“I was told at school,” says Nicholas, what a good school you went to then, “that there was no natural border between the North Sea and the Urals. Their borders have always been moving.” Largely, that is true. Living as we do here in Britain, borders are not an issue. Please, please don’t talk about Scotland. But borders are not an issue. But borders have always been changing. It’s not entirely true there aren’t any. There are borders for Spain, that is to say with the Pyrenees and the sea, Portugal being an aberration in that. Italy has clear borders with the Alps to the north. France has borders, France’s border to the north is the problematic border with Germany, with the Rhine. Yet there are problems with borders. Borders is a big, big subject, a very interesting subject. If you’re interested to read about borders, in the “Very Short Introductory” Oxford series, Oxford University Press series, there’s a book simply called “Borders.” If you Google or Amazon “Borders,” it should come up. And it’s an interesting read. And what does Arlene ask?

Q: If Russia is really afraid to secure borders, why not build a fence? A: Well, you’d need a pretty big fence.

I think Russia has always wanted world supremacy. No, I don’t think it has. It hasn’t wanted world supremacy. It’s wanted secure borders. Now, with the exception of Marxist-Leninism at the beginning in 1970, when they wanted to establish the international order of Marxist-Leninism, and they thought it would spread right across Europe, which of course it did not. With that exception, I don’t think I agree with that. But you don’t have to agree with me. Bernice says, “Respectfully disagree on that. America has safe borders, look at the mess on the southern border.” Yeah, but that’s, whoops, whoops, whoops, I’ve lost it. Yes, I know about the trouble with the Mexican border, but that is not really a threat. Mexico has not been a threat as a state to the southern states of the US since the beginning of the 20th century. It really hasn’t been. And okay, I know it’s got problems. Every country’s got problems with immigration. I think that is, I would argue that that’s a different issue. Have I lost where you are, Bernice? Yeah, okay, but it’s not an invasion. And America is a country of immigrants. So I just don’t see that as the same. But never mind, you do. And you’re more than welcome to your opinion. And you can go to bed tonight thinking, “Well, William was wrong, and I told him so.”

Leon says, “Puzzled by your saying Lavrov only told him invasion just before it happened.” Well, that is what was reported in the Times today. I’m only saying what was reported. Whether it’s true or not, who knows? The reason for the incursion claiming to be the NATO is obviously an excuse. No, it’s not an excuse. He’s frightened by the fact that NATO is closing down on Russia since 1991. It’s the insecurity of the borders. You have to, Robbie Burns said, “Give us the grace to see ourselves as others see us.” And that’s important here. The press, I guess, in the States and elsewhere, as in Britain, says everything Russian is bad, everything Ukrainian is good.

Q: Can I remind you that the Ukrainian armed forces defending Mariupol are in fact a fascist group? A: It’s more complicated than simply that. Now, you have to understand your enemy. And you may disagree. We all disagree that NATO is a threat to Russian independence. But Russia sees it as a threat. And because it sees it as a threat, it doesn’t want Ukraine to join. That’s why it went in. It’s a perfectly logical step from Putin’s point of view. We do need to keep a balance. No one is saying he’s right. And then certainly no one is saying he’s right to go to war in a flagrant breach of international law. But to understand him, you’ve got to understand about this border. My understanding is that, who said it’s Mariupol, my understanding is that Ukrainians have wanted their independence from Russia. Well, they’ve had their independence since 1991. And they were independent for a brief period after the revolution in 1917. So, yes, that’s true. There is a difference with the Crimea, because the Crimea was never ever Ukrainian properly. It was given to Ukraine by Khrushchev when Ukraine was a republic of the USSR. He gave them Crimea because he himself had worked and lived in Crimea. And he wanted to be positive about the Crimea. But the Crimea had become Russian in the 18th century under Catherine the Great and Odessa is a Russian town, a Russian city built by or under Catherine the Great. And again, history becomes complicated. And Lviv, and Lviv, where many Ukrainians have fled to Poland, was in fact part of the Austro-Hungarian Polish Galicia. And why there are no Poles in Lviv today is because of the Ukrainians had massacred them all at the beginning of the 20th century. This is not easy history. It’s complicated. And that’s not what journalists go in for.

Harriet said “Russia can be said to fear insecure borders. Only if those borders include what it deems to be its territory in Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus.” Well, because they are not in NATO and they think that they should provide a buffer to NATO. If they go into Transnistria, that part of Moldova, which is broken from Moldova, and is next to Ukraine, and is Russian, in terms of the population that lived there, because the Moldovans moved into Moldova when it declared its independence. If the Russians move into Moldova, then they threaten Romania, and we’re in a different ballgame altogether once they threaten Romania.

Q: Do you believe that many millions of ordinary Russians like Putin are so afraid or so possessive of Ukraine that they’re prepared to turn it into a wasteland? A: Yes.

Q: “If Putin and many Russians believe,” says Naomi, “Ukraine to be part of Russia, how do they reconcile totally destroying the country with a future inclusion for Ukrainians?” A: I have no idea. None. I can’t answer that question.

Yes, Lavrov and Hitler, that was part of what he said this morning in relationship to Jews.

Q: How does the West view Russia? A: It doesn’t. There are different views of Russia. The German view isn’t the British view. The French view isn’t the American view. If you want it put bluntly, it’s probably that the two states that hold the same line are Britain and the States, as ever.

Jackie, “Origin of religion in Russia sounds so like the Khazars.” Oh, oh, oh, you’ve mentioned that word. I was trying to avoid talking about the Khazars. I think Trudy is going to talk about them if she hasn’t. I’ve avoided that on purpose, because it’s a whole different ballgame. But yes, you are right. Barbara. You’ve just made a nice comment to me. Thank you.

Q: Myrna, “Who rebuilt Moscow?” A: After they burnt it, the Russians that are there, the Russians who are in Suzdal, Muscovy, they rebuilt it. The answer is Russians.

David. Yeah, I’m getting carried away here. David says, “Apropos something.” What’s he saying? I forget that. David says, “Apropos your mentioning Khrushchev’s Moscow and the Vikings of Kiev. I recall some time ago reading the Vikings had a settlement Novgorod.” Correct. They wanted to get to Byzantium from the Baltic in the ninth century. They were under attack in the southeast by the Khazars. In 882, Viking Prince Oleg then moved his capital from Novgorod to Kiev. Yes, he did. This is part of these internecine Kievan Rus moving of borders around. Yes, it was all the same. There were Vikings. Vikings married to Slavs in both Kiev and in Novgorod. By the way, Novgorod, you’re quite right, means new town, but nobody knows what the old town was.

Q: Was there an age of enlightenment in Russia? A: Well, yes. There was to some extent, under Catherine the Great, and we’ll come to that.

No, it’s Ivan the Fourth. Sorry, who is this? Vivienne. No, Ivan the Third, it’s not Ivan the Third. Ivan the Fourth is Ivan the Terrible. Ivan the Fourth is Ivan the Third’s grandson, and he’s Ivan the Terrible, and I will talk about him next week.

No. I’m asked by Phil. Very interesting, good question.

Q: “What moved Russian peasants living in communes into serfdom?” A: There were always serfs. I’ll talk about serfs, I promise. Very specifically, I’ll make a note, because if you’re interested in that, I guess other people are, I will make a note to myself to tell you about serfs. At this point, there are slaves in Russia as well as serfs.

Myrna says, “I believe serfdom or feudalism has always had a stranglehold on Russia.” Well, it wasn’t abolished until the 1860s, and I will come to that. Yet, Russia defeated the Napoleonic forces to occupy Paris. Yes, but not on its own. There’s a little matter with the rest of Western Europe.

Q: Neil says, “How is it that no Russian rulers realise the reason for Western spirit is based on individual collective freedom?” A: That’s a splendid question. When I’m next dining in the Kremlin with Putin, I shall say, “Neil, on Lockdown University has asked, ‘How is it that no Russian rulers realise that the reason?’” I don’t expect I’d get out with my life. It’s a question I can’t answer. It’s a very good question. That’s nice.

Q: Can I put it out, Putin might fall from power? A: No, don’t ask historians to do that. Putin will either die of the diseases that he has, which we’re told are cancer and Parkinson’s, or there could be an internal coup d'état led by the military. But given these lost nine generals, I don’t think there are many left to carry it out. Maybe he will simply die in office. That’s what he intends, because of course, was he not to die in office, he’s taken so much money fraudulently out of the state that he could find himself in front of a firing squad. I have no idea how it will end. Maybe he’ll be taken out by Western security forces.

Q: What was the influence of Mongols on Russia? A: Pretty well zero.

They’re thrown out. Who says, Judy. The borders are so fluid. A number of cities or small locations, North Romania, Balti, Chernivtsi, were Romanian, as well as Bessarabia in the Black Sea. Balti has monasteries built by Stephen the Great, a Romanian-Moldavian king. Each peace after each war redraws the borders without any consideration of population. Absolutely. Absolutely. And of course, we’re talking in the past about three empires, the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As empires, they are not concerned about the subject peoples they rule over, particularly.

Oh, Jackie, you’ve said what I just said. It appears that Putin is ill, has cancer, and possibly Parkinson’s. If he should be replaced, which many people want, who would replace him? Well, it could be the same as Putin or worse. It could be a right-wing military coup d'état. It could be a Marxist. The likelihood of it being democratic is low down on the list.

Yes, Lavrov’s anti, Sherry, you’ve got it absolutely right. Let me read what Sherry has said. “Lavrov’s anti-Semitic comments rival ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ Lavrov blames the Jews for the Holocaust.” Yeah, I mean, they are, the Russians seem off the wall in everything at the moment.

Ruth says, “This great Russian insecurity has led to centuries of paranoia, leading to their great failures in science and military prowess. The paranoia has led to a killing off of leaders in science and military matters.” Yeah, yeah. Now, interestingly, you see Stalin killed off his generals before the Second World War began.

Q: Could I explain the difference between Russian Orthodoxy and Greek Orthodoxy? A: Very briefly, no. No, well, I will, but very briefly. They’re the same. They’re the same. And it’s not Catholic Christianity and certainly not a form of Protestant. But there are differences. But the main difference is the Greek Orthodox Church runs itself, and the Russian Orthodox Church runs itself. They’re called in the language of theology autocephalous, with their own head. Under the Russian Empire, Finland, part of Russia, was Russian Orthodox. At the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, and Finland gains independence, there is an Orthodox Church in Finland, but it declared itself Greek Orthodox. And so Finland has a Greek Orthodox Church, Russia, a Russian Orthodox Church. Cyprus has an Orthodox Church, which is autocephalous. And its Archbishop is allowed to sign his name in green ink in Cyprus as their independent. So it’s rather like Protestantism. The basic beliefs are the same. The thing about Orthodoxy, the most important thing to understand about Orthodoxy is unlike Judaism, and unlike Christianity of a Catholic or Protestant kind, Russian and Greek and other forms of Orthodoxy are not concerned about good works, are not concerned about charity. They are concerned solely with the ritual of the church. Well, not, perhaps solely is a bit strong, but they are turned towards ritual, not towards this world’s problems. That’s the biggest difference.

Q: Is there a list of the books cited? A: Yes, it’s on my blog. Oh, Nicholas, thank you. You just look up “Talk Historian” on Google, and you’ll find “My Talk Historian,” and there’s a home page on my blog and a blog page. Click on the blog, and you’ll find the book list that you can always print it off if you’re so minded.

Oh, that’s a nice comment from Ester in Canada. “Navalny’s followers are numerous, and he knows that corruption is rife. Now that he’s silent in prison, how can there be any possibility Putin can ever be dislodged?” Well, he can be dislodged, as I said, not by democracy. I don’t think he could be, but he could be dislodged by death through illness. He could be dislodged by death through assassination. He could be dislodged through a military coup d'état.

Q: “Is it correct,” says Ralph, “that the peoples of the area now known as Russia relied much on leaders of foreign origin?” A: No. No. You’re thinking about Catherine the Great, who’s German. I think that’s what you’re thinking of, but in the main, the answer to that question is definitely no.

Q: “Is not the victory at Stalingrad that due to the Russians’ acceptance of savagery?” says David. A: I think you make a good point. I think you make a very good point.

Erica says, “I can’t understand Russian inferiority feelings when they have wonderful authors, musicians, poets, and art.” Yeah, do you think Putin’s interested in authors, musicians, poets, and art? It’s not the political. You’re right. And that’s why I read from Saltykov’s book, because that’s part of the very rich literature heritage of 19th-century Russia. People, thanks.

Q: “Why has the West not been prepared,” says Michael and Gilliam, “for the invasion of Ukraine and possible further invasions to come, not being prepared?” A: Well, I think we were as prepared as we could be. There were American and British, certainly, trainers in Ukraine and had been for a number of years, but they are not members of NATO. We could not go the Russian bear by accepting them as members of NATO. We cannot now go in for fear that Putin will press the red button of nuclear warheads on Western Europe.

• [Judi] William, I think we should take maybe one or two, because we do have another lecture starting in about 45 minutes.

• I will do that. “Although we see Russian savages,” says Harriet, “it seems that Polish Jews who survived the war did so mainly in Russia, in work camps in Siberia.” That’s true. None of it is ever clear-cut in all of this. As an example of paranoid rule, Ivan the Terror would beat his own son to death. Yeah, he wasn’t the only Russian tsar to kill off members of his family. Many of us may have thought about certain members of the family. We could slip something into their nighttime cocoa, but we’ve resisted. The Russian tsars never did.

On that silly note, I think I’d better stop. Okay, I will do what I’m told. I’ll stop.

• [Judi] Sorry, William.

• No no no, you’re quite right.

• [Judi] Well, thank you so much again, William, and thank you to everybody who joined us. We will see you again next week and we’ll see everybody in about 45 minutes.

• Okay.

• [Judi] Thanks, William. Thanks, everyone.

• Bye-bye everyone, bye-bye.