Rumors of war

The sun is shining; the sky is clear; and for many, it's a U.S. holiday.

Yet today the world totters on the brink of a major European war -- or maybe nothing will happen ...

Most of the world is a mystery to us here, sitting oblivious on our huge continent, separated by oceans from most other centers of humanity. Unless we actively trace our origins to some former homeland across the seas, we usually know little of the wide world -- and don't have to. (In this, we are somewhat like China through most of its history.)

We don't even nod toward understanding that mysterious land called Ukraine. For most people in the United States -- for my generation -- the area it encompasses went dark for us during the last 45 years of the Soviet Union. It just wasn't there, except perhaps in a few enclaves in U.S. cities where refugees landed. (Buffalo, where I grew up, was one of those, but that doesn't mean I knew anything about Ukraine.)

Professor Timothy Snyder has put his life into studying the formation of modern eastern Europe. He has written a very short pre-primer on the history of Ukraine in broad strokes for the previously uninformed. It is an ancient, tangled story. Here's a teaser:

The histories of Ukraine and Russia are of course related, via the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire, and via Orthodox religion, and much else. The modern Ukrainian and Russian nations are both still in formation, and entanglements between them are to be expected, now and into the future.

But Russia is, in its early expansion and contemporary geography, a country deeply connected to Asia; this is not true of Ukraine.

The history of Kyiv and surrounding lands embraces certain European trends that are less pronounced in Russia. 

Poland and Lithuania and the Jews are indispensable referents for any account of the Ukrainian past. 

Ukraine cannot be understood without the European factors of expansive Lithuania and Poland, of renaissance, of reformation, of national revival, of attempts at national statehood.  The landmarks of the world wars are planted deeply in both countries, but especially so in Ukraine. 

... The myth of eternal brotherhood, now offered in bad faith by the Russian president, must be understood in the categories of politics rather than history.  But a little bit of history can help us to see the bad faith, and to understand the politics.

I hope this sharing link works to Snyder's simple, brief essay: Kviv's Ancient Normality. You want to read it and it won't overwhelm.

Our country is enmeshed in what may be a further bloody conflict in yet another place about which we are largely uninformed. Yes, Joe Biden says he won't send in the Marines -- and I believe he believes himself. But it seems folly to remain unconcerned.

That democracy which so many of us feel we are fighting to preserve is eroded when ignorance forces us to acquiesce without reflection on the decisions of leaders and security spooks. Snyder's short essay is one gateway to more responsible citizenship.