Kiev, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, has seemed like a war zone in recent weeks. People are killed and injured and protesters say Russian President Putin has a strong hand in all that violence. Apart from all political interests, Ukraine is much more to Russia than a former Soviet republic; Russia sees Kiev as its cultural cradle. And you don't just say goodbye to that.
Protesters and riot police brutally attack each other in Independence Square in central Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. It's a split country. In the west of the country, Ukrainian is the main language and most voted in the 2004 presidential election for the European-oriented Viktor Yushchenko. In the south and east of the country, people mainly speak Russian and feel a strong cultural connection with the great Russia. The incumbent president Viktor Yanukovych won there.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, economic development in Ukraine has lagged behind other Eastern European countries such as Poland or the Baltic States. The protesters in the square blame Yanukovych's lack of freedoms, corruption and pro-Russian politics. They demand his resignation.
The protesters and the opposition suspect that behind the scenes Russian President Putin has a hand in the ongoing violence. Putin does not want to allow his ally Yanukovych to leave and Ukraine to break free from the Russian sphere of influence. But according to Foreign Minister Timmermans, it is not just a game of tug-of-war between Russia and the EU over Ukraine. "I'm afraid it goes much deeper than that," the minister said in Nieuwsuur on 19 February.
“I don't know any Russians who can imagine that Ukraine would no longer be part of their cultural world. The origin of Russia as a nation is closely related to Ukraine. In history, those two countries arose together. The thought that Ukraine would become completely separate from Russia is incomprehensible to many Russians.” It is a sharp historical insight from Timmermans, who worked for years at the Dutch embassy in Moscow and speaks excellent Russian. If you look at the earliest history of Russia, it becomes clear what Timmermans meant.
Vikings
The history of both Russia and Ukraine begins, unexpectedly, with the Vikings. These fierce Scandinavian navigators sailed with their ships not only to Western Europe but also eastwards through the Gulf of Finland and then southwards over the great Russian rivers like the Don and Dnieper, all the way to the shores of the Black Sea.
Along the way, they looted and traded with local Slavic tribes, eventually selling their ships' cargo in the wealthy city of Constantinople (modern Istanbul). The first record of Vikings arriving in Constantinople via this route dates from the year 860.
The Vikings called the land of the Slavic tribes 'Gardariki', the 'land of the fortresses', because of the many fortified places they found there. Around 882 a certain Oleg, a scion of the mythical Viking dynasty of Rurik, moved the center of gravity of the trade routes to the area around Kiev. Oleg was thus the founder of the Kievan Rus, also called the 'land of Rus' in ancient Slavic sources (see box). From Kiev, Oleg and his descendants ruled over the more or less united Slavic tribes over a large area.
Much is shrouded in mystery about the Viking Oleg and the other early rulers of Kiev. Until the reign of Vladimir the Great (978-1015), the stories about the rulers of Kiev mainly consist of mythical folklore. Slowly but surely, the Rurik dynasty built their empire into a true Slavic state that even had a relatively peaceful written law in the twelfth century that did not recognize death or corporal punishment, which reminded of the Scandinavian origin of the country.
Honor and glory of Kiev
Vladimir the Great introduced Greek Orthodox Christianity to the Kievan Rus through trade with Constantinople. His successors had large churches built in the capital and Kiev quickly became one of the great cultural centers of Eastern Europe.
Unfortunately, the cultural flourishing and economic success of the Kievan Rus did not last long. The end of Kiev came suddenly and violently. In 1240 Kiev was quite abruptly overpowered by a huge army of at least 30,000 Mongol horsemen from the Far East. The city was largely destroyed as well as other important Russian places, including Moscow. Large parts of the Kievan Rus became part of the Golden Horde, a Mongol empire that stretched far into Siberia.
Although the Mongols lorded it over Russian territory and imposed heavy taxes on it, they often left the local elites—at least those they thought they could work with—in their place. Throughout the late Middle Ages, there was always a glimmer of hope that the great cultural prestige of Kiev could one day be restored.
Alexander Nevsky – one of the last grand dukes of Kiev – managed to buy off the Mongol armies and plunder the rich city of Novgorod. At the same time, he defeated the Swedes and the Teutons (Knights of Germany) in the north, preventing a total collapse of the Russian Empire.
Due to his cooperation, Nevsky was eventually appointed by the Mongols as Grand Prince of the important city of Vladimir and canonized in 1547 by the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. Nevsky is seen in Russia as the founder of the Russian (tsar) Empire.
Moscovia and 'Russia'
By cleverly collaborating with the Mongol rulers and winning their sympathy, Russian territories were often able to maintain their autonomy. The leaders of Moscow, previously an unimportant town under the rule of Vladimir, were remarkably adept at this. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Moscow managed to expand its territory and position of power in relation to the other Russian territories.
The rise of the principality of Muscovia was mainly the work of Prince Ivan III. His aim was nothing less than to become Grand Prince of 'the Land of Rus', and to bring about the resurrection and continuation of the once glorious Kievan Rus. After initially collaborating with the Mongols, he managed to throw off the Mongol yoke in 1480 without bloodshed.
Ivan united and conquered as many Russian cities and peoples as possible. At the end of his reign there were only two independent Russian states. The rest of the vast territory fell under Moscow's control. Muscovia, however, was an autocratic and oppressive empire that bore little resemblance to Kiev's humane, Scandinavian-based law. It was an area that was increasingly called Russia, land of the 'Russian'.
Both Russia, Belarus and Ukraine see the Kievan Rus as their cultural cradle. Moscow and Kiev have a deep historical and cultural connection. Regardless of all political interests, the definitive abandonment of Kiev is simply unthinkable for many Russians for that reason alone.
Eurasian Union
In 2011, Vladimir Putin proposed a Eurasian Union. An EU-like economic and political partnership between Russia and many of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. But unlike the EU – which is born of democratic and humane principles – there is little room for democracy in Putin's Eurasian Union. Putin wants to show – with an eye on the Moscow tradition – that economic development is also fine without democracy.
Many Russians don't like Central Asian guest workers in Russia anyway. Putin is therefore very interested that the cultural cradle of Ukraine eventually joins this project. A free and democratic Ukraine, as the protesters in the square want, is therefore a direct threat to the realization of Putin's project, writes historian Timothy Snyder in the New York Review of Books. “Putin wants Ukraine to join, so Ukraine must maintain an authoritarian rule and so the uprisings must be crushed.”