Never say always
October 13, 2022 10:52 AM Subscribe
Russia's Crimea disconnect A brief account of Crimea's complicated history with both Russia and Ukraine by historian Timothy Snyder.
That was nicely useful context. Thank you.
posted by Quasirandom at 12:00 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Quasirandom at 12:00 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
Tim Snyder is teaching a class on Ukrainian History this semester that's being uploaded to the YaleCourses channel. Lectures are on Tuesday and Thursday, and the video gets uploaded about a day to a day-and-a-half later. Lecture 11 went up yesterday.
Youtube Playlist
Syllabus
posted by I-Write-Essays at 12:13 PM on October 13, 2022 [10 favorites]
Youtube Playlist
Syllabus
posted by I-Write-Essays at 12:13 PM on October 13, 2022 [10 favorites]
Very interesting! And always ("always"!) illuminating to see how terrible and murderous humans can be and have been to each other through the long course of history.
I was surprised to see Snyder obliquely hint that he suspects Elon Musk has been talking to or getting information from the Russians. The fact that I also knew (thanks to this blue) of the water supply issue, despite not having chatted with Putin personally, made his inference fall flat to my ears. Of course, wrong inferences can reach right conclusion. And it did make me wonder what role Elon Musk thinks he is playing... some secret back-door international diplomacy trying to influence world events without the US government getting in the way. Where is the line to criminality in such things, by US law?
posted by brambleboy at 12:57 PM on October 13, 2022
I was surprised to see Snyder obliquely hint that he suspects Elon Musk has been talking to or getting information from the Russians. The fact that I also knew (thanks to this blue) of the water supply issue, despite not having chatted with Putin personally, made his inference fall flat to my ears. Of course, wrong inferences can reach right conclusion. And it did make me wonder what role Elon Musk thinks he is playing... some secret back-door international diplomacy trying to influence world events without the US government getting in the way. Where is the line to criminality in such things, by US law?
posted by brambleboy at 12:57 PM on October 13, 2022
Where is the line to criminality in such things, by US law?
Wherever the dollars say it is.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:00 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wherever the dollars say it is.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:00 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
That may have come out as dismissive. Sorry. In my 50+ years, I just haven't often seen a rich or famous person be affected by US law.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:01 PM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:01 PM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
I've been following those lectures (which are quite good); and this substack post might as well be a model answer for the exam his students are taking today.
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:23 PM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:23 PM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
A very interesting read. As a Scandinavian I have obviously always known that the Rus were not Russian, and actually also some of the other stuff, though on a more superficial level.
And at the end of the day, and I think that as a historian he is not really clear enough about this, it is what people want to be that is the important thing. Genocide, and deporting people thousands of kilometers away distorts this simple rule.
posted by mumimor at 1:37 PM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
And at the end of the day, and I think that as a historian he is not really clear enough about this, it is what people want to be that is the important thing. Genocide, and deporting people thousands of kilometers away distorts this simple rule.
posted by mumimor at 1:37 PM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
I ended up watching this video for probably the 50th time for some superficial time and space context for both Rus and Russian empires. Every time though it's just "HOLY SHIT MONGOLS OFF THE TOP ROPE!"
I was surprised to see Snyder obliquely hint that he suspects Elon Musk has been talking to or getting information from the Russians
Musk, who is a really good salesman and not much else, did not just start spouting Kremlin talking points after doing his own research, any more than Gabbard did a bunch of soul searching before mad-libbing a bunch of right wing talking points after leaving the democratic party. I wonder what Musk was offered; the answer is always bleakly much less than I'd expect.
posted by MillMan at 3:30 PM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
I was surprised to see Snyder obliquely hint that he suspects Elon Musk has been talking to or getting information from the Russians
Musk, who is a really good salesman and not much else, did not just start spouting Kremlin talking points after doing his own research, any more than Gabbard did a bunch of soul searching before mad-libbing a bunch of right wing talking points after leaving the democratic party. I wonder what Musk was offered; the answer is always bleakly much less than I'd expect.
posted by MillMan at 3:30 PM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
Every time though it's just "HOLY SHIT MONGOLS OFF THE TOP ROPE!"
I remember the YouTube series Crash Course: World History had a running joke about the Mongols, because when you compress down world history into a series of short, digestible YouTube videos, you find yourself having to explain that a lot of historical trends have the same notable exception. So they leaned into it.
posted by Merus at 4:35 PM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
I remember the YouTube series Crash Course: World History had a running joke about the Mongols, because when you compress down world history into a series of short, digestible YouTube videos, you find yourself having to explain that a lot of historical trends have the same notable exception. So they leaned into it.
posted by Merus at 4:35 PM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
Thanks for this Klangstonklangston.
Oui, mon général! I'm gonna chew the hell out of this.
FTA:
"Putin has nothing to say about the future. He seems to have no idea of what Russia itself might be, as a state or a society, beyond the conflicts that his own mysticism is supposed to sanctify. His references to the past as it wasn't leave open the question of what "Russia" is or might become."
Putin's "Khrushchev' Mistake" is a prime example. This move was unpopular in some circles, Suslov was on the decline then but no doubt influenced his opposition to Khrushchev. So I pointed out in one of the other threads Voroshilov signed it, most likely his job but Nikita tied that decision to the Presidium not soley to himself. They agreed, they signed it, Nikita didn't have that much power or guilt, 1954.
"Sergei Khrushchev, Khrushchev's son, claimed that the decision was due to the building of a hydro-electric dam on the Dnieper River and the consequent desire for all the administration to be under one body. Sevastopol in Crimea being the site of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, a quintessential element of Russian..,"which ties into Snyder' " In 1954, this was presented -- without historical foundation -- as a choice of Ukrainians to join Russia forever. /Cigarette packs and nightgowns were printed with the slogan "300 years" to celebrate the supposedly ancient Russo-Ukrainian synthesis."
Making Crimea Russian in the name of Ukraine.
Snyder hits the nail: "though a Russian self-imagination of eternity sustains itself by consuming the actual histories of actual neighbors."
Full Ghost in the Machine. I believe Snyder just gave the existential breaking point there.
The Lie lying in wait to die.
posted by clavdivs at 4:46 PM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
Oui, mon général! I'm gonna chew the hell out of this.
FTA:
"Putin has nothing to say about the future. He seems to have no idea of what Russia itself might be, as a state or a society, beyond the conflicts that his own mysticism is supposed to sanctify. His references to the past as it wasn't leave open the question of what "Russia" is or might become."
Putin's "Khrushchev' Mistake" is a prime example. This move was unpopular in some circles, Suslov was on the decline then but no doubt influenced his opposition to Khrushchev. So I pointed out in one of the other threads Voroshilov signed it, most likely his job but Nikita tied that decision to the Presidium not soley to himself. They agreed, they signed it, Nikita didn't have that much power or guilt, 1954.
"Sergei Khrushchev, Khrushchev's son, claimed that the decision was due to the building of a hydro-electric dam on the Dnieper River and the consequent desire for all the administration to be under one body. Sevastopol in Crimea being the site of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, a quintessential element of Russian..,"which ties into Snyder' " In 1954, this was presented -- without historical foundation -- as a choice of Ukrainians to join Russia forever. /Cigarette packs and nightgowns were printed with the slogan "300 years" to celebrate the supposedly ancient Russo-Ukrainian synthesis."
Making Crimea Russian in the name of Ukraine.
Snyder hits the nail: "though a Russian self-imagination of eternity sustains itself by consuming the actual histories of actual neighbors."
Full Ghost in the Machine. I believe Snyder just gave the existential breaking point there.
The Lie lying in wait to die.
posted by clavdivs at 4:46 PM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
Where is the line to criminality in such things, by US law?
Forget Musk; he's a clown. Trump is still not behind bars. If he can tacitly be a Russian agent and be allowed to sit as President, there is no real line.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:58 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
Forget Musk; he's a clown. Trump is still not behind bars. If he can tacitly be a Russian agent and be allowed to sit as President, there is no real line.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:58 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
"I was surprised to see Snyder obliquely hint that he suspects Elon Musk has been talking to or getting information from the Russians"
He's literally repeating Kremlin talking points and using Kremlin phraseology.
I feel like the water supply point is semi well understood by people who follow Crimean politics. But the use of the phrase "Khrushchev's mistake"? That is a hella deep cut even for academics who study the history of Soviet politics and for foreign relations experts who actually worked for the State Department. But to use the phrase unironically, as actual fact, and as if you consider it a legitimate position? That is straight-up Kremlin talking points from Putin or his propaganda apparatus.
There's absolutely no way Elon Musk is aware of that phrase from his own experience. And even if he had become aware of that phrase through his own experience, he would not use it as a point of fact or history. That is Kremlin propaganda, it is old Kremlin propaganda, and nobody has ever said that unironically who wasn't repeating Kremlin talking points fed to them by Kremlin propagandists.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:06 PM on October 13, 2022 [12 favorites]
He's literally repeating Kremlin talking points and using Kremlin phraseology.
I feel like the water supply point is semi well understood by people who follow Crimean politics. But the use of the phrase "Khrushchev's mistake"? That is a hella deep cut even for academics who study the history of Soviet politics and for foreign relations experts who actually worked for the State Department. But to use the phrase unironically, as actual fact, and as if you consider it a legitimate position? That is straight-up Kremlin talking points from Putin or his propaganda apparatus.
There's absolutely no way Elon Musk is aware of that phrase from his own experience. And even if he had become aware of that phrase through his own experience, he would not use it as a point of fact or history. That is Kremlin propaganda, it is old Kremlin propaganda, and nobody has ever said that unironically who wasn't repeating Kremlin talking points fed to them by Kremlin propagandists.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:06 PM on October 13, 2022 [12 favorites]
Also, "hey, let's have a popular referendum on what country these people want to be part of in a place where the country demanding the referendum has been engaging in ethnic cleansing and mass deportations for over 100 years!" is not the pro-democracy talking point that it might sound like on first glance.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:12 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:12 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
Also echoing my enjoyment of his Yale class so far. Which is funny because last year I tried watching, on the same channel, the Mearsheimer IR class, and I had to nope out a few times, until finally I couldn't ignore the way certain SE Asian countries keep being grouped as East.
As for Snyder's class, it really has been so interesting to me because I never fully added up all the other bits I know from my upbringing (the Ottoman bit) with the history of the region. Plus I had been trying to pick up Russian, and then I got into that inevitable tangent (I think) when I realized it's connected to Sanskrit, and there were words I could sense that because of my own language's connection. Anyway, in one of his early classes he talked about the etymology of 'punch' and it comes back to the Slavic word for 5 and hey, that, btw is half the etymology for Indonesia's national principles, the Pancasila.
posted by cendawanita at 9:40 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
As for Snyder's class, it really has been so interesting to me because I never fully added up all the other bits I know from my upbringing (the Ottoman bit) with the history of the region. Plus I had been trying to pick up Russian, and then I got into that inevitable tangent (I think) when I realized it's connected to Sanskrit, and there were words I could sense that because of my own language's connection. Anyway, in one of his early classes he talked about the etymology of 'punch' and it comes back to the Slavic word for 5 and hey, that, btw is half the etymology for Indonesia's national principles, the Pancasila.
posted by cendawanita at 9:40 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
@cendawanita
The historical linguistics of the Indo-European language family is a fascinating thing, and the number Five is one of the roots that has been preserved the best across all branches. "Five" is such a basic concept, it must have already been in the language before the time of the Aryan migrations. Such basic words don't usually get replaced by foreign loanwords as a language spreads, and it's fairly easy to connect the phonetic mutations of the root when you see the variations side-by-side. I wish we had such thorough histories of other language families as well.
Even the word 'five' is related to the `pun` root, which is easier to see in its earlier germanic form 'fünf'
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:57 AM on October 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
The historical linguistics of the Indo-European language family is a fascinating thing, and the number Five is one of the roots that has been preserved the best across all branches. "Five" is such a basic concept, it must have already been in the language before the time of the Aryan migrations. Such basic words don't usually get replaced by foreign loanwords as a language spreads, and it's fairly easy to connect the phonetic mutations of the root when you see the variations side-by-side. I wish we had such thorough histories of other language families as well.
Even the word 'five' is related to the `pun` root, which is easier to see in its earlier germanic form 'fünf'
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:57 AM on October 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
"This is the essence of colonial logic: only we, the colonizers, have a history;"
A lot of good stuff here: the main message really is that you have to flatten Russian history out and drain it of a lot of complexity to use it as a tool of imperialism.
(Side note on Indo-European: I never viewed my будильник ("budilnik", alarm clock) in quite the same way when I realised it tied up etymologically with Buddha. I guess it was a wake-up call...)
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 4:21 AM on October 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
A lot of good stuff here: the main message really is that you have to flatten Russian history out and drain it of a lot of complexity to use it as a tool of imperialism.
(Side note on Indo-European: I never viewed my будильник ("budilnik", alarm clock) in quite the same way when I realised it tied up etymologically with Buddha. I guess it was a wake-up call...)
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 4:21 AM on October 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
And it did make me wonder what role Elon Musk thinks he is playing... some secret back-door international diplomacy trying to influence world events without the US government getting in the way.
I suspect that he sees himself as trying to avert nuclear war.
posted by nosewings at 5:50 PM on October 14, 2022
I suspect that he sees himself as trying to avert nuclear war.
posted by nosewings at 5:50 PM on October 14, 2022
Lots of Musk talk of late perhaps he's acting as some sort of secret Ambassador of Spaceports.
posted by clavdivs at 7:28 PM on October 14, 2022
posted by clavdivs at 7:28 PM on October 14, 2022
Musk is the unquestionable STEM Genius of our age, since he used his apartheid-emerald inheritance to buy himself the foundership of Tesla. And as we live in the neoliberal age, in which it is an axiom that everything that has value can be valued in convertible currency and traded, that mindset has leaked over into a belief in the transferability of expertise: i.e., a clever young bro who can crush JavaScript would also be the person to go to to optimally reorganise society, adjudicate geopolitical disputes, bank the unbanked, and so on. With Musk, we have seen these two phenomena come together: a few months ago, a UK newspaper ran a headline on him predicting that a recession was coming, buying into the framing of him being one of the greatest minds of our age, and his expertise at robots and spaceships and such being transferable to macroeconomics. From there, it is a short leap to assume that Musk is uniquely positioned to Solomonically partition Crimea, delivering world peace from on high.
posted by acb at 5:07 AM on October 15, 2022
posted by acb at 5:07 AM on October 15, 2022
From your link
This brought to mind Milorad Pavić's lexicon novel The Dictionary of the Khazars. I believe I have the male copy of that in a box of books somewhere. I must dig it out.
From there, it is a short leap to assume that Musk is uniquely positioned to Solomonically partition Crimea, delivering world peace from on high.
On topic: Elon Musk. May he be appointed first God Emperor of Mars and his thin skinned ass packed aboard the first crewed Starship thereto. Make your own oxygen, you fucking genius and don't call us, we'll [As if!] call you. posted by y2karl at 3:56 PM on October 15, 2022
...Valdimar was, to put it gently, not a Russian. There were no Russians at the time. He was the leader of a clan of Scandinavian warlords who had established a state in Kyiv, having wrenched the city from the control of Khazars. His clan was settling down, and the conversion to Christianity was part of the effort to build a state. It was called "Rus," apparently from a Finnish word for the slavetrading company that brought the Vikings to Kyiv in the first place. It was not called "Rus" because of anything to do with today's Russia — nor could it have been, since there was no Russia then, and no state would bear that name for another seven hundred years. Moscow, the city, did not exist at the time.Ah, the legendary Khazars. Not to mention the Khanate of the Crimean Tatars...
This brought to mind Milorad Pavić's lexicon novel The Dictionary of the Khazars. I believe I have the male copy of that in a box of books somewhere. I must dig it out.
From there, it is a short leap to assume that Musk is uniquely positioned to Solomonically partition Crimea, delivering world peace from on high.
On topic: Elon Musk. May he be appointed first God Emperor of Mars and his thin skinned ass packed aboard the first crewed Starship thereto. Make your own oxygen, you fucking genius and don't call us, we'll [As if!] call you. posted by y2karl at 3:56 PM on October 15, 2022
This brought to mind Milorad Pavić's lexicon novel The Dictionary of the Khazars. I believe I have the male copy of that in a box of books somewhere. I must dig it out.
No, leave it in the box. I also really enjoyed that book, until I read about Pavić. Maybe here on the blue.
posted by mumimor at 3:20 AM on October 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
No, leave it in the box. I also really enjoyed that book, until I read about Pavić. Maybe here on the blue.
posted by mumimor at 3:20 AM on October 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
Ah, I should have searched his name here before posting that comment, I see.
posted by y2karl at 4:30 AM on October 16, 2022
posted by y2karl at 4:30 AM on October 16, 2022
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