American professor Stephen Norris directs the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at the University of Miami. He was interviewed hours after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began this week. Interview by Stéphane Baillargeon.
Jandudi morning, while the war was beginning, Ukrainian diplomat Olexander Scherba wrote on Twitter that he was unsure how to break the news to his 80-year-old mother-in-law, a resident of Kiev, Ukraine, but born in Kursk, Russia. “His first motherland attacks his second,” he wrote. Can this war actually be summarized as a conflict between two members of the same family?
In a sense, yes. A long and complex history of relations is at work. The simplest way to put it is to say that the historical roots of the current governments of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia all go back to the same source, the Kiev Rus [du IXe au XIIIe siècle]. The first civilization in this region of the world had established its capital in Kiev, and its rulers adopted Orthodox Christianity as their religion. The Mongol invasion crushed the Rus of Kiev in the XIIIand century and divided the territory, but then other civilizations appeared, including the Russian Empire. Ukrainians also claim these deep roots.
They are therefore both same and other. How is this difference affirmed?
Ukraine’s desire for independence took off in the 19and century and manifested itself more intensely in 1917, with the collapse of the Russian Empire. Thus, for 150 years and even more for a century, the Ukrainians conceive of themselves as connected to the Russians and at the same time different from them. This desire for independence, including on the part of Ukrainians living outside Ukraine, has grown over the past two or three decades. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, only amplifies this desire for independence of the Ukrainians, now strongly united around this idea.
How is this independence perceived from the point of view of the Russian population?
Like a betrayal. Putin makes this clear in his writings. He published a 5,000-word article last summer saying that Ukrainians and Russians are one and the same people. He offered a summarized version of it in a recent speech. This neo-imperial Russian vision takes up a 19th century perspective. She argues that Ukraine is not a country in itself. The Russian president does not even use the words “Ukraine” or “Ukrainians”. He speaks of “Little Russia” and “little Russians”, as in the time of the empire. He adds that “Great Russia” and “Great Russians” have given the gift of civilization to Ukraine. The long history therefore allows the understanding of important things. The current conflict is partly explained by an imperial mythology that Vladimir Putin has been reactivating for ten years.
How is this complexity of identity transposed into the cultural manifestations of this region?
Russian television productions and films celebrate the cultural and fraternal unity of Ukraine and Russia. The Russian media, often in the pay of the regime, have broadcast documentaries, and we have recently seen a new wave of patriotic films. A very popular production from 2015 is called The battle for Sevastopol [intitulée Résistance dans sa version française]. The film tells the journey of a Soviet sniper during the Second World War, again to show that Russians and Ukrainians share the same history and that the barriers erected since the end of communism are artificial.
How are these tensions transposed into Ukrainian culture?
In the 19thand century, Ukrainian language and literature experienced a significant boom with major poets such as Taras Shevchenko [1814-1861]. There has recently been an explosion of creations by Ukrainian authors and poets who question the roots of the current situation and stimulate the sense of independence among Ukrainians. I recommend everyone to read The gray bees [éditions Liana Levi], by Andrei Kurkov, to capture the complexity of the region. Kurkov is a Russian-Ukrainian author. His first language is Russian, he speaks Ukrainian and he has lived since childhood in Kiev. The story of the book takes place in an abandoned village in the Donbass, exactly in the region which is at the center of the current conflict.
Were you surprised by the invasion of Ukraine?
If I was surprised? Yes and no. I didn’t believe it until the invasion broke out. I think a lot of us, a lot of Russia experts, didn’t want to believe that President Putin was actually going to do this, was going to invade Ukraine. But the scale of the attack is really difficult to conceive.
What are you planning now? Will Russia occupy Ukraine?
President Putin sees Ukraine as a country occupied by the West and ruled by a puppet regime in the pay of the United States. He repeats that Ukrainians are Russian brothers and therefore there is no real division between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. He says that Ukraine is not really a separate country. With the scale of the ongoing attack, it becomes possible to envisage a long war and an occupation. The signs are already there. The Ukrainians are fighting and counter-attacking, while there was almost no resistance when they took Crimea in 2014. That said, the Ukrainian army does not seem as powerful as that of Russia .
What do you envision from the western point of view?
The situation is changing rapidly, and it is very difficult to make predictions. We can however notice that contrary to what happened in Georgia in 2008 and in Crimea in 2014, the Western allies show a much greater unity. There is no chance that American soldiers or other NATO members will be deployed on the ground in Ukraine. On the other hand, Western unity seems firm, and its actors seem ready to put in place sanctions on an unprecedented scale, with extensive international coordination. It is equally obvious that the sanctions have not worked so far, otherwise Vladimir Putin would not be doing what he is doing.
At the end of 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that NATO was a “brain dead” organization. Can we envisage its resuscitation with this conflict on the borders of the Alliance?
I believe so. In a sense, Putin and his regime are locked in their own trap. They have been complaining about NATO expansion for years, referring to promises made not on paper but verbally at the end of the Cold War that the Alliance would not expand further. East. They have been repeating it for several years to justify certain actions. Now, because of these actions, even more former Eastern bloc republics want to join NATO. The organisation’s secretary said a few days ago that he had never seen its members as united as they are now. It was difficult to unite England, Germany and France for certain causes. Putin managed to unify them.