Nationalism as Belief in a Shared History
In Putin’s narrative, Ukraine does not have its own history, but must view itself within the framework of Russian history, within a story describing the expansion of the Russian state, and development of the Russian language and culture.
However, incongruously, this Putin narrative argues that Ukrainians have always (from Ivan Mazepa, Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Symon Petliura, Mykola Skrypnyk, Stepan Bandera, and to Petro Poroshenko) been disloyal, treacherous anti-Russians. This schizophrenic attitude is typical of imperialist thinking, and has been observed in postcolonial studies: natives are loved as long as they behave like grateful subordinates or loyal regionals, but when they refuse to conform to this imposed role and instead develop a resistant self-image, the imperial imagination suddenly transforms them into subversives.Within the Putin narrative, any identification with a completely different historical account is viewed as dangerous nationalism. Ukrainian history books teach that the late medieval states of Kyivan Rus and Galicia-Volhynia, the association with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the period of the baroque, and the Cossack state of early modernity, are part of a tradition that has produced a distinct and unique identity. However, for Putin and many Russians, such an opinion is considered an impermissible expression of nationalism because it refuses to identify with their imagined grand narrative of Russian history.
For example, Putin has on several occasions affirmed the sacredness of Crimea to Russians. The framework of this sacred story allows no room to argue that there was no Russia when Kyivan Rus was a state, that Crimea is also sacred to Ukrainians and Tatars, or that the Tatars perhaps have the strongest historical claim to Crimea, having settled, ruled, and dominated it the longest. Today, however, even to assert the multicultural nature of this peninsula’s history is to be accused of anti-Russian feeling and, of course, nationalism. Ukrainian and Tatar schools are being closed in the peninsula, and the Ukrainian language is banned from public life and meetings. Forgotten is the fact that a majority of Crimeans voted to be part of independent Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union, and that prior to the Russian invasion in 2014, polls consistently showed that most Crimeans wanted to remain part of Ukraine.