Full interview with Prof. Serhii Plokhy, Mykhailo S.
Hrushevsky Professor of
Ukrainian History,
Director, Ukrainian
Research Institute,
Harvard University,
Arlington, MA,
USA,
13 February 2016.
-
Book written in response to the wrong and misleading information said and written about
Ukraine. Book also written as a response to what was occurring in Ukraine
-
People have trouble finding Ukraine on a map.
President Vladimir Putin "Ukraine is not a real country."
- 1:55 Commentary on articles came from
Russian troll factories.
Levels of discussion on Ukraine was very low, ill-informed readers in
United States and Canada on Ukraine
- 2:20 Lack of understanding about
Crimean history.
Crimean Tatars missing from
Western narrative of events.
Transfer of
Crimea to Ukraine in
1954 by
Nikita Khrushchev (
Никита Хрущёв)
- 3:20 Lack of knowledge about Ukraine is the dominant trend in the
West combined with Russian centric understanding of Ukraine and
Europe. Most universities taught Ukraine looking through the Russian prism.
Media content was Russian centric
- 4:40 Ukraine must be met with objective scholars, balanced scholars.
- 5:00 Writing on current events and developments about Ukraine was challenging. Turning current events into history.
History of Soviet Union,
Ukrainska Pravda. Writing history is not like writing commentary
-
8:10 Donbas,
Minsk Accord,
First Minsk Agreement was not just a footnote but a basis upon which the future might be built
- 9:20
16th and
17th century Ukrainian history,
Frank Sysyn, Zenon Kohut
-
10:13 Marc Raeff,
Columbia University, writing on Russian imperial history, supported studies on Ukraine.
Social history was a category completely unknown to me.
Challenge transitioning from
Soviet Ukraine scholarly environment to
North American historical studies
- 12:02 Two distinct groups of Ukrainian historians: first group part of
Ukrainian diaspora, diaspora institutions, NTSHa (
Shevchenko Scientific Society).
Second group went through Western PhD programs.
Difference was writing history "Ukrainian style" versus "Western style"
- 13:15
Oleksander Ohloblyn, Ukrainian historian
- 14:55
Solzhenitsyn (Солженицын) approach
- 15:50 More consensus reached on what happened to Crimea and abuse history
- 16:40
Syria displaced Ukraine from the headlines
- 17:17 Book written for the general public, e.g. readers of
New York Times,
Globe and Mail, people interested in history and politics, but not interested in academic scholarship. Challenge of writing for the general public while retaining respect of colleagues
- 18:58 Pogroms, ethnic cleansing
- 19:45 Donbas (Донбас) most successful example of Russian distortion using
Russian history, Russian spring, "
New Russia" narrative to help mobilize operations in eastern Ukraine & Crimea. Russian imperial narrative: use of "
Kyiv" instead of "
Kiev"
- 21:40
Chronicle writing began in
Kyiv, Ukraine.
Chronicles were rewritten and reinterpreted. Historian sifts through layers, transformations, textology
- 23:05
Major Ukrainian intellectual figures:
Teofan Prokopovych (Феофан Прокопович),
Kyiv Mohyla Academy,
Mykola Hohol (Микола Гоголь) (
Nikolai Gogol)
- 24:20 Ukraine acquired independence through the collapse of empire. Ukrainian historical documents accumulated in
Vienna,
Istanbul,
St. Petersburg,
Moscow. We do not know about all of them
- 25:31 Ukrainian archival documents of the
20th century held by
Russia is blocked. Holodomor
- 26:48 Contest for the legacy of
Kyiv Rus' (Київська Русь),
Varangians (Варяги), debate between Russian and Ukrainian scholars, Russia building statue of
Volodymyr the Great (Володимир Великий) near the Kremlin
- 28:25
Corruption in Ukraine is part of imperial legacy.
The state is not the norm, imposes rules, appropriates assets. Historical genes of
Ukrainians see the state as foreign and something to circumvent
- 30:20
Policy makers, advisers should learn about Ukraine
- 31:40
Herodotus first historian of Ukraine
The Gates of Europe: A
History of Ukraine (
2015)
by Serhii Plokhy
Available at amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/The-Gates-Europe-History-Ukraine/dp/0465050913
Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
http://www.huri.harvard.edu/
This video was not sponsored.
Video by UkeTube Ukrainian video
- published: 15 Feb 2016
- views: 3