A Brief History of Ukraine

by | Feb 20, 2024 | Newsletter | 23 comments

The full-on hysteria that surrounded the announcement of Tucker Carlson’s arrival in Moscow and his subsequent interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin—including Hillary Clinton branding Carlson a “useful idiot” and Bill Kristol’s call to bar him from re-entering the US—was, upon release of the interview itself, quickly overtaken by a different (but equally misguided) reaction: “Why on earth did Putin spend so much time talking about ancient history?”

That reaction says a lot about our historical ignorance. Not just our ignorance of history itself, but our ignorance of the role history plays in understanding what is happening in the world today.

We tend to think of arguments among historians as purely academic affairs: a bunch of stuffy, grey-templed, pipe-smoking, tweed jacket-wearing professors debating over tea and crumpets the colour of Alexander the Great’s hair or Frederick the Great’s talent as a flutist.

But we are wrong.

Far from a boring, scholarly pursuit, the study of history has high-stakes, real-world consequences. Just ask the Ukrainians.

For centuries, the subject of Ukrainian history—including the origins of the Ukrainian state, the struggle for Ukrainian independence, and even the nature of Ukrainian identity itself—has been weaponized by various forces as part of a broader political conflict. As journalist Christian Esch has observed of this ongoing battle over Ukraine’s past: “As always, war is fought in the symbolic field as well as on the battlefield[.] [. . .] History, it seems, has itself become the battlefield.”

The fact that Putin spent a significant portion of his time with American deep state operative Tucker Carlson expounding on medieval history, then, is baffling only to those who continue to labour under the impression that history isn’t important.

So, what do we know about Ukraine’s history? What is up for debate? And what does the controversy tell us about the conflicts raging in that part of the world today? Let’s find out.

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23 Comments

  1. There are multiple narratives on the history of Ukraine (as stated). One accessible source is J. A. Michener’s Poland (1981). I don’t know who wrote Poland, but it wasn’t Michener. He probably did all the meticulous research for the book and left the writing to someone with real talent, his ghostwriter. Michener never again produced writing remotely close to the writing in Poland as far the complexity of the sentence and paragraph structure, as well as vocabulary. Michener was a Navy guy and his work is a venue for USA propaganda. He presents the Uncle Sam version of history. He simply couldn’t have written Poland, not in the same year he produced Space, which sucked and had a different ghostwritter. Everything Uncle Sam does is a collaboration. Like the Grateful Dead CIA collaboration with Robert Hunter. Michener novels such as The Source, Centennial, and Texas (and many others) are episodic where the material doesn’t directly relate to the chapters before and after. They are more compilations than novels and probably reflect the talents of several writers and researchers. Michener archived all of his research and that was his real gift. Poland is the best thing the Michener cabal (those involved with ghostwriting the Michener novels) ever produced. I had a great experience with it, and I probably believe some lies now that they snuck in there on me. I’m accustomed to separating the wheat from the chaff.

  2. The “West’s” obsession with the destruction of Russia is the fulfillment of a long-ago vendetta of the Khazarians (Ashkenazi Jews).

    The West = “British/Rothschilds” Globalist Fascist Oligarchy.

    The British Rothschilds are descended from the European Ashkenazi Jews.

    Untaught history…..

    The Hidden History of the Incredibly Evil Khazarian Mafia

    The secret History of Khazarian Mafia and its evil plan to hijack the whole world is now revealed for first time.

    By Preston James, Ph.D – March 10, 2022

    https://veteranstoday.com/2022/03/10/the-hidden-history-of-the-incredibly-evil-khazarian-mafia/

    TIMELINE OF THE VENETIAN-KHAZAR-ASHKENAZI INFILTRATION AND INSTALLATION OF THEIR OLIGARCHIC SYSTEM IN ENGLAND TO EXPAND THEIR DESIRE FOR GREED AND DOMINATION

    https://concisepolitics.com/2018/03/16/timeline-of-the-venetian-khazar-ashkenazi-infiltration-and-installation-of-their-oligarchic-system-in-england-to-expand-their-desire-for-greed-and-domination/

    ROTHSCHILD EMPIRE – A LONG HISTORY OF MANY SCAMS

    https://concisepolitics.com/2015/07/25/rothschild-empire-a-long-history-of-many-scams/

    REVENGE OF THE ROTHSCHILDS CRIME MAFIA AGAINST RUSSIA AND AMERICA!

    https://concisepolitics.com/2018/09/23/revenge-of-the-rothschilds-crime-mafia-against-russia-and-america/

  3. Wow, James, that must have been a tough history to compile, capturing even the minor (short-lived) chapters. Thank you for pulling it together in your usual witty fashion.

    Something familiar about the history… Western nations are in the midst of some version of border and political power realignments, with stirrings of our own dekulakization, as farmers are attacked and farm and public lands are being taken over. We would be wise to review the lessons of history.

  4. The election year rhetoric is heating up, and although I assiduously avoid political speaches I couldn’t help being aware that the last two general campaigns in the US must hold records for vulgar irrelevance.

    I have listened to only parts of the Carlson/Putin interview. All versions of history are selective, but I wish politicians everywhere would take a lesson from Putin on civilized discourse.

  5. Dear James,
    There is one point i find crucial missed out in the article. During the 20s-30s, parallel to the ongoing war of bolsheviks on the people of ussr, which saw millions of russians dying from hunger, too – a feat never achieved by the so cursed and so bloody emperror Nikolai 2, btw – there was also a project and process of “rootification” (коренизация), which also included “ukrainization” (украинизация) of ukraine, which in turn, as opposed to the imperial eclectic policy, was promoting (or as some would say – [re]inventing) local (ukrainan) language and culture and proclaiming the need of every soviet nation to have its ‘home territory’. It is popular among conservatives to very much ascribe the current war and its ukraine-nationalist roots exactly to that historical phenomenon.

  6. I don’t know who should rule Ukraine, but I do know it should NOT be a US President. However, if we had a King Trump, that would be a valid option. Presumably everyone there would be mandated by law to wear the official shiny gold shoes in public, but that would be a small price to pay for wonderful team spirit it would bring.

  7. So Carlson is a deep state operative based on a mintpress article that criticizes him for being rich, for his father’s role in iran-contra and for the fact that he was pro war in the beginning of his career 30 years ago? Hmmm, that’s a bit shallow innit?

    • The article failed to convince me of Mr. Carlson’s inherent evil motives either.
      I don’t know the first thing about the fathers of hardly any of the people who I invest my time reading or listening to.
      For all I know some of them may have been criminals of the most depraved sort. Maybe they were sociopaths, child abusers or worse, Canadian politicians. I don’t know. Should I find out before I lend credibility to their offspring?
      Having that family background would certainly factor into how I process the information I receive from Carlson or any content producers, it certainly doesn’t cause me to form a premature negative opinion of them.
      Frankly, when I think of the skeletons in my own closet and the family not-so secrets that I can bring to mind from my own life experiences, I’m not willing to judge a man for the sins of his family members any more than I would judge him for the sins of his government. Or his mistakes of youth.

      • An important distinction would be between the regular sinning parens abd parents such as Bill Gates’ old man William and his old man William and his old man William. How many were there? 5 or 6?

      • “I’m not willing to judge a man for the sins of his family members any more than I would judge him for the sins of his government”

        – that’s a nice statement.

    • How about the fact that he’s interviewing world leaders? And he’s being propped up by the new establishment media aka Twitter. He’s admitted to applying to the CIA and we know his father was head of the CIA front group Voice of Reason. He was pro war not 30 years ago but pretty much his entire career until.. what happened, the establishment media was rapidly losing its audience and he conveniently had an ‘awakening’ and all of a sudden did a complete 180 and became ‘anti establishment’. But instead of being censored, shadow banned and removed from all the social media algorithms like ALL the legitimate anti establishment voices I know, he somehow is the new social media poster child and is being promoted literally everywhere.

      The red flags around this guy are astounding and theres way more than 1 article exposing him but I think the censorship brigade have done a pretty good job of keeping this hidden unfortunately.

      I agree we shouldn’t judge a person by their father but I think we need to also look into it very deeply. My experience has been that the apple typically doesnt seem to fall very far from the tree.

      https://www.bitchute.com/video/yCqcQd14xbAr/

      https://off-guardian.org/2024/02/10/what-no-one-is-saying-about-tucker-carlsons-putin-interview/

      https://swprs.org/fox-news-tucker-carlson-and-the-american-empire/

      • I agree with the redflags you point out. Still i’m not sure how the establishment profits from him being anti-establishment, apart for gatekeeping maybe, but is that really necessary? I give him the benefit of doubt for now

        • The whole idea is to lay a trap for people who find his speech interesting and then lead them in a particular direction by poisoning the well.

          Those who are anti establishment are likely to find things he says agreeable while those who are not will likely not.

          They are many. They are legion.

    • “So Carlson is a deep state operative…”

      CuckerTarlson is a distraction. Pple know something is wrong. They don’t know what, but they don’t have a lot of time for the Revolution. Gotta vacuum, get the supper on, & NOW what?!! Again?! Is it GreyOps, where you tell part of the truth & keep moving? i don’t recall…sorry.

      CuckerTarlson looks & sounds reasonable. What he’s saying
      makes sense.

      What we have to ask is, Why is he consistently 10years or less behind? Covids for instance. We knew right away the fraud was being perpetrated. I don’t have a secretary. CuckerTarlson prolly has a bevy of secretaries. Why did he take so long to go against the Official Narrative?

      When CuckerTarlson isn’t turning his head at us like a cocker spaniel & giving us that face he is hanging out where ever & when ever…. For me he is in the AlexJones, DJTrump category: a grey psy-op, limited hang-out, or distraction. We do not have to know about GladioB….

  8. I was hoping there’d be something in this article about all the shenanigans about NATO wooing Ukraine (or not) and how it affects the current situation.

  9. Interesting!!! No mention of the 2014 & 2015 Minsk Accords. Signed by NATO representatives German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Holland and Russian president Vladimir Putin. Central to the agreement was that Dunbas with over 90% Russian speaking population would have the right to vote to leave Ukraine. Also key to the accord was that Ukraine would not join NATO. Oh, by the way, both Merkel and Holland both said recently that they had no intention of ever honoring those accords. Meaning they acted in bad faith. Then in early 2022 US vice president Kamala Harris, on a trip to Europe, invited Ukraine to join NATO. Russia invaded Ukraine three days late. There you go. A central fact to the current situation in that region that mysteriously was left out. Why is that James?

    • Signing of those accords by putin is widely viewed by russian patriots as either total incompetence or absolute betrayal of russians. One had to have less than 2 brain cells wired together in his brain to have taken these accords at face values. And the current bloody war is very much a consequence of that betrayal.

  10. If we’re starting the clock at the stone age, the Africans want their civilization back

  11. So much ado about imaginary lines in the sand.

    Croatia/Serbia had a “ukraine” of their own Krajina – an area between the imaginary lines, hosting mixed religious dispositions, mixed marriages, mixed everything (people just being people); and as such this area was a perfect playground for perfidious political machinations. One that is regularly resuscitated into the center of public attention, as limited in duration as it may be.

    Drawing lines, relocating and killing people. There is indeed nothing new under the sun.

  12. “a bone of contention”

    I like that phrase.
    We see it manifest with dogs.

    James Corbett says,
    “Everything in the history of Ukraine is a bone of contention, a potential weapon in the ongoing war between the various factions seeking to control Ukraine and its peoples.”

    One might be able to cipher a formula from that line.

    Everything in the history of _______ is a bone of contention, a potential weapon in the ongoing war between the various factions seeking to control ______ and people.

    • It was also a pun on those bones that got disappeared.

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