“That Russia and Ukraine have diverged politically so radically since 1991 is partially due to their position vis-à-vis the imploded empire they emerged from,” writes Mark Edele in Russia’s War Against Ukraine: The Whole Story (https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780522879834) (Melbourne University Publishing, 2023).
As its subtitle suggests, this short work – “a book by an outsider written for outsiders” – has big ambitions to explain the immediate, long-, and very long-term reasons for the war. How did two so similar yet so different nations emerge? How can “outsiders” separate national myths from true origin stories? Who started the war and how will it end?
Mark Edele (https://www.markedele.com/) is a Russianist who became – in his own words – a historian of the Soviet Empire largely due to his “encounter with Ukraine and its history”. Hansen Chair in History at the University of Melbourne, he was born and raised in southern Bavaria and educated at the universities of Erlangen, Tübingen, Moscow, and Chicago, where he completed his doctoral research on Soviet World War II veterans under Sheila Fitzpatrick.
*The author’s own book recommendations for the Writers’ Writers (https://timgwynnjones.com/writers-writers/) tip sheet are German Blood, Slavic Soil: How Nazi Königsberg Became Soviet Kaliningrad by Nicole Eaton (Cornell University Press, April 2023) and The Rider by Tim Krabbé (Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2016 – first published 1978).
Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who also writes the twenty4two (https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com/) newsletter on Substack and hosts the In The Room (https://timgwynnjones.com/podcast/) podcast series.
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Welcome to the new books Network welcome to new books in European politics I’m Tim Jones and my guest today is Mark Adel author of Russia’s war against Ukraine the whole story published in August by Melbourne University publishing note this is the whole story it’s a short book written in the
Author’s words by an outsider for Outsiders and seeking to answer why Putin launched his fullscale invasion of Ukraine in the immediate long and very long terms how did two so similar and so different nations emerge how can Outsiders separate National myths from true origin stories who started the war
And how will it end mark ad is a Russian who became a historian of the Soviet Empire as he puts it largely due to his encounter with Ukraine and its history Hansen chair in history at the University of Melbourne he was born and raised in southern Bavaria and educated
At the universities of alangan tubigan Moscow and Chicago where he did his doctoral research on Soviet World War II veterans under Sheila Fitzpatrick before the book we’re discussing today he published Soviet Veterans of the second world war in 2008 Stalin his Society in 2011 the Soviet Union a short history in 2019 and
Stalinism at war in 2021 Mark welcome thanks for having me well a lot of books on the war have been published over the last six months um I’ve interviewed quite a number of uh the authors and there’s a lot more to come uh as you’ve written yourself some
Are good and some are as you put it problematic what made you decide to join in well well let’s hope I’m in the the first category of the good problematic but yeah we shall see well when I when I started to write this book of course there weren’t many books right there was
Nothing uh there was an earlier book uh explained in a very good book by Seri kelik on uh the first Invasion right the 2014 Invasion uh which was first released as in it’s it’s within the um uh what everyone needs to know series um and it there’s two additions of it and I
Understand a third one is coming um there were also some things in German some very good ones um but in English there wasn’t so much and uh in many ways that Flur I’m I’m kind of I think uh part of several or quite a large group of uh Scholars who
Who reacted to this war by uh writing about it um there was uh an enormous amount of historical disinformation and misinformation out there there was a lot of shorty history uh in the public sphere and I felt that as a historian I had to duty to try to correct the record
Now I was of course not the only one and there’s other historians out there um uh who have since uh written about it I have mentioned yel um Saidi has um written a very good uh history of this war um which in many ways fits together with mine very well because it’s much
More of a history of the war itself while mine is really a a prehistory of how we get to the war and it fits together very well with POI because I draw very extensively on uh pl’s work um for my history of Ukraine um and of course historians were not the only ones
There were uh there’s quite a few pundits there’s political scientists there’s some very good journalistic accounts now so and that that’s uh is already a little historiography uh on on in it in itself um and a a debate often between historians but also between historians and and non-historians uh
About uh this history so that that will become its own subfield um but yes I that that’s I think what I would would say why so I would say I didn’t actually decide to join in because there was nothing to join in yet
When I joined in well I um it is a very interesting mixture actually because you you begin with um quite a as I say it’s a short book begin with quite a detailed description of the battle for keev there’s a there’s quite a bit of medieval history there’s a character
Study of Putin’s late life crisis the um you know the the matcho man the Aging matcho man and a sort of comparative psychological his historical psychological study of Russia and Ukraine what made you choose that that mix not sure I chose that mix that mix chose me probably in the process of
Writing the book so um as I said before I think it’s at its core it’s a prehistory of the 2022 Invasion um I do go back all the way as you point out to the middle a ages and ke ruse and then um uh the the division
Essentially of the K Rus into what becomes the Russian Empire um the first the mosite and then the Mite Rus and then and then um the Russian Empire and what what later becomes Ukraine uh but I do that largely in order to try to set the record straight
So I’m implicitly arguing with both uh aversion of the of the Ukrainian National History which uh sees kind of a straight line more or less from Kev to uh today and uh likewise with the Russian um with the Russian national narrative which uh claims Kev uh Kev new
For itself so that’s why I’m going so far back um the the the main I mean where where I see the the division of of kind of a modern Russia and the modern Ukraine uh emerg is in the early 20th century and in in particular in the Ukrainian and
The Russian Revolutions of 1917 and the following um Wars of the Roman of succession um and then uh in the uh once the two more recent National states of Russia and Ukraine are born in 1991 um the Divergence between the two and they’re they’re quite uh distinctly different tra trory since
1991 nevertheless I don’t see any that made this war inevitable in 2022 so there’s these big structural forces which Drive the two Nations apart um but there’s also a lot that continue to unite them Family Ties of course a shared history um uh related cultures language which are mutually understandable a lot of
Bilingualism um Russians went to to work in Ukraine ukrainians worked in Russia uh economic ties and so on and so on and so on um and uh the only real reason uh why Russia went to war in 2022 is Vladimir Putin and that that’s why I end
Up with trying to understand uh the the man um uh and his psychology so so that’s I think the the overall way how that mix developed in a way in in a in an attempt to understand what what happened why it happened and in an attempt to also engage with some of the
Um the big misleading stories I encountered in the public sphere yeah I was going to ask you on that specifically because it seems to me there are two things that you address in in a bit of detail repeatedly one is the the dec cour the immediate causes of the
War not not the historical but the immediate causes and also you address uh several times the the Notions of um Ukrainian forces and Ukrainian Society being dominated by Nazis and the far right did did you feel you had to is that part of the political debate in
Australia or is that something you felt you had to address particularly yeah it’s part I mean it’s part of the political debate worldwide um and I mean the political debate I uh follow uh includes both uh the Russian and Ukrainian debates um the German debate where you know I uh still have uh
Connections both um personally and in in scholly terms um I I I hail from Germany originally um and the American debate and the Australian debate and everywhere that notion um that somehow uh this was a fascist society and the fascist regime uh was quite prominent um in particular to my
Puzzlement on the political left um uh so yes that that was something I felt needed to be um spelled out and um to some extent debunked but also explained what the historical background to these these um these claims are and the extent to which you
Know what is the role of the farite in in today’s uh um Ukraine but also what’s the role of uh the far right in um in the history of the 20th century in Ukraine yeah actually another myth you you address um and it’s a very good
Point actually you you you at the very beginning you talk about the the initial stages of the fullscale invasion and the fact that the battle for this is a quote the battle for ke Was Won by Ukraine’s own artillery and modernized S Soviet era tanks and not NATO weaponry and you
Make the point that these old tanks they’re using they’re essentially used as as mobile artillery um could could you expand on that point I think it was a very interesting point well I think I I felt this needed to be made because if you were if you um were uh following the
Report reping as well as much of what happened in in social media at the time of the battle of Kev uh you would be uh uh you could be forgiven to thinking that somehow um uh NATO supplied Weaponry in particular shoulder fired uh anti-tank uh weapons uh were the major
Um contributor and I I felt that was actually that was I mean that was factually not not correct uh although those did play some role but um um it was it also was a bit self- congratulatory from um NATO countries to uh highlight these these weapons given that um essentially uh
NATO uh and the and the European countries in particular uh had failed to actually adequate ly um equip uh Ukraine for its own defense so I I did feel that this this point needed to be made um because there was a little bit too much um self- congratulation on the uh on the
On the side of of countries who had in fact not provided uh the lethal weapons uh required um or requested uh by Ukraine um on the because you know people felt that this would somehow provoke uh Russia and um so I think that was one of the reasons
Why I I felt that point needed to be uh made quite explicitly yeah it was a it was a good one so anyway get getting into the real uh me of the book you begin with a a potted history of Ukraine starting with what you call the chain of fortified
Outposts uh linked to the principality of keev and the KE and Rose myth that grew out of this can you explain how this became so critical to the to the Joint National mythologies but in particular Russian mythology and and the truth behind it well I think the the
Point I’m trying to make is that there’s no straight line you know from from medieval Kev to uh modern Moscow or Petersburg or petrograd or Leningrad or uh you know Moscow today uh but there’s also no straight line from uh from um medieval Kev to Modern Kev that is to
The modern Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian nation state um the reason why uh this um I’m following the story so far back is because both sides um uh claim medieval Kev as uh their um their ancestor and of course they are both right in a way that this is where a um East
Slavic um culture took place uh but that of course also uh includes belus um but uh they’re wrong in so far as there’s no um no continuity of statehood uh between uh the Ken R and either the the mosite state which then becomes the Russian Empire or
Um the uh much later Ukrainian uh State um so I think the the importance for the Russian side of that is to uh lay claim uh on KF also means laying claim on Ukraine right um if that is part of your prehistory you are the continuation of
This then of course the Kevan lands the Ukrainian lands more generally are sort of part of your your heritage and that’s why uh this has been defended so vigorously uh on the S side of Russian nationalist historians ever since and Russian imperial historians ever since uh the 19th
Century there seems to be a linked myth I mean it comes later um a Ukrainian national myth around uh that maybe was pushed by RV’s notion of a quote more European and more democratically minded East Slavic people uh compared to the their Brethren under the Iron Fist of
The musite princes and later further east um is that as yes you seem critical of that is that was I right to read it that way yes I mean I’m a I do I do follow um um and I I had some some intense debates with some uh medieval uh
Historians um um and early modern historians who not always uh who who who sometimes see us a little bit differently but um the a you if we’re talking about a Ukrainian nation and a kind of a modern Russian Nation um they’re really I mean the Ukrainian nation in particular uh is
A uh 19th century and early 20th century phenomenon there are of course cultural differences between the regions we now think about Ukraine uh and the people living there um but uh and they they they develop they they delivered the kind of raw material for the nation Builders uh of
The 19th and 20th Century um but you know this is a this is not a uh very long history in in in terms of you know a history of humanity if you like or history of certainly the Russian Empire uh has a has a longer history but more
Importantly I have a real problem a fundamental conceptual problem I think with the notion of a national character which is somehow unchanging over uh hundreds of years uh it is true that the lands which are now Ukraine uh have fundamentally different political and cultural influences uh and uh influences
Which are more uh Western and polish um but also indigenous um uh Democratic uh Traditions but they’re very discontinuous is the one thing right this the they they they come and go in many ways um but the other point is also that uh this history did not make ukrainians immune to the totalitarian
Temptations of the 2 Century um you know as many other uh peoples uh in in in in that in that time so uh I I feel um well I understand why you would construct such a history um and would highlight these uh these um uh Democratic or um more
Participatory uh aspects of your own history over others um that’s not the whole story right yeah well as for the the hetmanate and the cacs as one of The Outsiders you’re writing for it’s never been entirely clear to me whether this is a this is a period of history or a a
Cultural uh memory that that ukrainians want to reclaim or should reclaim is is this in any way something to be proud of well it’s definitely something that is being reclaimed uh and has been reclaimed for a very long time the the uh the the kak het manad and and the
Whole kak Traditions are are Central to uh the notion of what it is to be Ukrainian now whether or not you should be proud of your ancestors is a you know fundamentally a political question and in my mind you know you might be inspired by your
Ancestors or by part of what they did you might also be repelled by your ancestors and by part of what they did right um so uh I can I can uh see very well that you would want to highlight for example the kind of participatory uh aspects of uh the
Political structure of of uh the the kaks in particular hetman um but you might be repelled by the anti-polish and anti-jewish violence uh uh which were committed uh in the name of um uh these these groups as well so I don’t think it’s very healthy to Simply uh say I
Embrace one part of that history and I don’t don’t talk about the other it seems to me that a a mature uh modern democratic Nation uh needs to be able to do both um but you know that’s sometimes a big ask and uh this is something uh my
Chosen country of Australia is is struggling with as well so it’s not surprising that that that’s not that’s not perfectly straightforward and are you I mean you identify um the the moment where uh bulvik troops were in Ukraine and heading for Kei and the rder declared independence you say quote This
Moment not medieval ke or the early modern kak state is the real origin of modern Ukraine as a nation state is that um is that moment as Central to uh modern Ukrainian culture and modern Ukrainian national myth as you think it should be yeah maybe not
Although it depends uh who you talk to in that case there is um among um liberal and Democratic ukrainians in particular historians of course there is quite a um quite some interest in in that period the reason why I it seems to me it is an absolutely essential period
Is that is the first time a modern Ukrainian state is created not a KAC State um not um a medieval state which is well it wasn’t a state actually a medieval real or which is held largely together by uh by kinship ties of the the the ruling uh class and um
Religion um but a modern nation state um comes into being and uh def tries to defend itself um against uh the Bolshevik uh threat and which is very much seen as a Russian threat um and which also you can actually see a straight line in a way of from that
State that essentially failed State because it it gets um it gets uh divided between uh the more successful successor states of the Roman of Empire which are Poland on the one hand and um bolic Russia on the other but um the way this gets integrated or the the the eastern
Part of um Ukraine gets integrated into uh the Soviet Union is as uh the as a union Republic um so Ukraine uh maintains a kind of pseudo State formation it maintains borders um and it maintains uh a notion that uh there should be a state for ukrainians and it is that state which
Essentially then uh breaks free of the Soviet Empire uh in in 1991 so without understanding what happens uh in 1917 18 19 20 21 and 22 uh to the lands that are Ukraine and to people who understand themselves as ukrainians um you don’t uh understand
How we get to uh the uh modern um uh the modern Ukraine the the Contemporary Ukrainian state um what is in terms of historical memory what is attractive about this original Ukrainian state is that it was decidedly Ukrainian it was but it was also decidedly Democratic um in aspiration um not in
Practice of course um and it was also multiethnic in aspiration so in and all of these are uh historical precursors of uh today today’s Ukraine so I think one can there’s there’s a whole range of arguments why one can can see that as the kind of formation of of modern uh uh
Ukraine statehood yes you you make that very interesting point about how Ukraine is now aspiring to a new form of Civic nationalism which I I I guess borrows from largely from that period could you expand on that point yes so I mean the the the problem
In in in Eastern Europe for kind of a certain form of 19s and 20th Century nation building uh which is ethnic right is that there are no clear ethnic borders anywhere right this is I mean there are more there are more ethnic borders now in in in a way uh because of
Of uh genos genocide uh ethnic cleansing and so on going on throughout uh the well in in in in periods of the the 20th century and in particular I mean the the the Holocaust U instituted by the Germans is uh Central to the uh ukrainization if you if you like or the
The the the the diminishment of of um the uh Jewish um population and Jewish culture there but also then later um uh uh forced population movements of Germans out uh polls out ukrainians from Poland in and so on uh make it actually more uh consistently but somewhat more ethnically less ethnically diverse
Diverse than it used to be um but uh nevertheless if you think of nation building as something which is uh focused on uh an ethnic group uh it’s an extremely exclusionary um project and if you are in a situation where you have a very mixed population uh which is what the
Normal state of Ukrainian um Society has been and continues to be uh then you have a problem um and the problem is is that this will be will have to become exclusionary and very often violent um the the Ukrainian revolutionaries of 1917 saw that very clearly uh and uh dealt
With that issue um uh up front uh they did think that Ukraine was uh the was a state of the peoples of Ukraine right so it was uh seen as a uh inclusive and multi-ethnic nation and Multicultural Nation um there are of course moments when that flips right I mean the the
1930s become one where uh Ukrainian fascism becomes quite influential for example um and of course also already during the wars of Independence uh there are uh instances of um of anti-jewish violence in particular um but in terms of the political aspirations of the project of the Ukrainian state in 19178 was certainly
Um uh focused on a state and on a territory rather than on an ethnos um and that is very strongly the case uh today as well uh particularly institutionally so if you’re looking at um at the Constitution it’s very clear that this is not uh an exclusive uh state of ethnic ukrainians which
Excludes uh poles Jews and in particular Russians right uh but rather an inclusive uh um nation which focuses on a particular territory and a particular State formation so Democratic Ukraine is uh what is highlighted of course this again there are of course groups who challenge that there are groups who want
A more ethnically uh Ukrainian Nation but they’re quite uh marginal uh in in contemporary Ukraine um and the war has not actually changed that um so and and you know the the the leader of this nation in War uh is of course a Ukrainian Jew who grew up
Um speaking Russian so that’s an interesting that story yes and you you make the point that he’s the first president who was elected not on a regional basis yes who managed to to uh to transcend that kind of division uh between well east east and west if one one runs a
Very very basic division but uh the more Russian speaking and the more Ukrainian speaking parts of the of the country um and and uh that was clearly very important for um the once the war broke out as well or once the the fullscale invasion of of um Ukraine took place
Well well we’ve talked so far about mostly about uh Ukrainian Ukrainian national story um you reserve most of your criticism for some of the big Russian national myths in this book um for example um and these are ones that have spread in the west uh as you said at the
Beginning like for example Russia’s right to the conflation of Russian suffering the second world war to uh Soviet or or Ukrainian suffering and above all as you put it quote that Russia never had an Empire it was one and this this is quite Central to to the latter part of the
Book could you expand on those points yes so to to begin with the last one the Russia never had an Empire it was one um that that makes kind of of decolonization of of uh the dominant culture that is the coming to terms with the end of Empire um very difficult uh
Because um the division between what is the Metropole and what is the colony is not always very clear and very often is very unclear and there’s huge anxieties about about so the during the the chin Wars uh there were enormous anxiet is about well if if we let Cheta go uh
What’s next who next will will will leave will Siberia leave will we completely you know will will only Moscow region be left in the end because where is the borders of this uh of this Empire so in a land Empire which from very early on was both both
Multinational uh and integrated um uh kind of non-slavic uh uh lands it’s very very difficult to easily make the you know chop of the Empire if you like um uh and and leave you know leave France after the French Empire disintegrates or leave the UK although
The UK might be a difficult thing in itself uh but you can still you know have the Metropole there after the Empire disappears and even there people struggle you know many people struggle with uh um the end of Empire uh many decades after so so that point is I think really about
Um one of the reasons why this is difficult in the Russian case although not not not impossible um to um to kind of construct a positive sense of Po Imperial self um if you like the other point is is really about driving home that Soviet history is not Russian
History but Soviet history is the history of the Soviet Empire which half of the population you know plus minus depending on which which uh period of that history was not Russian but was other uh groups um but also the Russian Empire is not just the history of Russia
But it’s the history of the Russian Empire where you know the Russians become a smaller and smaller group um relative to the rest of the population as the Empire expands and integrates non-russian uh regions so this slippage between Russian Empire and the Russian Nation uh and the slippage between
Soviet and Russian uh is something that’s very widespread still um it is uh I I do a lot of work with uh High School teachers um the quote Russian Revolution is a central part of uh the high school exams in history here um and it is an
Utterly uh Russo Centric story as are many textbooks as is a lot of the ways um historians were trained at University both in this country in Germany uh and in the United States um until recently at least so the the kind of predominance of a of a Russo Centric Imperial Russ
History uh is is is is very uh is still very strong and has some detrimental impact on understanding what is actually happening in this post Soviet space which is a post-imperial space or at least in part a post Imperial space uh today well yes that leads to maybe conceptual difficulties
For for a lot of us but as you make um as you make clear toward toward towards the very end of the book um it had a very specific impact on uh on Putin himself and and on Ukraine because of it you you you site how um his weakness as
A dictator the impact of covid um and his quote sense of history is deeply entangled with his sense of self uh were really the drivers for the invasion could you could you talk us through that yeah so this this partially um draws on earlier work I did on on
Putin’s view of History which I found quite puzzling at the beginning and then uh increasingly um threatening um as time went on Putin is a Russian imperialist um as are many Russians uh and particular many Russians who are interested in in history um he uh has constructed a very
Unapologetically imperial history of of Russia which um which is drawing in many ways on on kind of mainstream histography in Russia um sort of on the right right end of the spectrum politically uh but mainstream um which essentially tells the entire history of the Russian Empire and then
The Soviet Empire as the as the history of Russia uh and therefore you know lays claim on uh the post Soviet space as the as the Heritage as the rightful um place to dominate uh by Russia so that’s the one part of that argument the other one the more personal
One uh which is about his uh his increasing isolation during covid uh and his obsession with history in during these covid years that’s drawing very strongly on on the work of mik zigar Russian um uh journalist um his book uh war and Punishment just came out I haven’t read
It yet I’ve what I drew on is his earlier work and some of his immediate uh Publications is a very well-connected um Russian journalist who uh very vividly told that story of of Putin in isolation reading history books and being obsessed with it with with that
History and with his place in it so he is and he’s he’s verbalized that several times to to historians he wants to know you know what his place will be in the history books um and uh clearly he was not convinced that he had a positive place in the history books and he
Decided his positive place in the history books should be as you know the the the man who took back Ukraine and therefore uh is essentially rebuild the Russian Empire uh which had been lost from from uh the perspective of R of Russian imperialists um in
1991 so that’s how the kind of the the the Putin um the Putin story and the um the driving role of that man in how we get to the start of this War uh um made its way into this this book right the inevitable final question for uh anybody
I talk to about this uh about this war is how and when do you think it will end sorry I’m laughing uh I don’t know is the is the short uh um uh the short answer um I in the final chapter of the book I outline a few
Scenarios uh which I think have haven’t changed yet one scenario is of course uh a Russian Victory that seemed very unlikely by the time I finished the manuscript which was at the beginning of 2023 it seems even less likely now um the other one is an outright
Victory of Ukraine uh pushing uh Russia out um that does not at the moment seem particularly likely uh given the slow progress of the uh offensive but it is only the start of August so there’s still a few months of the fighting season left um but it looks
More and more like at least large sectors of Ukrainian territory will remain occupied for quite some time and then the question becomes will that will that mean it’s a frozen Conflict for a very long time will it become some sort of uh Germany or Korea during the Cold
War scenario with a division of the the country uh along very hard lines um will uh what will the Fallout be in in in Russia itself uh will Putin uh simply uh uh sit there and and continue on so at the moment there don’t seem to be particularly um good
Options or very quick options uh for this war to end but uh in generally in general I think studying the past give is a bit easier because we have empirical evidence while studying the future we have none so um much of this is uh speculation yeah well
Uh to finish the podcast because this is a podcast about books as usual I’ve asked my guest to choose to to recommend to listeners so Mark what have you chosen well you gave me actually a more detailed brief which is one from my field and one not from my field that’s
Right um so uh the one from my field is Nicole Eaton German blood German blood Slavic soil which is a new book came out in 2023 it’s a history of the kaliningrad region or how kbur became kaliningrad um and that’s of course a region which we might still want to pay
Some attention to because it is now a a Russian exclave in Eastern Europe um which quite possibly will see tensions uh around it in the future as well and the other one is totally different it’s from 1978 uh it’s a Nolla by Tim crab it’s called the rider and it’s about bicycle race
Okay that’s a that’s a nice mix thank you um so today I’ve been talking to Mark edley about Russia’s war against Ukraine the whole story published by Melbourne University publishing Mark thanks again for coming on and thank you for having Me
1 Comment
Your audiobook looks great. I think it would be better if you changed the thumbnails