of course speeds up the processes, time works and we hope that this will contribute to the unification of ukrainian orthodoxy and the creation of a single local ukrainian orthodox church . thank you for being with us, a religious expert, andriy smyrno, in less issue, more news, read on our website bbc.ua, colleagues work for you without days off next time, watch our main one on monday at 9:00 p.m. good luck a-a movies, television, music, education, free people have a

choice, choose what you want on megogo when i found a working store in three letters, closed light i don’t have it, please, this bouquet is lucky . it doesn’t disappear in our country. that’s how the generator hums on the street. they give thousands of hryvnias, i understand. thank you very much for the bouquet of support for the ukrainian veteran business . get the details now on the website or by phone. i am iryna koval, mother, wife,

host of the espresso tv channel. i am also a volunteer our soldiers at the front need a lot of things every day, and that is why it is part of my life. today, this is help to the armed forces of ukraine, and i am very grateful to my colleagues for supporting me in this. the war caught me at home in irpen. the alarming suitcase was packed, but that did not reduce the excitement. explosions are burning every minute. the airfield, russian fighters , i have a cold basement in my window, then i left irpen under shelling for a month after being abandoned by my relatives , and in the end i ended up in lviv, returned to the airwaves and started volunteering together with my colleagues helping our military is now an integral part of life, we collect for drones and thermal imagers, we pay for nets, and on weekends we are going to prepare vitamin teas for our defenders on the front, we all

cut fruits together, we clean berries, we whip everything and pack it is always very gratifying to think that in a few days this tea will warm the ukrainian soldiers, everyone of you can help even a small contribution to the support of the army saves the lives of our soldiers and brings our victory closer, congratulations friends with you vitaliy portnikov and our interlocutor today historian professor of harvard university, serhiy plakhi, we are having this conversation as part of our joint project with the international center of sovereign nations, reconstruction of the truth, etc. by the way, i want to start our conversation with this, mr. serhiy, because history, in fact, is always a question of the reconstruction of the truth, especially

when it comes to history of a country like ukraine, because i always had the impression that ukrainian history was not written by those specialists who generally perceived ukraine as something separate and whole that hmm, you could say millions for 100 years, ukrainians have perceived their country and even their civilization as a part of other civilizations, first of all, of course , russian civilization, and what do you think of these 300 days, er, 300 days of war? they are changing the attitude of ukrainians to their history and the world to the history of ukraine - first of all, thank you for the invitation to this conversation, it is extremely nice to be in your studio to talk with your audience and the question about uh history, the meaning of history in the context of this war, i am extremely important, first of all, this

war is really a historical event, not only when it is about ukraine when it is about the world and world changes. in fact, this is the end of the period of the so-called long peace after the cold war - it is the restructuring of relations in europe in the world in relation to relations between europe and russia and of course, this is an extremely big change for ukraine, a nation, modern nations are being imagined and formed a large part of intellectuals, including historians, the fathers of eastern european nations are intellectuals and historians such as mykhailo hrushevskyi, but nations are formed and transformed, reformatted in in the context of very important, very dramatic and heroic and tragic events, such as he is, and

for me there is no doubt that starting from 2014, tectonic changes began to take place in ukrainian society, including in relation to interest in history, attitudes to history and these 300 days wars actually only intensified these processes, this is of course a challenge for us, for historians, for the workshop of historians who may have been writing for a long time actually for themselves when our degrees, our positions, our advancement career and so on depended solely on the assessment of colleagues, and writing for the general public to be included in social processes was considered absolutely not comilfo part due to the fact that inclusion in these er-e wider and social processes

actually began to leave history as a profession by the year 91 from the side and engage in propaganda that was demanded of us by the communist party and the communist regime at the time, this has changed . the question today is also the question of how we historians will be able to answer it. because the questions that society always asks in war or not at war are one and the same: where are we from or are we children, where are we going and key turning points, these questions are at the center of social attention, this is what is happening today. well, ukrainian independence itself, you remember it well in the 90s, was

not connected with the answer to political historical questions, primarily with the answer to economic questions, and then we already had to say what if we can't answer on a historical question, the question will not always arise. and why does this state exist at all, how does it differ from neighboring russia, why did it become independent, or did the economy and well-being really become the platform for a huge number of ukrainians to live in an independent state, and it always seemed that these are all historical questions are not at the time to first build a state b that is economically very efficient and only then talk about the differences between those neighboring russia it seems to me that there were either completely opposite or parallel processes russia was changing economically, but also politically and historically. this is what the vinnist organism we see today is also a very good question. russia also presented

its historical program in ukraine at a time when ukraine itself was not ready to understand itself. took place in russia, this was actually a return to pre-soviet narratives related to history and historiography until the 17th year in ukraine, they also sought the truth about the history of hrushevskyi's work in the works of people who worked until the 17th year, but what they found was actually mainly ukrainian liberal nationalism or national historical paradoxes, what putin and others found when they turned to the russian narrative before the 17th year through the mediation of the minister tsena and others: there was an empire, it was imperial to give birth and he

in fact, there was a lot of historical historical reconstruction of russia, what changed was the same as during the imperial times of the soviet union - this is the center of the superpower, the society was actually completely leveled and pushed aside commissions were created on the truth of the history of the second world war and so on, which not only determined how to write, but also determined how those who do not write will be punished. thus, what was happening in ukraine at that time was actually a competition of several naradims from the liberal -national to the soviet post-soviet e-e to radical nationalist and this process was quite natural, it happened gradually with the change of generations, but what did it mean

that when the time of tests came in 2014 in particular, it turned out that russia has a very strong aggressive imperial narrative, supported by the state, to which ukraine was actually not ready , was not ready to respond, i.e. look, for example, at the st. george's ribbon and the second world war, that is, russia actually came with a very developed, very flexible narrative of the second world war, but a single narrative at a time when the second world war in ukraine became one of the most key moments of disagreement and discussion, the russian narrative turned out to be extremely flexible that is, there it was possible to associate oneself with victory in, say, the second world war or participation in the great patriotic war, without necessarily

associating oneself with communism or not necessarily associating oneself with stalin, while the er-e divisions in the ukrainian er-e discourse which were supported by russia, reduced to actually absolute radicalization of views, that is, if you are ukrainian, if you somehow look at the second world war with ukrainian eyes, you must be from bandera, that is, a connection with the same upa, a connection with the same liberation war without a connection with radical nationalism of the war period was actually impossible, that is, in this war of narratives in 2014, we found ourselves in a very, very weak position, and this weak position was actually leveled during the last eight years, and ukrainian society met this weight with a much more ready

awareness of itself and its history than it was in the 14th year, i know this simply from personal experience from the demand that has appeared for historical literature in ukraine, including for translations of some of my books, but i would like to clarify about these two negatives , russian-ukrainian, but first of all, i will clarify about russian skills, because you are talking about the imperial narrative of russian thinking , but you can explain to me as a historian, how did it happen that a state that, in essence, after 1991 became a classical national state with a small group of national minorities n because ethnic russians make up the majority of the population of the russian federation, it seems to us now 85%. speakers of the russian language even more, how such a state can consider itself an empire, that's how people managed to convince people because it is an empire, when it is just an ordinary national state, it is an unusual

national state, it is on the way to becoming a national state with an extremely strong tradition of existence as an empire, that is, in fact, for the first time, the russian federation or russia, if we did not define it, received the borders of the institution that were separated from the empire only with lenin in 22-23 years when the soviet union was created, but even then the association of russia and the soviet union actually took place both inside russia and outside the soviet union, that is, during during the cold war, russia and the soviet union were substitute words. that is, they were defined as one and the same thing, and to learn the empire to exist in the context of a modern

state, which is still only taking shape as a national state after centuries of existence in other contexts. this is very, very difficult. the process is just like how to learn for ukrainians whether the national project arose in the struggle with the state in defiance of the state to learn to live in a state that is even one's own state, this is also a process is also very difficult and this change seems to me to be in russian-ukrainian conditions the war that began in 14th year, so it continued on such a large scale this year, this is an extremely serious push for reformatting not only ukrainian identity and our way and the opportunity to live in our own state, appreciate it and use it for society, but it is also an extremely big push for

reformatting russian identity which until now actually serves as the model of the russian empire and the great russian nation, where there is a great dew, there is little dew, the belarusians are all one great nation under this the flag started the war in the 14th year and it continues this year. after this war, after what happened in bakhmut, after what happened in kharkiv, mariupol, and so on, another idea about ourselves that we should not take sides arises not only in ukraine, it also arises in russia, and the message about this message is being sent more and more with a cargo of 200 well, and about the ukrainian peoples, don't you think that what is now a certain common vision of historical processes and state processes are connected not only now with the competition, let's say, of different scientific approaches and different political approaches, which are

now not important from the point of view of the survival of the state and the nation itself, but simply because after the events of 2013-2014, a real political nation began to form, which is no longer limited by the ethnic boundaries of the ukrainian people themselves, of course, ukrainians for 100 years, they tried to keep themselves young, there was no other way. i would say that there was no other council as an ethnic project, but in the ukrainian state , now we see a political project of a political nation and it is developing before our eyes the project of a political nation was actually formed among the dissidents of the ukrainian-jewish condominium, so to speak, which was created at that time was extremely important from this point of view, if you look at the hm helsinki groups in russia and the

dissidents of russia, they were divided between , relatively speaking, sugar and human rights and the democratic process and sushenitsa 's russian nationalism in ukraine within the framework of the helsinki group was a combination of a combination of both national and democratic elements and ukraine in 1991 rose up as a project at least as a promise of the project of a political nation, because the project of an ethnic nation, which they tried to realize in the 17-18-19-20s, was not realized, that is, it could not protect itself partly due to ethnic, linguistic, religious , and so on, divisions between cities and villages , in particular, and the project 91- th year it was a project of unification of a ukrainian-speaking village and a russian-speaking city with a multi-ethnic population on the basis of the already territorial

idea of ​​the state and the territorial idea of ​​the nation, but it was actually only a promise, the implementation has begun. or rather, the implementation has already begun at that time, but we saw the results only in 2014 , we did not know how successful this process was or not, the fact that ukraine survived in 2014-2015 showed that these previous efforts were not yet completely wasted, that is, russia came up with the idea that if you speak russian , you are russian loyalty should be to russia, you should greet the russian troops , mount a motorola, and so on with flowers, part of the population did the same, but the majority refused to do it. and this model of linguistic, cultural identity and loyalty was opposed by the idea that we we do not unite around one language, we do not

unite around one religion, despite the fact that the symbolic value of the ukrainian language is extremely great, but the war is fought in two languages, at least, and by many nationalities, and the loyalty is to this state, which many have never thought positively about because it provides the basics of freedom and liberty, which for us are absolutely natural, and which we understood after the 14th year, they are not guaranteed by any other state, that is, on the contrary, another state comes and takes away the 22nd year is the next next step on this path, the role of the ukrainian language in ukrainian culture is growing. this is absolutely obvious, especially in the conditions when

the language was used as a tool for destabilization to destabilize the state. the question is how to preserve the political cultural and so on, floralism , that is, here is the internal freedom that today the ukrainian army, ukrainians, ukrainian society protects, tell mr. serhiy, what parallels do you see with this war in in recent history, the president of ukraine quoted the prime minister of great britain during his speech in the congress of the united states , churchill's famous speech in which he emphasized that great britain would never lay down its arms before the reich. and you can really see the parallels between the current war and the second world war. by the way, these parallels are drawn by the president of russia, vladimir putin, now only with a different sign, so one of the

russian correspondents called president zelensky a cherchel with an iphone, that is, these there are parallels, these parallels exist not only in the person of, let's say, the leader of today's leader of ukraine and then the leader of great britain and this war is the largest military military-political conflict, a military conflict in europe since the second world war, since 2014, the annexation of crimea a now the formal annexation of the territory that even the russians control in the south in the east of ukraine - this is also the first example of the annexation of the territory of one state by the territory of another state in europe after 1945, that is, look at

the number of refugees, look at the number of troops, the amount of suffering, look at the level of war crimes, we have nowhere else to look and look for parallels than the second world war. of the ukrainian war is, on a certain level, an attempt to use the rhetoric of the second world war. that is, you are fascists, you are not fascists, you behave like fascists, that is, the sidewalk of historical memory, the repertoire of historical comparisons leads us one way or another to the second world war glory to ukraine glory to the heroes i.e. it is now deprived of, let's say, that narrow narrow radical national sound that was the interwar period but this is also this is also our attempt to

look for the so-called usable pass i.e. the past which which can eh need to help us today is again and again the second world war the question for and for us and for the world is this war which until now remains regional but is as large-scale as it can really become such a trigger, a harbinger or a trigger for, uh, a pan-european or a pan-world conflict, but the parallels are extremely clear, we have not been in a similar situation in europe as a whole since the end of the second world war in 1945, i want to ask you when we talk about the history of the

ukrainian people and now this is such a special moment, for sure, when we look at the historical contribution of various population groups , including those whom we count among the ukrainian political and cultural elite of any scientific field, there have always been people who defended the idea of ​​ukrainian independence, the right to its own statehood , the right to its own language and culture, and there have always been people who, relatively speaking, wanted to take place in empires , these are parallel processes. when taras shevchenko was elected to ukrainian, both of them could normally work there, one in russian and the other in ukrainian, that is, they could change places if they had different human and cultural philosophy, there were ukrainians who were part of the imperial apparatus of suppression

of everything ukrainian. they are still in the russian federation. there were ukrainians who were part of first of all russian and then soviet science, and this can be continued for quite a long time, but the most important thing is how we will, over the years, perceive people who consciously worked to make sure that ukraine did not exist and at the same time were somehow outstanding representatives of the civilization of the imperial civilization, not ukrainian, but representatives with monuments with busts of museums in ukrainian cities and towns, how will the descendants of such people evaluate the contribution of such people , will we fully perceive ukraine as a state that should honor those who fought for its independence, will it still be some country that will not try to find a balance between those who fought for it and by those who fought against them, that's why they say we started

this conversation with you would live such a word truth historical truth and this is just a very important word a key word quite problematic because it is defined what the truth is this is this is this is this is process and sometimes it is not achieved by deriving certain formulas as a result of joint dialogue and public and social consensus, but historians find themselves especially in conditions when there is a public demand for historical knowledge, they find themselves in a very difficult situation, there are standards of their own workshop and their own profession, there are demands of society, which is simply different no society can function and think about history except mythologically, and here the

extremely important task of historians is connected with the fact that social mythology er, it was as much as it might have been based on, let's say, the historical truth , not the historical truth, as it is understood, and as it is today, formulated for itself by a professional professional workshop. well, if you are not based on this truth, this mythology will also be very vulnerable and it does not break through, it will not last long, and here i actually approach , after this long introduction, to your specific question, that is, there is a question of social perception and social mythology, there is a concept of the concept of some landmarks of social heroes. are these the heroes of ancient greece? glory to the heroes whom we talk about and it

sounds again and again from tv screens and social media and so on and so on and in this context, let's say the same mykola gogol as a conventional hero is not given, but mykola gogol is an extremely important part of ukrainian history is extremely an important part of russian history and the world world, he got into it is through intermediaries in russian and this is the representation of the completeness of our history, it is extremely important, i.e. our history is important when there is not only hrushevsky, but also when there is yuzyfovich, who was the initiator of the creation of the monument to bohdan khmelnytskyi, who for us today is the personification of ukrainian statehood, the cossack e-e protection of our country, the president presents the

orders of bohdan khmelnytskyi and so on, but this monument, this monument was created on the initiative of yosefovich maloros, who had other ideas and other representatives, and he had an idea about khmelnytskyi and an idea about khmelnytskyi, why is that mace aimed at moscow, or is he saying that we should go there, or is he threatening to go to moscow, that is, these, these, interpretive things continue stay with us and without this completeness of the representation of this history without this honesty in relation to who we are we will not understand ourselves today and if we do not understand ourselves today it is already a much greater evil too just not understanding history