On February 8, American TV presenter Tucker Carlson published an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. At the very beginning of the conversation, Putin asked the overseas guest: "You have a historical basic education, as I understand it, right?" Having received an affirmative answer, the politician said: “Then I will allow myself - just 30 seconds or one minute - give a small historical certificate.” Further, the Russian president retold his vision of the last 13 centuries of Russian history for an hour - it was they, Putin, who are sure, justify the full -scale invasion of Ukraine and the current position of Moscow in international affairs.
Historian Stanislav Mereminsky, at the request of “verified”, chose a dozen quotes from transcripts This interview on the Kremlin’s website and dismantled Putin’s mistakes, inaccuracies and manipulations.
The Russian state began to gather as centralized, this is considered the year of the creation of the Russian state-862, when the Novgorodians-there is such a city of Novgorod in the north-west of the country-was invited to the reign of Prince Rurik from the Scandinavia, from the Varangians. 862. In 1862, Russia celebrated the millennium of its statehood, and in Novgorod there is a monument dedicated to the millennium of the country.
Hereinafter, Putin retells the so -called “The Tale of the Varangians”, preserved as part of the annals “The story of temporary years". In the form known to us, this work was written in Kyiv at the beginning of the XII century, but it is assumed that the “novels ...” were preceded by the non -preserved historical works of the XI century. In any case, their authors lived 150–250 years after the alleged calling of the Varangians.
As noted in the encyclopedia "Ancient Rus' in the medieval world", Published in 2014 by a team of scientists of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences," The Tale of Bygone Years "was considered a reliable description of the early history of Rus' only until the 19th century. Later studies of the text showed that it contains descriptions of individual historical events and processes (for example, interactions between the Slavic, Finno-Ugric and Scandinavian ethnic groups in the Volkhov and Lake Ilmen in the VIII-IX centuries), which are flavored with a large number of fictional details, epic and myths. The existence of most of the “novel ...” rulers (Rurik, Oleg, Igor) is confirmed by sources external to the annals, but the chronology used by its authors (including the key date - 862) is now unanimously recognized in the academic community of the conditional. It is impossible to confirm the related ties described in the "Tales ..." inside the dynasty: there is no evidence that Igor was the son of Rurik, and Oleg, apparently, he was a sovereign prince in Kyiv, but not a relative of Rurik, etc. Attempts to prove the origin of the Rurikovich from a common ancestor by the methods of Paleogeneity. Very controversial results.
The next, very significant date in the history of Russia is 988. This is the baptism of Rus', when Prince Vladimir, this is the great -grandson of Rurik, baptized Rus' and adopted Orthodoxy - Eastern Christianity. Since that time, a centralized Russian state began to strengthen. Why? A single territory, unified economic relations, one language and - after the baptism of Rus' - one faith and the power of the prince. A centralized Russian state began to take shape.
The year 988 as the date of the so -called baptism of Rus' (more precisely, the adoption of Christianity by Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich) is now recognized as a conditional chronological marker as 862. In medieval sources, different versions are presented about where and how Prince Vladimir was baptized. Conditionally Select Kyiv and Korsunskaya legends. The very spread of Christianity in the possessions of the Rurikovich was long process, stretched for many decades.
A clear anachronism is the use of the term the Russian state in relation to the realities of the 9th - XIII centuries. The concept of Rus' often found in the annals and other early sources (its etymology remains the subject of scientific discussions) was first the name of the people, and later it began to be used to refer to lands under the rule of princes from the Rurikovich clan (part of modern Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation). But more often this territory was called Russian land, and in the in-written Byzantine sources-Rosia. Title Sovereign (Lord) All Rus' By analogy with the titilature of the Metropolitans, for the first time, the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily II, the title of the Tsar of Rus', or the RO (C) of these, took his great -grandson Ivan the Terrible in the middle of the 15th century.
But the fragmented Russian state became the light prey of the empire that Genghis Khan once created. His successors, Khan Batu, came to Rus', plundered almost all cities, ruined them. The southern part, where Kyiv was, by the way, some other cities, they simply lost their independence, and the northern cities retained part of their sovereignty. They paid tribute to the Horde, but part of the sovereignty was preserved.
As a result Mongolian campaigns 1237-1240, many of the largest cities of Rus' were really ruined, but not all. Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, Polotsk and Turovo-Pinsk principalities remained intact. The real difference in the position of the princes in the north and in the south There was no: both of them recognized the supreme power of the khan, which was manifested, in particular, in the payment of tribute and obtaining a label (permission) for reign.
The southern part of the Russian lands, including Kyiv, began to gradually reach for another “magnet” - to the center that developed in Europe. It was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He was even called the Lithuanian-Russian, because the Russians made up a significant part of this state. They spoke the Old Russian language, were Orthodox. But then there was a union - the union of the Grand Duchy of the Lithuanian and Polish Kingdom. A few years later, another union was already signed in the spiritual sphere, and part of the Orthodox priests submitted by the authorities of the Pope. Thus, these lands were part of the Polish-Lithuanian state.
The name "Lithuanian-Russian principality" Found In modern historiography, but has never been official. In constitutional documents of the 16th century, the so -called Lithuanian statues, Used The option “The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Russian and Zhemayt” - according to the main ethnic and language groups of subjects, as they were aware at that time. Under the union, Putin has in mind Lublin Union 1569, which completed the creation of the Commonwealth, as well as the church Brest Union 1596.
But for decades, the Poles were engaged in diluting this part of the population: they introduced their language there, began to introduce the idea that these are not quite Russians, that, since they live at the region, they are Ukrainians. Initially, the word "Ukrainian" meant that a person lives on the outskirts of the state, "at the region", or is engaged in the border service, in fact. This did not mean some special ethnic group.
Word "Ukraine"(Old Russian" Ocrains ") is found in the annals since the XII century, where it was used to designate a variety of border parts of the Russian land - at different times, for example, the Pskov, Ryazan and Tula Ukraine are mentioned. Since the 16th century, the most commonly began to call lands in the Middle Dnieper, which have been part of the Commonwealth, since the 17th century, this word becomes the usual name of the territory of the Cossack Zaporizhzhya army, as well as the lands neighboring with it.
Along with this, the geographical concept of small Rus', or Little Russia, came from Byzantine church terminology. Most of the inhabitants of these territories, until the 19th century, called themselves “Rus'” or “Rusyns”, often “Kozaki”, in the official documents of the Russian Empire the name “Little Russia” was common. The ethnonym of the Ukrainian arose in the Commonwealth in the second half of the 16th century, and began to spread from the middle of the 19th century by the efforts of the figures of the Ukrainian national revival (for example, the poet Taras Shevchenko).
Unified terminology was not fixed immediately: for example, historian Mikhail Grushevsky Offered Option of the name "Ukraine-Rus" and the corresponding ethnonym. The names "Ukraine" and "Ukrainians" became common after the February Revolution of 1917, when in April in Kyiv it took place All -Ukrainian National Congress, and in November was proclaimed Ukrainian People's Republic. Later in the USSR, the ethnonym Maloros was declared chauvinistic.
And in 1654, a little earlier, even people who controlled power in this part of the Russian lands turned to Warsaw, I repeat, demanding that they send people of Russian origin and Orthodox religion. And when Warsaw, in principle, did not answer them and practically rejected these requirements, they began to contact Moscow so that Moscow took them to her.
Russia did not agree to accept them immediately, because it proceeded from the fact that the war with Poland would begin. Still, in 1654, the Zemstvo Cathedral-it was a representative body of the Old Russian state-the decision was made: this part of the Old Russian lands became part of the Moscow kingdom.
As expected, the war with Poland began. She walked for 13 years, then a truce was concluded. And in total, after the conclusion of this act of 1654, after 32, in my opinion, the world with Poland was concluded, the eternal world, as was then said. And these lands, the entire Left Bank of the Dnieper, including Kyiv, went to Russia, and the entire Right Bank of the Dnieper remained with Poland.
The use of the term “Old Russian state” in relation to the 17th century is another clear anachronism. Officially the power of the Romanovs was called the Russian, or Russian, kingdom, in Western sources Often - Muscovy or the Moscow state, to distinguish from Russian lands as part of the Commonwealth.
The appeal of the hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the leaders of the Cossack Zaporizhzhya troops to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1654 became only one of the episodes (albeit important) that began in 1648 War Zaporozhets against the Commonwealth. In modern Ukrainian historiography, it interpreted as a national revolution. At the same time, not all Cossacks supported the idea of transition to Moscow’s citizenship - some of the hetmans often changing during this period (for example, the son of Bogdan Khmelnitsky Yuri) were ready to remain in the citizenship of the Polish king, others (for example, Pyotr Doroshenko) were guided by the Ottoman Empire. The influence of the Turks at that time included Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region, and even Podolier (a region with a center in the city of Kamenetz-Podolsky in the south-west of present-day Ukraine and northeast of Moldova).
Russian-Polish war of 1654-1667 ended Andrusovsky truceAccording to which the border passed along the Dnieper, but some of the Cossacks did not recognize this agreement and until 1676 continued the struggle against the Polish king, without recognizing the power of Moscow. The eternal world Between the Commonwealth and the Russian kingdom was concluded in 1686, when both countries were preparing for war against the Ottoman Empire.
Then, during the time of Catherine II, Russia returned all its historical lands, including the south and the West.
As a result sections of the Commonwealth In 1772, 1793 and 1795, this state ceased to exist between the Russian Empire, Prussia and the Austrian Habsburgs. In this process, both diplomatic blackmail and military force were used (for example, when suppressing Polish uprising 1794). Almost all lands received by the Russian Empire had never previously been part of the possessions of the Moscow Grand Dukes or kings from the dynasties of the Rurikovich and Romanovs, and some (for example, the territory of modern Lithuania) did not belong to the Russian land of the era of the early Rurikovich. However, the government of Catherine II really Used The rhetoric of collecting previously “torn” Russian lands. As for the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region acquired by the Russian Empire based on the results War With the Ottoman Empire of 1768–1774 and 1787-1791, then they were basically never part of the Russian land of the Rurikovich.
Before the First World War, taking advantage of these ideas of Ukrainization, the Austrian General Staff very actively began promoting the idea of Ukraine and Ukrainization. Everything is clear for what: because on the eve of the World War, of course, there was a desire to weaken a potential enemy, there was a desire to create favorable conditions in the border strip. And this idea, once born in Poland, that people living in this territory are not quite Russian, they are supposedly a special ethnic group, Ukrainians, began to advance the Austrian General Staff.
The national-cultural, and then the national-political movement developed in the 19th century in parallel on Ukrainian lands and as part of the Russian Empire, and in the possessions of the Habsburgs (in the kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria). The idea of Ukrainian nationalists is exclusively as agents of Austro-Hungarian military intelligence Actively spread Russian nationalists during the First World War. In fact, at that time, all the warring parties sought for their own purposes to work with possible separatist movements in the enemy. For example, both Russia and other countries of the Entente had contacts With the Czech national movement, but this does not mean that the Czech people were invented a little over a hundred years ago in the Russian or French General Staff.
The theoreticians of the independence of Ukraine also arose in the 19th century, which spoke about the need for independence of Ukraine. But, however, all these “pillars” of Ukrainian independence said that it should have very good relations with Russia, they insisted on this. Nevertheless, after the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks tried to restore statehood, the civil war unfolded, including [war] with Poland. The world was signed with Poland in 1921, according to which the western part, on the right bank of the Dnieper, again went to Poland.
Putin (again) does not mention the proclamation in November 1917 of the Ukrainian People's Republic, which in 1919 waged war And with the Red Army, and with the white armed forces of the South of Russia under the command of Denikin. Nominally, this state education ceased to exist after signing Riga agreement 1921 between the Soviet republics (RSFSR, the Belarusian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR) and Poland. Not only Galicia (previously part of Austria-Hungary previously parted as part of the Austrian-Hungary, where in 1918 was proclaimed it was proclaimed West Ukrainian People's Republic, then abolished by the Polish authorities), but also some former parts of the Russian Empire (in particular, the West of the Volyn province and the Grodno province).
In 1939, after Poland was advocating with Hitler, and Poland collaborated with Hitler, and Hitler suggested that we have all the documents in the archives - with Poland to conclude peace, friendship and alliance, but demand that Poland give back the so -called Danzig corridor, which connect the main part of Germany with Kyongigsberg and East Prussia. After the First World War, this part of the territory was given to Poland, and instead of Danzig the city of Gdansk appeared. Hitler begged them to give them peacefully - the Poles refused. Nevertheless, they collaborated with Hitler and together took up the section of Czechoslovakia.
So, before the Second World War, when Poland was advocating with Germany, she refused to fulfill Hitler’s demands, but nevertheless participated with Hitler in the Czechoslovakia section, but since she did not give the Danzig corridor, they still forced the Poles, they played and forced Hitler to start the Second World War with them. Why did the war on September 1, 1939 began from Poland? She turned out to be intractable. Hitler had no choice but to implement his plans to start with Poland.
Problem Danzig, or Polish, corridor It remained a stumbling block in the relationship of Germany and Poland for the entire interwar period. However, historians, including Russian, solidarity In the opinion that the German proposals of Poland on the Danzig corridor, expressed in 1938 and the beginning of 1939, were blackmail aimed at turning Poland into satellite of the Third Reich and the subsequent disappearance of it as an independent state. For example, like them Evaluated In 2009, the Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of MGIMO Mikhail Narinsky, on the air of Echo of Moscow,: “Of course, the Polish leadership made many mistakes and miscalculations during this crisis of 1938–1939 is not a secret, and some of the Polish historians recognize these miscalculations and mistakes, in particular, Poland’s behavior during the behavior of Poland Munich conspiracy and the crisis around Czechoslovakia ... But nevertheless, it must be said that Hitler’s demands regarding Poland, which began to be presented just after Munich, in October 1938, and were then fully stated in early January 1939 ... were aimed at turning Poland into satellite of Nazi Germany, in the full loss of Poland in European politics, and, from my point of view, these requirements should not be in any way Call either justified or fair. It seems to me that the merit of the Polish leadership of that time was the fact that Poland was the first country, in fact, which rejected this Nazim pressure, dictate, and on January 8, 1939, at a meeting of the Polish leadership in the Royal Castle in Warsaw, it was decided to reject Hitler’s demands, and I think that this was making the honor of the then Polish leadership. ”
It is noteworthy that the rector of Mgimim Anatoly Torkunov, who holds this post now, participated in the same program. On the eve of the presidential elections in Russia in March 2024, he became one of Putin's proxies, and earlier Entered In a group of authors of a new single history textbook. In 2009, Torkunov did not try to argue with his colleague, on the contrary, agreed that Hitler’s claims to Poland had no reason and, even accepting these requirements, Poland could not maintain independence from the Third Reich.
At the same time, Stalin insisted that these republics that were formed were included in autonomous formations, but for some reason the founder of the Soviet state, Lenin, insisted that they had the right to withdraw from the Soviet Union. And, too, for unknown reasons, he endowed the lands formed by Soviet Ukraine, people living in these territories, even if they had never been called Ukraine before, for some reason, all this was “gained” into the Ukrainian SSR, including all the Black Sea deer, which was obtained during the time of Catherine II and, in fact, had no historical attitude towards Ukraine. Even if we recall, we’ll return back, 1654, when these territories returned to the Russian Empire, there were three or four modern regions of Ukraine, there was no close area there. There was simply nothing to talk about.
According to data All -Russian census 1897, the Little Russian (that is, the Ukrainian) language was native to most inhabitants on the most part of modern Ukraine (excluding the Odessa and Akkerman counties of the Kherson province, Crimea, as well as the Donetsk district of the Donskoy army). At the same time, native speakers of the Little Russian (Ukrainian) language made up the majority (in some cases overwhelming) in the population of a number of territories included in the 1920s in the RSFSR, and since 1991-the Russian Federation. These are, for example, parts of the current Krasnodar Territory (Temryuk, Yeisk and Yekaterinodar departments of the Kuban Cossack army), the Stavropol Territory (Medvezhensky district of the Stavropol province), the Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh regions (Putivlsky, Suzhansky and Gravoron districts of the Kursk province, and the Bogucharsky departure province). Soviet administrative borders held in the 1920s did not really correspond to ethnolinguistic, but the realities of the XVII century, when the word "Ukraine" had a completely different meaning than in the 20th century, had nothing to do with it.
After 1922, the borders of the Ukrainian SSR changed several more times. In September 1939, Soviet troops entered the territory of Poland and occupied its eastern part, which was included in the Belarusian and Ukrainian Soviet republics. Some of these lands were previously part of the Russian Empire, the other (Galicia) was not. Later, the Ukrainian SSR also included Chernivtsi region (The USSR was rejected with Romania in 1940) and Transcarpathian region (under an agreement between the USSR and Czechoslovakia in 1945). In all these territories, at the time of inclusion in the Ukrainian SSR, Ukrainians made up the majority of the population. Finally, in 1954 from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR was transmitted The Crimean region, the Soviet authorities referred to the "community of the economy, territorial proximity and close economic and cultural ties between the Crimean region and the Ukrainian SSR." Speaking about the Crimea, one cannot fail to take into account Mass deportation from there Tatars (19% of the inhabitants of the peninsula according to Census 1939) and representatives of some other peoples during the Second World War, which significantly changed the composition of the population. In 1989 Ukrainians composed Already over 25% of the inhabitants of Crimea, twice as much as in 1897.
[In 1991], I think, the leadership of Russia proceeded from the fundamental foundations of relations between Russia and Ukraine. In fact, a common language, there more than 90 percent spoke Russian ...
By Census 1989 Ukrainians made up 72.6% of the population of the Ukrainian SSR, Russians - 22%. At the same time, 33% considered the Russian language to be relatives, and about 45% also owned it (which is not surprising, given the state status of the Russian language in the USSR and its obligatory study in schools). By 2010, two decades after Ukraine gaining independence, these indicators Fell up to about 28% and 31%, respectively.
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