1703668370
Dec 25, 2023 10:02 p.m. | comment
The American historian Timothy Snyder attracted attention with his statement that he would “change the understanding of important world events” and with the help of the money of the Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk he wanted to focus on the Ukrainian past, which he wanted to pull out from the shadow of the Russian and Soviet narrative. It’s not the first time. Attention was also drawn to his previous statements in which he also commented on events in the Czech Republic, stating, for example, that the Czech Republic has no chance without the EU, which is an “existential need” for Central Europeans. He also sharply criticized some Czech presidents.
Photo:
Repro YouTube, brown
Description: Timothy Snyder
questionnaire
Does Andrej Babiš’s behavior in television debates and in the Chamber of Deputies bother you?
Voted: 29071 people
The British newspaper The Guardian reported at the end of November that historians had joined forces to free Ukraine’s past from Russia’s shadow – but some Czech media only now noticed this and reported on the founding of the Global Initiative for Ukrainian History “, which brings together 90 scientists who try to map the country’s historical contribution.
The London-based initiative aims to free Ukraine’s past from the shadow of Russian and Soviet narratives and focus on Ukraine’s historical periods associated with the ancient Greeks, the Byzantines and the Vikings who ruled over medieval Kievan Rus’. And Snyder believes it will change the way we understand important world events.
“The entire history of the Second World War looks different when you consider that Germany’s main war aim was the conquest of Ukraine.” And I dare say that the history of the 21st century looks different when you understand the reasons why “Ukraine resisted the Russian invasion,” Snyder said at the British Museum in London at the opening of the initiative, which is funded by Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk.
Photo gallery: – Conference on Ukraine
But who is the American historian Timothy Snyder who wants to change the understanding of important world events? A reminder of his strong views cannot be missed, for example his opinion on Europe and the Czech Republic itself. According to him, Central European nation-states like the Czech Republic are not functional units and, in his opinion, the European Union is much more important.
At a lecture at the Foreign Ministry in 2018, reported at the time by Czech television, Snyder said that Europeans had only two alternatives – empire or integration. At the time, he described Brexit as an expression of enormous irresponsibility and pointed out that, in his opinion, nation states were “fragile”.
For example, he mentioned the emergence of nation-states in the Balkans and the start of World War I, after which he bluntly stated that “European nation-states destroyed the world order.”
Photo gallery: – The whole Ukraine is singing
After the end of the First World War, Austria-Hungary, according to an American historian, “lost its colonies”, including Czechoslovakia, which, together with Poland and the Baltic states, began to build “their own myths of nation-states with a long tradition and great potential”. However, our country’s history was soon interrupted by the Munich Agreement and other historical events. However, according to Snyder, Munich’s annexation and the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact are not the triggers of the events of the 1930s. “I think there was something much more systematic at work ” he argued, arguing that nation-states are inherently fragile and weak.
“They don’t offer the big market that only an empire or an integration offers. “That is why the Central European states between the wars tied their economies to the export power Germany and gradually came into their sphere of influence,” said the historian, according to Czech television, and for him Munich and the “Anschluss” were “the end of the world.” Story.”
According to him, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, only the EU could mean existence, and Central Europeans then realized that joining the EU was an “existential necessity”. “Without them we would have suffered the same fate as in the interwar period,” claims the historian, adding that without the European Union we would probably no longer exist. We should admit that “nation states in Europe either did not exist at all or quickly failed” and that “the role of the EU is to ensure the statehood of the remnants of empires”.
Photo gallery: – Independence Day of Ukraine
In 2021, in an interview with Czech Radio, Snyder warned that Russia “certainly has its favorites among Czech politicians”, referring to then-President Miloš Zeman. “When we talk about the information space and Russia, your president is at the top of the list,” he said, noting that Zeman is “someone who is more than naive about Russia” and has a “terrible attitude towards Russia,” according to Press .”
He also took a dig at our former President Václav Klaus and regretted that, in his opinion, the Czech Republic was “much more the Czech Republic of Václav Klaus than the Czech Republic of Václav Havel”. “And I say that with regret,” said the American historian, adding that it was a “political competition between two moral ideas” between the two presidents.
“Havel’s idea was something like a horizontal community, the authenticity of the encounter between individual personalities, and politics was secondary; politics was about people being able to lead the life that they should lead authentically. For Klaus, however, politics was a tool to bring about some kind of economic change. “This economic transformation was pretty corrupt from the start, especially thanks to Mr. Klaus,” Snyder criticized the former Czech president.
Photo gallery: – Farewell to Trump
And Snyder’s views on American domestic politics were quite explosive. Although former US President Donald Trump was acquitted of allegations that his campaign team cooperated with the Russians in the 2016 election, an American historian said in an interview with SeznamZpravy.cz that he believes Russia helped Trump.
“They didn’t have much of a choice, they really don’t like Hillary Clinton. And they really like Donald Trump. So both things happened at the same time. Her motivation was very simple. They did not want the United States to continue to be the great power supporting the rule of law in the world. They wanted the United States to become another selfish, selfish, soulless oligarchy where politics is all about the leader. And that’s why they chose Mr. Trump. He’s pretty perfect in that way,” Snyder claimed.
We write:
Did you like this article?
You can support the independence of our editorial team with a monetary donation of any amount by transfer to the following account:
131-981500247/0100
The QR code contains payment information, determine the amount yourself.
Are you a politician? Publish what you want without editing. Register here. Are you a reader and want to communicate with your representatives? Register here. Advertising
The item contains labels
CRo, CT, EU, iDNES.cz, Klaus, Ukraine, Zeman, The Guardian, Trump, Snyder, Pinčuk, SeznamZprávy.cz, War in Ukraine
Ukraine (war in Ukraine)
Reports from the battlefield are difficult to verify in real time, regardless of whether they come from either side of the conflict. Both parties to the conflict may publish false (misleading) information in whole or in part for understandable reasons.
PL editorial content discussing this conflict can be found on this page.
War in Ukraine
Reports from the battlefield are difficult to verify in real time, regardless of whether they come from either side of the conflict. Both parties to the conflict may publish false (misleading) information in whole or in part for understandable reasons.
You can find updated brief information about this conflict several times an hour on ČTK on this page. PL editorial content discussing this conflict can be found on this page.
Author: Radek Kotas
#Professor #Snyder #loved #Prague #money #oligarch #result #Ukrainian #history