Tags: Interview, NYU, Professor Gennady Estraikh, Historical Education, #A Recipe for War, #Ukraine, #War
July 28, 2022
Recently, I had the great fortune to get to interview Professor Gennady Estraikh from NYU. The interview focused on his work, its connections to the ongoing War in Ukraine, and his views on various aspects of it. After our greetings, we kicked off the interview in the over-powering July heat.
Me: What is your field of study, and what are you currently working on?
Professor Estraikh: What I’m interested in, and what I’ve been working on for the past few decades, is Jewish Intellectual history, mainly in the former Soviet Union and sometimes extending into that of the late Russian Empire, but also in various other countries such as the United States. Recently, I’ve also moved to Jewish social history in the former Soviet Union.
Me: What is a unique perspective that your field of study provides on the Russo-Ukrainian War and the issues surrounding it?
Professor Estraikh: What’s really important to keep in mind is that knowledge of history has many benefits, but it’s also dangerous because those who know history also wield much power over those who don’t. For example, people in Russia are claiming, falsely, that Ukrainians are committing genocide against Russian speakers in Ukraine. They’re comparing the actions of the Ukrainian government to that of Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, and propaganda supporting this view can be found all over Russia. Perversions of history like this one are dangerous because they can be used to convince people to believe in lies. This was done in Nazi Germany, and it’s happening in Russia now.
Me: A recent blog post of mine discusses Ukrainian nationalism, and some of the darkest and most controversial episodes in its history, such as the role of the Banderivtsi, Ukrainian ultra-nationalists who waged an insurgency in Western Ukraine during World War II, in the Holocaust. ( Misunderstanding Ukrainian History) Have these episodes ever come up in your research? And do you feel that the Ukrainian government is perhaps ignoring this issue?
Professor Estraikh: This is no doubt a difficult issue in contemporary Ukraine. I have no doubt that Bandera (leader of the Banderivtsi) and the people associated with him were quite horrible people. There are arguments that they did horrible things to achieve Ukrainian independence, and we can find many parallels in struggles for independence waged by other people elsewhere. However, their motives don’t whitewash their actions by any means. Now, efforts being made by supporters of the Banderivtsi to improve their image in Ukraine and win over some segments of the population, especially in its Western part, are, from my vantage point, absolutely wrong. For example, when I went to a conference in Lviv a few years ago, I saw a rather ugly monument to Bandera not far from the Lviv train station. However, one colleague of mine told me that Ukraine is trying to, and should, build its contemporary identity based on other people, other heroes, not necessarily associated with the Banderivtsi and similar elements. However, this is all from my vantage point. I left Ukraine in 1976, and it’s difficult for me to judge what’s more important or less important to Ukrainians when they look at their history.
Me: This support for the Banderivtsi, the nationalists during the Russian Civil War, and the Cossacks like Bogdan Khmelnitsky, all of whom engaged in brutal violence and even genocide of Ukrainian minorities, is actually being pinpointed by the Russian government as part of its propaganda campaign as being a relatively common phenomenon in Ukraine. They claim that these groups are glorified everywhere in today’s Ukraine, and Ukraine’s government has even tried, to some extent, to improve its image. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the “de-Nazification of Ukraine” one of his main goals for the invasion, and he points in his propaganda to the existing monuments and tributes supporting Bandera in many places in Ukraine as “proof” that Ukraine is under the influence of these pro-Nazi elements. What do you think Ukraine can do to somehow fix this situation, to make Russian propaganda fail?
Professor Estraikh: First of all, we’re speaking about quite marginal elements in Ukrainian society. The results of the most recent votes in the Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, clearly show that supporters of such right-wing, extremist, Banderist ideas are a tiny, tiny minority. It’s important to keep this in mind. A similar tiny minority of right-wing extremists can be found even in the United States. Therefore, Putin’s idea of liberating Ukraine from Nazis is wrong by definition. It’s just pure propaganda. To refer to Khmelnytskyi, we’re referring to the period around 1648 to 1659. What was happening in other countries in that same period? In general, efforts to somehow address past cases of ethnic cleansing are becoming increasingly common, such as the efforts in the country where I’m currently located: the United Kingdom. When people remove monuments to people associated with slave owners and so on, this is a process for society in a situation other than the one that Ukraine is currently facing. Right now, Ukraine has other, far more significant problems. One day, I believe, decades from now, they’ll come to the process of removing such stains from their society and understanding of their past. Look, we see similar developments everywhere, so I’m sure that it will someday happen. Actually, right now I’m corresponding with the granddaughter of a Banderovets (a member of the Bandera movement). She’s doing everything in her power to distance herself from the Bandera movement due to its awful past.
Me: So, as you said, this Ukrainian ultra-nationalism and glorification of some of the most controversial figures in Ukrainian history are more on the fringe of Ukrainian society. However, in Russia, similar developments seem to be more mainstream. They’re even happening in the government. Recently, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov made several anti-Semitic remarks, and observers have noted that this shows that such ideologies that are on the fringe in some places are being increasingly supported by Russia’s government. So do you agree that this is a mainstream problem in Russia, and that little if anything is being done by the Russian government and Russian society to address it?
Professor Estraikh: Well, I left Russia in 1991, so my take is the take of an outsider. From what I’m hearing from family and friends, anti-Semitism is not what’s happening now in Russia. I find the remarks of Lavrov, who I remember was only a few years ago a nice, well-mannered, cultured, and progressive Russian ambassador at the UN, as a complete and remarkable transformation. I don’t think that he’s anti-Semitic. Let’s recall the fact that his son-in-law is Jewish. I believe that these remarks weren’t an episode of anti-Semitism. They were an episode of propaganda. It amazes me that such a well-educated and smart man said something rooted entirely in ignorance. There is something else that I can see now, though. Quite a few of the so-called “defectors” who have left Russia since the start of the Invasion have Jewish ancestry, and are, as a result, entitled to Israeli citizenship, and a significant number of such people did actually move to Israel after the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. This is indeed being discussed in Russia with some anti-Semitic connotations.
Me: Speaking of ignorance, do you think that this conflict is at least partially due to a lack of historical understanding in the US and Europe? I’ve discussed what I call the crisis of historical education several times, ( The Crisis of Historical Education in the United States) and I believe that more and more people in the US and Europe now see history as something that’s simply not relevant. Now, Putin has a very perverted view of history, but he does have a very good knowledge of historical facts, and he’s constantly justifying his actions using various historical events. Many people in the United States and Europe simply don’t know as much about historical events relating to Russian and Ukrainian history as he does. So do you think that the Western politicians and diplomats who failed to prevent the Russo-Ukrainian crisis and now don’t know how to end it got us into this situation simply out of ignorance and a failure to understand its history?
Professor Estraikh: There are now numerous publications about the role of Angela Merkel, a prominent figure in European and German politics, in the Russo-Ukrainian War. She received an East German education, which was modeled on the Soviet model, which had a strong emphasis on history. This ultimately didn’t stop her from making crucial mistakes that observers believe helped fuel the conflict. Of course, it’s important to know history. It’s very important. However, it’s still possible to make mistakes. And even with a knowledge of history, it’s still impossible to know what’s going on in the minds of Russia’s leaders. Some have argued that they have the mentality of a sect, which sees history in a different way than it should be. They really view history with numerous twists and turns, and it’s only possible to understand what they’re thinking by joining them in this sect. To outsiders, everything that they’re saying, thinking, and doing looks absolutely ridiculous, and makes no sense.
To be continued in Part 2…