‘I met Putin once, at a congress in 2015. We exchanged a few words. What struck me was that his handshake was limp and plump, very different from the firm handshake I expected. He is probably a man who has known many insecurities in his younger years. If he feels that the West is insulting Russia, he takes it very seriously and personally. That is a dangerous situation, a dictator who imposes his personality on his country’, says British historian Orlando Figes.
Figes (62) has just retired as a professor of history at Birkbeck College in London. He became known for a series of successful books on Russian history, including Tragedy of a peoplea monumental study of the revolution of 1917. His new book, The Story of Russia, is about the way the Russians look at the past. History has become a weapon, justifying Putin’s power and the war against Ukraine.
I wrote this book because after 2014 I saw an increasing gap between the way we in the West understand Russian history, the way I taught myself for 35 years, and the way the Russians see it, especially since the manipulation. of collective memory by Putin’s regime,” he says, over the phone from London.
Catherine the Great, tsarina from 1762 to 1796, already said that Russia is so big that it needs an autocratic leader. In addition, it is a flat and open country with no natural borders, vulnerable to outside attacks. That is why Russia has always tried to increase its security by keeping its neighbors weak, writes Figes.
This includes a national mythology that sees Russia as a holy place defending Christianity, led by a leader with sacred powers who unites and protects its people from its enemies. Ukraine has a special position in this mythology.
Ukraine is the borderland that must protect the heart of the Russian Empire from the West, but also the spiritual cradle of Russian civilization, the place where Saint Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kyiv, was Christianized in 988. This story is now being recalled again. Russia is not an aggressive nation, it is said, but a large nation with fragile borders. Historically, Poland, the Baltic countries and Ukraine have been the buffer states protecting Russia. The West always tries to turn these states against Russia. In the summer of 2021, Putin wrote an essay arguing that the Poles and Lithuanians did this in the 17th century, the Austrians in the 19th century and the Germans at the end of World War I. And now the West is trying to turn Ukraine against Russia.’
And only a strong leader can save Russia.
The idea that Russia is vulnerable to invasion and in need of a strong leader goes back to the story of Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, who defeated the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century, or to the myth of Russia as the savior of Europe against Napoleon and savior. of the world against Nazism. Putin’s mythology is shared by many Russians, because they learned those stories in school and saw them in movies.’
Even Stalin is spoken of in positive terms again.
‘Putin is an anti-Bolshevik who has denounced the Stalinist repression. But he wants to restore pride in Russian history. All history, including the period of Stalin. He says: we don’t have to chastise ourselves all the time about what happened under Stalin. We should be proud of the achievements of the Soviet Union, because they are part of our history.’
Every country has its historical myths, but why are they so strong in Russia?
In my book I quote the historian Michael Cherniavsky, who says that life in Russia is so difficult that the Russians need to believe in some form of redemption, in a tsar as a holy protector or a revolutionary who takes the country to a new utopia.’
The Russian myths are a political reality that the West has not taken into account enough, Figes believes. The expansion of NATO to the East in the 1990s did not pay enough attention to Russian sensitivities. The same was true of Western action during the Maidan revolution of 2014. “There was a kind of tone deafness to the way Russia experienced the 2014 Ukraine crisis. Russia did not recognize the new regime, saw it as a government supported by the West and anti-Russian.”
But if Ukrainians want to belong to Europe, it is difficult to say: you are simply in the Russian sphere of influence, too bad for you?
‘I fully acknowledge that. And Ukraine has been an independent, sovereign state since 1991. But the West has made mistakes. Since 2008, Russia has not really been involved in Ukraine’s policy. The West did not take sufficient account of the Russian response, because it did not see Russia as a threat. President Obama said Russia was a second-rate power.”
Why did the West pay so little attention to the historical myths that are so important to Russia?
Western leaders did not want to face the problem. Even the annexation of Crimea in 2014 did not lead to severe sanctions. Russia got the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and companies just kept doing business. The West thought history didn’t matter. But this is a war on history.’
The story of Russia is a story of violence, oppression and despotic leaders, from Putin through Stalin to Ivan the Terrible, the first Tsar of Russia (1547-1584). At his coronation, the metropolitan of Moscow said: “The mortal body of the Tsar is like that of every man, but in his power he is like Almighty God.”
Russia has a patrimonial tradition, says Figes, in which no distinction is made between the state and the leader. The Tsar ran the state like his own household. In the census of 1897, Tsar Nicholas II listed the occupation as ‘owner of Russia’. The fact that Putin enriches himself and has a kitsch palace built in Crimea fits into this tradition, as does the position of the oligarchs. Figes: ‘The Tsar gave land to the boyars, the noblemen, but could also take it away if they fell into disgrace. The oligarchs are boyars. Putin may tell them to transfer millions to a bank account or invest in a particular city. Western analysts tend to put Western categories on it, such as ‘mafia state’, but it stems from Russia’s patrimonial tradition.’
Russia’s story shows how deep the roots of Putin’s system are, and how much his exercise of power fits with the stories Russia has been telling about itself for a long time. It is tempting to conclude that Russia is an incorrigible country, but it also has other traditions.
In the 19th century, a lively debate raged between pro-Western intellectuals and Slavophiles, who saw Russia precisely as the guardian of spiritual values against Western individualism and materialism. According to the Slavophiles, Russians were distinguished from Europeans by their devotion to the Church and the Tsar, as well as their willingness to sacrifice themselves for the Fatherland. The outcome of this debate was not certain. Under Tsar Alexander II, the country moved in a liberal direction. But when he fell victim to a bomb attack in 1881, his successor Alexander III chose a reactionary course.
Figes: ‘I don’t agree with a lazy stereotyping of the Russians as obedient, people who need a Tsar and only respond to coercion. In 1917 there was a revolution, there have been countless uprisings. For centuries, the core of Russian society was the village commune, a self-governing, democratic institution. It is not that there have never been democratic ideas. Only they were oppressed again and again by an all-powerful state.’
But is there an alternative to Putin right now?
‘No, I don’t see any improvement in the next generation. Even if the regime suffers defeat in this war, which seems unlikely to me, it will survive. If Putin is impeached, you get a Putin 2.0 that might be even worse. If Russia falls into a deeper crisis, it could become a fully totalitarian state again or develop a new form of fascism.’
How will the war end?
Historians don’t like to predict, but the war will last as long as the Americans in particular are prepared to fund Ukraine. It is unlikely that Ukraine can drive the Russians out of the Donbas and Crimea. If it moves into Crimea with NATO weapons, the situation could escalate quickly. Russia would see that as an existential threat and a justification for the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
The most likely scenario is that the West will eventually put pressure on Ukraine to negotiate. That can only happen if Russia wants to talk. The best we can hope for is that the West will continue to support Ukraine to fight, so that they can negotiate with a certain strength.”
This winter, the West’s stamina is already being tested.
‘We will see how seriously Western society wants to defend democracy. The omens are not good. Last weekend we saw a large demonstration in Prague against the high energy prices. We will see them in more cities. There is a possibility that these crowds will turn to nationalist and populist movements that promise cheaper gasoline because they can make a deal with Putin.”
Are the Russian people more willing to make sacrifices?
“The Russians are used to making sacrifices and prepared by propaganda that portrays the West as a force that wants to destroy Russia. Yesterday I saw the terrible propagandist Vladimir Solovyov on Russian television. He said something like: why is Russia the best country in the world? Because we live with a purpose. In the West they live only for material consumption, but that is not the meaning of life. In Russia, the national spirit is mobilized for a purpose, the Russian mission in the world.’
If you The Story of Russia Once you read through, you will notice once again how exceptional Mikhail Gorbachev was. How do you place him in Russian history?
‘He was cosmopolitan, western-oriented, someone who wanted an open Russia. He was a hero because he was a man of peace, who managed to dismantle the Soviet Union in a situation that could easily have led to civil war.
Yet he supported the annexation of Crimea in 2014. He supported Putin’s policies in Ukraine to the end of his life. I have not seen anywhere that he has disapproved of the February 24th raid. Why was Putin backed by this man, whom the West believed in, with whom it could do business, as Margaret Thatcher said? That should make the West think: the Russians have their own view of Ukraine and security, you have to pay serious attention to that.’