Vladimir Putin the Historian
Moscow was once considered the third Rome, but in Vladimir Putin’s view it is more accurately the second Kyiv.
How many contemporary political leaders invoke early medieval history to justify their policies? My hunch is only one.
In a much cited but, I suspect, little read essay of 2021, available on the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library website, Vladimir Putin asserts that his view of the historical unity of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians is ‘not driven by some short-term considerations or prompted by the current political context’. On the contrary, he contends, it is grounded in the descent of all three from ‘Ancient Rus’’, and is manifest in their allegedly shared language and, above all, their Orthodox faith: ‘The spiritual choice made by St Vladimir, who was both Prince of Novgorod and Grand Prince of Kiev, still largely determines our affinity today.’
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