All language subtitles for Blackbox Ukraine Kampf um die Geschichte (2024)

I remember August 24

very much, 1991.

You know, the moment
when you are inside history.

Then there was this, "Yes!"

This result announced:

the independence of Ukraine.

Russians and Ukrainians
are one people.

What's happening is a huge tragedy,
akin to a civil war

between brothers.

They drip this poison
on the brains of children.

All the time.
That's what p*sses me off.

When you're
a professional historian,

you very often
have this uncomfortable feeling

that people are backing you
into a corner

and making you listen
to their pet theories about history.

With Mr Putin, it's like that,

except that he happens
to command a country.

This is a kind of declaration of war
with the weapon of history.

Ukrainians don't want their country

to become like Russia.

These positive mythologies

of individual historical figures

now primarily serve

to distance themselves from Russia.

This current war
is the continuation of

all these skeletons

in the closets which were left to

us by our grandfathers.

You have to tell the truth

from all sides
and from all the dark corners.

Moscow, May 2023.

In the midst of the war
against Ukraine,

President Vladimir Putin
is presented with a new discovery.

A copy of a French map

- from the 17th century,
during the reign of Louis XIV -

was found
in our Constitutional Court.

That is, in the middle,

even at the beginning

of the second half

of the 17th century,
it was created

by the French themselves.

Why did I bring it here?

Because with this,
there's no Ukraine.

- Of course.
- Yes, no Ukraine.

I think if you actually focus
on that map,

you'll find that the word Ukraine
is on the map.

UKRAINE -
LAND OF THE COSSACKS

Then you'll find that the word
Russia is not on the map,

if you look.
So...

it's a good example of how people
will see what they want to see

and not see
what they don't want to see.

A map, allegedly
without Ukraine on it -

a further detail in Vladimir Putin's

propaganda campaign
against the neighbouring country.

The Soviet government
created Soviet Ukraine.

There was no Ukraine before that.

When you expunge the history
of a people, of a nation,

that's quite something.

Putin is really obsessive.
He considers

history to be

a very important agent,
a very important factor

in politics.

For Putin, history is a weapon
in the information war.

He publishes
his own essays on history,

such as on Ukraine in 2021.

Putin even uses history lessons
to justify wars -

like three days before
the Russian invasion

of Ukraine in February 2022.

One must understand that Ukraine
has never had

an established tradition
of its own authentic statehood.

Ukraine is not just
a neighbouring country of ours.

It is an integral part
of our own history, our culture,

our intellectual space.

It's about our people...

The claim that Russia and Ukraine

constitute a single nation

is essentially a tyrannical claim.

It's a bit like if I said America

and Canada are one nation or

Germany and Austria are one nation.

We can discuss the history
of Russia and Ukraine.

But one can't begin
with that sort of claim

because that kind of claim
is about changing the world.

All the more important, then,

to tell the story of how Ukraine
became what it is:

a country whose history
is still a black box for many,

replete with secrets and myths.

Yet what constitutes Ukraine today
is above all

a reflection of European history.

This is a fascinating story because

if you're British or French
or German or American,

you are probably educated

in a scheme which says
that the European states

are rebuilt based on Charlemagne
and the Franks,

right?
And then Otto and the Germans.

But contemporary with that
is the age of the Vikings.

And if you consider
what the Vikings did,

it's a whole important story
of European state formation,

which we generally tend to skip.

As early as the 9th century,
a people

set off
into the vastness of the East:

the Vikings.

They went from Scandinavia across
the Baltic Sea, to Eastern Europe.

They crossed the Dnipro,
travelling deep into the land

of the Slavs -

a land that would later be named
after the Scandinavian word "Rus".

In the case of Rus,

it probably has something to do
with somebody who rows a boat.

They're looking for trade routes
and they find a trade route

from the Baltic Sea
down to the Black Sea

which goes through the Dnipro river.

So they take over what had been
a hazard garrison in Kyiv

and turn it into their own trading
post and then their own capital.

After storming the small
Slavic post of Kyiv

on the high banks of the Dnipro,

the Vikings subjugate the country.

One of their most powerful leaders
becomes Prince Volodymyr.

The origins of the Kyivan state
in the 10th century

have to do with
a fantastically interesting

moment of confluence.

The conquerors from the north
trade extensively with the south.

Their route leads across
the Black Sea to Constantinople,

today's Istanbul.

Constantinople was the metropolis
of Christianity at the time.

The Vikings adopted
the Cyrillic alphabet,

the language and the religion -

today's Orthodox Christianity.

988

Prince Volodymyr

is baptised in 988...

and made Kyiv the centre
of Orthodox Christianity.

Kyiv becomes the incubator
of a new empire.

The old Kyiv Rus

spans the Baltic to the Black Sea.

Moscow does not yet exist.

KYIVAN RUS

This great empire
of the Middle Ages extended

across the settlements
of present-day Russia,

i.e. the west of present-day Russia,
Belarus and Ukraine.

But talking about Ukraine
and Russia in the Middle Ages

is nonsensical anyway.

In other words, they were not
Russians and Ukrainians.

We don't know how they felt,
for heaven's sake.

I often compare this
to stories such as those

of Charlemagne's dominions.

In principle, we know
that neither modern Germans

nor modern French lived there.

Similarly, neither modern Ukrainians

nor modern Belarusians
and Russians lived in ancient Rus.

But all three nations

have built

their cultural history
and mythology

on the origins of Rus.

Vladimir Putin goes even further.

He derives his very own message

from the story
of Kyiv's "Volodymyr",

which is "Vladimir" in Russia.

In 2016,

he inaugurated a new statue
of Vladimir in Moscow

and honoured the prince
as the unifier of a Russian country.

His message to the world:
I will do the same!

Prince Vladimir united and

defended the Russian lands,
making history in the process.

As a visionary politician,

he created the basis for a strong

and centralised state.

A peculiarity of Putin's is that

he takes what he needs
from historical science,

twists everything
and uses it for his own ends.

That's the history
which Putin now tries to build,

to have a world
according to his faith.

Yeah? To build a world
according to his faith.

Putin's narrative is catching on.

The narrative of a shared history
between Ukraine and Russia

is persistent.

Yet everything
was completely different.

After the collapse of Kyiv Rus,

Ukraine began writing
its very own history.

For centuries,
from... the 14th

to the 17th century,

the whole of Ukraine
belonged to Poland-Lithuania.

And of course that helped
shape this country.

It belonged to Poland for much
longer than it did to Russia.

The territory of Ukraine
became a kind of golden land

for the largest and most enlightened
empire of the late Middle Ages:

Poland-Lithuania.

You can think of this as a kind of

age of discovery, age of exploration
where the Poles are doing in a way

much the same thing that
other Europeans are doing elsewhere.

They're exploring, doing scientific
expeditions, making maps and so on.

Poland,
which is culturally very confident,

is also finding ways to make
huge amounts of money by

exploiting local populations.

Ukraine is of such importance
to the Polish nobility

that they have the country
precisely mapped -

by the French cartographer

Guillaume le Vasseur de Beauplan.

He produced the first exact map

of the country in 1639,

which was later copied
all over Europe.

He also provides a detailed
description of Ukraine -

the word means
something like "borderland",

between steppe and
the fertile soils of the Dnipro.

The black earth of Ukraine

is a kind of historical constant
all the way through.

And Poland has a model
of controlling

agriculture,
of building plantations.

At that moment that Poland
pushes into Ukraine.

Ukrainian agriculture
makes the Polish nobility rich.

The country is characterised
by a predominantly Catholic Poland,

and the languages,
Polish and Ukrainian, are close.

We have influences from

from Central and Western Europe on
Ukraine via Polish intermediation.

Humanism, the Reformation,

Jesuit schools.

Even earlier, the municipal charter,
for example -

these are all things that existed

or still exist in Ukraine

and have practically
never existed in Russia.

So this orientation towards the West
by way of this long affiliation

is very important today, especially
for the self-image of Ukrainians.

Many people will remember
that President Zelenskyy

said exactly this
in one of his speeches

at the beginning
of the Russian invasion:

that the Poles

were the true brother nation
of the Ukrainians.

This is a nice thesis,

which can be understood
in the context

that Polish society

immediately perceived this war
as their war

from the day of the invasion
on 24 February 2022.

Poles have loved
their Ukraine for centuries.

Yet conflicts arise
in the 17th century...

The Poles are the masters.

In a way which I think most people
now would regard as colonial

because it involved a relatively
small number of people

controlling
a much larger number of people.

Meanwhile, an empire
is growing in the east

that is not yet called Russia:
the Muscovites,

who had been ruled
by the Mongols for centuries.

THE PRINCIPALITY OF MOSCOW

IVAN THE TERRIBLE
FILM, SOVIET UNION, 1944

Ivan the Terrible rules Moscow
in the 16th century.

A brutal tsar

who uses violence to unite the
country dispersed by the Mongols

and lead it to new greatness.

And henceforth the righteous sword

shall flash against anyone

who tries to jeopardise

glorious Russia

from the outside.

In 2015, Volodymyr Zelenskyy

portrays Ivan the Terrible
in the series

Servant of the People
for Ukrainian TV.

SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE
TV SERIES, SEASON 1

Servant of the People

is a television series

that was a huge success in Ukraine

and made Volodymyr Zelenskyy

very popular.

In the series,

the actor Zelenskyy

plays a history teacher

who becomes
president of Ukraine by chance.

In the series, Zelenskyy
repeatedly makes fun of

the myths of Ukrainian
and Russian history,

thus the different influences
of Kyiv and Moscow.

While on a political talk show, Ivan
the Terrible appears before him.

Generally this whole serial,
this

Servant of the People...

Of course, it's kind of

a humorous fantasy about

Ukraine. But at the same time,
it shows the power of the myth.

Come closer, young man.
I want to tell you something:

The damned must suffer.

You must impale them. Wheel them.

Smash their kneecaps!

Pour red-hot lead into their mouths!

But Ivan, that's illegal.

But you are the law.
You are the Tsar!

No, I'm not a tsar.

- Then who are you?
- The Ukrainian president.

Ukrainian? I beg your pardon?

Like, the Grand Prince of Kyiv?

Call me whatever you like.

You are certainly

still suffering
under Poland and Lithuania.

Stay brave, blood brothers,

we will soon liberate you.

No, thank you.
We don't need to be liberated.

- What?
- We want be part of Europe.

- What? Which Europe?
- Well, Europe.

We are Slavs. We are blood brothers!

There you go with the blood again.

You go one way, we go another.

Let's go our separate ways
and meet again in 300 years.

- What other path?
- We have our own path.

- A different one?
- Just a different one.

We have a common path!

You go your own way,

we go a different way.
We are different.

This great bitter irony
in this dialogue,

because it is definitely
about mocking

the attitude of Russians

towards Ukraine,
that they do not understand Ukraine.

They do not understand why
Ukraine wants to be independent.

And they insist on the idea

that we are one single people.

I'm not sure if this scene
is funny for the Ukrainians.

In this sketch, in fact,

Ivan the Terrible

embodies Putin in a way,

a Putin who says,

"You can't take any other path
than we do.

You want to turn to Europe?
That's not going to happen!"

What Zelenskyy portrays in 2015
is a narrative

that has been Ukraine's
fateful question for centuries:

Independence or dependence?

A question of fate that preoccupied
the Ukrainian Cossacks,

who dominated what is present-day
Ukraine in the 17th century,

on both sides of the banks
of the Dnipro.

The Cossacks were a people
of freebooters,

mercenaries, fishermen and farmers.

And they increasingly came into
conflict with the Polish nobility.

They are named
after their headquarters -

an island in the rapids
of the Dnipro River:

the Zaporozhian Sich,

which is now commemorated
by a replica of the historic site.

And when this rather
large group of people

live on the lower reaches
of the Dnipro

and are not, at least formally,
subject to the Warsaw authorities,

they build this Sich -

a kind of...

fortified settlement.

And when you came through

the Sich gate, there was a church
and houses for the Cossacks.

But the most important thing

was this central square
where the Cossacks

gathered to organise their
most important affairs, the Maidan.

More than three centuries later,

the democratic movements
of independent Ukraine

would gather on Kyiv's
central square, the Maidan.

Most recently in 2013 and 2014,
when Ukrainians

protested in favour
of turning to the West

and against Russian influence
on their country.

And this square was compared

to the Zaporozhian Sich.

During the Maidan protests,
politicians were on the tribune,

especially in the evenings.

They made collective decisions

together

with the demonstrators.

And that type of decision-making

existed during the Cossack period.

The crucial aspect
is that internal order

for the Cossacks
was extremely significant.

I once used the slogan
"freedom, equality and brotherhood"

to describe their outlook,
like from the French Revolution.

A Cossack, as an individual,

was free and held their freedom
above absolutely everything else.

This is where
Ukraine's legend began

and it is still ubiquitous
even centuries later,

still to this day.

UKRAINIAN ARMY UNIT
2022

The most striking example
is the Ukrainian national anthem.

The refrain is constantly repeated:
"With our bodies and souls,

we fight for our freedom,

and we will show that we
are descendants of the Cossacks".

The Cossacks' desire for freedom

led them to conduct more
and more revolts against Ukraine's

ruling class: the Polish nobility.

The largest national uprising
in the early modern period

in Eastern Europe
took place in 1648.

Its leader
was Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky.

Glorious Cossacks,

true sons of Ukraine,

have been executed in Warsaw,

their tendons

torn from their living bodies!

Are we to wait
for such a disgraceful death,

or shall we stand up and fight?

For our fatherland! For our freedom,
for our honour!

For the lives of our people!

Khmelnytsky's Cossacks managed

to free the majority of Ukraine
from Polish rule.

He and his men then marched
into Kyiv.

The Cossack leader then set out

to establish an independent group
of leaders in Ukraine,

called the Hetmanate.

At the same time,

he saw himself as a protector
of Orthodoxy against Catholicism.

Khmelnytsky was
an extraordinary figure,

since he achieved so much
in so little time.

But that doesn't at all mean

that he wasn't also someone

with a problematic side, too.

Khmelnytsky's rebellion was not
only a war for freedom,

but also a religious war.

The Orthodox-Christian Cossacks

murdered thousands
of Polish Catholics,

and this also led to a massacre
of Jewish Ukrainians.

Yes, the uprising of 1648-1649

is overshadowed

by the horrendous pogrom
against Jews

that was not only carried out
by the Cossacks

against the Jewish population,

but also by Ukrainian farmers.

It is estimated
that at least 20,000 Jews

were murdered,

an enormous amount for that time.

Jews in Ukraine
believed themselves to be safe.

But Khmelnytsky put an end to that.

In the collective Jewish memory,

in Jewish chronicles and history,

the Khmelnytsky Rebellion
is recorded and remembered

as one of the worst catastrophes
to ever befall the Jewish people.

But Poland was not going
to simply take the loss of Ukraine.

It had one of Europe's
most powerful armies under arms.

So Khmelnytsky decided to turn
to a fellow Christian for help:

Tsar Alexis I in Moscow.

In 1654, an agreement
was successfully reached

in the city of Pereiaslav,

about 100 kilometres from Kyiv.

Pereiaslav was the attempt

by the Cossacks to try
to stay in the fight.

When the Polish army
was finally mobilised

and the Cossacks
were being defeated

and their allies had abandoned them,

they then sought...
They looked for another ally.

Muscovy, at the time,
was a pretty much unknown power

for the Cossacks, something which
they didn't know very much about.

It spoke a foreign language.

So when the Russians
and Ukrainians spoke at Pereiaslav,

they had translators
to understand each other.

Bohdan took an oath to serve
under the patronage of the Tsar,

to be his "eternal subject",
as stated in the agreement.

But that exact phrase

was interpreted very differently
by both parties.

The Cossacks believed

that this
was an agreement of equals.

The Russian Tsar may have been
a bit more important than them,

but they absolutely intended to keep
their autonomy and their rights.

But the representative from Moscow
saw things very differently.

The image of Khmelnytsky
as a devoted ally

of the Russian people

was, of course,
the perfect propaganda.

In 1941, the Soviets portrayed
the Ukrainian hetman

as a figure who united
Russians and Ukrainians.

One who spoke Russian, of course...

Kyiv is rising up!

Glory to the Russian people...

to our brothers...

who stand by our side
in this terrible struggle.

Soon, the day will come...

when brother unites with brother...

and nothing will ever
be able to break us apart.

Exactly 300 years
after the 1654 agreement,

a Soviet leader in Moscow
turned it into a date

of historical significance.

It has to do with

a very intelligent politician,
called Nikita Khrushchev.

In 1954, Khrushchev

was trying to solve the problem

inside the Soviet Union

of the relationship
between Ukraine and Russia.

And he found a solution,
which was to say that,

"Yes, Ukraine and Russia
are different,

but Ukrainians chose,

hundreds of years ago,
to always be together with Russia".

And the way that he made that case

was by having, in 1954,
so 300 years later,

a series of Soviet-wide celebrations
of this 300-year anniversary.

And it was that moment,
it was 1954, which made 1654

seem so important.

Despite their turning to Moscow,

the Cossacks still dreamt
of independence and freedom.

Their heroic deeds made them famous
all over Europe.

In the 17th and 18th centuries,

Ukraine was very well-known
in the West.

Especially in the 17th century,
Western newspapers were full

of reports

about the Cossacks' heroic deeds.

One of those heroes from Europe's
"Wild East" was Hetman Ivan Mazepa,

one of the last, great leaders
of the Cossacks.

He was a highly-educated,
wealthy bon vivant.

Mazepa was
an exemplary baroque figure,

you know, with all these stories,

all these love stories and women.

This Don Juan or Casanova

of these wild Eastern steppes

from 300 years ago.

My God, you know?

For centuries,
Mazepa's legendary life has been

a subject for poets and artists.

But the real Mazepa
was facing a dilemma.

In order to maintain
the Cossack Hetmanate,

he sided with Tsar Peter I,
who had since taken power.

They were even friends.

But Mazepa was fearful
of Peter's expansionism.

Until he switched sides in 1708.

The King of Sweden, Charles XII,

was involved in a never-ending war
with Peter I,

and he ended up also going
to Ukraine at some point.

Mazepa decided to seize the occasion

to move away from Peter I

and to side with Charles XII,

the arch-enemy of Russia.

However, during the decisive Battle
of Poltava,

the Swedes and Mazepa's army
of Cossacks were defeated.

Today, Mazepa is considered
a hero in Ukraine,

since he made one last attempt
to free Ukraine,

so to speak, from Russia's hold.

Ivan Mazepa's defection
to the Swedes, to the West,

was a very decisive moment
in Ukraine's history.

The narrative of Ukraine's betrayal
of Russia

has echoed through the centuries
until today.

Peter is the most-loved figure
in Russia today,

and Mazepa is the man
who betrayed Peter,

the epitome of being a traitor.

And the term "Mazepinsi",
or "Mazepist",

is still used to this day

to describe the disloyal Ukrainians.

SAINT PETERSBURG
1774

In 1774, a delegation

of Zaporozhian Cossacks visited
the capital of the Russian empire,

where Catherine II, "the Great",
had since taken power.

The Cossacks arrived with a request

to maintain their territory
in the Zaporozhian Sich.

They were facing
more and more pressure.

The moment was depicted
in this Soviet film.

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
SOVIET UNION

Stand!

We shall not stand, Mother.
We shall die and not stand.

His Highness...

has promised to introduce me
to some of my people,

whom I have never seen before.

Are you being treated well?

Yes, thank you, Mother.
The food is excellent.

Although the mutton...

is not at all like the mutton
that we have in Zaporizhzhia.

But we are coping just fine.

But that is pure fiction.

In actuality, Catherine
never granted them an audience.

Though the Cossacks did speak
to a few court nobles,

they still ended up
going home empty-handed.

Catherine II had every intention
of expanding the Russian Empire

and modernising it.

And overall, the empire did,
of course,

expand and gain a reputation.
There had not been

such an equal player
on the international scene

since the time of Peter I.

My Russian comrades!

The Fatherland
will never forget you!

Catherine II actually only continued

what Peter had started.

They both waged many wars,
and the Russian Empire

did expand,
especially under Catherine,

until even a large portion
of Ukraine also fell

to Russia at the end
of the 18th century.

Catherine II conquered
massive swathes of land,

including Poland and the Baltics.

Russia soon bordered Germany.

In 1783,

she took the Crimean Peninsula
from the Turks,

as well as a wide strip of land
along the Black Sea.

Catherine named
this region "Novorossiya",

New Russia.

She founded new cities,
including Kherson, Odessa

and Yekaterinoslav,
modern-day Dnipro.

The Empress relentlessly colonised
the territories:

She introduced the Russian language,

pulled the majority
of Ukrainian farmers into serfdom

and granted large estates
to high-ranking officials.

Catherine is an interesting person.

She's not really a Russian
in any meaningful way.

She's a German, and her view of what
to do with the Russian Empire

was very European,
in the sense of enlightenment.

What she tried to do
in what's now Southern Ukraine

is to establish a kind

of pure, enlightened district.

Not enlightened in the sense
of democratic or liberal at all,

but enlightened in the sense
of centralising the Russian Empire.

In 1775,

one year after
the Ukrainian Cossacks' visit,

Catherine II ordered for their base,

the Zaporozhian Sich,
to be crushed.

The free Cossacks and farmers
were a threat to her empire.

On the one side,
Catherine suppresses the Cossacks.

On the other side,

by claiming control
of these territories for Moscow,

she is preparing the way for Ukraine
as we now understand it.

The monument to Catherine II
and the founders of Odessa

is no longer standing.

It was taken down
during the first year

of Russia's war of aggression.

That is the logic
that still dominates

the Ukrainian narrative:

that Catherine was,
first and foremost, an empress

who destroyed

the Cossacks and the autonomy
of Ukraine.

But, from the Russian perspective,

she was the person who developed
the south,

including Crimea.

And those two notions
come into conflict in that region.

Catherine II

put an end to the era
of the free Ukrainian Cossacks,

who had shaped the history
of Ukraine for almost 200 years.

But the legend of the Cossacks
would survive.

Basically, the Cossacks transformed
into a symbol

for the desire for freedom.

For liberation from oppression.

And then, in Ukrainian literature...

especially in the 19th century,

this defining,

romantic image of the Cossacks
as the personification

of Ukraine emerged,

to the point that it even became
"Cossacks equal Ukraine".

And Taras Shevchenko's poetry
played a decisive role in that.

Taras Shevchenko,

one of the most significant figures
of identification in Ukraine...

A poet...

Shevchenko is to Ukrainians

what Pushkin is to Russians.

I think Shevchenko's significance

is of course tied

to the life that he had.

DREAM
SOVIET UNION

And also to his poetic works,

which made an impression on people
at that time and still today.

And the story goes

that Shevchenko was born
into serfdom.

- Hello there!
- Who are you?

Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko.

Taras was born the son
of a serf-farmer

in 1814, near Kyiv.

He was then a "domestic Cossack"
for a Russian landowner,

a servant that had to dress
in traditional Ukrainian garb.

When the landowner moved
to Saint Petersburg,

he took Taras with him.

His talent for drawing
was noticed there,

and he became a popular painter.

When he was 24,
Taras managed to buy his way

out of his servitude

and then dedicated himself
to his writing.

His poems are about
his Ukrainian homeland

and the bondage
of the Ukrainian people.

Taras Shevchenko wrote a poem

called The Dream,
that appeared in 1844.

In this dream, he is standing
before the monument in St Petersburg

that Catherine had erected
for Peter,

and he then goes on
to criticise them both.

It ends with him describing
how both of them

had actually devastated Ukraine.

Basically, he ends up calling them
"executioners and cannibals".

In Saint Petersburg,

where Shevchenko's poems
were first published,

a scandal broke out.

Not only were his texts seen
as rebellious and inflammatory,

but they were also written
in Ukrainian.

Tsarist Russia held
a very clear position on that.

At that time,

the Ukrainian language,

or the "Little Russian" language,
as it was called then,

was considered purely
a dialect of Russian.

National ideas of freedom
and self-determination,

written down in Ukrainian.

Together, they brought Taras
into conflict with those in power,

initially earning him confinement
in a fortress

before being exiled for 10 years
in the far east of the Empire.

"It is impossible not to care
that Ukraine is being killed

by such evil people.

They will destroy Ukraine,
evil-doers, burn it down.

They will plunder and rob it.
I care deeply."

Before Shevchenko,
there was this belief

that the Ukrainian language,
the language of farmers,

was not suitable for philosophical

or poetic works.

But Shevchenko proved

that it actually is,

and that is why he is often seen,

if not as the creator,
but as the highest stage

in the development
of Ukrainian literary language.

I still can recite

many poems by him by heart,
just because

they stick to your memory.

It is really very impressive.
"The mighty Dnieper

roars and bellows,

the wind in rage howls..."

THE MIGHTY DNIEPER

In 2014, 200 years after his birth,

Taras Shevchenko was more present
in Ukraine than ever before.

As Western-oriented Ukrainians
protested in Kyiv's Maidan Square

for a new shift towards Europe,

and against Russia's influence
on their politics,

the 19th-century poet
was once again transformed

into a symbol
of their fight for freedom.

After the large-scale invasion
in 2022,

there are now statues

of Taras Shevchenko

that have been damaged by bombings.

Some statues even have...
bullet holes in their heads

and they've become symbols
of Ukrainian resistance.

If you pay attention to this war,
you hear Russians say

there are Polish mercenaries
all over Ukraine.

What they mean is, they keep hearing
the Ukrainian language,

but they're so sure
that it doesn't exist,

they decide that this thing
I don't understand must be Polish.

After Shevchenko's death,

the Ukrainian language has
an even harder time...

In 1876,

Russian Tsar Alexander II
banned the printing

and distribution
of Ukrainian writings.

He says he wants to eradicate
Ukrainian propaganda,

which he sees as a threat

to the secession of Ukraine
from his rule.

Modern Lviv, in western Ukraine.

Around 1900,
the city is called Lemberg

and belongs to Austria-Hungary,
to the Habsburg Monarchy.

Here, the Ukrainian national
movement can develop freely -

outside of Tsarist Russia.

When Ukrainian culture and language
are effectively banned in Russia,

some of the leading
Ukrainian writers,

including a very famous historian
called Mykhailo Hrushevsky,

immigrate from the Russian Empire
to the Habsburg Monarchy.

And the Habsburg Monarchy
is important because

it does have a district
which they call Galician,

the eastern part of which

is home to a couple of million
people who speak Ukrainian.

Lemberg is the capital of Galicia,

a multi-ethnic city
in which Poles, Germans,

Jews and Ukrainians live
peacefully side by side.

There are Ukrainian schools
and an academy.

For the Ukrainian historian
Mykhailo Hrushevsky

and his fellow campaigners,
Lemberg is the ideal place

to formulate their ideas
for an independent Ukraine.

You have open politics.

You have civil rights from
the equivalent of the constitution.

You have freedom of the press.

You have all kinds of newspapers
and all kinds of languages.

The Austrian Habsburg Empire

was much more tolerant

of other languages and cultures
than the Russian Empire.

In Lemberg, Mykhailo Hrushevsky

writes the first history
of Ukraine.

His assertion:

Ukrainians and Russians are
two different peoples.

He becomes a fighter
for Ukrainian independence

and develops precise ideas
for a free Ukraine.

As the First World War rages
in Europe a little later,

the chance of an independent Ukraine
seems more favourable than ever.

The end of the First World War was
a moment of imperial destruction

all throughout Central
and Eastern Europe.

The Ottoman Empire falls apart.

The German Empire falls apart.

The Habsburg Monarchy falls apart,

and the Russian Empire had
already fallen apart a year before.

And a common theme
of the reaction to the...

the disintegration of empire was
national self-determination.

And this includes Ukraine.

In 1917, the dream
of the Ukrainian national movement

around Mykhailo Hrushevsky
comes true.

They proclaim the first Ukrainian
People's Republic in Kyiv.

But the young republic is weak

and threatened to be torn apart
at the end of the First World War,

primarily by the forces
of the collapsing Russian Empire.

They're caught between the Russian
Imperialists, the so-called Whites,

and the Bolsheviks,
the so-called Reds.

And in this setting,

it's very hard to establish
a nation state.

Especially as a man takes power
in Russia who will change the world:

the revolutionary
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

and his Bolsheviks -
the Communists.

They conquer Kyiv in 1919.

This is followed by three years
of bloody civil war

with millions of deaths,
which Lenin's troops win.

In 1922,

Ukraine becomes communist
and part of the Soviet Union.

Lenin is a ruthless but very
intelligent political tactician.

And so, what he says is that

everybody has the right
to self-determination,

so long as this doesn't contradict
the overall project of revolution.

And the way they dealt with it
was by

creating a national republic
called Ukraine.

So they were trying to acknowledge
the reality of the Ukrainian nation.

But at the same time,
build up a state

which was actually run
by the Communist Party.

For Russian President
Vladimir Putin today,

the Ukrainian state

is exclusively the work
of Lenin's Bolsheviks.

So, let me start
with the fact that

modern Ukraine
was entirely created

by Russia.

More precisely, by Bolshevik,
communist Russia.

Today it can justifiably be called

Vladimir Lenin's Ukraine.

He is its author and architect.

As so often, Putin only tells
one half of the story.

He fails to mention that Ukraine
was founded by Hrushevsky

and his national
independence movement first.

So I said that Putin

likes to use historical concepts

for his own interests.
In this case, he is simply lying,

because the Ukrainian state
was proclaimed by people

who had nothing to do with Lenin.

The young Soviet Union promoted

the national culture of Ukraine
in the 1920s.

These processes took place
not only in Ukraine,

but in the entire Soviet Union.

This was called the policy
of indigenisation, that is,

the culture of indigenous peoples
was developed and supported.

So what was their aim?

It was assumed that
tsarism had suppressed

cultural diversity

and that the Bolsheviks would now
give it the opportunity to flourish.

That was really, you know,
an important thing, OK, big deal.

So Ukrainian schooling,
Ukrainian institutions,

Ukrainian Academy,
the development of...

of all these things
that were banned or halted,

you know, in the tsarist period.

In the 1920s,
Ukrainian art and architecture

experience a heyday
that is hardly known today.

In Kyiv and Kharkiv,

artists' groups
and art academies are founded.

Artists such as the Ukrainian-Polish
avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich

live and work in Ukraine.

These years become known
as the "Ukrainian Renaissance" .

This also includes the filmmaker
Oleksandr Dovzhenko, who is seen

as the most important Ukrainian
director of the 20th century.

His films are like windows
into the history of the country,

which he portrays as a boundless
territory full of fertile soil.

EARTH
SOVIET UNION, 1930

We have several dozen

first-class contemporary
European-level artists,

scholars, writers,

cinema makers from this period

that is still fantastic.

I think that
Ukrainians themselves still

do not realise the level

of what was produced in 1920s
and beginning of 1930s

by Ukrainian culture.

These five years that was,

in fact, everything, what we've got

under the Soviets.

All the rest of the Soviet times,
we were colony.

It is true that

this heyday of the 1920s

suffered its first terrible blow

as early as 1929...

At the end of the 1920s,

Joseph Stalin rules
the Soviet Union.

Stalin declares 1929 the year
of "The Great Turn" -

and begins to undertake
an ambitious plan:

to transform the Soviet Union
into an industrial power.

But Stalin needs money to
push ahead with industrialisation.

Money he wanted to raise from the
sale of grain on the world market.

In 1932, Moscow enacted
the "Law of Three Spikelets":

The entire harvest in Ukraine
and the rest of the empire

is now considered state property.

Farmers no longer owned
their harvest.

Not even three ears of corn.

Theft meant imprisonment
or the death penalty.

If Moscow demands

a certain quantity of grain,
it doesn't matter if people die.

The requirements must be met.

Stalin also forces peasants
to give up their farms

and join large socialist farms,

collective farms
where no one owns property.

And when you have to carry out
the economic transformation,

which from the Soviet
point of view means

when you have to nationalise or as
they say, collectivise agriculture,

then you look at Ukraine
in a different way.

And the Ukrainian peasants
who resist collectivisation,

they're the problem because they
don't want to lose private property.

They're the problem because

they think they belong
to a different nation.

In the autumn of 1932,

the first reports
came from the villages

that people were starving because
their grain had been taken away.

Everything was taken away.

At first,

the Ukrainian party leadership

actually decided
to turn to Stalin and ask for help.

Stalin was furious,
because how is it that he wants

such an amount, and they write
to him, "There's a famine, help".

He was furious. He removed
these people from their positions

and sent new people from Moscow

who would not ask for help.

The governments in the West

turn a blind eye
to the famine caused by Stalin.

The empire in the East

is too important
as an economic and trading partner.

The economic situation
in the West was really bad,

and many people,
even intellectuals, said,

"Look, here's the solution

to the problem:

collectivisation,
a planned economy".

In a way, people admired Stalin.

Almost unnoticed
by the world public,

starvation and death continue
in Ukraine.

In 1933,

after almost two years
of state-induced famine,

around four million people are dead.

To understand why this topic
of the Holodomor is so painful,

why it immediately causes
such an emotional reaction

for many Ukrainians,
crying and so on,

it is important to know
that it was a catastrophe

created by the government,
that is, the Stalinist government.

It's trauma that's
never spoken about.

Realise that in Ukraine,

this famine was
never discussed publicly

until the end of the 1980s.

The memory of it was preserved
within families,

families passed on knowledge
of the event,

but there is no monument,
no book published

in the USSR

on this famine of 1932, 1933.

In Ukraine,
the Holodomor has become

a crucial national reference point

in recent years.

The question that soon arose was

whether it was genocide

or was it

a crime against humanity.

In Ukraine,
the government declared the famine

a genocide against
the Ukrainian people by law in 2006.

Since then, denial of the Holodomor
has been a criminal offence.

From 2022,

the start of Russia's war
of aggression against Ukraine,

numerous countries officially
recognise the Holodomor as genocide.

There is a kind of parade
of recognition of Holodomor

as a genocide by

different countries,
different political forces.

It is not just a matter
of recognition as such.

It is just a matter
of political solidarity

with Ukraine
in their struggle against Russia.

I don't want to offend

the people of Ukraine,

but I think that all these decisions

to recognise the Holodomor
as genocide are purely political.

Just like the response

of Russian historians
close to the state

who say there was no such thing.

That is also political.

Russian historians argue that

the Holodomor represents
only a part of Stalin's crimes.

At the time, millions of people

also suffered in other parts of the
Soviet Union, not just in Ukraine.

But do we understand just

what this means for that society?
I don't think so.

Because the four million dead
isn't just a number,

the four million dead is
a terrifying experience.

Do we understand how central it is
for Stalinism? I don't think so.

I think the famine is
the beginning of Stalinism.

Under Stalin, not only
the peasants and rural inhabitants

of Ukraine are exterminated.

Ukrainian intellectuals and artists
were also imprisoned, executed

or disappeared in the camps
of the Soviet Gulag.

Kazimir Malevich, a native of Kyiv,

paints the peasant women
of this time without a face -

but with the colours
of his beloved Ukraine.

21 October 1933,

Republic of Poland, Lviv again,

now Polish - Lwów.

In the middle of the day,
19-year-old student

Mykola Lemyk walks
into the Soviet consulate

and shoots a special diplomatic
representative of Stalin.

Lemyk is arrested
at the scene of the crime

and brought to trial
shortly afterwards.

His motive for the murder:

revenge for the millions
starving to death in Ukraine.

He wanted to attract
worldwide attention with his trial.

Lemyk belongs to the Organisation
of Ukrainian Nationalists,

OUN for short,

and is acting
on behalf of its leader,

Stepan Bandera -

one of the most controversial
figures in Ukrainian history.

Bandera and the OUN want
an independent Ukraine -

without Russians, Poles,
Jews and communists.

They are fascinated
by European fascism.

Europe between the two world wars
is a Europe,

let's be honest, it is a Europe

of extreme political ideologies.
On the one hand, Stalinism.

On the other, Italian fascism,

and a little later,
German National Socialism.

People like Bandera,

they look on with interest,

often with admiration,

both at Italy and at Germany,
where this mobilisation

of the masses
for certain national ideas

is underway.

They believe that such a movement

could also make Ukraine

independent and free
from Polish rule.

And tragically,
people like Bandera believe

that independence

can only be achieved in one way -

through terrorism.

In June 1941, the Germans invade
the Soviet Union.

After just a few days, they occupy
Bandera's homeland - Lviv -

where they are greeted
euphorically by the locals.

These people survived
Stalin's repressions

and they hoped -

naively, as we know today -

that the hated Soviet government
would disappear

and the new leadership
would be better to them.

Many had an image
of a civilised West

that was now replacing
the barbaric Russians.

With the German conquerors behind
him, Stepan Bandera sees

the opportunity to liberate Ukraine
from the Soviets.

Bandera and his organisation
then put themselves

at the service
of the Nazi conquerors.

Only days after the occupation
by the Germans,

the first pogroms against the Jewish
population take place in Lviv.

More than 3000 people are murdered.

Both Bandera's OUN

and the locals take part.

And while the pogroms
are still going on,

the OUN proclaims
a separate Ukrainian state.

But this is out of the question
for the Nazi leadership.

The Germans' henchmen soon
become persecuted themselves.

Bandera is sent to the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp,

which he survives
as a "privileged" prisoner.

After the Second World War,
as head of the OUN, he continues

the partisan struggle against
the Soviets from Munich.

Bandera is killed there in 1959

by the Soviet secret service,
the KGB.

Bandera was assassinated

and that's the critical thing.

It's not what he did during WWII,
which was not much of anything.

I mean, in life,

he was a third-rate, or at best,
a second-rate figure.

It's the fact that he was
assassinated by the Soviet Union.

Once he's assassinated by the Soviet
Union, then he becomes a convenient

Soviet symbol for all that's wrong
with Ukraine.

The Ukrainians
risked being nationalists.

Bandera was

constantly invoked
by Soviet propaganda.

Throughout the Soviet era,

Bandera was invoked

when pro-Ukrainian statements,

including cultural ones,
had to be condemned.

Then you were considered
a Banderite.

Today, Ukrainians say, "Yes, we are
Banderites, we are against Russia".

And that's where the admiration
comes in today,

so to speak.
Bandera is

certainly not revered
as an anti-Semite,

nor necessarily as a nationalist,
but as a fighter

against the Soviet Union.

So also against Russia, of course.

In fact,

this is always the problem.

Because it is
not perceived historically,

but in the context

of today's need

to resist Russian propaganda.

In the summer and autumn of 1941,

Hitler's troops overrun
Soviet Ukraine.

The advance continues
on a broad front.

Deeper and deeper into the Ukraine.

Hitler's basic idea
about the world was that

it was a competition of races,

and the winner deserve
what they win.

Germans are presumably
superior to Slavs,

and therefore
they deserve to control Ukraine.

But it's also connected
to his anti-Semitism.

Because Hitler's view was that

the Soviet Union is
an artificial Jewish state.

So if we attack it,
it will immediately collapse.

And then we get to control Ukraine

and the inferior
Ukrainian colonial people.

A selection of Jewish fellows.

THE GERMAN NEWSREEL
1941

They'll finally be forced to work.

Germany takes its rightful place
in the world next to

the British Empire and
the United States by balancing

German industry
with Ukrainian fertile soil.

That's the overall scheme.

The initial joy at the Germans'
arrival turned to horror.

The Great Patriotic War began
for the Soviet Union's people.

This war would be burnt
into their memories for decades.

But I was a teenager back then.

And of course, interested in
getting deeper too fast

to understand some things.
And at the same time,

it's a very stupid
and infantile way

to ask, "Granny, who was worse,
the Germans or Russians?"

And I was surprised

when she said the Germans.

Yes, the Germans were worse

because, she said,
they were good workers,

workers of evil.

In September 1941,
the Germans captured Kyiv.

These colour slides
of the occupied city

were taken by German army
photographer Johannes Hähle.

About 250,000 Jews lived in Kyiv,

which had

a population of 800,000.

That means one out of
four residents was Jewish.

The Germans herded
the remaining Jews,

mostly old women and children,

to a deep ravine
on the city's edge.

In Ukrainian, it's called
Babi Yar, old woman ravine.

The executions took place

on 29 and 30 September.

On those two days, 33,771 people

were shot in Babi Yar.

Children under the age of three

weren't included

in that number.

In other words,
they weren't put on

the lists.

Babi Yar

was the largest single massacre
of WWII in Europe.

It represented the climax of
what was called

the Holocaust by bullet.

A total of 1.5 million people,

a quarter of
the Holocaust's victims,

were from Ukraine.

Babi Yar,

where people

were murdered,

is now part of

a residential area,

there's an underground
station there

and a park where children play.

In addition,
I'd like to mention that

in the first days of the war,

a rocket hit nearby.

There are
several old cemeteries there,

one of which
was partially destroyed.

It was a Russian rocket
that hit Babi Yar.

Those are unprecedented events

with enormous symbolic meaning.

They claim to be fighting Nazism,

but their rockets hit a place

where Nazi victims

are buried.

February 1943.

After the battle of Stalingrad,

the Red Army went on
a counteroffensive

and gradually pushed the Germans
out of the Soviet Union.

In November 1943,

Stalin's troops took Kyiv,

Lviv in summer 1944,

and in May 1945,

the Red Army liberated Berlin.

BERLIN

The Holy War,

one of the most famous
Soviet army songs,

was written a few days
after the Nazi invasion.

It also resounded
in the ruins of Berlin.

The lyrics say:

"Rise up, powerful country,
against the dark fascist power."

The victory became the central
historical story for Moscow

rather than
the millions of Soviet victims.

For me, it was one of
the worst effects

of Soviet propaganda.
That the history of the war

was turned

into a history of triumph.

The focus was

always heroism.

Vladimir Putin

made the parades
common during the Soviet era

an annual ritual again.

It seems that each one has
more pomp and pathos.

These parades still begin with
the soldiers' march from the war.

Those who crushed National Socialism
in the Great Patriotic War

gave us an example of heroism
for all time.

If you want to build
your modern identity,

you have to rely on
success and achievements.

So what are Russia's
in the 20th century's Soviet period?

The greatest achievement is

a defeat of Nazism,
a great victory.

We liberated Europe,
we defeated one of

the most evil empires

in modern times.

MOSCOW

"We can do it again",

meaning the de-Nazification
and demilitarisation of a country,

has become
a popular saying in Moscow -

and not only among the army.

There was a slogan,
a popular slogan, "Mozhem povtorit",

"we can repeat",

addressed to Germans and the West,

that we can go back to Berlin,

not on buses

but by tank.

And this is the most obvious

example of
weaponisation of history.

In 2014,
when Putin annexed Crimea

and the fighting
in eastern Ukraine broke out,

the slogan reappeared
on Russia's streets.

This time it was addressed
at the supposedly

fascist neighbour, Ukraine,
and its Western supporters.

"WE CAN DO IT AGAIN."

When they began to construct

a new mythology around the day of

the victory, that came up.

It was revolting.

The expression of
a cannibalistic regime.

What can we repeat?
A war with a million victims?

That's just the Soviet system.

It never disappeared.

It has stayed about the same.

In Germany, it'd be unimaginable

to write in school textbooks that,

after all,

Hitler built the motorways.

But that's how
they write about Stalin.

Well, there were some shortages,

but what a great country.

Stalin's Soviet Union

was larger on maps
than before WWII.

Postwar Ukraine then comprised
a larger eastern section

and Galicia in the west with Lviv.

One year after Stalin's death,

in 1954,

Ukraine took on
its currently recognised borders.

It was joined by
the Crimean Peninsula.

The year 1954
was the 300th anniversary

of the Pereiaslav Agreement.

And the Russians saw it

as an alliance between

Russians and Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian city of
Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi.

On the square where a historic act

of Russian and Ukrainian
reunification took place

300 years ago,
city residents gathered

with Russian writers and artists.

Like true brothers,
the residents of

Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi

received the delegation
of the Russian people.

Let us, dear friends,

give warm and heartfelt thanks

to our welcome guests,

our big brothers,

the Russian people,

for everything they've done

for us Ukrainians

throughout history

spanning centuries.

After Stalin's death
the previous year,

there was
a new leader at the Kremlin:

Nikita Khrushchev,
who grew up in Ukraine's Donbas.

Appointed the Communist party's
secretary in Ukraine in 1938,

he led the Soviet republic
for more than ten years

and then the entire Union.

In 1954,
as part of the celebration,

they decided

to attach

Crimea's administration

to the Ukrainian
Soviet Socialist Republic.

Khrushchev,
as an intelligent politician, said,

we are going to give you this gift

to show how much
we love you and to recognise

Ukrainians and Russians will always
be together, blah, blah, blah,

which is
a fantastic political story.

And the Soviet government

presented it as a kind of

gift to Ukraine.

Crimea wasn't really

a gift.

In fact, the Soviets

were interested in

developing Crimea economically
at the time.

The question was
what to do with Crimea.

And Crimea, in terms of
its electricity grid and its water,

was a much more logical part of
Ukraine than a part of Russia.

Because from the point of view
of Russia, Crimea is an island.

From the point of view
of Ukraine, it's a peninsula.

So for totally boring administrative
or logistical reasons,

the decision was made
to join Crimea to Ukraine.

It was assumed that Khrushchev

did this, integrating Crimea into

the Ukrainian republic,
as a concession to Ukraine,

more or less
to win the Ukrainians' hearts.

And one of his political goals

was to make
the Ukrainians something like

the Soviet Union's
second ethnic group.

Khrushchev had to make the Soviet
Union, economically depressed

after WWII, competitive again.

The Cold War was on,

and the Soviet Union began
to compete with the USA's system:

communism against capitalism.

At first, Khrushchev
and his successor,

Leonid Brezhnev,
a native of Ukraine,

continued 1920 policies

in the republic,

with rapid industrialisation
and modernisation.

I was born in the city
now known as Dnipro.

At the time,
it was called Dnipropetrovsk.

When I was at school,

it was a closed city.
People from other countries,

even the socialist ones,

weren't allowed to go there

without a special permit

from the KGB.

It was closed because

the Soviet Union's largest plant

and engineering office
for the development

of rockets were there.

Those were the strategic weapons

that were the main issue
in the Cold War.

The most drastic step in

Ukraine's modernisation
happened in 1977.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant,

built about 100 kilometres
north of Kyiv, went online.

The Ukrainians welcomed the arrival
of the atomic age in their country.

All these things happened,
and at the same time,

there was a massive Russification,
especially when

Brezhnev was in power.

That means the omnipresence

of the Russian language
in schools, at universities,

on the book market, everywhere.

Ukrainian dissidents,
such as the writer Vasyl Stus,

became symbols of resistance
to Soviet repression.

They fought for
the rights of Ukrainians

and freedom for
the Ukrainian culture and language.

The Soviet Union
was still trying to create

the so-called
new Soviet person somewhere.

And a new Soviet person

spoke Russian.

In reality, it was Russification
with the goal

of reducing Ukrainian culture.

If caught red-handed with some

books on Ukrainian history,
which would be

qualified by the KGB
as nationalist,

you would get seven plus five,

which means seven years of camps,

in Siberia or Mordovia
or whatever, and

five years of exile.

So hardly an attractive option.

In April 1986,
the worst-case scenario

happened in Ukraine.

Reactor number four

at the northern Ukrainian nuclear
power plant Chernobyl exploded.

2300 villages

and more than three million people

were affected by the radioactive
fallout in Ukraine alone.

The government in Moscow tried
to keep the news secret at first

and hide
the extent of the catastrophe.

Once again.

The Chernobyl disaster
played a great role in

the dissolution
of the Soviet Union. And first

of all, in terms of
trust in the authorities.

For the Ukrainians,
Chernobyl was truly

the end of the Soviet system.

There were still lies despite

the danger to the people's lives.

This

was of course

interpreted as a lack of

respect and a lack of care

towards Ukrainians
by the central power.

Chernobyl became a turning point
for Ukraine's civil society.

It put the nuclear catastrophe
on a direct progression

next to Ukraine's
other trauma in the 20th century:

the civil war, the famine,

Stalin's purges.

After Chernobyl,
large groups in Ukraine stood up

to the leadership in Moscow
for the first time:

environmentalists, miners,

artists,
members of the opposition.

Until the pressure of

those who wanted independence
broke the spell in 1991.

I remember 24 August 1991.

There were demonstrations
every weekend in downtown Kyiv.

The city was boiling, so to speak.

And it was a moment
sometime in the afternoon when I

turned the TV on just to check

what was going on.

There was someone
standing there in the hall and

ex cathedra reading the act

of the independence of Ukraine.

On 24 August 1991,

Ukraine's parliament declared
the country's independence.

In December of the same year,

Ukrainians validated
it in a referendum.

90% of voters
supported independence.

Leonid Kravchuk became the first
president of a free Ukraine.

Kravchuk, a Polish citizen
until he was five,

was suddenly in Ukraine again

after Stalin shifted the border.

Honoured representatives,

the formal session
of the Supreme Council

is hereby concluded.

That was exactly
the message of the early

nineties, that Ukraine
should wake up.

Ukraine is not Russia.

So that was a kind of drive
to restore the identity,

and the history, of course,
was one of the bases

of the national identity.

Ukraine and Ukrainian society

began more than 30 years ago

to expose their own history
layer by layer

and remember their long struggle
for freedom and self-determination.

The large pro-European
demonstrations in Kyiv

showed that.

We were all very surprised,

like in 2004,

then 2014 and after that,
how Ukraine's civil society

expressed itself vehemently.

In these two revolutions,
the largest demonstrations

in Europe since
the end of communism took place.

We were never able to explain it,
they were so fast and so powerful.

Hundreds of thousands
streamed onto

the Maidan in Kyiv.

And it was really surprising

that a civil society
could arise so quickly.

I remember that my seven-year-old
son was listening to the TV.

And he noted the expression
the person on the stage says,

we have to belong to Europe.
We are moving towards Europe.

And my son asked me,

why is he saying that?

We do belong to Europe.

We are a European country,
isn't that the case?

That's how
Ukrainians were discovering

their history after
the collapse of the Soviet Union.

And we did need,

I would say,
some rather brief historical period,

like half a generation,
to somehow get back to

our senses, I would say.

We're rather quick learners

if thinking in historical terms.