The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes Bloomsbury, 368 pages, £25
Vladimir (Volodymyr in Ukrainian), the Grand Prince of Kyiv and ruler of the Kievan Rus from AD 980 to 1015, had “gathered and defended Russia’s lands” by “founding a strong, unified and centralised state”. That state included as one “family or nation” present-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, joined in shared Christian principles, culture and language. That’s the gist of the words spoken by Vladimir Putin at the unveiling of a statue to his namesake outside the Kremlin in 2016. It was 4 November, Russia’s National Unity Day, which commemorates the popular uprising that expelled Polish-Lithuanian forces from Moscow in 1612.
The Ukrainians were furious at the statue and Putin’s speech, which went on to call on all Russians to unite against external threats – at what they saw as an appropriation of their history and a challenge to their separate identity. It is this vivid and controversial incident that opens Orlando Figes’s readable and thoughtful history of Russia.
This story is from the October 2022 edition of BBC History UK.
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This story is from the October 2022 edition of BBC History UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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