History that kills. How Putin's vision of the past unleashed a war?
On the "Program Pierwszy Polskiego YouTube'a" channel, I discuss why Putin's 2021 essay, in which he spent 20 pages arguing that Ukraine has no right to its own history, was not an academic eccentricity but a blueprint for invasion.
I analyse how the Russian state uses historical narrative to transform a soldier's identity from murderer to hero fighting for a higher cause. If you want to understand the roots of Russian foreign policy and what it means for Poland, this conversation is for you.My starting point is Putin's essay from July 2021: a nuclear power's leader devoted 20 pages to proving that Ukraine has no history of its own and no right to exist. This was not intellectual hobby, it was the ideological foundation for future aggression. History functions here as a psychological tool that transforms a soldier committing atrocities into a defender of a "sacred cause." I draw on Goebbels' diaries to show that this mechanism is not a Russian invention but a tested model of totalitarian propaganda. The clearest symbol of this memory policy is the liquidation of the Gulag Museum in Moscow just before the 2022 invasion: a deliberate "clearing of the historical ground" of facts about communist crimes.
I also examine the fundamental difference between the European and Russian models of World War II memory. Europe built a "never again" paradigm rooted in trauma. Russia promotes the slogan "we can do it again," embedded in Brezhnev-era popular culture that presents war as an adventure and a proof of masculinity. I draw on Svetlana Alexievich's work and the way Soviet Army veterans replace their own authentic memories with rehearsed propaganda phrases, the direct result of state control over collective memory.
I also analyse the specific threat to Poland. Russian elite statements about our country are strategic signals, not academic musings. Russia is trying to induce guilt among Polish and Western elites over "broken promises" regarding NATO expansion, in order to force a withdrawal of troops to the 1997 line. I also warn against the trap of partitioning Ukraine: accepting such an "offer" would turn Poland into a "hyena," echoing the Zaolzie annexation of 1938, and drag us into a years-long conflict with Ukrainians. Finally, I argue that a "symbolic patricide" is possible: a new Russian elite may, following Khrushchev's example, blame Putin for the catastrophe of the "three-day war," without changing the underlying imperial logic of the system.