This Is Not Who We Are

BY MAXIM TRUDOLYUBOV

These days most Russians’ hearts go out to their Ukrainian relatives, friends, and the country as a whole. What is going on is mind-boggling. Russians have differing worldviews and opinions on politics and the country’s past, but there is one aspect of Russian identity that we all agree on. We cannot see ourselves as aggressors.

Most Russians share pride in a victory in a bloody but just war, the one that Russians fought alongside their Ukrainian brothers and sisters, the one we call the Great Patriotic War. By going to war with Ukraine, President Putin has not just changed the course of Russian history, he has violated Russian society’s moral core.

Russia and the Soviet Union have waged their share of aggressive wars, among which the 1939 invasion of Poland, the 1940 occupation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as the failed 1979–1989 occupation of Afghanistan stand out. But the one conflict that is an integral part of the nation’s psyche is the 1941–1945 war with Nazi Germany.

Yes, we choose to remember the kinds of events in which we look “good” and forget those “bad” and unfortunate ones. National memory can be selective, just like our individual memories. And yet the role of World War II in Russia’s self-narrative is important as an indication of how the Russian people think about themselves. This is, they (we) think, who they (we) are: those who lost tens of millions of lives in a defensive, just, and ultimately victorious war.

That memory is important because a lot of other dramatic pages in the country’s history are divisive. Sadly, many Russians disagree over how to remember Stalin's Great Terror and the gulags. The nation’s suffering at the hands of a tyrant could have become a foundation for a common cause, but so far it has not really worked out that way. Putin, a former KGB official, played a significant role in undermining Russian civil society’s efforts to educate Russians about their totalitarian past. As a result, many are confused about Soviet history as a whole. The Soviet past is seen as glorious by some, as disastrous by others, and as both by yet others.

The story of a triumph in a patriotic war, on the other hand, is one of the least controversial aspects of the nation’s self-image. It deserves a deeper reflection because of the inhumane methods the Soviet leaders used to fight that war. But this is all we have in terms of a comparatively uncontroversial foundation for national unity.

During that war Ukrainians helped defend Moscow and fought alongside Russians on all of World War II’s battlefields. Russians, on their part, battled for Kyiv and all of Ukraine. And among those Russians was my very own grandfather. Of him I remember nothing but his fondest recollections of Ukrainians, whom he saw as brothers-in-arms and friends for life.

Many of Russia’s most important contributions to world culture have to do with assessing the roles of political leaders and popular sentiment during historic events—many of those events being wars. Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate, or Dmitry Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony come to mind. When Russian culture is at its best, it takes a deep perspectival dive; it takes a suffering human being as its focal point and sees the world as a whole, regardless of political or national divisions.

The war that Putin and his henchmen unleashed on Ukraine on February 24 undermines the core of Russia’s cultural sum total—the nation’s self-image as a victorious force in a justifiable conflict, the feeling that Russian culture is all about humanist reflection on war and peace. Other nations and cultures may not perceive the Russians that way, certainly not after what is going on now in Ukraine, but this is how they (we) see ourselves. Many in Russia cannot help but think about all those things these days. “This is not who we are” is in the air.

What I am trying to wrap my mind around right now is to what extent Russian society supports its president’s decision to go to war with Ukraine. War protests happening throughout Russia are some indication of sanity still present in Russian society. Notably, some of the first Russian civil society groups who voiced their dismay at the war with Ukraine were those for whom Russia’s cultural foundation is meaningful—writers, filmmakers, journalists, architects, art historians, doctors, and teachers. All of those groups have published open letters and pleas to stop the war.

• Writers
• Artists
• Doctors
• Architects

The cost in human lives is immeasurable. The moral costs will be levied upon us forever. There are other costs, too. The West now keeps piling material costs on the Moscow regime. Depending on how things go and how protracted the hostilities turn out to be, the war will cost Russia dearly, or prohibitively dearly. But the tragedy of the war that Moscow has started is not just in how costly it may end up being.

The tragedy that the Russian president has brought upon everyone by unleashing the war does not lie in its cost. After all, a cost is just a cost. It could be paid if something truly worthy is acquired through it. The tragedy is that all Russians will have to pay for the Russian government’s war crimes and Putin’s meaningless war. The people who unleashed the war are taking away from us, Russians, our only living tradition that unites everyone. For Russia, a country of lost and broken ties between generations, one living tradition is priceless.

For those who share this feeling, a just and therefore patriotic war is one of the most important foundations of our identity. Moscow has effectively severed its ties with most of the world. But something even more important is happening. Violence is now being carried out not only against Ukraine and Ukrainians but also against Russia and Russians. It will take my identity, my tradition, and my connection with the homeland away from me.
 

The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute.