On Russian and Soviet History with a "Russian Mongol" (11.08.2022)
A street dialogue with Vitaliy Dribnytsia. The valuable first part is the author’s substantive monologue in reply to a local-history subscriber from Pokrovsk on the history of the Donbas: why a “Russian Donbas” is an anachronism, what the southern border of the Tsardom of Muscovy looked like in the 17th century, and when and why the industrial Donbas took shape. The material supplements the analysis of the Russo-Ukrainian war of 2014. (The second half of the video — the dialogue with the “Mongol” interlocutor — has no value.)
Key moments
- 00:48 A subscriber's question from Pokrovsk: was the Donbas ever "Russian"
- 01:19 Donbas = Donets Coal Basin, began forming in the early 19th century (industrial, not ethnic)
- 01:33 The first deposits were developed by John Hughes; Yuzivka is present-day Donetsk
- 02:46 The southern border of the Tsardom of Muscovy in the 17th century — the Belgorod defensive line against the Crimean Khanate
- 03:18 The steppe between the lines was no man's land, uncontrolled territory; Cossack winter camps under Khmelnytsky reached this far
- 03:32 Borders in the modern sense only began to take shape in the 19th century