Dialogue with a 'Eurasianist' Historian About Rus' (27.10.2022)
A street dialogue between Vitalii Dribnytsia and an interlocutor who presents himself as a credentialed historian-educator and an adherent of the “Eurasianist” scheme (the history of the Russian state after Solovyov and Klyuchevsky). The interlocutor himself admits that Ukrainian textbooks reproduce Hrushevsky’s scheme — and in doing so illustrates how Russian historiography constructs continuity “from Kyiv to Moscow,” absorbing the history of Rus’ into the history of Russia in defiance of the geographic principle. The material reinforces the analysis of how Russian textbooks build their narrative.
Key moments
- 01:51 Interlocutor: Ukrainian textbooks reproduce Hrushevsky's scheme, not that of Solovyov/Klyuchevsky/Karamzin
- 03:05 Dribnytsia: the history of a state is written within its modern borders; the Solovyov–Klyuchevsky scheme absorbed the territory of Ukraine that was part of Russia
- 05:58 The geographic principle of writing history (analogies of Belgium, Italy, Germany) — Russia violates it
- 09:55 The center of Rus' was on the territory of modern Ukraine (Rybakov, 1972: 'Rus' in the narrow and broad sense')
- 12:36 The term 'Rus'' extends to the territory of modern Russia only from the second half of the 15th century — as territorial claims