Comment: Russia's invasion of Ukraine is an attempt to rewrite history Published on: 27 July 2022 Writing for The Conversation, Dariusz Gafijczuk discusses the ideas from Russia's past that are driving the war in Ukraine. Youthful patriotism: Russia鈥檚 sense of its own history remains unclear. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina , Vladimir Putin鈥檚 justifications for his country鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine 鈥� that is, legitimate anxiety at the erosion of Russia鈥檚 triggered by Nato鈥檚 expansion into eastern Europe 鈥� are looking increasingly wayward as the war enters its sixth month. So it鈥檚 worth examining other factors that might be motivating the Russian president and his advisors. One of these was neatly summed up by historian in his 2018 study, Lost Kingdom, A History of Russian Nationalism from Ivan the Great to Vladimir Putin: Russia today has enormous difficulty in reconciling the mental maps of Russian ethnicity, culture, and identity with the political map of Russian Federation. Most countries鈥� sense of collective consciousness depends on a certain degree of undisputed mythology that becomes widely accepted by the population as part of national history. But Russia, in its institutions and collective memories, is searching for that sense of certainty in its past, given it has lost the last great unifying idea of Soviet communism. The consequences of this loss pose a direct challenge, feeding Russia鈥檚 existential insecurities that it has not been able to reconcile since the late Soviet and especially the post-Soviet times 鈥� a story about and loss of national patrimony. This is why Putin鈥檚 vision of Russia鈥檚 past clings to the idea of a ninth-century political entity known as the , used by the president and his ideological allies as the anchor point for Russia鈥檚 nationhood. Without it, Russia becomes a relatively young state, going back only as far as , who came to the throne in the 1460s as the first monarch to assume the title of tsar (or emperor 鈥� even though this was never officially recognised). He was also the first to successfully challenge the nomadic Mongol Empire, under whose domination the had found itself over the previous two centuries. As such, Russia鈥檚 story 鈥� to counteract its political origins as a vassal state of the Golden Horde 鈥� must be retold through an encounter with another entity, Kyiv. But as we know, Kyiv is the capital of another state, Ukraine, which has its own history, collective trauma and national consciousness. The net effect of this is historical incoherence, where multiple timelines and pasts compete for legitimacy 鈥� something the Kremlin has become masterful at exploiting. Hence, many of the most important historical memories 鈥� such as what is known in Russia as the 鈥済reat patriotic war鈥� (the second world war), are currently being marched out as some of the more outlandish justifications for the invasion of Ukraine. Once again, goes the Kremlin鈥檚 official line, Russia is fighting a new wave of fascism. During the transition period of the post-Soviet years in the 1990s, there was still hope, that Russia would become more closely synchronised with modern, western liberal societies through free markets and investment. This was the soft power approach of 鈥溾�� (change through trade) championed for two decades by the then German chancellor, Angela Merkel. But that change, or convergence never arrived. How divergent the worldviews between the east and west have once again become was clearly visible in Russia鈥檚 in May. This year, five year-old children were dressed up as tanks with the now infamous pro-war painted on the front. They were chaperoned by their teachers who wore second world war-era uniforms. On Victory Day in Moscow, children were dressed up as tanks to show support for the invasion of Ukraine. Twitter Russia, as Kevin Platt, a specialist in Russia and eastern Europe, writes in the 2020 book, , has an uncanny 鈥渁bility to reach past boundaries of the present to lay claim to any element of the historical record鈥�. This is how post-Soviet nostalgia is now mixed up with the rehabilitation of the Stalin era and his apparently single-handed defeat of Nazism. This is underpinned by the sacred mission of Russia as the heir of Kyivan Rus鈥�, and through it the whole Byzantine, Orthodox Christian civilisation. History鈥檚 鈥榝alse form鈥� Two years into Putin鈥檚 first presidency, Russian director Aleksander Sokurov introduced the world to the cinematic version of Russia鈥檚 sense of history in the . The film is a continuous 90-minute one-take shot with no cuts or edits, recorded on a single day in the famous Hermitage art gallery. The key to understanding Russia is this sense of curated continuity that persists by joining together various foreign elements 鈥� like an art exhibit that keeps travelling through time. 鈥淥ur past hasn鈥檛 become past yet,鈥� mused Sokurov in an about the project. 鈥淭he main problem of this country is that we don鈥檛 know when it will become past.鈥� Trailer for Russian Ark (2002) Russia is trying to forge a new past for itself on the battlefield in Ukraine. This is something akin to the process of what in mineralogy is known as 鈥� a false form 鈥� as was already observed in the 1920s in connection with Russia by German philosopher . Pseudomorphosis is where new contents fill out the old frames, forming entities 鈥渨hose inner structure contradicts their external shape鈥�, as Spengler writes in the : I call historical pseudomorphosis those cases where an older alien culture lies so massively over the land that a young culture, born in this land, cannot get its breath and fails not only to achieve pure and specific expression-forms, but even to develop fully its own self-consciousness. You would be hard pressed to find a better description of the current situation in Ukraine, where Russia is trying to impose its reading of the past on to another country鈥檚 present. , Lecturer in Sociology, This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the . 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