Wars have unintended consequences.
Gallipoli changed Australia from a place name on maps to a country with a national identity. Although Canada was farther along in its national evolution, to some extent that happened to Canadians at Vimy Ridge, too.
National identity is an intangible thing, although real enough. It usually comes into being gradually: “The way nations see themselves, and are seen by others, is … evolution[ary]: slow and gradual, the layers added in increments.” But, the Guardian adds, “Russia’s brutal attempt to swallow up its neighbour has changed something profound in little more than a week.”
Yes, it has given birth to a nation.
Putin claims Ukraine is part of Russia. That argument rests in part on the premise that Ukrainians don’t have a national identity of their own. Well, they do now, and he created it.
“Even in polite, western company, the view that it was merely a region of somewhere else persisted: it lived on, unconsciously perhaps, in those who called it ‘the Ukraine,'” the Guardian says; then pithily adds, “That ended a week ago.”
“Ukrainians have acquired a new place in the global imagination, as the embodiment of the spirit of national independence … their collective defiance and bravery in the face of a terrifying menace is the material of myth … that will be woven into a national story Ukrainians will tell themselves for centuries … the unshakeable conviction that Ukraine is a nation, a wholly ‘genuine’ one.”
Is it necessary to add there’s now zero chance Ukrainians will ever think of themselves as Russians?
It doesn’t hurt, of course, to have a Churchillian hero-figure rallying his people against the invader, creating speech lines like “I need ammunition, not a ride.” (Putin isn’t that articulate; and most people forget Churchill was behind the Gallipoli fiasco.)
Putin himself is largely speechless these days. For him, the Ukraine train has left the station.
Read article here.
Related article: For a rundown of how the Ukraine invasion is changing Europe, go here.