Lost Kingdom, the quest for Empire and the making of the Russian

Nation, from 1470n to the present,by Serhii Plokhy

Printed in the Ukrainian Quarterly,
Vol. LXXIII, No. 3-4, fall-winter 2017, page 101
Breaking down the Walls of Russian Imperial Historiography
ByPeter J. Piaseckyj
I believe Douglas Smith, author of Rasputin, best characterizes “Lost
Kingdom”with the succinct, yet all-encompassing phrase: … “Learned engaging and
timely’” …. Plokhy … “recounts in fascinating detail the story of the Russian nation
across several tumultuouscenturies, from its earliest days up to the regime of a Vladimir
Putin. Internationally acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy knows his subject like few
others, and he writes with aplomb and a keen eye for the ironies, contingencies and
tragedies of this history. The book should be read by everyone seeking to understand
Russia today.” …

Written for the general reading public, he uses the epic tale as the historic canvas on
which to tell this fascinating story. This history is a brilliant exposition of the complex
historical twist and turns of Muscovy/Russia, mostly as an empire, since Russia as a
Nation is still in the making. Page 320 … “In 1996 Yeltsin appealed to Russian
intellectuals, asking for their help in finding a new Russian National idea.” ...

In this review there are some observations and needed explanations regarding Prof.
Serhii Plokhy’s exceptional book. He is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of
Ukrainian History at Harvard and the director of the university's Ukrainian Research
Institute (HURI) and one of a handful of scholars with a thorough understanding of the
dynamics of Eurasian history.

He has written a history not to offend“sine ira et stadium”. He uses words that are
euphemistic rather than strongly precise, such as “annexation of Crimea”
rather than the more accurate “conquest of Crimea”, which is admirable because he
does not kill the conversation before it even starts.The “little green men” areRussian
Military ordered by Putin to invade Crimea! After all an invasion is a military
offensive in whichcombatants  aggressively enter territory controlled by another,
generally with the objective of conquering the territory. Surprisingly he does use the
loaded word “collaborator”which is used with a conscience, a good example of this
would be to write, Churchill and Roosevelt were Stalin’s collaborators, which although
technically correct is heinous in its moral implications!

To maintain flow and necessary brevity,Prof. Plokhy callsall the Kyivan Empire,
<<Rus’>>.For the more curious reader Prof. George Perfeckyj the translator and
annotator of the “Galician–Volhynian Chronicle” explains the meaning of Rus’. He
writes, from… “The …chronicles and later documents, we can conclude that in the
ethnically-geographical sense, the name Rus’ is the old name of Ukraine and
Ukrainians.”The term Rus’ is … “in Ukrainian lands from the 12th to the 17th century.
This, as it turns out, cannot be said about the Russian lands, since the Kyiv, Suzdal and

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First Novgorod chronicles testify that in the 12th and 13th centuries the northern
principalities did not consider themselves to be Rus’. … “Rus' in the 13th century was
made up of the Galicia/Halychyna, Volyn and Kyiv Principalities …. The unfortunate
exception to this rule isthe use and interpretation of the term Rus’, almost exclusively
translated into modern historical English-language as Russia, i.e. Russian.”…

For Russia, the corner stone of its Empire was always Ukraine. In the middle of the
seventeenth century, there is that fatal Muscovite and the Kozak Hetmanate State
(Rusyn/Ruthenian) meeting!Khmelnytsky and his Officers accept the ensuing
“Treatyof Pereyaslav”, 1654, with the Muscovite Tsar. The originals of the “Treatyof
Pereyaslav”, have not survived, so the myth of this fatal“union” of the two brotherly
Slavic Nations lives on.Taras Shevchenko, the Bard of Ukraine, castigates
Khmelnytsky for the treaty,where in his poem “Plundered Grave”1843, he writes:
…. Had I known, in the cradle
I’d have choked you, in my sleep…
It should be noted that Khmelnytsky and Tsar Alexey I had absolutely different notion
of treaties.

Prof. Plokhy writes that just previous to the “Pereyaslav Treaty”, the Hetmanate
negotiated not only with Muscovy and Poland, but and this, the most intriguing
negotiation and least written about, was between Khmelnytsky and the Ottoman
sultan in 1651, where they formally exchanged embassies. The Turks negotiated with
Khmelnytsky as the Prince (Emir) of Ukraine, and wanted the same arrangement as
with contemporary Moldova and Wallachia. AsEmir,Khmelnytsky would have ruled
Ukraine under the suzerainty of the Sublime Porte, the central government of the
Ottoman Empire.

The facile argument that the Cossack/Kozak officers would not accept a Muslim
Suzerain is speculation. After all,Hetman Doroshenkonegotiated with Sultan
Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire in the summer of 1667to accept Ukraine under
the Sultan’s suzerainty. Mehmed IV promised to send Doroshenko the power symbols –
kleynody/insignia - and send a plenipotentiary representative to take an oath. After
the Battle of Poltava in 1709, the "Old Sich" the Kozak Fortress/settlement on the
Dnipro River was destroyed and another Sich was built at the mouth of the
Kam’ianetsRiverand again destroyed in 1711 by Muscoviteforces. The Kozaks then fled
to the Crimean Khanate (Ottoman Rule) to avoid persecution and founded the Oleshky
Sich, 1711-1734.Another example is after the destructionof theZaporizhian Sich by
order of Catherine II in 1775, about 5,000 Zaporizhian Kozaks established beyond the
Danube, the Zadunayshka Sich, under the protectorate of the Ottoman Sultan.

As far as I know, no booknor monograph was publishedon the subject of theHetmanate-

Ottoman negotiations at HURI! Despite the Turkicspecialists in HURI, where they
havespent extensive time in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul.

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Fortunately,Larysa Hvozdik Pritsak, wife of Prof. Omeljan Pritsak, first Mykhailo
Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University,the preeminent
authority of Turkic Studies was the scholarly advisoron Larysa HvozdikPritsak’s
book,“The main international treaties of Bohdan Khmelnytsky 1648-1657
years/ Основні міжнародні договори Богдана Хмельницького 1648-1657
рр”. This is a magnificent scholarly historical work on the foreign policy activity of the
Ukrainian hetman of the Zaporizhian Army (Khmelnytsky). The Hetman concluded
with the Ottoman Empire, three treaties: 1648, 1650 and 1651. The book was published
by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,printed, Kharkiv "Act”, 2003. This
needs to be translated into English by HURI!You can download this
extraordinary book on the internet, under <http://history.org.ua/LiberUA/966-7021-
70-%D0%A0%D2%90/966-7021-70-%D0%A0%D2%90.pdf>

The Austro-Hungarian Empire abolished serfdom (slavery) in 1848 (Western

Ukraine). In the Russian Empire, including Ukraine, serfdom was abolished in 1861.
Slavery in the USA was abolished in 1865, withthe 13thamendment to the Constitution.

The sudden transformation of “Little Russians/Malorosy” to Ukrainians needs

a brief explanation. According to Yurii Lavrinenko a graduate of Kharkiv University
and a formidable scholar, the Politicization ofUkraine and Ukrainiansevolved during
the Ukrainian Enlightenment. The enlightenment encompassed the periods from
the abolition in1782of theHetmanate regiments and administrations,to the
arrest of themembers of theBrotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodiusin March
of1847.  Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), the bard of Ukraine was a memberand was
arrested and then exiled. The architect of theUkrainian Enlightenment was Vasyl’
Karazyn (Russian Transliteration Karazin) the founder in 1805 of the Kharkiv
University.He was the organizing genius of this intellectual movement. You can
download the extraordinary book about Karazyn(Yurii Lavrinenko) 1975
in,http://diasporiana.org.ua/istoriya/2170-lavrinenko-yu-vasil-karazin-arhitekt-
vidrodzhennya/.

Prof. Plokhy in writing about the Soviet Russian Empire introduced Alexander
Solzhenitsynas the leader of the Russian nationalist intelligentsia. He also writes that
Vladimir Putin laid flowerson Solzhenitsyn’s grave at the Donskoi Monastery in
Moscow.What is going on here? The Russian nationalist intelligentsia shares with
Mikhail Andreyevich Suslovtheleading Soviet Communist ideologue (USSR) the same
Russian Nationalist ideology. When Putin invaded Ukraine (Crime & Donbas), the
intelligentsia supported Putin.Over 100 cultural figures signed a letter supporting
Russia's return of Crimea. The letter eventually reached 511 signatures.

Prof. Plokhy discusses the disastrous, from the Russian Imperial point of view the
collapse of the USSR. The 15 Soviet Republics break away fromRussia and in
December 1, 1991, more than 90 % of Ukrainians voted for independence. In hishistory,
“The Last Empire”, he gives a wonderful explanation for this occurrence.The most

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profound and amazing thing about this Independence vote, was the Communist Party's
legislative push in gaining Ukrainian independence.The Communist Party did not want
to lose political power as they had lost in Russia. This is ironic since my understanding
is that most of the Communist legislature in Ukraine were Ukrainophobes.

Near the end of the book Prof. Plokhy continues thisepic tale, where he writes … “…
The imperial construct of a big Russian Nation is gone, and no restoration
project can bring it back to life,” …My question is, how many times has Russia,
been on her knees, and every time as a Phoenix rose out of the ashes, more powerful
than before! Let us not forget that Russia is still a huge multinational Empire,
stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

Prof. Plokhy’s innocuous writing nonetheless has offended many knowledgeable people
and scholars in North America as well as in Ukraine, on the topic ofthe Holodomor,
Stalin’s Genocide of the Ukrainians as a people!

Ever since I have been reading Prof. Plokhy, he seems to avoid using the universally
understood and accepted term, the Holodomor. Prof. Plokhy prefers to use the term
“Great Ukrainian Famine” instead of the accepted form “Holodomor”. In the
book’s Index, it tells you to see “Great Ukrainian Famine”. It is as if a Historian of
Germany today listed the Holocaust as the “Great Attempted Jewish Genocide”.

I believe Prof. Plokhyis not convinced that the Holodomor was Genocide, although
he is too circumspect to say so!

Where Prof. Plokhy really stepped into a social maelstrom is on page 241, where he,
as well as Anne Applebaum in her book, places the number of Holodomor victims
at 4 million.

Askold S. Lozynskyj, former president of the Ukrainian World Congress, wrote about
this social maelstrom in the American-Ukrainian weekly, “Svoboda / Свобода,March
2, 2018, on page 7, “Time brought disappointment / Час приніс
розчарування”.... I never imagined that Ukrainian (he means among others the
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute) scholars would begin to persuade not only
Ukrainians, but the scholarly and political world, that in 1932-1933 not 7 million
Ukrainians perished in the Holodomor ... but half that number.”…As we can see
from Anne Applebaum’s book where she uses“half that number”, she actually uses
3.9 million from the HURI, Mapa, GIS model.

Primarily Prof Plokhy sites 3.9 million deaths in the Holodomor based on the
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, whichhas gone on a limbwith a Geographic
Information System (GIS), Digital Atlas of the Holodomor (Mapa). Where
demographer Oleh Wolowyna and his group give the figure of three pointnine (3.9)
million faminevictims.

This GIS is an unsustainable model. The demographers on this project themselves

say …“Another set of limitations we had to face was the absence of reliable

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data on population losses in Ukraine at the oblast and raion levels.”… There
just is not enough data to fill the GIS gaps in the information. The Holodomor itself
wiped out whole villages that have disappeared from the face of the earth. Eight (8)
years later, there is the Second World War, massive destruction, the Security Service of
Ukraine and Russia destroyed their files in 1991 during the Collapse of the USSR. The
remaining files still in Moscow have been closed off to researchers.

Robert Conquest one of the most authoritative western voices, finally broke the back
of the Holodomor deniers with his“The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet
Collectivization and the Terror-famine”, published in 1986. In it he gives seven
(7) million victims as the minimum number,which is based on the most
conservative figures. The number may well beover ten (10) million!

Dr. James E. Mace of Harvard, researched for Robert Conquest's the famine’s

statistics.From 1986-90, Mace served as the executive director of the U.S. Commission
on the Ukraine Famine, in Washington, D.C..

Historians to be credible must do a good job of explaining away why they ignore
testimonies of perpetrators and witnesses such Duranty, Stalin and Khrushchev’s
statements on the Holodomor, who without flinching say 10 million.
Khrushchev was a protégé of Kaganovich; Kaganovich shared the number of Famine
victims with Khrushchev. Lazar Kaganovich died in retirement in Moscow in
1991 at the age of 97!

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