The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes is an amazing and accessible book on the history of Russia, the central theme of which traces Russia’s mythologies as a key to the Russian character, leadership and major events. There are lots of maps (ever-changing due to Russia’s thirst for acquiring lands and people near its always-expanding borders) and pictures (of its heroes, its peoples, its religious icons). The graphic evidence is just an enhancement of the book’s basic premise that, if you want to understand Russia today – indeed, if you want to understand the war in Ukraine – you have to go back through thousands of years of history.

Figes starts by going back to Grand Prince Vladimir, born in Crimea, who ruled the first Russian state, between 980 and 1015. When it became part of the Byzantium Empire, he led his people to convert to the Eastern Orthodox Church, the strength of which lasted millennia. Military successes conquering other nations nurtured the myth of Russia saving Christendom.  Grand Prince Vladimir remains a cult figure today, embraced by Ukraine as Volodymyr, the grand prince of its principality or nation.

Russian myths may refer to “Mother Russia,” but the leaders were mostly father figures, stern and usually abusive. The tsar and the state were one. And, in the 16^th century, Tsar Ivan IV, known as Ivan the Terrible, conveyed the idea that the church and the state were one, and that the ruler, however horrific he was, was the instrument of God. (This should bring a shudder to anyone who listened to Donald Trump’s inaugural address.) The people of Russia, whether they were ruled by different principalities or later by government entities known as Soviets, always turned to authoritarian leaders. Even back in the ninth century, tribes in the north and west portions of Russia agreed to invite the Vikings in to rule them. Two centuries of Mongol rule in the 13^th and 14^th centuries strengthened the tradition of authoritarian rule. This period had a great influence on the development of Muscovy (now Moscow) as a – and then the – center of power.

From tribes to tsars to today, Russia’s character and mission have been colored by a simple geographic fact: it has no natural frontiers, no mountain barriers to deter invaders. Early in its history, it had to drive out its Scandinavian occupiers, the Teutonic Knights and German invaders. It offered Poland and Lithuania protection against the Mongols’ drive from South to West, and eventually it sought dominion over the Baltics and Poland as a buffer zone.  It established its control over Siberia and forced its peasant population to move to that inhospitable region to colonize it and develop its mineral resources. Since the 16^th century, its focus has been on acquiring lands, enlarging its territory to secure its borders. We see that still in the 21^st century.

There has always been tension in Russia. On the one hand, there were those who favored leaning toward the West, its more open and representative government, its arts, culture, and education. Notably, the lands of Kiev were never ruled by the Mongols and had other non-Russian relationships that, as Figes explains it, put them “on a different historical trajectory from Moscow, more oriented to the West.” There were also those, often with Slavic roots and claiming to be the “soul of Russia,” who were more conservative, Orthodox, tied to the church and comfortable with authoritarian leaders. Hence, the alliance of imperial power, autocracy and iron rule over the serfs, and aggressive expansion.

Paradoxically, Russian mythology reinforces its sense of superiority by its having “saved the West” through its role in defeating Napoleon in 1812 and the Nazis in 1945. The West today, however, is its worst enemy, personified in the eastward expansion of NATO. Vladimir Putin has embraced the nation’s authoritarian history by resurrecting Stalin and devaluing Gorbachev with his glasnost and perestroika philosophy.

I can’t possibly go into all the details in this book. Suffice it to say that Figes has compiled a history that is enlightening, masterfully woven together thematically, and enriched by details and contextual analysis essential to understand some of the most important forces underlying global tensions today. It’s hard to look at Donald Trump’s imperialist sensibilities and authoritarian moves and not see a Vladimir Putin wannabe.