Snyder at Borders of (Un)Freedom conference: We should be asking when Russia will lose
"Freedom is closely linked to unpredictability," said Yale Historian Timothy Snyder at a Prague conference titled Borders of (Un)Freedom held in Prague on Monday. The conference, organized by Czech Radio and Václav Havel Library, focused on the definition of freedom, the war in Ukraine and the growth of the far-right in Europe.
“We are in a kind of rationality trap. We believe we are free, but we are not,” said Snyder, an American historian and professor at Yale University, in the keynote lecture of the conference Borders of (Un)Freedom. In doing so, he referenced former Czech President Václav Havel and his understanding of freedom, as outlined in his seminal essay, “The Power of the Powerless.”
In line with Havel, Snyder lamented how society continues to be shaped by the irrationality of our ancestors who would consult oracles and sacrifice animals and children to gods. Instead of blood sacrifice, today, we give “carbon sacrifices” on the altars of the oligarchs, sacrificing the future of our planet. “If we did not regularly sacrifice to the modern-day oracles, Vladimir Putin would not exist in such strength,” the historian stressed.
In a moderated panel with Ukrainian journalist and editor-in-chief of the Ukrainska Pravda, Sevgil Musaieva, Timothy Snyder emphasized the importance of trust in civil society for winning this war.
“In order to have a democratic, pluralistic civil society that is fighting the war, you have to have a whole lot of things going on at the same time, an awful amount of cooperation and an awful amount of trust. One of the ways that this war is being fought is that different people who may not know each other are able to send things to the front because they have a friend in common or something. So, supplies will get sent from one part of Ukraine to another on these networks of trust.”
Professor Snyder and Ms. Musaieva agreed that the aggression in Ukraine threatens the rest of the world as much as it does Ukraine. “I want you to think about the protection of international borders and international law. Tomorrow another state may want to change borders if we allow Russia to do it,” the Ukrainian journalist warned.
“We, as Ukraine’s allies, should not ask ourselves when Ukraine will lose, but when Russia will lose,” the historian built on Ms. Musaieva’s remarks.
“Russian propaganda is losing its narrative,” Snyder added. Russia is a regional power; it can only continue the war against Ukraine if Ukraine’s Western allies fail to support its resistance. “Russia is only at this stage for a while. It's not going to continue down this path indefinitely,” he predicted.
Loss of security?
Czech Radio’s Plus channel also took the opportunity to record live podcast episodes for two of its platforms. The first was devoted to the resurgence of the far-right in Europe. The rise in popularity of extreme politicians is linked to the perception that democracy is no longer safe, according to journalist Apolena Rychlíková. “By selling fear, the radical right succeeds in turning non-voters into voters,” political scientist Petra Guasti pointed out.
Russians on tanks
The next stage at the conference, was devoted to the crushing of the Prague Spring and the propaganda surrounding it. August 1968 was “a successful military invasion, but it failed politically,” said columnist Martin Groman.
“They failed in their propaganda. They made the Czechoslovaks victims,” added historian Michal Stehlík.
The Russians themselves perceived the invasion differently, according to Czech Radio journalist Ondrej Soukup. “They were held for several weeks or months in isolated bases, where they were told that the North Atlantic Alliance was on the borders of Czechoslovakia and we had to help them,” he recalled.
Czech society, Soukup said, is still able to learn lessons from this historical episode today: “What surprised me in February 2022 was how positively the vast majority of Czech society reacted.”
“Even though it’s been more than two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Czech support for Ukraine continues. Let’s hope it will hold,” he added.
