As this is a long interview and I have a weak stomach, I have seen this in bits and bobs. Interestingly, Russian friends have told me he always talks like this, a rambling ahistorical flim-flam used to justify his worldview, but western observers did not know before this interview. Whatever the historical nature of his worldview, it is a fixed one resembling Adolf Hitler's fumigations whereby all his crimes are easily justified by the transgressions of others proved by pseudo-history especially dealing with the actions of his rule. The resemblance to Hitler´s occasional talks to supporters and cronies is marked.
Even if Russian is not understood, his means of talking in his official capacity, to my mind, resembles Trump's. Short speech patterns with sentences, phrases and clauses often left in the air-really the declarative functioning of bar-room bores. While Trump gains rhetorical energy through rising phrases, his voice becoming louder towards the middle of a clause or sentence, and giving power to what is often nonsense, Putin gains energy through historical observations, or, where recent history is concerned, complete lies, which distract from his one tone discourse.
Comparison with Hitler is valid as he used the power of his voice to promote propositions while distracting from contradiction. Like Putin, he attempted a rewriting of history through repetition and rhetoric, although Putin's delivery is relaxed and low key masking the sheer banality and brutality behind his discourse. Surrounded by yes men and the weak minded, he has got used to being listened to with no one shouting 'rubbish'. A mafia boss who thinks he's a scholar?
I appreciate your deep insight into this topic. At the same time, I can add that such deliberate and unhistorical statements of Putin would be impossible if the real history of Ukraine, including the history of the Ukrainian language, had been widely known. There is still much to do here. As a small contribution towards this endeavour, I would like to mention my forthcoming article in the Slavistic encyclopedia:
Vakulenko, Maksym. 2024. “Transliteration (forthcoming)”. In: Encyclopedia of Slavic Languages and Linguistics Online, Editor-in-Chief: Marc L. Greenberg, General Editor: Lenore A. Grenoble. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2589-6229_ESLO_COM_038593.
Maksym,
Yes, I agree. I am doing my part. I gave a lecture on this two weeks ago online and I have a paper ready for publication in a new book in which I have researched the connections between Kyiv Rus and Muscovy.
In my paper I deal with linguistics, and certainly I would like to read yours. The region was divided into four dialects, which effectively were different languages, or potentially so, with different roots. Novgorod and Suzdal were similar.
There are two other important issues. Academia in the west has focused on Russian departments and therefore distorted the region's history by simply accepting that Russia and Ukraine are the same. When discussing Kyiv-Rus these departments took up the Russian invention and referenced them both as Russian. So Kyiv-Rus was referred to as Russia, when they were not remotely alike. Also the Tatars, who ruled much of the region, have been written out of history. When the Mongols attacked they were not interested in either Volodymyr-Suzdal or Kyiv but in the Volga Bulgars, a powerful and wealthy empire near the former. Also, even by the 16th century, Muscovy was 50% Tatar.
Russia has no legitimate reason to use Rus, except for the continuance of the original Scandinavian dynasty, which kept its power through kow-towing to the Mongols. Otherwise, in terms of ethnicity and culture it is very unlike the previous political manifestations in the region. In fact, all the polities (Rus should be limited to cities) were hybrid to one degree or another. There were racist tones to Muscovy's use of Rus.
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