Of the history of Ukraine and its relationships with Russia, Poland and others. To understand the current conflict, start here.

Thank you for this brilliant series. So informative about this huge range of world history, and especially relevant about this region now. 🇺🇦

I’m a Ukrainian American. There is no leftist agenda here. Snyder’s series is just an accurate account of Ukraine’s journey and struggle to wrest itself from the soon-to-be-ending Russian empire.

i’m enjoying this podcast very much. i’ve enjoyed it even more ever since i started listening at 0.75 speed. snyder speaks at a million miles a minute so it’s nice to slow it down to a more digestible speed.

First, learn history. Next, strive for liberation. Finally, achieve personal freedom. This is the path towards Enlightenment. There is only a “left” bias to those who have preconceived notions/guided by ideology. This is non-ideological. Granted, most reviews claiming “left” bias are actual troll accounts meant to prevent some from tuning in. At most, a “left” bias exist for a Nationalistic Russian who wishes for the unity of the Slavic speaking world into one Empire. I appreciate the vast historical knowledge being shared. I hope to find a similar course on the history of the many diverse people (nations) living within the confines of CCP China.

Thank you for the podcast which offers an enjoyable education in Ukrainian history. Books from professor Snyder’s reading list are very helpful and fascinating.

Just in to Episode 2 and I can’t let such this error just stand unaddressed. The Bible in no way ever suggests in any way that the original innocence and goodness of man’s condition was ruined by someone other than himself. Please read Genesis, or even just its first several chapters, to see that. Otherwise, carry on and thank you so much for educating me on this region’s history!

Lots of interesting material here, but it’s best to use these lectures as a way to learn what you want to explore later in depth. Snyder at times talks so fast he stumbles over his words, and flies from topic to topic. He also grows more openly leftist as the series develops. But he has a wealth of knowledge, and a good sense of humor. I’d give this a higher rating if he would lighten up on the bias, and slow down to at least a gallop.

Yale professors always seem to place advancing a leftist agenda ahead of any other consideration

Thank you Dr. Snyder and Yale for making this freely available! In a world dominated by trivial sound bites and or purposeful disinformation it is truly imperative that there is a widely available source of historical facts to provide a broader context for those who wish to really understand what is happening in Ukraine and why we should be supporting their struggle for a free and independent future. I watched this already on YouTube but having an audio version in this form will allow me to conveniently revisit the material and share with others. Thanks again for this incredible resource.

This human. This podcast. This time. “There is no way to do nothing”.

We owe Timothy Snyder a debt of gratitude for making the knowledge and depth of insight he brings to his Yale classes available to the rest of us. I have been following the YouTube videos for some time now, pausing frequently to replay and think about its revelations. It’s an additional gift that specific reading assignments for each lecture are now available in the podcast summaries. This is an astounding banquet of ideas and facts and the notes make it all the more nourishing.

Thank you for making this a podcast too! I was having a hard time watching all the videos. Now I can listen only. Brilliant series which I am so grateful for.

This is a really great series, Mr. Snyder is very knowledgeable. I highly recommend Borderlands by Snyder as well.

Thorough and articulate, Snyder offers an in depth analysis of a fascinating region and the people’s who have called it home over the past ~1000 years. This series provides the historical context essential to understanding the current conflict and what a path toward peace will look like. The free availability of these presentations, which represent lifetimes of research, speaks loudly to Snyder’s integrity and generosity of spirit. Academia is not dead.

This series of lectures provides some useful information and a lot of useful perspective on the history of Ukraine in the context of the ongoing war there. Understandably, it is affected by that conflict, but, problematically, it doesn't try very hard to be objective, in its tone any more than in its perspective or content. (This is most apparent, and most problematic, in the guest lecture on the Maidan Revolution by Marci Shore [Prof. Snyder's wife, also a professor at Yale], where she admits to being personally repulsed by the former president Yanukovych. She also glosses over the participation of violent far-right groups in that event.) Lecturers must deal with the dilemma of balancing content and commentary (facts and interpretation, although of course these cannot be neatly separated out). This course leans much more toward interpretation. Hence if you're listening to the lectures only, without reading the books and articles on the syllabus, you'll miss out on much of the actual happenings of Ukrainian history, not just the events but also the longer-term socio-economic changes and the enduring cultural achievements. (The father of modern Ukrainian literature, Taras Shevchenko, is mentioned only once, in passing, if I recall correctly.) Fortunately many of the books are available for free online, esp. via archive.org, and some of the articles are available on the personal pages of the authors at academia.edu. The interpretations are often interesting and are best when explaining the shifting thinking on Ukrainian identity by the ruling elites over the course of Soviet rule. But they focus almost exclusively on the perspective of the rulers and leave out the ruled. E.g. the lecture on the Holodomor does a good job explaining why Stalin and the Soviet elite committed the mass murder by starvation of 4 million Ukrainians, but has almost nothing to say about the experience of any of those 4 million (or the survivors)--though this is covered in some detail in the assigned reading from Snyder's Bloodlands. And when it does deal with the ruled, it is usually about the intellectuals and dissidents rather than the common people. Furthermore, what culture he does discuss is almost exclusively literary (presumably due to his own tastes). Apart from a few references to Ukrainian baroque architecture and to modern Ukrainian rock bands, there is no mention of Ukrianian visual arts or music (one might mention the great composer Dmitry Bortniansky, claimed by both the Ukrainian and Russian musical traditions). Another major gap is the relative lack of treatment of religion in Ukrainian history. Snyder himself acknowledges this in the penultimate lecture. But covering the last decade (or last three decades) of Ukrainian history without any discussion of the complicated three-way competition between Orthodox churches (four-way, if we add the Greek Catholics) is a great omission in a country where faith is so important to a large segment of the population and so connected to politics and to Russian influence. (And with regard to earlier history, he never mentions the Metropolitan of Kyiv Petro Mohyla as a person, only his name in the title of the famous Academy in Kyiv that he founded; and he never mentions Feofan Prokopovych, the Ukrainian churchman who masterminded Peter the Great's ecclesiastical reforms.) This brings me again to the problem of balance. Granted, it is hard to lecture dispassionately about Russian influence and interference when Russia is waging a war of aggression against Ukraine. But a historian is not supposed to be a propagandist, or even a journalist. We turn to historians to give us as objective a perspective on what is happening in the present by providing as objective an interpretation of what has happened in the past, as distasteful as such objectivity may seem in the heat of the moment. Snyder focuses on a cluster of aggressive imperialist Russian narratives about the history of Ukraine, but he would have helped us understand the tragic intellectual and emotional position the Russian people are in vis-a-vis their Ukrainian neighbors by also including more idealistic or more anguished reflections on that relationship. And he does a historical injustice, one which troublingly echoes German propaganda of the First and Second World Wars, by virtually excluding Russia from the heritage of Kyivan Rus' and consigning it to being an ugly stepchild of the Mongol conquest. Acknowledging that modern Russia is a child of Rus' does not mean justifying the current war. Snyder also critiques German imperialist or post-imperialist narratives about Ukraine in the final lecture, but despite referring to U.S. imperialism in vague terms in the early lectures, passes over it in silence when discussing current events. He also does not problematize his own avowed participation in the current events as a kind of intellectual adviser to the current Ukrainian government and its allies in the U.S. and Europe. A final comment in closing: the lectures are well-delivered, a bit too chatty for my taste but salted with a good sense of humor. I would probably give this course 3.5 stars if I could, but decided to round down, to counter-balance the gushing reviews from everyone else.

Thank you for this educational gem!

Thank you

I started watching on YouTube, but a podcast is better because I can listen whenever and wherever I want. I’m just starting lecture 4, and learning so much. I actually found out about this course from someone in the comments section of “The Dispatch,” while we were lamenting the lack of historical knowledge on Ukraine. I wish I had a way of finding that person and thanking him for this recommendation. Thank you!

Please do also support UNITED24. Ukraine needs our help! I am surely not alone gratefully to make a gift in honor of Timothy Snyder as a way to thank him for these wonderful lectures. — Joe F.

Many thanks for the decision to make these lectures publicly available. I learned so much about the history of the surrounding regions, how nations come into existence, and how the history that most of us in the west are taught is sorely lacking. Thanks to a remark by Prof. Snyder, I also just made my first contribution to Razom. Enjoy the series!

Have learned a ton.

Thanks so much for your enriching lectures and programs!

This is a lot of information and I can’t say I’m memorizing it all, but Professor Snyder dies a great job of highlighting themes and patterns that are important. This is a treasure for anyone supporting Ukraine or confused by russia’s war. Professor Snyder is a hero of our time politically and morally. Слава Україні!

This course about Ukraine is so good, and so important to understand today. Prof. Snyder is a knowledgeable, compelling, humane presenter. Highly, highly recommend.

I anxiously await each class and so appreciate the widened perspective I have gained and a greater ability to recognize patterns through knowledge of history.💛

This is a fascinating series of lectures not just on Ukraine but European history in general.