The Return of History in Russia’s Foreign Policy
Journal: Journal of Applied History
Year: 2022

The publication of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s essay ‘On the historical unity of Russia and Ukraine’ in the summer of 2021 barely raised an eyebrow in the West. Some observers wondered why a president would undertake the effort to pen down his selective view on Russia’s common history with Ukraine, if not for the sole objective to remove all raison d’être for Ukraine. What stood out in any case, was that history obviously had started to play a major role in Russian foreign policy. Yet, fe