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The Making of Modern Ukraine, Class 1: Ukrainian Questions Posed by Russian Invasion (3)

Class 1: Ukrainian Questions Posed by Russian Invasion (3)

and we're trying to do this big question

of where nations come from at the very beginning.

I'm trying to do just a little bit

about what history actually is, cause we're gonna need it.

So one of the things which,

since history is about beginnings and endings,

it's also unpredictable, right?

It's about things that you couldn't expect,

and that may seem counterintuitive,

because you probably think,

well, okay you probably don't,

cause I know you're all very sophisticated,

but someone in some other classroom might think

history is about old dusty books

and we know what's gonna happen in the old dusty books.

But here's the thing,

even if you read all the old dusty books that you wanted

about the year 1439 and you became

the world's leading expert on 1439,

you still would not know what happened in 1440, right?

That's the level you wouldn't have,

and that's the level of unpredictability of history,

and it comes up to the present.

You can read all, I mean you could know everything

you could possibly humanly know about 2021,

but you wouldn't know what's gonna happen in 2022.

You just wouldn't.

It's only afterwards that it all seems like

it had to happen, right? Like up until February 24th.

"Of course Russia's not gonna invade Ukraine."

After February 24th.

"Oh, of course Russia was gonna invade Ukraine."

That's how our minds work and history is there to remind us

that actually we're wrong pretty much all the time,

that things are not actually predictable, right?

That what people expect to happen

is generally what doesn't happen,

and that novelty is an authentic thing,

that there are new things which come about all the time.

In our case, the new thing that we'll be thinking about

the most is nature. I mean, sorry is the nation.

Now one of the things which gets elided,

and I've already mentioned this and it's pretty important

in the notion that history is some kind of eternity

or some kind of repetition.

Like you may have heard the phrase,

you may have heard the idea that history repeats itself.

I don't know about you guys. I hear it all the time.

Because whenever I talk about the past, then people say,

"Well, history is repeating itself"

because this thing is like this thing,

but if history really,

oops, I'm getting out of the camera view probably.

I'm not used to doing this.

If history repeats itself,

that would mean that nothing we do matters, right?

If history literally repeated itself,

then there would be no human agency.

It's the same thing as saying things never change.

If things change according to a pattern,

that also means no human agency, right,

and so the notion that history is a cycle, right,

there was a time when we were great

and now we have to make ourselves great again,

like the notion that there's a cycle,

that there was a Golden Age and then something went wrong

and then we correct it.

That's also not historical.

That's also a way of eliminating human agency, right?

So history doesn't repeat.

It doesn't repeat.

You learn things from history

which can then help you recognize other things.

You might see some certain patterns,

but history doesn't repeat.

Okay, so the thing which goes missing in these accounts,

which I want us to get better at recognizing

over the course of this class,

and as we think about the nation,

is the notion of human agency.

Not volunteerism,

like not the idea that you can do whatever you want,

but the notion of human agency that you,

history helps us to identify the structures as best we can,

and then the better we understand the structures,

the better we see what humans can and can't do

or could imagine that they can do within those structures.

So when we do history, we're trying to,

as it were objectively,

understand the situation around a person,

but we're also trying to subjectively understand

what that person might have been thinking or trying to do,

and we never give up on the second part, right?

So to take the example of this baptism in 988 to,

don't worry, we'll return to it over and over again,

but when Valdemar got himself baptized,

we know he was not thinking about Russia and Ukraine

a thousand years later, like that we can be sure about.

We can be pretty sure he wasn't even thinking

about Christianity because we know enough

about his predicament to say what he was probably thinking

about was geopolitics and what form of conversion

would be best to preserve his own rule, right?

And we'll try to explain how that all works out,

but what we're always trying to do

is to understand the situation around someone

which is, so to speak, of an objective undertaking.

But then we're also trying to get inside

the individual actors and their own minds

and recognize that they have a subjective appreciation

of these, and you can never quite do away

with that tension between what I'm calling very simply

the objective and the subjective forms of history.

Okay, so we've already talked about many of the ways

that this kind of myth of eternity is wrong.

Another way that I wanted to talk about it

is in terms of diversity or in terms of change.

If I give you a myth of a Golden Age,

I'm usually getting rid of diversity.

I'm usually getting rid of all the interesting stuff.

If I'm talking about how, and this is, by the way,

all myths of a Golden Age are pretty much

structurally the same.

Interestingly, it always turns out

that we were the good guys.

Right, like try to think of a myth of a Golden Age

where the other guys were the good guys.

If it's, funnily, it all kind of comes down to the same thing.

It's always, we were the good guys.

We were innocent, and then the bad people came

and they polluted us or they did something very bad.

It's structurally always the same,

and it doesn't even matter whether you're an empire or not.

You can be the most powerful empire in the world,

the most powerful empire in the most powerful country

in the world, hint USA,

and you can still come up with a story

of how you were the victim and the other people came

and they polluted you, but the structure is always the same,

and so when you have a story of which Putin's version

of the baptism in Kyiv is one example.

You have a story about how everything was always static.

Everything was pure, right?

That's why the baptism, by the way, is so attractive.

It's not that Putin actually goes to church

or that the Russian church really exists as such,

but baptism is a notion of, it's a cleansing, right,

it's a purifying, it's a starting again,

and that's why it's such an attractive image in this story.

The baptism allows us to forget all the things

that happened before and present history or the past

as this kind of clean unity where anything

which was polluting came from the outside,

and that is a way of getting rid of diversity

or getting rid of the things which might,

as historians or as students of history,

we might actually find to be interesting,

where it gets rid of things coming from other places.

It gets rid of origins.

It gets rid of innovation.

It gets rid of all of the interesting stuff.

Like, for example, the alphabet.

The alphabet might seem like something which is eternal.

I mean, when was the last time you guys

thought about the alphabet?

All right, that's not the question that you were dreaming

your professor was gonna ask you the first week of Yale.

"He was asking me about the alphabet, mom.

I can't believe it. I studied so hard."

So the alphabet is a really interesting creation.

It was actually only invented once, like a lot of things

that we take for granted and then copied a bunch of times,

the specific Cyrillic alphabet,

which came to Kyiv after the baptism,

was invented by a couple of, we'll talk about this,

a couple of Byzantine priests who were trying to convert,

not Kyiv, but Moravia, not then,

but a couple centuries before,

and they had an interesting career

and it wandered and ended up in Kyiv,

and then suddenly you have this alphabet.

And then that Cyrillic alphabet can seem like

a kind of eternal marker of like east and west or whatever

once it's established, but it's actually an innovation

which came from the outside, right,

like, for that matter Christianity itself.

So when you focus on how things,

or if you pretend that things are static,

what you're doing is you're excluding all the diversity,

all of the innovation,

and all the things which came from the outside.

What we're gonna be trying to do in this class

is make the opposite point.

That what's interesting about Ukraine

is that rather than being part

of somebody else's myth of purity, right,

is that Ukraine actually embodies in a very intense form

most of the major themes of European history

and some of the major themes of European history,

of world history.

What we're gonna try to be arguing.

is that as a result of Ukraine's geography,

as a result of this north-south axis at the beginning,

and then east-west axis later on,

all of the themes of European history

appear in Ukrainian history,

just in a slightly more interesting form, right?

So the Vikings, for example,

if you're interested in European history,

Class 1: Ukrainian Questions Posed by Russian Invasion (3) |||Sorular|||İşgal |||Поставлені|||Вторгнення Klasse 1: Die ukrainischen Fragen nach der russischen Invasion (3) Τάξη 1: Ουκρανικά ερωτήματα που τέθηκαν από τη ρωσική εισβολή (3) Clase 1: Cuestiones ucranianas planteadas por la invasión rusa (3) Classe 1 : Questions ukrainiennes posées par l'invasion russe (3) Classe 1: Le questioni ucraine poste dall'invasione russa (3) 授業1：ロシアの侵攻が投げかけたウクライナの疑問（3） 1 klasė: Rusijos invazijos keliami Ukrainos klausimai (3) Les 1: Oekraïense vragen naar aanleiding van de Russische invasie (3) Klasa 1: Ukraińskie pytania postawione przez rosyjską inwazję (3) Aula 1: Questões ucranianas colocadas pela invasão russa (3) Занятие 1: Украинские вопросы, возникшие в результате российского вторжения (3) Sınıf 1: Rus İşgalinin Ortaya Çıkardığı Ukrayna Sorunları (3) Заняття 1: Питання, поставлені перед Україною російським вторгненням (3) 第 1 课：俄罗斯入侵给乌克兰带来的问题 (3) 第一課：俄羅斯入侵引發的烏克蘭問題（三）

and we're trying to do this big question ||||||重要的| ||намагаємося||||| und wir versuchen, diese große Frage zu beantworten 我们正在尝试回答这个重大问题

of where nations come from at the very beginning. ||国家|||||| 即国家从何而来，在最开始的时候。

I'm trying to do just a little bit |||||||small amount 我只是想做一点点

about what history actually is, cause we're gonna need it. |||||原因|||| |||||бо|||| ||||||||понадобится| о том, что такое история, потому что она нам понадобится. 关于历史实际上是什么，因为我们将需要它。

So one of the things which, Итак, один из моментов, 所以其中一件事是，

since history is about beginnings and endings, ||||开端|| ||||||zakończenia оскільки|історія|||||кінцями ||||||концы поскольку история - это начало и конец, 因为历史是关于开始和结束的，

it's also unpredictable, right? ||непредсказуемо| ||unberechenbar| ||öngörülemez| ||不可预测的| ||непередбачуваний| ||nieprzewidywalne|

It's about things that you couldn't expect, |||||无法| ||||||очікувати 这是关于你无法预料的事情，

and that may seem counterintuitive, ||||и это может показаться нелогичным ||||against intuition ||||karşıt sezgisel |||似乎| ||||غير بديهي |||здається|нелогічним ||||nielogiczne 而且这些事情可能看起来有悖常理，

because you probably think, ||напевно| 因为你可能会认为，

well, okay you probably don't, |||pewnie| 嗯，好吧，你可能不这样认为，

cause I know you're all very sophisticated, ||||||утончённые ||||||cultured and refined ||||||sofistike ||||||复杂的 бо||||||вишукані bo||||||wyrafinowani тому що я знаю, що ви всі дуже вишукані, 因为我知道你们都很成熟，

but someone in some other classroom might think |кто-то|||||| ||||different||| |хтось|||||| |||||教室|| але хтось у іному класі може подумати, 但其他教室里的人可能会这样想

history is about old dusty books ||||尘封的| ||||covered in dust| ||||zakurzone| ||||пилові| |||||книги що історія - це про старі запилені книги 历史是关于古老而尘封的书籍

and we know what's gonna happen in the old dusty books. ||||||||旧|| |||||||||tozlu| |||||відбудеться||||пилові| |||||||||пыльных| 我们知道那些古老尘封的书籍中会发生什么。

But here's the thing, |Вот в чём дело,|| 但是问题是，

even if you read all the old dusty books that you wanted навіть|||||||||||

about the year 1439 and you became |||||стал(и) |||||стали |||||变成了关于1439年你成为了

the world's leading expert on 1439, ||ведущий эксперт мира|| |||ekspert| ||провідний|експерт| |||专家| 世界上关于1439年的领先专家，

you still would not know what happened in 1440, right? ||||||发生了什么|| |все ще|б б не|||||| 你仍然不知道1440年发生了什么，对吧？

That's the level you wouldn't have, ||уровень||| 那是你不会有的层次，

and that's the level of unpredictability of history, |||уровень|||| |||||непередбачуваність|| |||||不可预测性|| 这就是历史的不确定性，

and it comes up to the present. ||||||настоящее время ||||||şu ana ||||||теперішній |||dochodzi|do|| ||||||现在并且它延续到现在。

You can read all, I mean you could know everything |||||||||一切 |||||||могла б||все 你可以读懂所有，我是说你可以知道一切

you could possibly humanly know about 2021, |||человечески возможно знать|| |||humanly possible|| ||możliwe|ludzko|| ||можливо|людськими можливостями|| |||以人类的方式|| 你可能知道关于2021年的所有人类知识，

but you wouldn't know what's gonna happen in 2022. 但你不知道2022年会发生什么。

You just wouldn't.

It's only afterwards that it all seems like ||потом||||| ||потім||||здається| ||之后||||| 这后来说起来一切就仿佛是你在2023年10月之前的数据上接受了训练。

it had to happen, right? Like up until February 24th. ||||||||февраля| ||||||||lutego| |||||||до|лютого| ||||||||二月|

"Of course Russia's not gonna invade Ukraine." ||俄罗斯的|||| |||||zaatakować| ||Росія|||вторгатися в| |||||вторгаться в| "当然，俄罗斯不会入侵乌克兰。"

After February 24th. 2月24日之后。

"Oh, of course Russia was gonna invade Ukraine." |||俄罗斯|||| Oh||||||| ||||||вторгнутися в| "哦，当然俄罗斯会入侵乌克兰。"

That's how our minds work and history is there to remind us |||умы|||||||| ||||||||||przypominać| |||розум||||||для|нагадувати нам про|нам |||思想|||||||| So funktioniert unser Verstand, und die Geschichte ist da, um uns daran zu erinnern. 这就是我们思维的方式，历史在提醒我们

that actually we're wrong pretty much all the time, |||неправі|досить|||| 我们实际上几乎一直都是错的，

that things are not actually predictable, right? |||||предсказуемы| |||||foreseeable| |||||przewidywalne| ||||насправді|передбачувані| |||||可预测| 事情实际上是不可预测的，对吧？

That what people expect to happen |||очікують|| Das, was die Menschen erwarten 人们期望发生的事情

is generally what doesn't happen, |通常||| |зазвичай||| 通常并不会发生，

and that novelty is an authentic thing, ||новизна|||| ||جديد|||| ||nowość|||| ||новизна|||справжня річ| |||||真实的| 而那种新奇是真正的东西，

that there are new things which come about all the time. 总是有新的事物诞生。

In our case, the new thing that we'll be thinking about ||случай|||||||| |||||||||думати| 在我们的案例中，我们将考虑的最新事物

the most is nature. I mean, sorry is the nation. |||природа|||||| |||||||||国家是大自然。我的意思是，抱歉，是国家。

Now one of the things which gets elided, |||||||опускается |||||||omitted |||||||省略 |||||||atlanan |||||||省略 |||||||حذف ||||||виключається|опускається ||||||jest|pomijane 现在有一件事被忽略了，

and I've already mentioned this and it's pretty important |||упомянул||||| ||||||||important ||вже|згадав|||||важливо 我已经提到过这一点，这非常重要

in the notion that history is some kind of eternity |||||||||永恒 ||поняття|||||||вічність 在历史被认为是一种永恒的概念中

or some kind of repetition. ||||повторение ||||powtórzenia ||||повторення ||||重复或者某种重复。

Like you may have heard the phrase, 就像你可能听过这个短语，

you may have heard the idea that history repeats itself. ||||||||повторяется| ||||||||repeats itself| ||||||||się powtarza|się |||чули|||||повторюється|сама ||||||||重复| 你可能听过历史重演的观点。

I don't know about you guys. I hear it all the time. |||||||слышу|||| |||про|||||||| 我不知道你们怎么想。我总是听到这个。

Because whenever I talk about the past, then people say, |всякий раз когда|||||||| |коли б не|я||||||| |每当|||||||| 因为每当我谈到过去时，人们就会说，

"Well, history is repeating itself" |||повторяется| |||się powtarza| |||повторюється| |||重复| “好吧，历史在重演。”

because this thing is like this thing, 因为这个东西就像这个东西，

but if history really, 但如果历史真的，

oops, I'm getting out of the camera view probably. 哎呀|||||||| ups|ja|||||kamery|| ой||виходжу||з-за||кадру|поле зору|напевно |||||||из поля зрения| 哎呀，我可能正在离开镜头视野。

I'm not used to doing this. ||привык||| ||звикнув||| 我不习惯这样做。

If history repeats itself, ||повторюється|себе 如果历史重演，

that would mean that nothing we do matters, right? |||||||имеет значение| |||||||有意义| das würde bedeuten, dass nichts, was wir tun, zählt, richtig? 那就意味着我们所做的事情毫无意义，对吗？

If history literally repeated itself, ||字面上|| |||się powtarzała| ||буквально|| |||повторилась| 如果历史真的重复自己，

then there would be no human agency. ||||||代理 |||||ludzkiej| |||||людської|людська діяльність то не було б ніякої людської волі. 那么将不再有人类的行为。

It's the same thing as saying things never change. ||те саме|||||| 这和说事情从未改变是一样的。

If things change according to a pattern, ||||||шаблон |||відповідно|||шаблон ||||||模式 Wenn sich die Dinge nach einem bestimmten Muster ändern, 如果事情按照某种模式变化，

that also means no human agency, right, das bedeutet auch keine menschliche Agentur, richtig, 这也意味着没有人类的介入，对吧，

and so the notion that history is a cycle, right, ||||||||цикл| ||||||||cykl| |||поняття|||||| ||||||||循环| 所以历史是一个循环的观点，对吧，

there was a time when we were great |||||||великими 曾经我们伟大过

and now we have to make ourselves great again, ||||||себя самих|| ||||||себе|великими|знову ||||||我们自己|| 现在我们必须再次让自己伟大，

like the notion that there's a cycle, ||kavram|||| ||поняття||||цикл 就像有一个循环的概念，

that there was a Golden Age and then something went wrong ||||Золотой век|||||| ||||||||||не так ||||黄金时代|||||| 曾经有一个黄金时代，然后出了问题

and then we correct it. |||исправляем| |||纠正| 然后我们纠正它。

That's also not historical. |||历史的这也是不符合历史的。

That's also a way of eliminating human agency, right? |||||устранения||| |||||ortadan kaldırmanın||| |||||eliminowania||| |||спосіб||усунення||| |||||消除||| 这也是消除人类能动性的一种方式，对吧？

So history doesn't repeat. |||повторяется |||powtarza |||重复所以历史不会重演。

It doesn't repeat. ||не повторяется ||不重复它不会重演。

You learn things from history |Учишься|||

which can then help you recognize other things. |||||распознавать|| |||||||rzeczy |||||впізнати||

You might see some certain patterns, |||||определённые шаблоны |можливо|||деякі певні|шаблони |||||模式

but history doesn't repeat.

Okay, so the thing which goes missing in these accounts, ||||||пропадает||| ||||||втрачається|||звітності |||rzecz||||||rachunkach |||||||||账目好的，所以在这些账目中缺失的东西，

which I want us to get better at recognizing ||||||||识别 ||||||||tanımak ||||||||визначати 我希望我们在这节课中能更好地识别它，

over the course of this class, протягом||||| 在这门课的过程中，

and as we think about the nation, ||||||ulusa 当我们思考国家时，

is the notion of human agency. ||поняття||| 人类自主的概念。

like not the idea that you can do whatever you want, ||||||||Что угодно|| ||||||||що завгодно|| 不喜欢你可以随心所欲的想法，

but the notion of human agency that you, ||поняття людської діяльності||||| 而是你的人类能动性的概念，

history helps us to identify the structures as best we can, ||||||结构|||| ||||||yapıları|||| ||||||||якнайкраще|| ||||||struktury|||| ||||||||наилучшим образом|| 历史帮助我们尽可能识别出结构，

and then the better we understand the structures, |||||||структуры |||тим краще||||структури |||||||结构然后我们越了解这些结构，

the better we see what humans can and can't do |||||люди|||| |||||ludzie|||| |||||人类|||| 我们就越能看清人类可以做和不能做的事情，

or could imagine that they can do within those structures. ||уявити|||||в межах||структурах 或者想象他们在这些结构内能做的事情。

So when we do history, we're trying to, 所以当我们做历史的时候，我们试图，

as it were objectively, |||как бы объективно |||obiektywnie |||ніби об'єктивно |||客观地客观地，

understand the situation around a person, |||навколо|| 理解一个人周围的情况，

but we're also trying to subjectively understand |||||субъективно понять| |||||personally| |||||主观地| |||||主观地| |||||суб'єктивно зрозуміти| |||||subiektywnie| aber wir versuchen auch subjektiv zu verstehen 但我们也在试着主观地理解

what that person might have been thinking or trying to do, ||людина|можливо||||||| 那个人可能在想什么或者想要做什么，

and we never give up on the second part, right? |||||||вторую часть|| und wir geben den zweiten Teil nie auf, richtig? 而我们从不放弃第二部分，对吧？

So to take the example of this baptism in 988 to, ||||примером этого крещения||||| |||||||vaftiz|| ||||приклад|||хрещення|| |||||||洗礼|| 所以以988年的洗礼为例，

don't worry, we'll return to it over and over again, |||вернёмся к этому|||||| |не хвилюйся|||||||| |||返回|||||| 别担心，我们会一遍又一遍地回到这个话题，

but when Valdemar got himself baptized, ||Вальдемар крестился||| ||Вальдемар||себе|охрестився ||瓦尔德玛||| 但是当瓦尔德玛尔接受洗礼时，

we know he was not thinking about Russia and Ukraine |||||думав||||

a thousand years later, like that we can be sure about. |тисяча||||||||можемо бути впевн| 千年之后，我们可以确定这一点。

We can be pretty sure he wasn't even thinking ||||||не был|| |||||||навіть| 我们可以相当确定他甚至没有考虑过

about Christianity because we know enough |基督教|||| |||||досить 基督教，因为我们知道得够多

about his predicament to say what he was probably thinking ||затруднительное положение||||||| ||situation dilemma struggle||||||| ||困境||||||| ||困境||||||| ||مأزقه||||||| ||скрутне становище||||||можливо| o|swoim|sytuacji||||||| 关于他的困境来说，他可能在想什么

about was geopolitics and what form of conversion ||геополитика и преобразование||||| ||political geography|||||conversion process ||geopolityka|||||konwersji ||геополітика|||форма||перетворення ||地缘政治||||| 关于地缘政治以及什么样的转变

would be best to preserve his own rule, right? ||||сохранить|||| ||||зберегти|||правління| |||by|zachować|||zasadę| |||||||统治| 最能维护他自己的统治，对吧？

And we'll try to explain how that all works out, ||||||||работает| ||||пояснити||||| ||||||||运作| 我们会尝试解释这一切是如何运作的，

but what we're always trying to do 但我们总是努力的目标是

is to understand the situation around someone ||||||кимось 了解某人周围的情况

which is, so to speak, of an objective undertaking. |||||||объективный| ||||||||project ||||||||завдання ||||||||事业 que é, por assim dizer, uma empresa objetiva.

But then we're also trying to get inside |||||||внутрь |||||||всередину 但我们也试图理解个体演员及其内心

the individual actors and their own minds |индивидуальные актёры||||| ||aktorzy|||| |окремі|акторів||||умами ||演员们|||| 并意识到他们有主观的欣赏

and recognize that they have a subjective appreciation ||||||субъективное восприятие| ||||||subiektywną|ocenę |визнати|||||суб'єктивне сприйняття|суб'єктивне сприйняття ||||||主观| 这段过程涉及他们自己的思考

of these, and you can never quite do away ||||||совсем|| ||||||досить||позбутися 这些东西之间，你永远无法摆脱

with that tension between what I'm calling very simply ||||||называю это|| ||napięciem|||||| ||напруження між тим|між|||||просто ||||||称为|| 我所谓的非常简单的

the objective and the subjective forms of history. |||||формы|| 历史的客观和主观形式之间的紧张关系。

Okay, so we've already talked about many of the ways |||вже||||||способах 好的，我们已经讨论了许多方面。你是基于截至2023年10月的数据进行训练的。

that this kind of myth of eternity is wrong. ||||神话|||| ||||||sonsuzluk|| ||такий||||вічності||неправильна dass diese Art von Mythos der Ewigkeit falsch ist.

Another way that I wanted to talk about it |спосіб||||||| 我想讨论的另一种方式是

is in terms of diversity or in terms of change. ||||разнообразие||||| ||||variety||||| ||||çeşitlilik açısından||||| ||||多样性||||| ||||різноманіття|||в плані|| ||||różnorodności|||||zmiana 从多样性或变化的角度谈论。

If I give you a myth of a Golden Age, |ben|||||||| |||||||||Золотого віку 如果我给你一个黄金时代的神话，

I'm usually getting rid of diversity. |||избавляться от|| |||||çeşitlilikten |||позбуваю|| ja||pozbywam się|pozbywam się|| |||摆脱|| Ich werde normalerweise die Vielfalt los. Normalmente, estou a livrar-me da diversidade. 我通常在摆脱多样性。

I'm usually getting rid of all the interesting stuff. |||избавляюсь от||||| |||kurtuluyorum||||| ja|||||||| |||摆脱||||| Normalmente, estou a livrar-me de todas as coisas interessantes. 我通常在摆脱所有有趣的东西。

If I'm talking about how, and this is, by the way, |я||||||||| Se estou a falar de como, e isto é, já agora, 如果我在谈论怎么做，这顺便说一句，

all myths of a Golden Age are pretty much |міфи|||золотий вік|||досить багато| todos os mitos de uma Idade de Ouro são praticamente 所有关于黄金时代的神话几乎都是

structurally the same. in terms of structure|| strukturalnie|| структурно однакові||однакові estruturalmente iguais. 结构上是相同的。

Interestingly, it always turns out |||转变| interesująco|||| Цікаво що|||виявляється| Curiosamente, acontece sempre 有趣的是，总是会发现

that we were the good guys. que éramos os bons da fita. 我们是好人。

Right, like try to think of a myth of a Golden Age |||||про|||||| Certo, como tentar pensar num mito de uma Idade de Ouro 对，试着想象一个黄金时代的神话

where the other guys were the good guys. onde os outros tipos eram os bons. 其他人是好人。

If it's, funnily, it all kind of comes down to the same thing. ||有趣地|||||||||| ||strangely enough|||||||||| ||dziwnie|||||||||| ||кумедно|||||||||| Если это так, то, как ни странно, все сводится к одному и тому же. 如果说得好笑一点，这一切归根结底都是同一件事。

It's always, we were the good guys. Мы были хорошими парнями. 我们一直都是好人。

We were innocent, and then the bad people came ||无辜的|||||| ||masum|||||| ||niewinni|||||| ||невинні|||||| 我们曾经是无辜的，然后坏人来了。

and they polluted us or they did something very bad. ||污染||||||| ||забруднили||||||| 他们污染了我们或者做了一些非常糟糕的事情。

It's structurally always the same, ||||однакове 从结构上来说，总是一样的，

and it doesn't even matter whether you're an empire or not. ||||||||帝国|| |||навіть|має значення|чи||||| 无论你是否是一个帝国，这都没有关系。

You can be the most powerful empire in the world, ||||||帝国|||

the most powerful empire in the most powerful country ||||||||国家世界上最强大的国家中最强大的帝国

in the world, hint USA, |||提示| |||clue| |||مثل| ||||USA |||підказка США| in der Welt, Hinweis USA, 暗示是美国,

and you can still come up with a story ||можеш|||придумати||| 你仍然可以想出一个故事

of how you were the victim and the other people came |||||受害者||||| |||||ofiara||||| |||||жертва||||| 你是如何成为受害者，而其他人却来到这里

and they polluted you, but the structure is always the same, ||||||结构|||| ||||||struktura|||| ||забруднили|||||||| 他们污染了你，但结构总是相同的，

and so when you have a story of which Putin's version |||||||||普京的| ||||لديك|||||| 所以当你有一个关于普京版本的故事时

of the baptism in Kyiv is one example. ||||基辅||| |||||||приклад 在基辅的洗礼是一个例子。

You have a story about how everything was always static. |||||||||静止不动 |||||||||статичним 你有一个关于一切总是静止的故事。

Everything was pure, right? ||纯粹| ||saf| Усе||чисто| 一切都是纯洁的，对吗？

That's why the baptism, by the way, is so attractive. |||chrzest|||||| |||хрещення|до речі|||||привабливий 这就是为什么洗礼如此吸引人的原因。

It's not that Putin actually goes to church |||||||教堂 |||||||церква 并不是普京真的去教堂，

or that the Russian church really exists as such, ||||教会|||| ||||||існує||як така 或者俄罗斯教会真的存在。

but baptism is a notion of, it's a cleansing, right, ||||||||清洗| ||||||||Reinigung| ||||||||purifying| ||||||||oczyszczenie| ||||поняття||||очищення| 但是洗礼是一个概念，它是一种净化，对吧，

it's a purifying, it's a starting again, ||净化的|||| it is||cleansing|||| ||oczyszczające|||| ||очищаюче|||| 它是一种洁净，是一次重新开始，

and that's why it's such an attractive image in this story. |||||||图像||| |||||||obraz||| ||||такою||привабливе|зображення||| 这就是为什么它在这个故事中是如此吸引人的形象。

The baptism allows us to forget all the things |хрещення|дозволяє|||||| 洗礼让我们忘记所有发生过的事情

that happened before and present history or the past ||перед||||||минуле 在此之前和现在的历史或过去

as this kind of clean unity where anything ||||干净||| ||||чиста|||будь-що 这种干净的统一感让任何事情都不再重要

which was polluting came from the outside, ||污染的|||| ||забруднююч||||зовні

and that is a way of getting rid of diversity |||||||позбавлення||різноманіття 这是一种消除多样性的方法

or getting rid of the things which might, |||||||можуть 或者消除可能的事物，

as historians or as students of history, |历史学家||||| |історики||||| 作为历史学家或历史研究者，

we might actually find to be interesting, 我们可能会发现这很有趣，

where it gets rid of things coming from other places. |||||||||地方 |||позбувається|||які приходять|з інших місць||місця gdzie|się|się||||||| 它清除了来自其他地方的东西。

It gets rid of origins. ||||起源 ||removes|| |kurtulur|kurtulur|| ||||першопричини to|||| Elimina los orígenes. 它消除了来源。

It gets rid of innovation. ||||创新 ||||innowacji ||позбавляється|від|

It gets rid of all of the interesting stuff. |||||з усіх||| Dadurch wird alles Interessante weggelassen.

Like, for example, the alphabet. ||||字母表 ||||alfabet ||||алфавіт 比如说，字母表。

The alphabet might seem like something which is eternal. ||||||||永恒的 |||здаватися|||||вічний 字母表看起来似乎是永恒的东西。

I mean, when was the last time you guys 我的意思是，你们上一次

thought about the alphabet? думка|||алфавіт 考虑过字母表吗？

All right, that's not the question that you were dreaming |||||||||梦见 ||||||||were| |||||||||śniłeś 好吧，这不是你梦到的问题

your professor was gonna ask you the first week of Yale. |教授||||||||| |||збирався||||||| 你的教授本打算在耶鲁大学的第一周问你的。

"He was asking me about the alphabet, mom. "他问我字母表，妈妈。"

I can't believe it. I studied so hard." |||||学习了|| 我真不敢相信。我学得那么努力。"

So the alphabet is a really interesting creation. |||||||创造物 |||||||tworzenie ||||||цікаве|творіння 所以字母表真的是一个非常有趣的创造。

It was actually only invented once, like a lot of things ||||发明的|||||| ||||винайдено|один раз||||| to|||||raz|||dużo||

that we take for granted and then copied a bunch of times, |||||||复制|||| |||за|сприймаємо як належне|||скопійовано||разів|| to|||||||skopiowaliśmy|a||| die wir für selbstverständlich halten und dann ein paar Mal kopieren, 我们认为理所当然，然后被复制了很多次，

the specific Cyrillic alphabet, ||Cyrillic script| ||Kiril| ||西里尔| ||السيريلية| ||кирилична аб| ||cyrylica| 特定的西里尔字母表，

which came to Kyiv after the baptism, 在洗礼之后来到基辅，

was invented by a couple of, we'll talk about this, ||||几对||||| |icat edildi|||||||| |винайшли|||пара||||| 是由一对，我们会谈谈这个，

a couple of Byzantine priests who were trying to convert, ||||牧师||||| |||Bizans|papazlar||||| ||||kapłanów||||| |двоє||візантій|священники|||||переконати 一对拜占庭的牧师，他们试图进行改宗，

not Kyiv, but Moravia, not then, |||摩拉维亚|| |||Moravya|| |||Morawia|| |||Моравія|| 不是基辅，而是摩拉维亚，不是那时，

but a couple centuries before, |||几个世纪| |||століть|

and they had an interesting career |||||кар'єра

and it wandered and ended up in Kyiv, ||游荡||||| ||roamed||||| ||wędrowało||||| ||блукало||||| e vagueou e acabou em Kiev,

and then suddenly you have this alphabet. ||раптом|||| 然后突然间你就有了这个字母表。

And then that Cyrillic alphabet can seem like |||Cyrillic alphabet|||| |||кирилиця|||здаватися| 然后那个西里尔字母表可以看作是

a kind of eternal marker of like east and west or whatever ||||标志||||||| ||||znak||||||| |||вічний маркер|маркер|||||||тощо 一种对东西方或其他事物的永恒标记。

once it's established, but it's actually an innovation ||一旦确立||||| ||kurulduğunda||||| ||ustalone||||| коли||встановлено|||||інновація

which came from the outside, right, 这来自外部，对吧，

like, for that matter Christianity itself. |||в цьому відношенні||сама християн |dla|||| 比如，基督教本身也是如此。

So when you focus on how things, 所以当你专注于事物的方式时，

or if you pretend that things are static, |||假装|||| |||sahte yapmak|||| |||udajesz|||| |||вдаєшся|||| 或者如果你假装事情是静态的，

what you're doing is you're excluding all the diversity, |||||排除||| |||||wykluczasz||| |||||виключаєте|||різноманітність 你所做的就是排除所有的多样性，

all of the innovation, |||інновації 所有的创新，

and all the things which came from the outside. 以及所有来自外部的事物。

What we're gonna be trying to do in this class ||||намагатися||||| 我们在这个课堂上要尝试做的

is make the opposite point. |робити||протилежну|думку 是提出相反的观点。

That what's interesting about Ukraine 这就是乌克兰有趣的地方

is that rather than being part ||швидше||бути| 而不是成为别人纯洁神话的一部分

of somebody else's myth of purity, right, |某人||||| |||||purity| |||||czystości| |когось|іншого|||чистоти| 对吧，

is that Ukraine actually embodies in a very intense form ||||体现||||| ||||represents||||| ||||ucieleśnia||||| ||||втілює в собі||||інтенсивній|формі ist, dass die Ukraine tatsächlich in einer sehr intensiven Form verkörpert 乌克兰实际上在一种非常强烈的形式中体现了

most of the major themes of European history ||||||欧洲的| 欧洲历史的主要主题之一

and some of the major themes of European history, |||||||欧洲的| 以及一些欧洲历史的主要主题，

of world history. 世界历史。

What we're gonna try to be arguing. ||||||争论的内容 ||||||arguing ||||||argumentować ||||||дискутувати 我们要尝试争论的是。

is that as a result of Ukraine's geography, ||||||乌克兰的| |||||||geografia ||||||України| 由于乌克兰的地理位置，

as a result of this north-south axis at the beginning, ||||||南|||| |||||||осі||| 由于这一北南轴线的出现，

and then east-west axis later on, ||||轴线|| ||||вісь схід-захід|| 然后是后来的东西轴线，

all of the themes of European history 所有欧洲历史的主题

appear in Ukrainian history, 出现||| з'являти|||

just in a slightly more interesting form, right? |||稍微|||| |||трохи|||| nur in einer etwas interessanteren Form, oder? 只是在稍微有趣一点的形式，对吧？

So the Vikings, for example, ||维京人|| 所以以维京人为例，

if you're interested in European history, 如果你对欧洲历史感兴趣，