fascism

Ukraine Then & Now

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If you want to understand the conflict in Ukraine and go behind the headlines, there’s no better place to start than Anna Reid’s Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine. Deeply researched, elegantly written, totally enthralling, the book explores the history of Ukraine  back to the Vikings and how Ukraine and Russia have followed completely different paths.  

Unlike Russia, which became an autocratic empire, Ukraine has been ruled and misruled by Poland, Lithuania, Austria-Hungary and of course Russia.  A key to the current slaughter of Ukrainians and the seizure of vast swathes of territory–as well as what sounds like crazy rhetoric on Russian talk shows–is a profound Russian delusion about this country that hasn’t been independent very long but has an undeniable historic existence, culture, and language.  Reid notes that historically Russians have regarded

Ukrainians as really just a subspecies of Russian…Any differences that did demonstrably exist between them were the artificial work of perfidious, Popish Poles–replaced in today’s Russian imagination by the meddling West in general.  Rather than attacking Ukrainians and Ukrainian-ness as inferior, therefore, Russians deny their existence.  Ukrainians are a “non-historical nation,” the Ukrainian language a joke dialect, Ukraine itself an “Atlantis–a legend dreamed up by Kiev intellectuals”…The very closeness of Ukrainian and Russian culture, the very subtlety of the differences between them, is an irritation.

That was written in the 90s; now the irritation appears to have turned to seething hatred.  

Blending history, personal exploration, and interviews, the book is unique because it is divided into two parts: the first was published in 1997 90s when a democratizing Russia under Yeltsin seemed highly unlikely to attack its neighbor.  The second, of course, was written after Putin launched his “special military operation” at a time when Russia seems like a fascist state to many international analysts–and certainly to Ukrainians who have experienced fascism under the Nazis.

Reid doesn’t pull any punches exploring Ukrainian antisemitism and pogroms or the country’s lack of readiness to face up to the truth the way Germany has done about the Holocaust.  Nor does she whitewash past governmental and cultural corruption.  Reid is especially adroit at discussing how Ukrainian nationalism has been growing stronger and investigating the role of the Ukrainian language in a country where many people have been bilingual and Ukrainians have Russian relatives and marriages are often “mixed.” 

If you’ve read Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder, Reid’s book is a perfect companion piece, vitally important work that has been superbly edited and updated. ★★★★★

Lev Raphael is the author of 27 books in genres from memoir to mystery and his work has appeared in over a dozen languages.  He has reviewed books for The Detroit Free Press, The Washington Post and a handful of public radio stations.

Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939

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At a time when democracy is faltering around the world, this brilliant book makes salutary and scary reading.

The author’s aim in the first of two volumes is to strip away myths from Hitler and see him as the individual he was, not just a giant of megalomania and crazed antisemitism. He was petty, vicious, paranoid, deft at spotting anyone’s weaknesses and exploiting them, cruel, socially awkward and proudly uncomfortable with his social betters.  The pages describing his rage dealing with the King of Italy and the royal court on a state visit are truly hilarious and bizarre.  Likewise, it is beyond satire to read about his obsession with flower arrangements at meals and how he stupefied dinner guests with his endless speechifying.

Ullrich takes time in his introduction to survey the major biographies of Hitler and demonstrate quite clearly that they all have one way or another failed to see Hitler in the round because of their narrow focus. His focus is global and mesmerizing. The author is especially good at laying out the complex political currents during the Nazi party’s rise to power and exploring the widespread German longing for a savior. The quasi-religious nature of Hitler’s regime and the ways in which he was basically worshiped by millions as a messiah may remind readers of more current leaders who are also brutally larger than life–and yet very small.

Hitler was a chameleon, a talent actor and a brilliant orator, which readers who have only seen snippet of his speeches and don’t know German cannot appreciate.  Ullrich does a superb job of analyzing one crucial speech after another to demonstrate Hitler’s dark brilliance.  And he’s just as deft at eviscerating the army of toadies and sycophants Hitler surrounded himself with.  Here, the recently available diaries of Goebbels serve as stunning evidence of the hero-worship Hitler thrived on.

A passage near the end sums up his dark talents and how they meshed with the time and the damaged nation he would lead to disaster:

“Never stop–that was the law by which the National Socialist movement and its charismatic Fuhrer operated and which gave the process of coming to and consolidating power its irresistible dynamic. After the great foreign policy triumphs of 1938 [which included dismembering Czechoslovakia], Hitler never for a moment considered taking an extended break and being satisfied with what he had achieved, as Bismarck had done after 1871. He constantly needed new victories to compensate for nascent popular dissatisfaction and to bolster his own prestige. As a result, he was willing to take ever greater risks, and his fear that he would die young lent further urgency and impatience to his expansive activism. Hitler both drove events and was driven by them.”  ★★★★★

Lev Raphael is an American pioneer in writing about The Second Generation, the children of Holocaust survivors.  He’s the author of My Germany and 26 other books in many genres.  Special Archives at Michigan State University’s library collects his literary papers.