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The mythology that created the war, why Putin believes Russia has "sacred roots" in Ukraine

2025-08-26 12:39:42Histori SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Vladimir Putin

By Timothy Snyder – Financial Times

Vladimir Putin, the architect of the bloodiest war of the 21st century, does not see the invasion of Ukraine as simply a matter of policy or strategy. He justifies it through an ancient myth, “The Tale of Bygone Years,” a medieval chronicle in which the Danish chieftain Rorek (known as Rurik) is presented as the founder of a sacred tradition that, according to Putin, legitimizes Russia’s claims to Kiev.

But the historical truth is different: Rorek never set foot in Kiev, much less founded any Russian state. These are medieval deceptions that served to strengthen the power of the princes of that time, and which Putin today uses to justify a bloody war.

A myth that travels from monks to the Kremlin

In 862, according to the chronicle of the Kiev monks, the Slavs invited the Scandinavians to rule over them. Historians are clear: this was a fiction borrowed from the Norse sagas, where the conquests were justified as an “invitation”.

In fact, Rorek ruled on the shores of the Baltic, but he never visited Kiev. Only a century later did the Scandinavians begin to settle there. However, the monks gave Rorek a biblical life, made him a hero, made him the “father” of an imaginary dynasty, and secretly brought his “heir” to Kiev.

This was simply mythologized politics: a way to increase the prestige of the Kiev rulers.

Centuries later, Moscow, founded much later than the events of the 9th century, appropriated the myth of Rurik to build its dynasty. In 1721, Peter the Great used it to establish the “Russian Empire” and link it to an ancient Scandinavian origin.

Today, Putin does the same thing, but on a more dangerous scale: he uses the myth to say that Moscow owns Kiev, and that Ukrainians do not exist as a separate nation.

Hamlet, Putin and the politics of deception

The story of Rorek does not stop at the Kievan chronicles. In another medieval work, Gesta Danorum, he is presented as a pagan Viking, grandfather of Amleth, the character who would later inspire Shakespeare for Hamlet.

Thus, Rorek stands behind one of the greatest tragedies of world art. But he is not the founder of Russia, no matter how much Putin presents him as such. This manipulation of the past is precisely what the philosopher Hannah Arendt would call totalitarianism: when a regime uses myths to justify occupation and real bloodshed.

Ukraine, history and future

While Putin “freezes” the past to use as a weapon, Ukraine is reborn in another direction. More than a century ago, thinkers like Mykhailo Hrushevsky and Ivan Franko gave the nation a social and cultural history, not dynastic myths. Today, in the midst of war, Ukraine is experiencing a revival with new publications, global histories, and an open dialogue with other cultures.

This profoundly distinguishes it from Putin's Russia, which continues to live by the myth of "eternal and pure Russia."

The alliance of two cynics

Putin’s meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska last week confirmed this tragedy. Putin spoke of the Ukrainian “fraternal nation,” linking it to the myth of Rurik. Trump, on the other hand, focused on his dissatisfaction with the fact that people still remember Russian assistance in the 2016 election.

Trump denied everything as a “hoax,” while Putin just smiled. In this symbiosis, Ukraine remained invisible: no one mentioned the hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded.

When art becomes a weapon

From Rurik to Hamlet, from medieval monks to modern dictators, art and myth have been used to justify power. But when politics turns into a theater of myth, it brings real tragedies: bombed cities, kidnapped children, peoples wiped out from history.

Putin may believe he is making a 9th-century legend “true.” But in the 21st century, the consequences of this deception are very concrete: blood, destruction, and loss.


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