Thread by @TimothyDSnyder

"As we contemplate a Russian invasion of Ukraine, let us begin from the people who are most concerned, the Ukrainians, and with what they have to lose." snyder.substack.com/p/king-of-ukra…

Part 2 of "King of Ukraine" – a small piece of Ukraine's history as we contemplate a Russian invasion. snyder.substack.com/p/king-of-ukra…

Part 3 of "King of Ukraine" – "In the early twentieth century, both Poland and Ukraine were realms of the imagination, neighbors divided not so much by lines on maps as by class resentments." snyder.substack.com/p/king-of-ukra…

Part 4: By 1918 Kyiv had long been a colony of other powers. Mongol riders watered their horses in the Dnipro; Polish kings notched the city's golden gates with their swords. Cossacks rallied to take the city but an alliance w/ Moscow proved their undoing snyder.substack.com/p/king-of-ukra…

Part 5 of "King of Ukraine": Wilhelm lived "a life in which he was either undercover or on magazine covers, of alternating secrecy and celebrity." snyder.substack.com/p/king-of-ukra…

Part 6: This "history is particular, but the lesson is general. To be born in a time and place is not to join a national destiny. Independence must be declared again and again, generation after generation, individual by individual." snyder.substack.com/p/king-of-ukra…