Timothy Snyder Profile picture
Mar 7, 2022 14 tweets 4 min read Read on X
1/14 My six books about #Ukraine. I am called upon to answer questions about Ukraine every day. My books, which represent a quarter century of research and thought, often do a better job than I can while speaking live or in short pieces.
2/14 I don't often mention my books on Ukraine, because I feel uneasy promoting things that cost money while people in Ukraine are suffering and dying in this horrible unjustifiable invasion. I will continue to make meaningful donations to Ukraine. If you can, I hope you will too
3/14 My book that is most immediately relevant to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is "The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America." It is a history of the 2010s that links Russia's first invasion of Ukraine (2014) to its interference in US elections (2016).
4/14 #RoadToUnfreedom deals with politics, ideology, and propaganda under Putin.
5/14 Of my books on Ukraine, the one that centers Ukraine in recent history is "Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin," a history of mass killing by both the Nazi and Soviet regimes.
6/14 Ukraine was the most dangerous place in the world between 1933 and 1945. The first chapter treats the Stalinist famine of 1933. #Bloodlands #Ukraine
7/14 "Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning" provides an interpretation of the Holocaust in which Hitler's desire to control Ukrainian land is a central element.
8/14 #BlackEarth addresses the questions I get about how the Holocaust by bullets proceeded in the occupied Soviet Union and about nationalism and collaboration.
9/14 "The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999" is about the emergence of Ukrainian and other modern nations from the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
10/14 The first of my six books on Ukraine, published twenty years ago, #ReconstructionOfNations does not cover the emergence of the Ukrainian civic nation in this century.
11/14 Of my books on Ukraine, "The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke," is perhaps the gentlest read. Its subject is an Austrian prince who chooses Ukrainian identity, aims at one time for a Ukrainian throne, and dies under interrogation by the KGB.
12/14 Its point is nations are a matter of commitment, not fate. #RedPrince #Ukraine
13/14 My close colleagues tend to think that "Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine" is my best book. It deals with the Polish-Soviet contest over Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s.
14/14 Its protagonist was an artist who spent thirteen years in the underground. It contains my most thorough archival work. #SketchesSecretWar

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More from @TimothyDSnyder

Apr 16
1/7. We Americans have a hard time seeing ourselves in the world, and so even when we want to criticize our fascist oligarchs we fail to see the international networks of which they are nodes.
politico.com/newsletters/po…
2/7. The international character of Trumpism was a subject of "Road to Unfreedom," my history of the 2010s.
penguinrandomhouse.com/books/570367/t…
3/7. Trump emerged into international far right networks that backed him, funded him, ran social media campaigns for him, and supplied him with role models.
Read 7 tweets
Apr 14
1/5. I want to try to amplify this point — Vance does not believe that morality is an autonomous sphere of life at all; only fools think that, in his world.
2/5. What he means by the word "morality" is propaganda from some religious institution that justifies the world the way it is, including his own personal power and corruption.
3/5. The whole point of Vance’s notion of God is to justify fascist oligarchy — consider his grotesque invocation of God just the other day in Budapest as a reason why Hungarians must vote for Orbán.
Read 5 tweets
Apr 9
1/5. Orbán pioneered a model whereby oligarchs trade the fascist memes and electoral tricks they use to stay in power. He made Budapest a node between Moscow and Washington of the international far right.
2/5. He is central to Trumpism, more important than almost any American in the movement.
3/5. For Trump and Vance, Orbán must win, because there must only be one inevitable path of history, towards right-wing oligarchy and the end of democracy.
Read 5 tweets
Apr 8
With this settlement the US is worse off in every way than it was before the war; Iran is strengthened by the huge new tolls in the Straits of Hormuz, paid by the whole world. (1/14)
I will lay out the strategic defeat but I want to make clear that it is a symptom of the basic problem of injustice and inequality. (2/14)
Consider — where are those new tolls going? To Iran’s murderous regime. Is it too much to wonder, though, whether a portion reaches the pockets of US negotiators or other Americans? (3/14)
Read 14 tweets
Apr 5
Given Trump’s Easter threats to carry out new war crimes in Iran, we should think one or two steps ahead about a coup attempt connected to the war. And then deter it. (1/17)
Why is Trump so enthusiastic about destroying Iranian civilian infrastructure? It won’t win the war. It is likely for another reason: to provoke an Iranian response that Trump can use for his own purposes. (2/17)
Provocation is not a complex form of politics. Let’s not imagine Trump is not smart enough to have thought of this. He is. And exploiting a wartime incident to try to seize total power is normal tyrannical behavior. It’s on us not to dodge that historical fact. (3/17)
Read 17 tweets
Mar 1
1/9. In 2020 Iran did try to interfere with the presidential election.
2/9. Iranian operatives pretended to be Proud Boys.
3/9. The Iranians pretending to be Proud Boys hacked data and then threatened Democratic voters.
Read 10 tweets

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