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The fate of Europe lies in the steppes Warwick Ball: ‘The Eurasian Steppe’

Genghis has won (Dean Conger/Corbis via Getty Images)

Genghis has won (Dean Conger/Corbis via Getty Images)


July 28, 2022   8 mins

On the road between the frontline cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, three stone statues stand mutely by the side of the road, observing the coming and going of military traffic with impassive detachment. Known as balbals, they are funerary monuments erected by the Cuman Turks, known in Russian archaeology as the Polovtsians, who once ruled this vast sea of grass, long before Russian or Ukrainian speech was ever heard in this region.

For thousands of years, the empty, spreading steppe, stretching from Hungary to Mongolia, was the home of nomadic peoples, speakers of Iranic, Turkic and Mongolic languages, who drove their herds across the vast plains in search of fresh pastures. They founded great empires, which time and the steppe grasses would soon swallow up, leaving barely a trace. Their constant irruptions into Europe sounded the death knell in turn for other, settled civilisations, part of the endless cycle of growth, invasion and collapse that has shaped our continent’s history.

The war in Ukraine has taken place in two very different climatic and cultural zones: its initial phases saw Russian armour wend its way through the dark forests and marshes of northern Ukraine, the ancient homeland of the first Slavic peoples, to be destroyed in close fighting on the narrow wooded roads in a stunning and unexpected Ukrainian victory. Yet the gruelling war of attrition in the country’s east is taking part in a very different landscape, in the open steppe that was once the home of nomadic peoples.

The expansion of Slavic peoples, both Ukrainians and Russians, into the open steppe was a very recent historic event, broadly contemporaneous with the European settlement of the Americas, its fertile plains, now the breadbasket of the developing world, Europe’s equivalent of America’s Midwest. These open plains, the “Wild Fields” of local historiography have always been a contested space, where great empires wrestled for control: in the great Second World War battles of Kursk, Kharkiv and Stalingrad, Europe’s entire fate hinged on the battle between the two great tank armies wheeling and clashing like nomad hordes.

But then, as The Eurasian Steppe by the archaeologist Warwick Ball makes clear, rather than a semi-wild anteroom to the continent, “the history, languages, ideas, art forms, peoples, nations and identities of the steppe have shaped almost every aspect of the life of Europe”. Europeans from further west have for centuries been prone to viewing the steppe as the haunt of wild tribes, and the source of occasional, fearsome destruction.

But what if the Europe of today is in fact the product of steppe dynamics? As Ball argues, rather than being a product of 19th century nationalism, some historians trace the origin of Europe’s oldest nation states to the steppe, observing that “Peoples newly arriving from the east were also among the first to create nationally defined states, such as kingdoms of the Bulgars or Magyars”. “In some ways,” Ball argues, “the incipient idea of a nation state might have been stronger with the nomadic groups from the steppe, who were bound more closely by tribal loyalties” than among the polyglot peoples of the imperial Roman successor states they conquered.

Did the steppe peoples then create the fractious patchwork quilt of nationalities that we understand as Europe? Ball cites the archaeologist Hyun Jin Kim who claims that: “The political and cultural traditions of Inner Asia brought to Europe by Central Asian immigrants, the Huns and the Alans, were just as fundamental to the formation of western Europe as the rich legacy left behind by the Roman Empire. The political and cultural landscape of early medieval Europe was shaped by the fusion of Roman and Inner Asian influences.”

While Hungary and Bulgaria were directly founded by steppe nomads, the influence of steppe rulers also helped shape the political forms taken by Poland (whose szlachta nobles claimed Sarmatian descent well into the 19th century), Bohemia, Denmark and even, it is claimed, France. Even into the 19th century, as Ball notes, it was the Hungarian awareness of their steppe Magyar ancestry that helped bring about the rise of nationalism which shook apart the great Austro-Hungarian empire. “In the long evolution of the idea of the nation state,” then “from their beginnings in late-antique Europe to their emergence in the nineteenth century, we must look east as well as west”.

Viewed in this light, the war in Ukraine, a battle between a European nation-state and a vast Eurasian empire, is resonant with all manner of strange echoes of the steppe’s dimly-understood history. The colossal earthern ramparts of the “serpent walls” outside Kyiv, erected by early Slavic kingdoms to guard against invasion by steppe nomads from the Huns to the Mongols, fulfilled their ancient role admirably earlier this year when they prevented the movement of Russian armour towards the capital’s suburbs, corralling the latest wave of invaders into killing zones to be picked off at leisure by guided missiles.

The Cossack heritage both sides claim is the result of earlier Slavic peoples, runaway Ukrainian and Russian serfs, claiming the freedom of the open steppe and adopting the customs, lifestyle and much of the vocabulary of their nomadic Turkic predecessors. The very word Cossack, Ball notes, “derives from the Turk root qaz, ‘to roam’”, and is cognate with the ethnonym Kazakh further east, as the Cossacks “comprised mainly Russians — usually renegades, escaped serfs or criminals — but they also included Turks, Tatars and remnant Polovtsi.” Even now, Ukrainian is sprinkled with Turkic words, a legacy of the two cultures’ long history of interaction and competition. One Ukrainian commander I met went by the nom de guerre “Duman, or fog, deriving from the Turkic word for smoke or mist. Even now, Ukrainians refer to Russians with the dismissive Turkic epithet Katsab, or butcher.

On the Russian side, the war effort has been marked by the use of steppe peoples as infantry, with many of the heaviest casualties borne — and apparently some of the worst war crimes committed by — the Buryat Mongols of the Russian steppe, along with the Kalmyks of the lower Volga, Europe’s only Buddhist nation, who once watered their horses as far west as Paris following the defeat of Napoleon. Similarly, among the many subject peoples of the Russian empire deployed to Ukraine are Ossetians from the Caucasus, a tiny Iranic-speaking nation who are all that remain of the Alans, who once fought the Romans across Central Europe, settling as far west as France and Spain: some of their descendants, now Magyarised, still live in Hungary as the Jasz people. Their Iranic speech is now heard in Ukraine’s steppe for the first time in a thousand years, dragged along into a war of European conquest by another great Eurasian empire.

The very concept of chivalry which defined Europe’s medieval history was the product of Iranian-speaking steppe peoples like the Sarmatians and the Alans, whose innovations in the use of cavalry — stirrups, lances and long chainmail coats — changed the face of late Roman warfare and set the stage for the knights of the High Middle Ages. Even our own medieval romances may owe something to their distant steppe traditions, after the border forts of what is now northern England became the garrison home of Sarmatian levies in Roman service. As Ball notes: “Sarmatian warrior worship of a sword fixed in the ground has been suggested as furnishing the origin of the Excalibur legend. This appears to have been a long steppe warrior tradition: Ibn Rusta in the tenth century, for example, describes how the Viking Rus ruler — whom he calls by the steppe title of Khagan or khāqān — would plant a naked sword in the earth pointing towards his newborn son.” Perhaps it is not mere coincidence, then, that the Azov Regiment’s torchlit ceremonies in the southern steppe city of Mariupol took place beneath three giant swords embedded in the ground, a striking symbol that has now become the group’s emblem.

Again and again, these strange resonances between the steppe’s ancient nomad past and its bloody present swim to the surface like long-forgotten memories. The great statue to Mother Russia, sword in hand, that rises above Stalingrad’s Hill 102, where tens of thousands of Soviet and German soldiers were ground into the soil by artillery possesses the grim grandeur of some ancient steppe monument. And indeed, Hill 102, the crucial position of the battle that decided the war’s outcome, is perhaps better viewed by its alternate name as the Mamayev Kurgan, the burial tumulus of a long-forgotten Tatar khagan. From the ancient past to now, Russia’s history was written on the steppe, and without the steppe Russia’s imperial past and present is simply impossible to understand. Indeed, as Ball observes, without the historic domination of steppe nomads, there would be no Russia as we understand it.

As Ball observes: “The future of Russian greatness was both a response to and a legacy of the Mongols… Indeed, to a large extent Muscovite power was a creation of the Golden Horde: the khans required a stable central authority as a client state which could be relied upon to raise auxiliaries for the khan’s armies and to collect and deliver taxes and tribute. Moscow fitted the bill, so the Golden Horde deliberately strengthened it against the other Russian cities and appointed its prince as their chief tax collector.” Without the Mongol-enforced primacy of Muscovy, the land that is now Russia may well have remained a series of disunited kingdoms and city states, just like medieval Italy or Germany: “The Mongols, in other words, brought about the emergence of Russia.”

Even the great king Sviatoslav of Kyivan Rus, whose legacy is claimed by both Ukraine and Russia, extended his rule across the steppe by defeating the great Jewish Khazar kingdom and in doing so, “adopted the techniques and warfare of the steppe nomad: in other words, Kievan Rus was at first simply another steppe nomad state, albeit with a Scandinavian element. Sviatoslav never decisively defeated the Pechenegs and was killed by them in 963, and his skull was made into a cup in steppe tradition.” Medieval Russia was, then, as much a steppe polity as a European state, perhaps more so. After all, “up until 1480 Muscovite coins still carried inscriptions in Arabic. As late as 1531 Vasili III of Moscow was still paying tribute to the successors of the Golden Horde: Crimea, Kazan and Astrakhan”, and the eternal symbol of Russian power, Moscow’s St Basil’s Cathedral, was modelled on Kazan’s Great Mosque, in thanks for the conquest of the great Tatar capital.

Tracing Muscovy’s traditions of governance, and then those of imperial Russia, to the Mongol and Tatar customs of the inner steppe, Ball observes that “Even by the fourteenth century the civil and military institutions of Muscovy ‘were overwhelmingly Mongol in origin’… Ivan IV, the first Russian to proclaim himself Tsar (in Russian the title is actually Tsezar), added Ulugh Khan, ‘Great Khan’, to his titles.” Though he dismisses the “Mongol Yoke” hypothesis of Russian historiography, Ball nevertheless traces Russia’s unique and terrible form of autocratic rule to steppe customs, deep into the modern period: “Ivan also adopted the Mongol policy of ‘collective guilt’ where all male relatives and retainers of a guilty man would be executed, a policy even extended to entire communities. Stalin’s similar policy was a continuation of this.” The steppe’s long influence stretches deep into the cultural DNA of our modern world: even such a giant 20th century figure as Lenin, destroyer of one great Eurasian empire and founder of another, was of part-Kalmyk descent, after all.

Imperial Russia’s second largest minority after the Ukrainians, whose post-independence relationship with their giant neighbour is today a source of such bloodshed, was the Muslim Tatars, from whose Russified nomad aristocracy some of the greatest names in Russian culture — Rachmaninoff, Turgenev, Nureyev and Akhmatova — claimed descent. “The list [of Tatar surnames] covers all walks of Russian life: artistic, religious, scientific, literary, military, political and royal. The list is virtually endless,” Ball notes, and even today “the descendants of the Mongol ‘hordes’ — the Tatars — are the second-largest minority in Russia after the Russians themselves, and the Republic of Tatarstan is the second-largest republic in European Russia.”

Written for a general audience, Ball’s book nevertheless synthesises the latest archaeological research and historical debate on the steppe’s ancient and modern peoples, archaeological research on the steppe’s history, delving back into the deepest mists of time. The burgeoning community of esoteric archaeology and anthropology posters on Twitter will surely appreciate his summarising of the latest research on the origins of the Indo-Europeans, the fate of the Khazars and the birth and decline of the great Scythian kingdoms, whose exquisite goldwork was the highlight of the British Museum’s recent blockbuster exhibition.

Noting that St Petersburg’s great Hermitage Museum was founded primarily as a place to store the newfound Scythian treasures unearthed by Russian colonists in Crimea, Mariupol and the rest what is now Ukraine’s contested southern steppe, and alert to the theft of Scythian treasures from Ukrainian museums by their new-old Russian conquerors, we realise that the relentless cycle of history has brought a new relevance to Ball’s book, even since its publication last winter. Just as in the Middle Ages and in the bloodiest battles of the Second World War, the fate of Europe is once again being written on the endless, grassy steppe.


Aris Roussinos is an UnHerd columnist and a former war reporter.

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Alexander Morrison
Alexander Morrison
2 years ago

Another superbly-written piece by Roussinos, and he seems to have made good use of Ball’s research. Some of these arguments are completely uncontroversial when applied to the Asian neighbours of the Eurasian steppe in the early modern period: the Ottomans, the Safavids of Iran and the Qing all made use of Chinggisid and TImurid political repertoires in building their states alongside other elements (Byzantine heritage for the Ottomans, the existing Chinese imperial tradition in the Qing case, Sufi religious charisma for the Safavids). The Mughals were of course actually of Timurid (and in the female line of Chinggisid) descent, and it was at the core of their dynastic ideology in India. However the steppe political tradition seems to have produced ever larger polities in Asia, which makes it hard to explain why it would instead produce political fragmentation in western and Central Europe – I think that part of Ball’s argument is a bit overstretched.
The Muscovite example seems to fit the Asian pattern better, and Roussinos is spot on in saying that it was the willingness of the Princes of Moscow to act as particularly loyal and effective satraps and tax collectors for the Golden Horde that allowed what had previously been a minor Rus’ princedom to rise to pre-eminence. However we need to be clear about what it was that Muscovy took from the Mongols: it was largely bureaucratic structures linked to taxation or communication. This why key Russian words such as kazna (treasury), den’gi (money) and yam (postal service) are of Mongol origin. On the cultural side the ruling ideologies of the state were all to do with Orthodox Christianity and the semi-mythical link to Byzantium (the ‘Third Rome’), which was what Ivan IV (the Terrible) was evoking when he took the title of Tsar (Caesar) – he may have added the title of khan for good measure but this was largely for the purposes of communication with steppe peoples. Many Tatar nobles of Chinggisid descent did become incorporated into the Muscovite aristocracy after the fall of Kazan in 1552, but you need to be careful about 19th and 20th-century claims to this ancestry, which are often bogus (it was fashionable at the time). In the case of Akhmatova it was her nom de plume (she was born Anna Gorenko – in fact a Ukrainian name). In any case Chinggisid descent did not give you any kind of claim to the throne of Muscovy, which had its own dynastic legend in the Rurikids. A better guide to the relationship between Muscovy and the Mongols than Ball is Donald Ostrowski.
There is also a bit too much cultural determinism in all of this to my liking – it suggests that neither Russia nor Ukraine can ever shake off this bloody past etc. etc. Nowhere in the world is simply a prisoner of its past. What is happening now is a result of very specific political choices made by Vladimir Putin and Russia’s ruling elite. Their thinking is rooted partly in their reading of 19th-century Russian historians (who first came up with the idea that Russians and Ukrainians were the same people), vicious forms of anti-semitic Russian nationalism of the early 20th century and the emigration (the Black Hundreds, Ivan Il’in), a particular, tendentious interpretation of both Soviet history and their own memories of the Soviet collapse. What is perhaps more relevant is that this steppe past means that most of southern and eastern Ukraine was only relatively recently settled – not just by Russians and Ukrainians, but by the whole range of peoples of the empire (Greeks, Jews, Bulgarians, Armenians…probably also some Ossetians). They are certainly not ‘ancient Russian lands’ as Putin has claimed, but they are part of Ukrainian territory under international law and the Budapest memorandum assuring the country’s territorial integrity which Russia signed.
A couple of other corrections – the Buryats are not a steppe people, they live East of Lake Baikal. I am a bit queasy about the implication that they and the Kalmyks are disproportionately represented in the ranks of the Russian army because of their ‘savage’ steppe nature – it is simply because these are some of the poorest parts of the Russian Federation, and because the Russian regime is very deliberately trying to avoid recruiting troops from metropolitan regions of European Russia whose families might cause political trouble or have ties to Ukraine. The ethnic Russians who are fighting are also disproportionately from Siberia or the Altai. The regiment which committed the atrocities at Bucha was from Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East, and its commander appears to have been originally from Karakalpakstan. Most Ossetians speak Russian these days, and have long identified with Russian rule.
A good piece though – not many outlets would allow as thorough and as thoughtful a review of a work on Eurasian History.

Last edited 2 years ago by Alexander Morrison
CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago

An excellent critique, no more need be said, thank you.

harry storm
harry storm
2 years ago

One more thing, actually: To talk about the origins of France and Denmark without even a single mention of Germanic tribes — who also lived on or near the steppes and we’re pressured westward by Turkic and Mongol groups like the Huns, Avars etc. — is bizarre. Otherwise very interesting.

Last edited 2 years ago by harry storm
Katalin Kish
Katalin Kish
8 months ago
Reply to  harry storm

Wow! This may be the best package of article + comments I have read in years. Thank you everyone.

George Kushner
George Kushner
2 years ago

Excellent response indeed. Certainly an overstretch to trace national states , mostly 19 c phenomenon, to the Kingdom of Bulgars of a few centuries earlier.
Also collective punishment were not invented by Mongolians ( Rome comes to mind)
Also it’s a pervasive Russian “westerners” narrative since late 19 century that the pristine Kievan “European“ Russia was contaminated by the Mongolian Eastern mentality resulting in slavery-like serfdom. Needless to say the Nomads were by definition by far more egalitarian societies than any settled communities.

Jim Holloway
Jim Holloway
2 years ago
Reply to  George Kushner

Yes, this (a-)historical determinism reminds one a bit of the “ancient hatreds” explanation for the Yugoslav wars, which essentially concluded that they were not really quite like us, and so sadly nothing could be done: completely overlooking the role of Germany in that country’s history.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jim Holloway
Samuel Ross
Samuel Ross
2 years ago

I didn’t expect to enjoy this article as much as I did. My congratulations to the author.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
2 years ago
Reply to  Samuel Ross

Yes, fascinating. I was once given my own private tour of the Scythian contents of the Hermitage, arranged by friends in the early 1990s when I was a regular visitor to Russia.

Paul O
Paul O
2 years ago

Excellent and very educational.

After reading that it is clear that the best solution by far would be a diplomatic solution that allowed the region that has been wanting independence to vote on it.

It is clear from the article that Ukraine is a construct in the same way as Yugoslavia was. NATO actually assisted some ‘countries’ to breakaway in that region, so why in this case are we (particularly the UK) so determined to prevent a diplomatic solution and instead throw in billions of dollars worth of weapons (who knows where they really end up) that result in horrific loss of life?

The people of Donbas have been getting killed by Ukrainians since 2014 in a conflict that seems to have been whitewashed from Western media. Why can’t the Donbas region have a free and fair election on whether they want to be an independent nation, part of Ukraine, or part of Russia?

Maybe the UK and USA (the two who seem to be running the show) have reasons to be so pro war and so anti diplomacy. Maybe war is very profitable for those countries. Maybe they have something to hide. Maybe it would be hugely embarrassing for them if the world got a chance to see the people of Donetsk and Luhansk celebrating their independence from Ukraine. Who knows.

To be clear. I am totally against all wars. I just don’t get why we (particularly the UK and USA) can’t manage to reach a diplomatic solution ever, and as a result continuously end up involved in multi-decade conflicts in far flung places.

Last edited 2 years ago by Paul O
CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul O

Barring the present interlude, the only time that the ‘Ukraine’ has experienced anything like independence in recent history, was courtesy of the German Army and Max Hoffman in 1918.

martin logan
martin logan
2 years ago

30 years is a very big “interlude.”
Moreover, Russia is not a valid state.
Only Ukraine has had a number of genuinely democratic elections.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago
Reply to  martin logan

According to ‘Transparency International’s’ Worldwide Corruption League, out of 180 contestants, Ukraine came in at 122, Russia even worse at 136.
Doesn’t say much for either of ‘em does it?

martin logan
martin logan
2 years ago

Nice attempt to avoid the issue of one being a democracy and the other a totalitarian state.
And is it surprising that Ukraine is corrupt when it adjoins one of the most corrupt industrialized states on the planet?

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul O

One word: Money.

Paul O
Paul O
2 years ago

Alas, I am ever more sure you are right about that Alison. 20 years ago I would have said ‘don’t be crazy’ but after two decades of Afghanistan I now have a less naive view of the economics of war.

martin logan
martin logan
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul O

So did the West force Putin to invade–so they could then expend tens of billions of dollars/pounds to arm Ukraine, and thus harm their own economies in the process?
The idea of “Merchants of Death” as the cause of modern wars actually resembles the Witch Craze of the 17th C.
People invariably resort to the irrational in times of great stress.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
2 years ago

With power being the ultimate goal.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
2 years ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

Same thing.

Tony Price
Tony Price
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul O

As I understand it, in 1992 there was a free and fair election, in which even the Donbas etc voted to be in Ukraine rather than Russia. Now, how can there be one when millions (? – or however many) have fled West, and many thousands (ditto) have been abducted East?

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul O

“I am totally against all wars”.

Of course. But have you learned nothing from this essay or from history in general? War is built into human DNA. Since the very beginning. It would be like saying, “why must humans eat food?”

stephen archer
stephen archer
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul O

A fair and just diplomatic solution requires honest and constructive parties and not precluded by an invasion and destruction of towns, cities and the civilian population. The weapons are needed to even the score, and even then the dishonest and barbaric party needs to be taken down a number of pegs. Clear your head of the brain fog.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
2 years ago
Reply to  stephen archer

Well said. So much should be obvious, but that it needed saying is itself problematic. That the mass and indiscriminate killing and torture of civilians can be passed over as somehow a failure of the US & UK to allow a diplomatic solution is unconscionable.
Every missile that strikes an apartment block in the Ukraine is a war crime for which no amount of words can be used to obfuscate.
Great article by the author, and some very knowledgeable comments, by the way.

Last edited 2 years ago by Steve Murray
Kevin M
Kevin M
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

You watch too much feel-good, fake news Western propaganda. The killing and torture of civilians has been done by the Azov Ukrainians, all planned and funded by the US/UK war machine, not the Russians. The West, under British training, learned long ago that you get much more control over a society by reducing it to internal turmoil and chaos rather than law and order. You do this by stealth and media manipulation, while lying through your teeth in public. The West has softened up Ukraine for chaos and takeover for twenty years now, all anticipating their forcible regime change of Russia. The pro-Western puppet Zelensky is all part of the setup. The Russians are rescuing Ukraine from the West and from itself, they are the holy defenders. And protecting their own borders in the process, to which NATO is getting uncomfortably close. Only a fool would fall for this same old Western provocation game, and Putin is no fool. The TV-watching masses are truly ignorant for not seeing this. As for Russia’s internal problems, they are really none of our business. You dont tell a bear in the woods how to live its life, you leave it alone.

The Russo-Japanese War, the death of the Czars, the Russian “revolution”, WW1 & 2, betrayal by Hitler and then the Allies, the Cold War, and now Ukraine were probably all Western plots and provocations. The West, or more specifically the British and their Elite financier friends, have been trying to capture or co-opt Russia unsuccessfully for at least a century. Hitler was a US/UK creation. The US lost 50 thousand in WW2, Russia lost 30 Million. The Russians, and they alone, can claim to have “won” WW2, and they had a right to be a little crazy afterwards. Ukraine is just the last in a long line of attacks by the West.

Next will be an attack by NATO, and Russia will be forced to invade Europe, and finally the US itself, surprisingly soon. The global elites are now planning this, with much complicity by corrupt and extorted Western leaders, because they have always wanted to get rid of the democratic West. Their time has now come since the Western economic system is exhausted, and Russia is being provoked and prepared to finish the job. Europe is ready to fall, and the O’Biden administration is now softening up Americas defenses and reducing its society to internal chaos, following the same old plan. Its all part of what they mean by the Great Reset, and most of us are falling for it.

Jim Holloway
Jim Holloway
2 years ago
Reply to  Kevin M

“Hitler was a US/UK creation” ….. I mean, the Germans themselves had no agency in that?

You ascribe too much foresight, intelligence, and singlemindedness to the western elite, which according to you has decided on collective suicide.

harry storm
harry storm
2 years ago
Reply to  Jim Holloway

The US/UK also killed the Czar and his family, dontcha know?

Last edited 2 years ago by harry storm
harry storm
harry storm
2 years ago
Reply to  Kevin M

Bootlicker.

martin logan
martin logan
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul O

If only Donbas would have had a free and fair referendum…
Sadly, the Minsk Accords were specifically designed to prevent that. Putin’s Russophile parties in Ukraine had lost credibility with most voters. They were almost as weak as the far right.
So Putin HAD to keep Donbas inside Ukraine, or the rest of the country would have broken entirely free of Russia. Any replication of the Crimean annexation would mean a strong, prosperous Ukrainian state focused on the West.
Unacceptable!
None of us can fathom the depth nor the scope of Putin’s great vision. As he well knows, geniuses must follow their own lonely path to greatness.
Usually accompanied by their nation’s collapse.

Kevin M
Kevin M
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul O

The suggestion that the US/UK/NATO warmongers are looking for peace or much less democracy in Ukraine is laughable. They want only one thing – forcible regime change in Russia, Iran, China. They want only to steal the natural resources of every other state on earth, or make them willing vassals. As such, they will resort to any conceivable lie, stealth and subterfuge they can concoct, using the captive world media as their mouthpiece. Russia is the persecuted victim and hero in all this, as in most of the 20th century, they have every right and reason to once again defend their borders. If you look at the map of NATO expansion, you can see clearly the aims and intentions to invade Russia. This is the same old play, provoke your target mercilessly, then when he finally reacts, use it as an excuse to “intervene” militarily in some proxy country. The ground in Ukraine was carefully prepared for years in advance by color revolutions promoted by the West, and by cultivation of chaos and rogue Nazi elements. Azov is functionally the same as Isis, AlQuaeda and the Mujahideen, all US/UK creations. Yes, its about money, and embarassment and things to hide, all of the above, but also simply about world dominating ambitions, of the West, not of Russia. Anyone who believes the pure media propaganda about evil Russia and noble democratic Ukraine is utterly a helpless, unthinking stooge of the Empire.

harry storm
harry storm
2 years ago
Reply to  Kevin M

Nutcase too.

Andrew F
Andrew F
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul O

You are completely ignorant of history of Ukraine.
There was referendum in 1991 in which over 90% of Ukrainians voted for independence.
Donbass region voted over 80% for independence.
Crimea voted 54% for independence.
So all this claims that people of Donbass want to be part of Russia is just Russian propaganda, sorry.
Blaming USA and UK for not reaching diplomatic solution is just a sick joke.
It is Russia which invaded Ukraine.
Ukraine is nothing like Yugoslavia.
Soviet Union was like Yugoslavia and that is why they both had fallen apart.
Constituent parts did not want to be subjugated any longer by psychopaths with delusions of destiny and grandeur.

Jim Holloway
Jim Holloway
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul O

While I agree that we are fed a very one-sided account of the current conflict, which marvellously avoids comparison with the US-UK attack on Iraq, for example, you go far too far to the other side.

Generally, the west has nothing to gain and much to lose from the destruction and disruption to global trade.

Indeed, the criticism I would make of our leaders is that they allowed this conflict to happen by having an ambiguous approach to Ukraine’s hypothetical NATO membership, while not making it clear to Putin what would be the consequences of war in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, due to these mistakes, we now find ourselves essentially in a state of war with Russia, a disaster on a par with Munich 1938. As we all know, starting a war is easier than ending it. Our Government (UK) is culpable failing to prepare the country for what may lay ahead.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul O

Clearly a free and fair election is not possible in Ukraine whilst Russia occupies Crimea and parts of the Donbas.
You may be against all wars but when your country, your people and your family are subjected to an invasion from another there simply is no other choice.
If Ukraine hadn’t responded militarily to the Russian invasion then the Ukrainian land grabbed by them would have been lost forever
I am with Ukraine …mealy mouthed statements like ‘I am totally against all wars’ are irresponsible and trite.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
2 years ago

Fascinating article, to which I’ll add the following little bits and pieces:
1) https://slovake.eu/en/intro/slovakia/history
Ever since I have become interested in the Czech Republic and trying to learn the language, my best friend (Slovakian, from Bratislava) has taken to knowledge-bombing me with info about Slovakia. Not that they should be forgotten in favour of their Czech brothers! The parts about the battle for the recognition of written Slovakian is especially interesting.
2) The mention of the Kalmyks made me think of this:
https://www.trachtenbibel.at/der-kalmuck-janker/
The “Kalmuck” jackets (“Janker” = a jacket forming part of traditional costume) traditionally worn in the winegrowing region of Lower Austria in towns like Retz and the Wachau (UNESCO World Heritage) can be traced back to materials brought by Mongolian tribes who were trading their wares right across to Western Europe. The material was originally used by the Kalmyk horsemen to make saddle cloths. However, because of its durability and warmth, it became a hit among the workers in Austria’s vineyards who needed clothes to protect them against their rough working conditions. They’re still worn today, but as more of a festive thing…and for the tourists, obvs.

Jeff Butcher
Jeff Butcher
2 years ago

Really eye opening and informative article about a subject of which I knew very little. Super!

Neven Curlin
Neven Curlin
2 years ago

I always thought those despicable Russians were Mongol hordes. Turns out they were actually the whores of the hordes. That explains it, doesn’t it?

Thank you for this wonderful history class!

P Branagan
P Branagan
2 years ago
Reply to  Neven Curlin

Mr Curlin’s contribution is clearly ‘hate speech’ and dissemination of that hatred should not be facilitated by Unherd.
BTW My understanding is that hate speech is now a criminal offence.

Neven Curlin
Neven Curlin
2 years ago
Reply to  P Branagan

Hate speech isn’t hate speech when it is directed towards Russians. QED.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  P Branagan

Seriously? On Unherd? Looking forward to seeing more of your ‘helpful’ contributions to free speech.

harry storm
harry storm
2 years ago
Reply to  P Branagan

It isn’t very nice to crybully.

Last edited 2 years ago by harry storm
Andrew F
Andrew F
2 years ago

It is well written, as always by the author but there are some really dubious claims in this article.
For a start, while it is true that Polish gentry (szlachta) claimed ancestry from Sarmatians and dressed in particular clothing, it is just a myth which has no relevance to political and legal culture of Poland.
Claiming that Hungarian desire for equal status in Austrian Empire has anything to do with their steppe origin is another delusion.
Cossacks were not Russians. It is another myth.
When Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth dominated what is now Bielorussia and Ukraine in 16th and 17th century, Cossacks were independent people with their own political system (Sicz Zaporoska).
After Pereyaslav treaty between Poland and Russia they were supposed to maintain their privileges under Russian Tzar but eventually they were subjugated by Russia.
There are some smaller inaccuracies (so Kursk was tank battle but not Stalingrad).
The history of Muscovy is really well outlined and explains why people who claim that Russia is European state in any meaningful sense are naive (or dishonest).

Jim Holloway
Jim Holloway
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew F

“Cossacks were not Russians” …. As far as I can see, they developed in the borderlands of Muscovy, Poland-Lithuania, and Crimean Khanate, from a mix of peoples and individuals, in a time and region when ethnic identity was fluid. There can hardly be any doubt that Cossacks were partly Russian in origin, and became more Russified over the centuries, so saying that their being Russians is a myth is overstated, in my opinion.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jim Holloway
David Werling
David Werling
2 years ago

“Perhaps it is not mere coincidence, then, that the Azov Regiment’s torchlit ceremonies in the southern steppe city of Mariupol took place beneath three giant swords embedded in the ground, a striking symbol that has now become the group’s emblem.”
I couldn’t disagree more. That is not the origin of that group’s emblem, and I suspect the author knows damn well that it is not.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago
Reply to  David Werling

I’m not sure what you are referring to, but they look rather like the three swords on the hill outside Stavanger, commemorating Harold Fairhair’s 872 AD victory over the other to kings which gathered all of Norway under one crown

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  David Werling

So what is the origin of that emblem? It’s a bit much to say the author is wrong and then to not offer an alternative theory

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

No reply yet, says it all.

martin logan
martin logan
2 years ago

Russia is indeed a “steppe” civilization.
But as such, it is a CENTRAL ASIAN power, not a European or even “Eurasian” power.
If Putin had been intelligent, he would have allowed immigration from Central Asia to augment his plummeting population. A Russia that then combined its still extant European technology with the skills of the newcomers would have been a formidable nation-state. Indeed, by now it would have easily surpassed Germany.
Instead, Putin took as his model the aggressive imperialism and Mercantilist economics of the defunct Petrine state. Quite understandable, since like the majority of Russians, he is ignorant of any other alternatives.
This alluring but very problematic model has, and will only create insoluble problems for Russia.
We now see them every day.

Jim Holloway
Jim Holloway
2 years ago
Reply to  martin logan

But in fact there is substantial immigration from Central Asian ex-Soviet republics into Russia.

Kristin Shewfelt
Kristin Shewfelt
2 years ago

I learned so much. Thank you!

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago

Great article. Ball’s book sounds like a book worth reading – just bought it.

Last edited 2 years ago by Ian Stewart
Lisa I
Lisa I
2 years ago

Very interesting article. Of course it makes sense that there has been Asian influence in Europe. The Mongols made it as far as central Europe.

There is also dna evidence that the original inhabitants of Western Europe originated in the Hungarian, Romanian, Ukrainian and Western Russian areas of the Eurasian Steppe.

Russia is particularly interesting. Its a mix of a massive number of civilisations. In sheer size it includes areas in Central Europe (Kaliningrad), North Eastern Europe, South Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and East Asia. It’s a vast empire, similar to the British and French empires but contiguous. That may be what’s held it together (so far). The Chechens may well go after Kadyrov does.

Last edited 2 years ago by Lisa I
Edit Szegedi
Edit Szegedi
2 years ago

“Without the Mongol-enforced primacy of Muscovy, the land that is now Russia may well have remained a series of disunited kingdoms and city states, just like medieval Italy or Germany” – well, this would have been a far better outcome than the rise of Muscovy.

Satyam Nagwekar
Satyam Nagwekar
2 years ago

While informative, the piece lacks Aris’ own insight, instead drawing entirely on Ball’s work. I expect more from Unherd writers.

D Glover
D Glover
2 years ago

Beneath the author’s name it says
Summer reads 2022

Our contributors choose books to make sense of a chaotic summer

He could have mentioned Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads. When I read that I was amazed at how many hegemonising cultures have swept out of Central Asia to attack Europe.

Last edited 2 years ago by D Glover
Sam Sky
Sam Sky
2 years ago

Perhaps not enitrely relevant to this discussion, but curious nonetheless. The first president of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, made Elista – the capital of said federal republic – one of the premier locations for chess tournaments due to his penchant to said game, with a huge complex called Chess City with facilities for players and students of the game