I can't stress how important his work is to us Ukrainians. When I heard him recite Ukrainian poetry I burst into tears. It's an incredible feeling to be seen for what we are, instead of being routinely patronized, dismissed and smeared with lies amid another genocide at the hands of russians.

I have not yet viewed the entire 23 weeks of Snyder's History of Ukraine Course at Yale, but I very strongly recommend it to everyone interested in Ukraine and the current war. This lecture is a worthy addition to that course (available for free on the internet). I stand in awe of Professor Snyder's grokking of this moment in history, and his willingness to share that knowledge with those of us who haven't conquered ten languages, five of them fluently. Thank you Professor Snyder, and thanks to Stoney Brook University for putting this out on the internet for the benefit of all believers in the democratic principle.

His lectures on Ukraine at yale are greatly appreciated

Timothy Snyder has changed the way I see humanity for the rest of my life. I took his Ukraine course on UKposts and I am half way through Bloodlands. How such a gentle, considerate, and very funny man delve in these horrors is a beyond me. I wept at some of the poetic moments in his course and book. Extremely profound experience that I can not thank him enough to take me on his journey with him.

He is so smart and so gentle. I don't know how to explain this. A decent human being and a great historian 🖤

to me as a german he has to give so many reflections and things to think about connected to history. his is so aware and on pulse of the time its awesome. he needs more attention

PLEASE change the title of this VIDEO to the title of the lecture "The War in Ukraine and the Future of Democracy". Many more viewers will find it and be attracted to it. I never go to films by choosing a mall to see a film in. This lecture is a fantastic exercise in stretching your mind by examining events and history.

Dear Mr.Snyder, Thank you so much for your fantastic course on the making of modern Ukraine. I've never ever heard anything so logical, so precise, so emotional about the history of my country. I've gone through all the lectures on the fly within 3 days. Wish all Ukrainians would listen to this great story as many of the facts I'm sure are unknown to many of them. Your passion for the Ukrainian history is beyound imagination, you are true ukrainian lover. Thank you so much!

He is not only a brilliant scholar, but much more valuably and importantly a vital, engaged and honest thinker. Thank you for this wonderful program!

Thank you Timothy Snyder. Just read Bloodlands, and was blown away. Thanks for taking time to talk to american students about the idea of democracy and the idea of a nation. I will use this video in my class. Thx from Denmark.

Amazing lecture together with the Yale course. Fascinating thoughts and ideas.

This lecture should be a nationally broadcast item.

i'm grateful there are such knowledgable, intelligent people as professor Snyder in our world.

Timothy Snyder’s YALE course this fall is a must-hear. All 23 lectures are on UKposts. He is the master in explaining what history is and what it is not; what democracy is and what it is not; what patriotism is and what it is not. Yes, he is the Professor in the fields of Bloodlands, Black Earth, and Reconstruction of Nations, in the far east of Europe. Yet all those themes and exquisite books always show us not only Ukraine and her peoples, perhaps not even primarily them. It’s about the vultures for centuries encircling them - Rzeczpospolitans, Tsarists, Nazis, Stalinists, and yes, Putinists. Ultimately, his lessons are about imperial dominance of real, percieved and desired colonies, no matter which part of the world one talks about.

Дуже дякую за цю лекцію

Enjoyed the talk today on every level. Nice segue from the 23 classes of history over the past weeks to winning, democracy and the future. BRAVO , Professor Snyder. I hope to see part of that future.

So much brilliance, depth, and inspiration. And two related points: 1. No matter how many talks Snyder gives he alway offers fascinating new facets of his major points and often new revelations that need to be considered very seriously. And 2: reading through this comment thread, his seriousness and kind gentleness is reflected in nearly all (truly all?) the postings. How often is this found on the internet. (Where are the trolls?)

When Snyder says that we should not give in to the deception that structural factors are politically deterministic, it reminds me of the David Graeber quote: “The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and could just as easily make differently.”

Timothy Snyder ties so many concepts together in this lecture so seamlessly. It does so much to explain the current political situation in the United States where 40 years of free market ideology have created a deterministic mindset in its citizens that they have no political voice and agency of their own. Snyder explains how that results in the fascist trait of defining the other, which is a characteristic of our venomous politics. According to Snyder, what is important to break through and to strengthen our Democracy is to demand of others that they describe themselves as who they are rather than who they are not. And importantly to come into the political discussion of a positive vision of the future where individuals have agency and choice in the outcomes.

I am slowly realizing just how great this lecture is. Even down to the level of craft.

This is incredible really. Im in Ukraine right now in Kyiv and we didn't really see or understand that this war is important not only for us as ukrainians. Because that's how we perceive it as war for freedom. Maybe our final war which we will win We didn"t really understand, that we are here kinda ab example for all "sleeping" and totally awake authoritarian countries all around the world. Didn't think about our war with such angle Wow, such a responsibility 😅

Timothy Snyder is a great speaker. I would be so nervous to stand up there and talk about this stuff but he nails it every time. It also helps he knows his stuff.

Timothy Snyder has great presentation technique. Interesting tie to the room.

This man adds so much clarity.

I watched the lecture with bated breath, wondering whether Dr. Snyder would actually take a sip from his cup of coffee.

As part of monitoring his Ukrainian History course, I began reading his books and and UKposts video in which he talks. In everything he does he drops incredible truth bombs that just gives one Eureka moment after the other. It's like the insights from being on drugs without needing the drugs.

"this war has to be won so that there can be a future" !!!

Great lecture as always from Prof Snyder! His Yale course on History of Ukraine is on YT and incredibly useful for understanding the war day by day.

It was amazing! Thank you!

My wife and I fall asleep listening to those lectures they are fantastic and prescient. It may take us a while but revisiting lectures really helps LOL. In the meantime I am trying to understand how Czechoslovakia was formed and then why it amicably split ( a role mode separation if there ever was one)!

A lot of good and interesting thoughts

Good stuff...as always, Tim.

Excellent presentation ❤

Lecture starts at 5:12

Timothy Snyder is such a gift

Thank you Dr. Snyder for your truth telling and clarifying analysis.

I knew Zelensky wldnt run either! Being Irish, it's just in my DNA to stand your ground when pitied against Empire, Esp the Russian Thug Putin is, And esp with the Ukrainian People in such need of such a Leader of Zelensky in their moment of need🇺🇦. Such Respect to him and his Men and Women in current Leadership and Govt who stayed 🇺🇦. Zelensky should be known in History as: 'The Leader who Stayed'. Even now with the War at its most difficult Dec 2022, with Putin and the Russian Army weaponizing Winter in their very admitted to War Crime, the Ukrainian People and the Ukrainian Army and Govt will prevail in this War, and will utterly achieve in their Spirit as the Ukrainian People the European Future they want , always honouring their Fallen Heros 🇺🇦 🌻🌻. Putin, on the other hand, is already Afterthought! **Thank you Professor Snyder for bring the warning that was needed to wake other countries and People up to the 'protection of Democracy in the West', as the German Govt are learning this 1rst week of Dec 2022 . We Cassandras are out there, and are being listened to now at this juncture ! Every Democratic Country needs to assess itself now and become more robust as the democracies of the World, Esp in the West. Having the Vital Understanding: A Democracy is only as strong as it's Representatives and Electorate are 👍👍 Slava Ukraine 💛🇺🇦

OUTSTANDING. And I'm a Russian troll, lol.

19:55 "Tanks filled with sunflower oil" amused me for a moment.

his 23-lecture course in Yale University is a must watch for everyone. great reading material as well

The Russian Federation should be renamed the Russian Empire which would be far more accurate, closer to the reality. Russians are currently the largest minority within Russia, not a majority.

I am so sorry to have missed this. I have traveled far to hear him, but Stony Brook is very close.

thx a lot .. slava ukraini .. geets from germany

Wonderful lecture and thank you so much to Timothy Snyder. Truly great to hear his perspective given his deep knowledge of the cultures and historical context. Many points to call out but the one regarding equipping children to develop the ability to hear all the facts and sides and make rational choice is real freedom (sorry not his exact words but hopefully correct gist)

Very helpful

1:04:00 is that Jason Stanley in the front row?? This was amazing. Glory to 🇺🇦 Слава Україні!

I would love to see him and John Mearshiemer debate.

Actually, from the start, I thought that Ukraine could win, but that it was by no means certain. There were strengths and weaknesses on both side and one thing on Ukraine's side was that they were less surprised by the invasion than most of the invading troupes, who had been told right up until the last minute that they were just on a training exercise.

@dnskibo Ukraine-Canadian: thank you - Prof. Snyder always amazingly insightful and informative.

Great Stuff. This talk illustrates perfectly the value in higher education in general. Our societies, and we as humans need to access language and the ability to discuss the world in order to understand where we are and to find the way forward. The tragedy of war is that it is a manifestation of ignorance, and shows a dominance of low-tier impulses (greeds). Learning to talk and to think (for all of us) will do much to elevate society from stupid and retrograde urges.

has anyone found the 60 minutes interview he is referring to? I would love to watch that segment

It's good to be hard to argue with.

"One man with courage is a majority" -- Attributed to Andrew Jackson I think it safe to say that Jackson would have done exactly what Zelensky has done under the same circumstances (except that he would have led the resistance in person, which he was qualified to do).

Share widely!

here is another mind bender, most of the people from West Ukraine are trilingual ( we are all fluent Polish speakers)🤣🤣🤣

Electoral system in US, is a structural factor. That needs to change in order to advance democracy forward. There are many structural factors in Nepal. Rather than being an independent state, it is a satellite state. Structural factors are in play here.

I definitely don't care about Vladimir Putin's feelings; except the extent to which they affect his actions.

Forever, to an individual just means, until you end.

It should be noted that a large number of Americans completely reject the concepts of multiculturalism and multilingualism even in the USA (many fewer than there were a hundred years ago, but the number is still large). I would expect that they would reject it everywhere else in the world as well.

"...the fact that he (Zelenskiy) didn't go, the fact that Ukrainians chose to fight, reminds us of something essential about both social existence and democracy, which is that it depends upon working against the larger conditions, it depends upon injecting ethical commitments, and taking corporeal risks." This articulates perfectly why I have stood up against the direct taxation of personal incomes, and the lifetimes of invasive surveillance it enables, and the entire national structure of businesses as tax shelters and personal finance as money-laundering, which it requires and encourages, ALL MY LIFE. This has been a non-negotiable position on my part for decades, I have refused openly and absolutely to be spied on and extorted by a regime with zero exceptions granted, at permanent risk to myself, and to everything I ever achieved or held as precious in my own life, and I have lost much because I would not, could not and will not relent from this ethical commitment, regardless of what corporeal risks I have had to take. As Prof. Snyder says of freedom of speech, that not to defend it at risk to oneself is to be a coward, a mere consumer of freedom and not its defender, is exactly the way I view an American nation content to define itself as a nation of 'taxpayers', reducing themselves to cowardly consumers of liberties, but continually unwilling to defend them. Every single time you file a 1040 or sign a W2 or 1099, you are actively surrendering your freedom, and worse, you know you are. It has to stop, and you have to stop it by declining to participate in it, at risk to yourselves and irrespective of what that risk to anyone's laundered personal fiefdom consists of, and you all know you do. Why haven't you yet?

Margaret Atwood had it down to a T. The forced reproduction ‘factory’ of the Handmaid’s Tale. I studied Humanities and loved political history …still do. He is so much more astute than politicians

A vast majority of Hungarians also believe Ukraine isn't a real country - it's sad.

you were right about Kherson

1:05:20 you missed Ukraine proposal for global security.

I can’t see this with my phone off 😅

i thnk anyone interested in the present disaster should watch the BBC series about the former USSR 1985-99, called 'Traumazone: What it Felt lke to Live Through the Collapse of Communism and Democracy'

I admire Tim Snyder. I can't speak too lowly of Donald Trump. However, I think he is wrong to suggest that Trump has played any part in the idea that the USA can't 'win'. I think that is both a broader and deeper malaise in the US political, diplomatic, military and cultural discourses. Suggesting Trump is a major factor give him too much credit.

If you want to listen to someone truely physchotic then you've come to the right place. He isn't good with the truth. Why do you think they have to talk him up so much at the start.

I'm a democratic socialist who never stopped believing in winning. Great work though =)

1:11:17 👏👏👏👏

Mic is so bad. Questions just muzzled.

47:00 DISAGREE. WE DON'T HAVE TO REINVENT THE WHEEL AND EVERY PERSON HAVE PHDS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE. ALL WE HAVE TO SO IS BE COMFORTABLE, AND INFORMED ABOUT WHAT THE OPTIONS ARE - THEN WE CAN RELAX IN DEMOCRACY.

The world owes professor Snyder a debt.

Why are the vast majority of these main comments with many "likes" simply praising the lecturer and barely, if at all, mentioning anything about the content ? Seems to be a common phenomenon these days. 🤔🙄😕

1:07 Your student responds to you by saying some people are “insane.” This is mirroring your approach and attitude, and you reward her by saying her point is “brilliant.” This is indoctrination, sir, yes it is. If you can’t accept that, you must accept that it is poor teaching practice.

He’s an excellent historian but just planning to go to mars could create indirectly the tech that will fix global warming.

Yesss, russia doesn't exist 👏👏 Amazing take, amazing lecture, thank you!

1:16 Oh my God! You couldn't resist bringing Trump into the conversation. That's really the chef's kiss, isn't it, and another signal to your listeners. Gosh, am I glad my professors weren't like you. Such a stifling atmosphere, finally. I started this lecture because you were supposed to be an expert and because I had seen you in another interview and wanted to know more. If you can't tell, I gradually turned against you as you ticked off, one by one, a large number of the problems of professors and universities today. It's so sad that it's come to this in US universities. Just terrible. I think I saw the last tatters of real intellectualism when I was a student. It's gone now. 😢

By your definition, nearly everyone is fascist @41:36 +

1:09 Your comments about freedom reflect Roosevelt's four freedoms--that is, they are not negative freedoms. This is not the American or Enlightenment concept of freedom. It is a neo-marxist concept of freedom.

I do not blame that everyone were thinking that Zelensky would flee. We're in Ukraine we're thinking the same

Тимофій Снайдеренко

Bolsanaro 😢

He needs no introduction FF 5 minutes

56:00 Yup, there's the bloody-mindedness. The future of everything depends on this war. We have to win. Etc. It's always something like that. You haven't really defined what winning means. Your remarks on free speech were incomplete, I assume, or undeveloped. Your notion of democracy vis a vis Ukraine is rather silly. You are a scholar of Ukraine and you think it is a bastion of democracy? Really?

Free people of the world, please, please, please help Ukraine to retake back and clean up acient name Rus` - Ruthenia (lat.) - Russia (greek). Moscow canibals have no right to use that glorious ukrainian name

I like when Professor is saying about “Tradition of peaceful exchange of power” 35:20 when he exactly knows about fact that in 2014 president elect Viktor Yanukovych have to run away with his life from Kiev.

This guy invents stuff - Russia has multiple resources and not only Hydrocarbons. Please become a historian and not a Political commissioner. You never saw Robert Mogosci standing on a desk and being a Historical activist. We all know that the Ukrainian Government is paying you to rewrite the History of Ukraine in their vision. You stated, “5000 Ukrainian Cossacks helped lift the 2nd siege of Vienna,” which is incorrect; the correct term would be Zaporizhzian Cossack Hetmanate, neither Polish nor Russian. We know you are attempting to link Ukraine with Europe and cast all Cossacks as Ukraine; it is called Nation blending, just like George W Bush did in 2003 about the war in Iraq. GW “Saddam Hussain is giving refuge to elements of Al Qaeda and is developing weapons of mass destruction.” So according to you Iraqi Al Qaeda members helped plan and attack New York City. Yes - Nation Blending. In 1654, the Zaporizhzian Hetmanate entered the Pereyaslav agreement with Tsarist Russia, which controlled the area northwest of the Dnieper River. By the way, Ukraine never existed in 1654. Cossack roots are tribesmen that remained after the Golden Horde and resided on the banks of the Dnipro River for centuries and are not Polish Eastern Slavic, they may have had people of Polish Extraction but ethically not Polish. The Crimean Tatars Khanate has nothing to do with Ukraine, never conquered the territory and never had any influence in the Peninsula. On the 300 Anniversary of the Pereyaslav agreement, Nikita Khrushchev persuades the Supreme Soviet to transfer the Crimea Region to The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic as a gift. Ukraine took this gift and is trying to use it as a bargaining chip with Nato Membership. So Nikita Khrushchev would have been proud of you!

Get lost, anwering to this post is like starting avtv serires, are you really on board with democrathy🧐

Professor of English who doesn't speak English? Diversity hire?

This guy talks in circles

Once again: it is a bad idea to record speeches in front of solid reflecting backplanes: the echo is unbearable. Sound men are professionals because recording is difficult. If you're not a pro, stick with the obvious: carpets, curtains, padding on tables and desks. Nothing says unpleasant-woing-woing-woing-echo like a lot of unpleasant-woing-woing-woing-echo.

Dr Snyder - if you were watching a lecture and the lecturer made what you know was a gross representation of a subject's viewpoint, how would it make you question, going forward, the lecturer's claims about other people's positions, and secondly going backwards, their statements in all of their previous works you've previously taken at face value? This was unfortunately my experience in this lecture. 14:40 - 15:01 "... is wacky the same way that we're gonna, like, save ourselves from global warming by going to Mars is wacky. It's the kind of thing you can get yourself to believe if nobody tells you the truth. It's the kind of thing you can get yourself to believe if nobody is willing to challenge you. It's the kind of thing you can believe if you're good at some things but not good at everything, which is a general description of oligarchs..." Dispensing with the ambiguity, that's obviously a jab at Elon Musk, who we can both agree is a deeply problematic individual - not just from his helping spread authoritarian propaganda and trying to negotiate giving away pieces of countries to expansionist autocracies, but perhaps more fundamentally for the highly dangerous pushing of information nihilisim - the notion that facts don't exist and all truth is relative, so just like, do your own research, man. But a subject's views being problematic doesn't make dramatic misrepresentations of their positions not be likewise problematic to the lecturer's credibility. Musk has surely described his motivations for Mars colonization literally thousands of times by now, and not one single time has it been "to save ourselves from global warming". His repeated and simple argument is: * The cost to become multiplanetary, while it may seem like a large number, would be a minuscule percentage of our GDP * The risk in any given year of an extinction event - nuclear doomsday devices, bioengineered pathogens, artificial intelligence, extreme natural castastrophic events, etc - is also quite low. BUT: * The consequences of that event is literally the worst possible consequence: the entire extinction of our species, the only sign of intelligent life we see in our observations of the whole cosmos. * And the risk of our extinction rises with each passing year, while becoming multiplanetary is a difficult, fraught process that will take decades at best. * Thus starting now is comparatively a cheap insurance policy against the light of consciousness being snuffed out of the universe. Now, one may disagree with that logic chain, but it is consistent, and it is what he actually believes. Not "we must go to Mars to save ourselves from global warming". Indeed, Musk's approach to the specific issue of "how to save ourselves from global warming", has not been remotely subtle: Tesla, which undoubtedly brought forward the end of the oil age by many years on its own by showing that EVs were practical, desirable, and forcing other automakers to react (to say nothing of advancing grid storage as well). It's honestly hard to think of any other single company that has done more on their own against global warming, so it is quite a bizarre misrepresentation to pretend that Musk's ideas for how to fix global warming is not Tesla, but "Move to Mars." The guy is an open book; it's not hard to find his actual viewpoints. I say this not to defend the man - I'm deeply disappointed in the deeply harmful ideas he's been promoting lately. I say this as a fan of yours who found themselves having trouble taking what you said at face value after that rather blatant straw man. So please try to do better in the future. :)

14:35: "the idea that Ukraine is not a real place, that Ukrainians are not a real people, that Ukraine doesn't have a history is wacky the same way that we're going to, like, save ourselves from global warming by going to Mars is wacky" - a bad comparison. The technologies we need to survive sustainably on Mars are very similar to those we need to survive as a high-tech civilisation sustainably on Earth, by virtue of making low demands on the environment in both cases. Survival on Mars requires energy production without fossil fuels, and all industrial and food production needs to achieve high levels of recycling, and the same on Earth. Furthermore, the enterprise of settling Mars over the next millennium or so is precisely the sort of future-oriented narrative which, later in his talk, Snyder seems to be advocating in order to define a democractic nation, not to mention also one embedded in Russian culture in the form of Russian Cosmism and the early Russian-led achievements in space exploration. So, for all his expertise on Eurasian politics and culture, this is one issue I don't think Prof. Snyder has thought through.

This lecture is a slipshod narrative of false generalizations devoid of any substance! No mention of NATO, EU, or "War is a Racket" by Smedley Butler!

1:12 Once again: WE MUST WIN! At all costs, I guess. The cost of Ukraine itself. This is the bloody-mindedness again. And how crass of you to talk about how cheap it is for us to pay for it all.

It's symbolic that your narrow definition of fascism, that it starts with naming your enemy, is the way you start your lecture, with identifying Putin as the enemy, and an irrational one at that. You appear to me to be either hopelessly dialectically confused or diabolical in your abuse of language and argumentative structure to influence your students.

I have to disagree when professor Snyder claims that Russia and China are capitalist countries. Capitalism is the right to private ownership contrary to socialism. The people of Russia and China haven't such rights when the state can simply take your property away from you no matter if the law might agree or not.

Professor Snyder speaks with great authority on Ukrainian and Russian affairs, but his comparisons to problems in America and to the situation of American politics are ham-fisted and trite.

52:02 - such a great insight about freedom of speach!