The actions of President Zelensky following the invasion of Ukraine exemplify a free act. In this article, Timothy Snyder recounts his meeting with President Zelensky shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Snyder explores the philosophical implications of Zelensky’s decision to stay in Kyiv as Russian troops marched on the Ukrainian capital. President Zelenksy did not run. He stayed. And did so freely.
Aaron James Wendland: It is an honor to introduce Timothy Snyder. Timothy is Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, and The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, and America. Snyder’s work has been translated into forty languages, he has received state orders from Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland, and he is the winner of the Hannah Arendt Prize in Political Thought.
Timothy Snyder: The subject that I have chosen for myself is thinking about freedom in wartime Ukraine. The basis for this title is a conference that I ran together with some friends and colleagues in 2014, just as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, the first Russian invasion in spring of 2014. I brought people from North America and Europe to Kyiv and ran a conference called ‘Thinking Together’. Although that’s a very simple idea, I like to think it’s a useful one. And when I speak about philosophy in Ukraine, what I’m going to be doing is not explaining how philosophy might be applied to Ukraine, but instead I will be thinking together with Ukrainians and with others about what I take to be the central subject of this conflict, which is freedom.
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