Petryshyn Lecture: Timothy Snyder

Petryshyn Memorial Lecture | Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program

Ukraine: A Normal Country

Timothy Snyder, Levin Professor of History and Global Affairs, Yale University

Ukraine seems to appear in every sort of unusual predicament. Whether we study it from the inside or the outside, we are tempted to see it as exceptional. In this lecture, I will argue that Ukrainian history is exceptional only insofar as it embodies major trends with unusual intensity. Much might be said for contemporary Ukrainian politics: what is unusual is how much they reveal about challenges Americans, Europeans, and others face in the twenty-first century.

Timothy Snyder was educated at Brown and Oxford and held postdocs at Harvard before joining Yale University’s faculty, where he is the Levin Professor of History and Global Affairs. His historical work concerns central and eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He has also written on U.S. history, international relations, health care, digital politics, and political thought. His fifteen books, which include Bloodlands and Black Earth, have been translated into more than forty languages and have received a similar number of awards. He holds state orders and honorary doctorates, and has appeared in documentaries, on television, and in films. His writing has inspired poster exhibitions, sculpture, a punk rock song, a rap song, films, a play, and an opera. His pamphlet On Tyranny is quoted in demonstrations around the world. In 2021, he introduced the terms “big lie” and “memory laws” into the American political and legal discussion. He is finishing a philosophical book about freedom.