Putin takes on history while Carlson watches

The former Fox News pundit lobbed a few very light balls to the Russian president, who recited a well-worn version of history: but he punishes the discipline to make it work

There were many inevitabilities about Tucker Carlson’s interview with President of the Russian Federation, which runs to a mighty, endurance-testing two hours. No-one with a grain of sense thought it would be tough, penetrating or challenging, and it wasn’t. That’s not just a feature of Carlson: Putin is a dictator and was never likely to agree to an interview he wasn’t certain he could control tightly. It is, however, a feature of Carlson too. Lionel Barber, former editor of the Financial Times, gave an interesting interview to the New Statesman last week, which contains many sharp and valid criticisms of the whole arrangement, but he makes the point clearly about Carlson as a “journalist”:

The operative word is journalist. And Tucker Carlson is a commentator. And a big partisan. He’s coming at this from a very particular point of view. We know that he thinks that America should not be aiding Ukraine. And we also know that he’s a big fan of Viktor Orbán. So that’s the problem: he’s coming at this from a completely preconceived position.

So we have a control-freak autocrat who finds open windows for those who displease him, and an interviewer with a stated and pronounced view on the main item of business. It was not a promising foundation.

If you have watched the full interview, or intend to, good luck to you. I did, and it was a slog. Putin rambles like a vaguely threatening pub bore, Carlson nodding occasionally, and unfolds his history of Russia from the days of Rurik, the Varangian chieftain who was invited in AD 862 to become ruler of the city of Novgorod on the Volkhov River. Imagine Rishi Sunak telling Emily Maitlis about the reign of Æthelstan of Kent and its relevance to UK foreign policy and British national identity, and you have an approximate comparison.

The interview was prefaced by a little monologue from Carlson, standing in front of the Kremlin, explaining to his followers on X why he was engaged in the whole exercise. After some fairly grotesque, pro-Putin characterisations of the war in Ukraine so far, he unveils his unique selling point.

Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine, or what his goals are now. They’ve never heard his voice… we are not encouraging you to agree with what Putin may say in this interview but we are urging you to watch it: you should know as much as you can and then, like a free citizen and not a slave, you can decide for yourself.

Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. Certainly more information rather than less is good. But this does imply that what Putin will say is, first, reliable and truthful, and, secondly, somehow an equal counterpart to what the western media have been reporting. I think a lot of people might dispute that. Carlson also says that Putin’s argument “seemed to us sincere whether you agree with it or not”. He continued:

Vladimir Putin believes that Russia has a historic claim to parts of western Ukraine. So our opinion would be to view it in that light as a sincere expression of what he thinks.

Now, I had never really doubted President Putin’s sincerity, or indeed thought about it much, because I hadn’t thought, and I still don’t, that it matters very much. The Russian president is making expansionist territorial claims and constructing cultural, linguistic and historical arguments with very dark implications, and I understand what they are, and that they are his playbook. What he really believes in the long, dark watches of the night seems fairly secondary.

I know this is a clear breach of Godwin’s Law, but insincerity is not a charge I’d level at Adolf Hitler. The führer’s aggressive war against Bolshevism and attempt to extirpate the Jewish people were genuinely held ambitions, I am quite happy to accept that. After all, one of the striking facts about Hitler is how little he concealed what he thought and wanted. In Mein Kampf (1925), he talked about when he first “came upon the Jewish problem” on arriving in Vienna in 1907, and there is not a scintilla of doubt in my mind that he genuinely thought Germany could only be saved and made great again by eradicating Judaism and Jews.

But, at the risk of being simplistic, so what? A monster who holds his twisted beliefs sincerely will act upon them in a very similar way to a less honest monster. So that Putin sincerely believes his junk history and his claim to possession of Ukraine says, I think, more about Carlson than about the president. I can’t be sure, but I think what Carlson wants to say here is: there are two sides to every story, here’s a side you haven’t heard, and at least this guy is honest, unlike all those lying politicians at home. That gives him some credit in the bank, right? Wrong.

The interview which follows is a sub-standard, over-long history seminar. Putin begins by asking Carlson, patronisingly, “Are we having a talk show or serious conversation?” On being told it’s “formidably serious”, he pats Carlson’s ego a little—“Your education background is in history, as far as I understand, right?”—which should probably be read in the context of Carlson spending four years at a small liberal arts college in Connecticut but failing to collect enough credits to graduate and then having an application to join the Central Intelligence Agency rejected. He was advised by his father, Dick Carlson, a reporter who ended up becoming director of the Voice of America, to consider journalism because “they’ll take anybody”. So that’s Carlson’s “education background in history”, to use Putin’s description.

At this point there is one of the few funny moments of the whole encounter. Putin, who by this stage has sized up his interlocutor, says “I will allow myself—just 30 seconds or one minute—to give a little historical background, if you don’t mind.” That 30 seconds or one minute is essentially the next two hours.

I am not an historian of Russia, so it is not for me to pick apart Vladimir Putin’s version of the history of Russia and its neighbours since the accession of Rurik. Fortunately others have done the hard work: there are fact checks and assessments from the BBC, Politico, Newsweek and Slate, among others. I will say that if one of your arguments is Poland started the Second World War, you may have strayed from what we would call the mainstream of traditional historiography, but Putin is nothing daunted:

Before World War II, Poland collaborated with Hitler and although it did not yield to Hitler’s demands, it still participated in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia together with Hitler. As the Poles had not given the Danzig Corridor to Germany, and went too far, pushing Hitler to start World War II by attacking them. Why was it Poland against whom the war started on 1 September 1939? Poland turned out to be uncompromising, and Hitler had nothing to do but start implementing his plans with Poland.

The idea that Poland “went too far” and that the Polish government “pushed Hitler to start World War II by attacking them” is a notion I will enjoy for a long while.

Of course, we should not be surprised that Putin advanced a bogus, partial and just bad historical narrative to justify his invasion of Ukraine. After all, it was only in 2021 that he published an essay entitled On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, which was essentially a wordy declaration of war on Ukraine. This was, as Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University succinctly put it, “bad history”. It followed a 10,000-word essay in The National Interest in June 2020 on The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II. Veteran correspondent Edward Lucas made short work of this in the Times: it was “euphemistic and selective”, a “cod version of history”.

At one point, Putin decides to experiment with self-deprecation. “This briefing is coming to an end. It might be boring, but it explains many things,” he reassures Carlson. “It’s not boring,” the interviewer responds. “Good,” enthuses Putin. “Good. I am so gratified that you appreciate that. Thank you.” I hope you are appreciating by this stage that this is not Jeremy Paxman taking on Michael Howard. It does, however, show the approach Putin is taking. This is information that Carlson needs to understand the contemporary situation in Ukraine. Once he has this “briefing”, he will be better informed.

Having said I will leave Russian history to others, there are one or two details I will allow myself to pick at. Putin describes Rurik’s assumption of power in Novgorod as “the year of the creation of the Russian state”. Possibly; but for that to be accurate, it must be so generalised as to be meaningless. Certainly, you can trace a vague jurisdictional and institutional lineage from AD 862 to the modern Russian Federation. In the same way, you can pinpoint 12 July AD 927, when Constantine II of Alba, Hywel Dda of Deheubarth, Ealdred of Bamburgh and Owain of Strathclyde gathered at Eamont in Cumbria to acknowledge the overlordship of Æthelstan, the king of Wessex, as the creation of the English state. But what would it mean? What relevance would it have for contemporary politics?

Putin’s argument seems to be that we can look at polities in the far distant past and inherit their claims and privileges. That would be a sad look-out for Scottish nationalists, as Scottish rulers would attend English parliaments in the 10th century, while Æthelstan invaded Scotland in AD 934 and soundly defeated the Scottish king Constantine and his allies at the mysterious Battle of Brunanburh in AD 937. (I say “mysterious” because no-one knows where it took place. At least 40 locations have been suggested, mostly in northern England but as far south as Northamptonshire.) I would gently suggest that a modern British politician arguing for English suzerainty over Scotland on the basis of the meeting at Eamont and the subsequent reign of Æthelstan would not be treated as a serious player.

Putin also points to AD 988, the baptism of the people of Kyiv on the orders of Vladimir I (also called Volodymyr; isn’t history ironic?), as the moment when “the centralized Russian state began to strengthen”. There are several points to make about this milestone for Putin. The first is that a huge amount is uncertain about the baptism of Kievan Rus’. There is general agreement that three events took place around the same time: the baptism of Vladimir/Volodymyr; his marriage to Anna Porphyrogenita, a Byzantine princess whose brothers Basil II and Constantine VIII were co-emperors; and Vladimir/Volodymyr’s siege and capture of Chersonesus, a Byzantine city in Crimea. But the sequence, interrelation and relative importance of these events is deeply confused. The jumble of events was marked by the construction of the first stone church in Kviy, the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin, destroyed by the Mongols in 1240.

Clearly, then, if so much about this pivotal event is uncertain or unknown, the idea of it being part of a “centralised Russian state” is absurd. I would argue—other may disagree—that you can’t really talk coherently about a “centralised” state until at least the late Middle Ages, possibly the 16th century, as communications before that were simply too poor to make governing from one place over a large territory impossible. London only became the clear centre of political power in England in the 14th century, while El Escorial, near Madrid, was not designated as the Spanish capital until 1557. So trying to push this idea back into the 10th century just won’t work.

I have two related but separate objections to the use of history in Putin’s interview. The first is the manipulation and falsification of the historical record, by commission or omission. When Putin describes the process of “Ukrainianization” by the Soviet régime, he talks about Ukraine being “given” land by the Soviet Union, and concludes that “we have every reason to affirm that Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped at Stalin’s will”. But “artificiality” works in all sorts of ways. While he has previously affirmed that Crimea, for example, is part of Russia and has justified his annexation of the peninsula in 2014 as the self-determination of its people, he chooses not to mention the fact that 200,000 Crimean Tatars were deported from Crimea in 1944 as an act of collective punishment for collaboration with Germany. There are debates over whether this was ethnic cleansing, or genocide, and whether the death toll was 34,000 or 110,000 or somewhere in between, but we know it had a huge demographic effect on the peninsula, removing the native Turkic people and making the Russian population numerically dominant.

The other objection I have is the notion that the historicity of something is an open-and-shut demonstration of its validity or rightness. Of course we use history all the time; the English common law is founded on the very idea that if something has happened in the past, it should continue to happen. We also have a statute book which is venerable: the oldest pieces of extant legislation are four chapters of the Statute of Marlborough which make up the Distress Act 1267 and the Waste Act 1267. But there is a fundamental difference between internal matters like law and institutions, and relations between sovereign states and peoples.

In 1340, Edward III staked his claim to the throne of France, arguing that when the last Capetian monarch, Charles IV, died in 1328, he, Edward, as the late king’s nephew through his mother Isabella, was the rightful heir. The de facto monarch was Philip VI, previous count of Valois and a first cousin of Charles IV, but Edward was arguably the closer relative, albeit exercising a claim through the female line, which had never been done in France. The point is, if the English king had an arguable claim then, in 1340, then his successor carries that claim now. But for the UK government to seek legal title over France on the basis of a 700-year-old dynastic claim would be obviously ridiculous.

Circumstances change, and criteria change. The nature of a state in the 9th century AD is unrecognisable from a modern jurisdiction. To imagine we can appeal to history without acknowledging that the world is a different place is either deluded or disingenuous—back to Carlson’s defence of President Putin’s “sincerity”. If we had doubted this, we need to look no further than Northern Ireland, also lately in the news.

The English arrived in Ireland in 1169/70. Initially there were Anglo-Norman mercenaries invited by Diarmait Mac Murchada, the deposed king of Leinster, but when those soldiers restored Diarmait to his throne, he swore loyalty to Henry II and promised land to Norman settlers. Richard de Clare, earl of Pembroke, remembered as “Strongbow”, arrived in 1170, and when Diarmait died the following year, Strongbow claimed Leinster as promised to him by the late king. An alliance of Irish rulers led by the high king, Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, gathered to oppose him, and that autumn, Henry II arrived with a substantial army to impose order.

This was all power play and feat of arms, but there was more lofty intent behind it. Henry II claimed the title of “Lord of Ireland” (Henry VIII upgraded to king under the provisions of the Crown of Ireland Act 1542) and he did so under the authority of a papal bull of 1155 entitled Laudabiliter. It had been issued by Adrian IV—to date the only English pope, who held the see of Rome from 1154 to 1159—and, in order to strengthen the church in Ireland, it decreed that “illius terre populus honorifice te recipiat et sicut dominum veneretur”, “the people of that land [Ireland] receive you honourably and respect you as their lord”.

There are problems with Laudabiliter as an absolute authority. No copy of the document actually exists, although it is cited in other records from as early as the 13th century and was being used an accepted claim for centuries afterwards. J.R.S. Phillips said in 1990 that it “was regarded even by enemies of the English as a key element in the English monarchy’s claims to the lordship of Ireland”. Even of it did exist, some have argued that the pope was deceived into issuing it and misled about the situation in Ireland.

None of this matters now. Plainly it would be absurd for the UK government to draw on Laudabiliter to support the maintenance of the devolved government at Stormont. It is striking to look instead at the language of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Section 1(1) established the status quo.

It is hereby declared that Northern Ireland in its entirety remains part of the United Kingdom and shall not cease to be so without the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland voting in a poll held for the purposes of this section.

Then in section 1(2) we have an acknowledgement of modern political reality.

But if the wish expressed by a majority in such a poll is that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament such proposals to give effect to that wish as may be agreed between Her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom and the Government of Ireland.

There, I think, we have a clear indication of the difference between Putin’s grab-bag of pseudo- and semi-history used to buttress political actions, and a demonstration of how history always must move in concert with reality and practicality.

I end, however, wondering if we have all allowed ourselves to become too excited by Tucker Carlson’s grubby little venture (“You have, I see, encyclopaedic knowledge of this region”—that kind of asperity must have made Putin quail). This was not Frost/Nixon, nor did anyone expect it to be. Carlson is a hyper-partisan, populist, low-wattage commentator with known sympathies towards the Kremlin and the Russian narrative on Ukraine: he believes American liberals hate the United States more than Putin does, that the US should choose Russia over Ukraine if forced to decide and that the US is paying Ukraine to produce biological weapons. He has been an active advocate and propagandist for the Kremlin. So he came to the interview with so authority or imprimatur, no ability to legitimise Putin or make him somehow respectable.

Equally, did Putin say anything interesting? I’d struggle to point to anything. He laid out arguments presented before in greater depths, but there was little new. Boris Johnson will have been discomfited by hearing Putin allege that the former prime minister intervened in 2022 to stop Zelensky signing a peace agreement with Russia. But ultimately Putin’s credibility gap is too great. Those who want to believe him will have done so, enjoying the greater detail they can now add to his narrative, while those who judge him a liar, a kleptocrat, a tyrant and a mass murderer who invaded his neighbour in a war of aggression will not have been swayed by his patter.

I suspect this will not have moved the needle. Like the poor bloody infantry in eastern Ukraine, outspoken partisans will now be dug in more deeply than before, but I doubt there has been much permeability between the two sides. Some US conservatives professed to be impressed by Putin’s grasp of history and his ability to talk in detail for half an hour and more, but honestly I’ve seen the same familiarity with facts and polished spiel in pub bores who are obsessed by the Knight Templar and the Holy Grail, or the Jacobites, or the “real” story of the JFK assassination. Tucker Carlson was an incidental presence, an audience and an occasional prompt.

If we take anything from it, we should be wary of those who bend history to their political purposes and find no wrinkles or uneven features. This is a maxim for life in general, I suppose, but it’s worth remembering that if something seems seamless and perfect, it’s almost certainly an illusion.

The war grinds on.