Vladimir Putin’s Medieval MindsetJonathan Kay
03 Mar 2022 4 min read
In 1338, the story has it, a notorious French exile named Robert of Artois strutted into the London palace of King Edward III, bearing a stuffed heron on a silver platter. “Clear the way, you miserable failures,” he said to the assembled lords. “I have a heron … the most cowardly bird of all birds … And since it is cowardly, it is my intention to give the heron to the most cowardly one who lives, or who has ever lived: that is [King Edward], disinherited of the noble land of France of which he was rightful heir.”
Only a madman would talk to a medieval king in this way. But as the story goes, Edward was chastened, having been reminded of his claim to the French crown (in his capacity as grandson to Philip IV). “Since ‘coward’ is thrown up to me, I should defend myself,” the king said. “I vow and promise to God in heaven and his sweet Mother, who nourished Him, that before this year is ended … I will cross the sea, my subjects with me, and I will … set the country ablaze and there I will await my mortal enemy, Philip [VI] who wears the fleur-de-lis.”
The Vows of the Heron is fiction—a Flemish satire of the English bloodlust that would fuel the Hundred Years War between England and France.
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A week ago, Putin tried to justify his unprovoked invasion by accusing Western nations of a plot to destroy Russia through territorial encroachment and the “degradation and degeneration” of traditional Slavic values. Putin also suggested Ukraine’s government is led by neo-Nazis waging a “genocide” against Russian-speaking citizens. All of this is so spectacularly dishonest that one can scarcely imagine anyone believing it. (Both parents of Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are Jewish. And at least four of his paternal grandfather’s close relatives died in the Holocaust.) But apparently, many remain under Putin’s spell, especially those older Russians eager to blame outsiders for the shame and poverty associated with the breakup of the USSR. It is an atavistic mindset that privileges honor and vengeance, while consigning innocent civilians to the role of history’s bit actors. And so as bad as things get for Russian forces in Ukraine, it’s hard to see Putin retreating, as the whole disastrous project seems to have become wrapped up with his medieval self-conception as Russia’s saviour.
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Source:
https://quillette.com/2022/03/03/vladimir-putins-medieval-mindset/
