Ukrainians as the Civilizers of Russians

As Persians were for the Arabs, and Greeks & southern Slavs were for the Turks

A closer look at Ukrainian history would reveal that Ukrainians played a similar role in the Russian Empire (including its continuation the Soviet Union) as the Greeks and southern Slavs in the Ottoman Empire, or as Persians in the Arab Empire - i.e., as the civilizers of their conquerors.

Especially in the 16th century the Ottoman state was run mostly by the Slavs and Greeks from the Balkans. Most of them had been kidnapped at young age, forced to convert to Islam and as they became adults served in the state apparatus, bureaucracy and the army. In the army they formed the elite corpse - the janissaries, which was formed exlusively from young men recruited (i.e., forcefully taken) from the Christian families in the Balkans. This system was called 'devshirme'.

It's fair to say that essentially it's the people of European extraction that made the Ottoman Empire so powerful in the 16-17th centuries. It's due to their efforts and skills that Ottoman Empire could last so long - i.e., six centuries, which, seen historically, was actually rather unusual for a Turkic state.

The peak of their influence coincided with the pinnacle of the might of the Ottoman Empire - the second half of the 16th century. The most notorious representative of the era was the grand vizier Sokollu Mehmet Pasha (Sokolović), who served under three sultans, and who was of Serbian descent, born into an Orthodox Christian family. As a matter of fact, the influence of southern Slavs at the 16th century Ottoman court was so huge and all-encompassing that the everyday language there was Serbian.

The tragedy was that the aptitudes of ethnic Europeans were used against Europe. Those children of southern Slavic and Greek origin were forever separated from their families and were made to forget their roots. Inculcated with Islam and the ideology of conquest, they were used to enable the slaughter and enslavement of their own kinsmen. Their physical fitness and cognitive aptitudes were not only forever lost to their countries of origin, but were weaponized against them. Against their own people.

In much the same way, in the 8-10th centuries Persians had a huge civilizing influence on their Arab conquerors. Arab caliphs adopted many Persian administrative practices, such as coinage, the role of vizier, and the divan. As a matter of fact, Persians were the primary administrators in the Arab Empire, much like the Greeks and southern Slavs would carry out state administration in the Ottoman Empire centuries later. The Iranian people also have had a significant impact on Islamic culture. Their contributions can be seen in various areas, including what is known as “Arabic poetry”, which was actually the domain of Iranian poets who wrote in Arabic. Islamic architecture was also heavily influenced by Persian architecture. One caliph is quoted as saying:

The Persians ruled for a thousand years and did not need us Arabs even for a day. We have been ruling them for one or two centuries and cannot do without them for an hour.

The Abbasid dynasty that came to replace the Umayyads in the second half of the 8th century was installed with the support of Persians. And later in the 9th century the main cause of the decline of the Arab Empire, which lead to its eventual disintegration, was the Persian revolt against Arab domination. Once Arabs lost Persians, they lost their might. What followed afterwards is what later historians would call "Islamic Golden Age", which was essentially the cultural and scientific achievements of Persians after they threw off the Arab yoke. Almost all of the famous scholars that are associated with Islamic Golden Age were of Persian origin - e.g., Biruni, Kwarizmi, Farabi, Ibn-Sina (Avicenna) and others.

Likewise, in the 17th century, Ukraine was home to many gifted learned men - philosophers, theologians and writers. It was a place of great cultural and intellectual growth, and was covered with a network of schools and universities.

In the second half of the century, after the Russo-Polish War (1654-1667), Russia conquered eastern and central Ukraine, including Kyiv. It was indeed an important turning point in Russian history. Suddenly Russia acquired a large population of highly cultured and sophisticated people as its new subjects.

The influence of Ukrainian philosophers and thinkers on Russian intellectual life and Russian politics of the time cannot be underestimated. One can, for example, reliably state that what is today known as "Russian literature" took its roots in Ukraine. It was the Ukrainian poet and churchman Simeon Polotsky who founded the first Latin school and later the first academy in Moscow after he relocated there upon invitation from Tsar Alexey Mikhaylovich. He was also the tutor of tsar's children, among them the future Peter The Great. It was the Ukrainian Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich, the advisor of Peter The Great, and his entourage from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, who were the main ideologues of the Russian Empire and played an important part in its founding. Also, it was mainly the Ukrainian theologians that were the driving force behind the large-scale church reforms that took place in Russia in the middle of the 17th century. Thus, in the second half of the 17th century there was Ukrainization of Russian cultural and spiritual life. Much like the Persianization of Islamic-Arab culture that had taken place from the 9th century onwards, for example.

Later, during Soviet times, Ukraine once again re-emerged as the place of innovation, this time in science and technology. It was the most technologically advanced republic of the Soviet Union. A technology hub, in a sense. Most, if not all, technological developments that happened in the USSR were the achievements of Ukrainian scientists and engineers. Including those of the military-industrial complex. The Soviet arms industry essentially rested on the shoulders of Ukrainians. The most advanced weapons, conventional and nuclear, were produced in Ukraine, by Ukrainian engineers. Which, by the way, Ukraine was forced to renounce and transfer to Russia in accordance with the infamous Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Many in the West don't know or prefer to conveniently ignore it, but, for example, the ballistic missiles that currently rain down on Ukrainian cities are the ones that Ukraine transferred to Russia according to that agreement. Or the nuclear warhead "Sarmat", which Russia likes to brandish to scare away the western world, is in fact a modification of the original built in Ukraine. The head of the Soviet space project that sent the first satellite, then the first animals and finally the first human into space was a Ukrainian engineer Serhiy Korolyov. The list goes on... All in all, it can be fairly stated that the Soviet Union was able to become a military superpower only thanks to Ukrainian scientists and engineers.

Many explanations have been put forward as to why Russia invaded Ukraine and wants to control it - e.g., imperial/colonial expansion, establishing its sphere of influence, destroying Ukrainian national identity and so on. But the reason runs much deeper. First and foremost, Russians need Ukrainian human capital to solve their own demographic problem.

Henry Kissinger once quipped that with Ukraine Russia is an empire, without Ukraine it's not. Most interpret it in a rather shallow way, as Russia needing additional territories to extend further into Europe. In reality, Russia needs not as much the Ukrainian territory but Ukrainian people to become a powerful state - their ingenuity, industriousness and creativity. With Ukrainians it was an empire, without them it's not. Much like the Arab Empire depended on Persians or Ottoman Empire depended on southern Slavs and Greeks for its perpetuation and glories.

Russia thus badly needs Ukraine's human potential. As we have seen, in various periods of history it was the aptitudes of Ukrainians that made Russia a powerful state to be reckoned with. Thus it’s also within this context that one should understand Russian invaders kidnapping Ukrainian children and relocating them to Russia. Much like in the past the Ottoman Turks had forcefully removed children from the Balkans, inculcated them with Islam and trained them into state administrators or janissaries, who became the nightmare of European armies, Russians aim to inculcate the Ukrainian children they kidnap with the ideology of Russian imperial chauvinism (i.e., the “Russian world”) to later unleash them against their own kinsmen and possibly other Europeans.

Thus, western public and politicians should finally understand that a hypothetical Russian conquest and subjugation of Ukraine, even just parts of it in the form of currently occupied territories, would in the long run be a problem for the whole Europe in that Russia will acquire a highly capable and talented human capital, which it will then utilize to further threaten Europe. Everyone has seen by now what skillful and zealous fighters Ukrainians are. They’re also very skillful engineers as was mentioned above. Imagine if they were figthing not against Russians, but through decades of indoctrination with the hateful anti-western ideology of the “Russian world” would turn against Europeans, like Russian “janissaries”. Imagine if Ukrainian engineers would again be building superweapons for the Russian military-industrial complex. Therefore it’s in Europe’s best interests to ensure that Ukraine liberates all of its territory and all its people from Russian subjugation, including bringing back the children who were forcefully relocated to Russia.

For centuries Ukrainians were forced to give their talents in the service of a rapacious foreign power that had subdued them, and that in its essence was inimical to European civilization and acted against their interests. Now, finally they have the chance to utilize their enormous potential for their own prosperity and development, within their own nation state that is an integral part of European civilization. And build for themselves a bright future.