“Truth vs. Propaganda. How the Kremlin distorts the history of Ukraine: Donetsk region” was the topic of a discussion at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. The discussion, which also featured a video about the myths of the Donetsk region, continued UCMC’s earlier research “Myths and narratives of Russian propaganda that destroy Ukrainian identity in the south and east of Ukraine. Debunking and exposure.”
The discussion was attended by experts, journalists and officials, who came to a common conclusion that it is important to popularize among Ukrainians the historical facts of the development of the Donetsk region as an ancient Cossack land.
The event was held as part of the project “Strengthening information resilience in Ukraine” in partnership with the International Practitioners’ Partnership Network (Estonia) with the support of the European Union.
Why it is important to write our own history of Ukrainian lands
It is not difficult to debunk the Russian myth. A scientific approach and access to historical materials are enough, and most importantly, the results of the analysis should be shared with as many people as possible. Tetiana Kolosova, head of UCMC press center, said this while presenting a video.
“Ukrainians are strong thanks to their identity, which was gained in historical struggle, not acquired with birth,” Ms. Kolosova believes. “And the task of external and internal enemies is to destroy it by distorting historical facts, manipulating them and substituting truth with lies. The state and many organizations do a lot to counteract such propaganda, but there is no systematic and multidisciplinary integrated approach.
One of the most common narratives is that most Ukrainian regions were founded during the times of imperial Russia. Even in the Ukrainian Wikipedia, you can still find evidence of these distortions of history. However, every historian knows that the date a city was founded is the first chronicle or historical mention of it or of a settlement in that territory, not the date it was renamed or reformed following some events. This was the impetus for conducting a study on the myths of Russian propaganda that still exist in the East and South of Ukraine in order to share its findings with a wide audience of Ukrainian citizens.
“Today, in times of war, it is very important to tell Ukrainians our true history, because all empires use the same scenario: they take away what belongs to others, destroy others and erase memory,” said Ms. Kolosova. “Therefore, our task is to write our own history, recovered from various archives and human stories, and convey it on various platforms to a wide target audience in a simple but non-primitive format.”
Modern warfare is consistently accompanied by propaganda
The territories of the future Donetsk region of Ukraine were settled by Cossacks as early as the 17th century. They founded many local settlements, including Bakhmut. In the late 19th century, most local residents identified themselves as Ukrainians, according to regional censuses. In 1939, Russians did not even make up a third of the local population. The future center of industrial Donbas, the town of Yuzivka, which became the city of Donetsk, was founded in 1869 by the Welsh entrepreneur-innovator John Hughes. However, the first Soviet narratives that distorted and erased the true history of the city’s emergence and development came here along with the first Stalinist famine in 1924.
Tetiana Semakovska, a journalist for the Bakhmut.in.ua, noted that along with the full-scale invasion, today’s Russia keeps bringing propaganda narratives with it, using them to justify its actions both to its own population and to Ukrainians in the occupied territories.
“We can observe that enemy channels are increasingly saying that the Donetsk region is allegedly Russian land, and therefore they are not occupying settlements, but returning them,” said Ms. Semakovska. “For example, in Bakhmut, a monument to Kindrat Bulavin, a leader of the Cossack uprising on the Don against the Moscow tsardom, miraculously survived the shelling. And the Russians, after capturing the town, tried just to appropriate his name, saying that he had worked for the good of Russia.
According to the journalist, another thesis that the occupation regime actively promotes is the need to completely demolish buildings in Mariupol and Bakhmut due to severe destruction and build completely new cities. In this way, the Russians try to completely destroy architectural monuments that remind us of the Cossack past of these lands.
“I believe that we need to explain even very simple things to people,” says Tetiana Semakovska. “For example, to tell them in short videos how Russia appropriated our heroes, even fairy tales. We made a whole series of videos about Mykyta Kozhumyaka and the three bogatyrs whom Russians claim as their own, and explained why these historical characters are actually Ukrainian.
It is important to start our counter-propaganda at school level
Vadym Zadunayskyi, PhD in History, currently works as a professor at the Department of World History of the Modern and Contemporary Times at the Ukrainian Catholic University, and until 2014 he taught at Donetsk National University. So he can compare the students of different times and see how the thinking of young Ukrainians has changed.
“At Donetsk University, the situation was optimistic in terms of the possibilities of forming adequate knowledge of the historical past and the ability to compare certain concepts and sources based on critical analysis,” the historian said. “At that time, the Department of Historiography, which was engaged in studying the source base, was headed by Vasyl Pirko. He contributed a lot to the dissemination of truthful information about the settlement of the Donetsk region and all of eastern Ukraine. This was one of the areas of his PhD thesis.
Vadym Zadunayskyi recalled that since the declaration of Ukraine’s independence, Donetsk students have become more and more progressive in studying the historical past. They quickly got rid of the post-Soviet narrative heritage, and the question of the language of instruction did not even arise – everyone spoke Ukrainian perfectly. Most students of the history faculty were largely involved in defending Ukrainian values and ideas, and now they are defending our state with weapons.
“The task of historians and experts who, in the public space, highlight the pages of our history that our enemy encroaches on is to give him a decisive rebuff, not to lag behind, but on the contrary – to apply various methods, means and strategies in order to inflict an ideological defeat on him,” Vadym Zadunayskyi is convinced.
According to the historian, the video presented by the UCMC team provides an opportunity to adequately and in a short time review, analyze and even rethink some historical realities that the general public is not sufficiently familiar with. The professor also suggested that viewers’ attention should be focused more on statistical data on the Ukrainians-to-Russians ratio during different periods of residence in the territories that the enemy is currently trying to claim as originally Russian.
“Throughout the history of recording the ethnic composition of the population since the times of the Russian Empire, that is, from the 70s-80s of the 18th century to the 2000s, Ukrainians have never been inferior in numbers and have always prevailed within the Donetsk region. These data and the context of Cossack activities in these territories can further strengthen the emphasis on the falsehood of Russian propaganda narratives,” Vadym Zadunayskyi said. “It would also be appropriate to add more information about the armed struggle against Russian aggression, starting from the heroics of the Cossack era.”
The historian added that dissemination of basic knowledge about the real past of Ukrainian society must be started at school level, because not all specializations in universities combine the study of historical disciplines.
“That is, if we spread more information about our achievements and victories at school level and in public space, but at the same time do not forget about our mistakes and bitter defeats, we will outplay Russian propaganda and will be able to defeat the enemy on the ideological front with counterattacks of our propaganda,” he concluded.
Videos on historical topics can influence the broad masses
Liudmyla Zahaynova, leading consultant of multimedia projects of the Department of Information Activities and Public Communications of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, informed that the town of New York was built by analogy with Donetsk. Foreign financiers and industrialists who came to these lands with their families built not only factories, but also schools and kindergartens for their workers’ children.
“I remember historical excursions for children conducted by the local museum director in Bakhmut. She explained how the city was actually founded, what the fortress looked like, and where the Cossack regiments were based,” the official said. “From an early age, these schoolchildren identified their city as Bakhmut, as a Cossack patrimony and ancient Ukrainian land rather than Artemivske imposed by the Soviet regime.”
Liudmyla Zahaynova also recalled her student years, when they, future journalists, were taught the history of the communist party, but they shared and read Orest Subtelny’s textbook on the true history of Ukraine.
–“Unfortunately, for their part, the Russians are massively carrying out their propaganda work. They have always destroyed Ukrainian identity and immediately substituted it with their “idols.” Therefore, our enemy is cunning, insidious, and unfortunately – effective,” Ms. Zahaynova said. “We need to involve all methods to counteract him, including cinema. Historical events should become historical films, thus popularizing our own heroes, our own events and strengthening Ukrainian identity. Just analyze Russian video production, how they idealized their soldiers and raised entire generations on this. Therefore, the state should invest more in Ukrainian cinema to create much-needed and high-quality content.”
Liudmyla Zahaynova also mentioned short videos about Ukrainian statesmen, which were once broadcast in the Kyiv metro, and noted that they were very positively perceived by viewers and had a good effect. In her opinion, there should be such videos about Ukrainian cities so that people know the true history of their foundation, because almost every region of Ukraine has experienced the distortion of its history at the hands of Russian propagandists.
The participants of the event also noted that significant damage was caused to Ukrainian identity not only through the distortion of history, but also through the introduction of Russian as the language of instruction in educational institutions in many regions. And currently, the creation and mass distribution of various information products, conducting special trainings, excursions and explanations should become one of the tools of comprehensive countering the large-scale and long-term ideological war of the enemy.
