The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine. It has become a symbol of resistance after a Ukrainian woman confronted a Russian soldier and offered him seeds. She told him to put the seeds in his pocket so sunflowers would grow when he died on Ukraine’s soil. She shouted at him, “You’re occupants, you’re fascists. Take these seeds and put them in your pockets so at least sunflowers will grow when you all lie down here … You are occupiers. You are enemies.”
The sunflower seeds incident is just one of the stories of heroic resistance and resilience in Ukraine inspiring the world for the past two weeks since Putin’s unprovoked invasion.
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| Erika Fatland |
In Ukraine, Fatland visits Odessa, Gammalsvenskby, Crimea, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, Donetsk, Poltava, Kiev, Lviv, and other areas in her two-year exploration around Russia’s border. After completing her journey –– more than five years ago –– Fatland had a chilling premonition about Putin’s aggression:
“The borders have changed and multiplied time and again over the centuries, most recently in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. Borders are not set in stone; the new fibreglass boundary markers are easy to move. The world’s biggest country is low on self-esteem; the economy is failing and the population shrinking. Thus the need to assert itself is even greater.”
“Putin, a former K.G.B. officer, stops at nothing to gain power and influence,” she observes. “Rules are only followed if they are in Russia’s favor.”
Putin justifies his invasion of the sovereign democratic nation of Ukraine because it once was part of Russia. But that view is myopic, at best, considering the long sweep of history. Fatland presents history lessons throughout her narrative, and she provides a helpful annex at the end of her book listing key events in Russian History from 862 to 2015.
With regard to Ukraine, she explains the strong ties with Sweden, the role of religion in the region, and the roles of Rural the Run, Vladimir 1, Grand Prince of Kiev; Genghis Khan and the Mongols; Ivan the Terrible; Napoleon; and various Alexanders, Nicholases, and Vladimirs/Volodymirs. Readers learn about the role of the Tartars, the Turks, the Crimean War, Stalin’s war of famine, and the Putin’s aggression in recent years in Chechnya, Georgia, and Crimea.
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| Monument to Peter the Great, St. Petersburg, Russia |
“In 1682, Peter I, better known as Peter the Great, was crowned tsar at the tender age of ten. He was no more than a child and liked to spend his time building and sailing boats. As he grew up, his ambitions also grew, without his losing interest in boats and sailing: Peter the Great’s dream was to make Russia a maritime superpower. He first attempted to conquer the port areas on the Black Sea, but was unsuccessful, so he turned his sights west instead. In 1700, his troops besieged the Swedish-controlled town of Narva, on the current Estonian-Russian border. The clearly inferior Swedish army, led by the then eighteen-year-old Charles XII, were blessed by a snowstorm that blew up behind them and blinded the Russians, who panicked and fled, suffering great losses.”
Catherine II, known as Catherine the Great, continued Peter’s revanchist ambitions:
In 1689, when Peter the Great came to the throne, Russia, despite its size still had only one port, in Archangel. This was frozen over for the greater part of the year and was in the far north. Peter the Great managed to secure Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea and built a new capital, St Petersburg, there. But all attempts to conquer the Black Sea coast failed. It was only at the end of the eighteenth century, under Catherine the Great, that ships flying the Russian flag finally sailed on the Black Sea. Like her predecessor, Catherine the Great was ambitious. Her big dream was to conquer Istanbul, cradle of orthodox Christianity. She was not successful in that, but in the course of two long wars with the Ottoman Empire, she did manage to acquire large parts of what is now South Ukraine, from Odessa in the south to Dnepropetrovsk (now known as Dnipro) in the north, including Crimea.
“After the war with the Turks, which ended in 1774, Crimea was given the status of independent khanate. The freedom was, however, short-lived. In 1783, Catherine the Great announced that the khan in Crimea and his people would henceforth be considered subjects of the Russian tsar.”
Portrait of Catherine the Great by Alexey Antropov
[By the way, later in his life, with few career options after his military service, American naval hero John Paul Jones entered into the service of Catherine the Great on April 23, 1787.]
Fatland’s book and journey begins in, of all places, North Korea, which shares a tiny border but huge history with Russia. Fatland takes us on a fascinating propaganda tour filled with giant statues of the Kims, choreographed mass dances, school visits, and photo-deleting tour guides. Along the way, she contextualizes places and culture with history.
Navy readers will enjoy her brief discussion of the Russo-Japan War, where Tsar Nicholas II’s Russian fleet was destroyed by the Japanese fleet in the Tsushima Straits, May 27, 1905. President Theodore Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize for helping negotiate peace.
Today, in response to Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine, the free world is imposing more sanctions against Russia. We can imagine what the future could portend for Putin, as a result of those sanctions, when we consider the effects of Russia’s war on its home front –– in 1905:
“In addition to the many thousands of soldiers who had been killed far away in a war that very few understood, it had also resulted in food shortages in the major ciities. On January 22, several hundred peaceful demonstrators marched on the Winter Palace, demanding reform, better working conditions, and an end to the war with Japan. [Russian police were ordered to open fire on citizens]… More than 130 people were killed in what has gone down in history as ‘Bloody Sunday.’ This, in turn, led to strikes, protests, and revolt throughout the empire. In the autumn, following Russia’s humiliating defeat by the Japanese, all the major cities were brought to a standstill by a general strike … Nicholas II’s inability to accept the fact that times were changing, and that the days of the autocrat were numbered, would cost him dear.”
After Putin the autocrat aggressively annexed the Crimean Peninsula 2014 and fomented unrest in eastern Ukraine, he showed interest in fortifying his relationship with China and North Korea. Just a few months after taking over Crimea, Putin wiped out ninety percent of North Korea’s debt with Russia, according to Fatland. Russia has unrestricted access to North Korea’s mineral resources. In addition to other quid pro quo infrastructure initiatives, Putin arranged for a fifty year lease for the use of Rason, a port in the Sea of Japan.
“The Russian authorities plan to transport goods by rail from Vladivostok, which will then be transferred to ships in Rason, which, unlike Vladivostok, is ice-free all year round. Even though more than two thirds of Russia’s border is maritime, the country has very few deepwater ports. This desire for warm-water ports has been the cause of several wars in Russian history: Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Nicholas I and Nicholas II all stopped at nothing in their attempts to make the enormous empire a maritime superpower. A leasing agreement with the world’s worst dictator is one of the less dramatic steps Russian leaders have taken to guarantee the country an ice-free port.”
The problem for the Russians in using the port, however lies in the sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union, and many other nations.
Today, President Joe Biden announced the United States was sanctioning oil and natural gas exports from Russia. The U.S. continues to send billions in military aid to Ukraine, and is fortifying NATO allies.
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| Pallets of ammunition, weapons and other equipment bound for Ukraine wait to be loaded during a foreign military sales mission at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, Feb. 28, 2022. Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $5.4 billion in total assistance to Ukraine, and reaffirms its steadfast commitment to a secure and prosperous Ukraine and to its sovereignty and territorial integrity. (Tech. Sgt. J.D. Strong II) |
There is so much more to discover in this book: meeting the Uyghurs in Xinjiang; taking a group tour to Chernobyl; discovering the connection between explorers Vitus Bering and Captain James Cook and the Arctic; contemplating borders as both real and abstract; and learning more about Putin’s forays into Chechnya, Syria, and Georgia.
The full name of her book is “The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the Northeast Passage.”
Fatland is also author of “Sovietistan,” that, according to Kirkus Review is “A lively, if rarely cheerful, travelogue that fills a yawning knowledge gap for readers concerned with international affairs,” which aptly describes “Border” too. In "The Border," she introduces us to colorful characters, fraught or funny situations, and fascinating landscapes.
Fatland writes with precision and compassion. In Georgia’s Caucasus mountains she visited the Gergeti Monastery, pictured above. She has a poet’s soul, especially when she writes about Georgia:
“Georgia is one of my favorite countries. It is a country that has absolutely everything: some of the highest mountains in Europe in the north, you can swim in the Black Sea in the west and in the east you will find world-class vineyards. Add old, almost untouched architecture (everything from medieval villages where stone towers stand side by side, to some of the oldest churches in the world), a cuisine that can compete with Italian, and people who not only are open and hospitable, but always ready to party and have another drink, and you have Georgia. Were it not for their neighbours, the Georgians would probably be the world’s happiest people”
With her perspective as a citizen of Norway, Fatland has an objective eye, yet she sees the danger of Russian aggression throughout her journeys both on land and through time. “Being Russia’s neighbour has never been easy,” she writes. “Norway is the only one of its fourteen neighbours that has not been invaded or at war with Russia in the past five hundred years.”
“I had travelled through fourteen countries and three breakaway republics,” Fatland writes:
“And none of the countries I had travelled through were without wounds or scars left by their neighbor, Russia. For centuries, the smaller countries and peoples, in particular, had been ground between the millstones of power, torn by wars between the major players, and pulled here and there.
“Nations have not collective memory; nations have no healed wounds. It is the individuals, millions of then, who carry the scars.”
Analysts say Putin won’t stop in Ukraine unless he is stopped; some say we may already be in World War III –– or WWZ, considering the Russians use of the letter Z as a crooked half-swastika symbol. “The Border” gives us an appreciation of liberty and freedom in the face of authoritarian autocratic governments, and it helps us understand the people impacted by Russian aggression and find the right questions for what's ahead.
“After two years of traveling along Russia’s border –– in real terms, along dusty country roads and across the sea, and in figurative terms, charting its long and complex history –– I now have more questions than answers. Which is not unexpected. My main impression is of a lack of direction and opportunism. The Russian Empire grew to the size it did because tsar after tsar seized any opportunity to expand the empire’s borders, using violence, trickery and war if necessary. And one group of people after another, from the nomadic tribes of Siberia to the Muslim Khanates of Central Asia and Russia’s Slav neighbors, was encompassed by the great empire, willingly and unwillingly. In the borderlands and on the periphery, freedom came and went. History teaches us that those who were once part of the Russian empire are most at risk of falling under its yoke in the future.”
“The Border” is an amazing achievement. Fatland manages to plant dry seeds of history in a compelling, often poetic, travel adventure. At nearly 600 pages, her book is both informative and fun but also melancholy considering the humanitarian catastrophe occurring now in some of the same places she visited –– places where perhaps sunflowers will grow in the future.
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