Ukraine is at the centre of the current fight for freedom and democracy in the world.
It is impossible to understand the First World War, the Second World War, the terrors of the Stalinist regime, the Holocaust, or the collapse of the Soviet Union without understanding Ukraine's role in these world events.
Russia, an aging tyranny, seeks to destroy Ukraine, a defiant democracy, but Ukraine's strength is not just military; it is moral. Ukrainians are serving as an example—to Europe and the world—showing that democracy is fundamentally ethical and valuable.
To support Ukraine is to support democracy—not just there, but everywhere
Articles & Essays
Substack, March 2022
The Road to Unfreedom, Bloodlands, Black Earth, The Reconstruction of Nations, The Red Prince, and Sketches from a Secret War—major works by Professor Snyder—illuminate Ukraine’s history, imperial legacies, and resistance. He explains how each book helps us understand the current war and Ukraine’s democratic significance for the world.
World Economic Forum, July 2020
Professor Snyder explores how centuries of empire, repression, and independence movements shaped Ukraine’s civic identity. He highlights key historical events that explain its democratic trajectory and global relevance.
New Yorker, September 2024
Freedom, as Ukrainians frame it, is not just the absence of tyranny, but a civic responsibility. Professor Snyder distinguishes between mere “liberation” — removal of the enemy— and “deoccupation,” creation of conditions for freedom and establishment of democratic agency.
Videos
Ukraine’s democratic resilience has made it a model for pluralism and civic agency worldwide. Professor Snyder argues that Ukraine’s victory over Russian tyranny is essential for renewing democracy and resisting authoritarianism globally.
(February 2020 - 8 mins)
Professor Snyder explains how Ukraine embodies most of the major themes of European and world history, and demonstrates its centrality to twentieth-century transitions from empire to integration. He refutes assumptions that Ukraine is, or ever was, peripheral to global affairs
(Ukrainian History as World History, October 2017 - 1 hr 30 mins)
In this comprehensive lecture series tracing Ukraine’s political development, statehood, and identity formation, Professor Snyder challenges simplified narratives and frames the Russian invasion as a genocidal attempt to erase Ukraine’s sovereignty.
(The Making of Modern Ukraine, September 2022 - 46 minutes)
Books
Bloodlands presents Ukraine as the geographic and moral centre of Europe’s twentieth-century catastrophe. Professor Snyder shows how Nazi and Soviet policies converged there, turning Ukrainian territory into a laboratory of mass killing through famine, deportation, and the Holocaust. Ukraine emerges as the terrain where empires pursued racial and class ideologies at the cost of millions of civilian lives.
(Published 2010)
Black Earth treats Ukraine as a case study of how destroyed state institutions enabled genocide. Professor Snyder argues that when sovereignty collapsed under Nazi invasion—after prior Soviet terror—Jews in Ukrainian lands were rendered stateless and extremely vulnerable. Ukraine’s experience warns that ecological panic, mythic politics, and the dismantling of law create the conditions in which mass murder becomes possible.
(Published 2015)
FOLLOW
Follow Professor Snyder:
@timothydsnyder (Twitter/X; BlueSky & TikTok)
@thetimothysnyder (Instagram)
CONTACT
For Professor Timothy Snyder or other members of the lab, please contact publichistory.munk@utoronto.ca
Media and speaker requests should be directed to td.snyder.requests@utoronto.ca