Class 3: Geography and Ancient History (1) Класс(1)|||| Klasse 3: Geographie und Alte Geschichte (1) Clase 3: Geografía e Historia Antigua (1) Classe 3 : Géographie et histoire ancienne (1) Classe 3: Geografia e storia antica (1) クラス3：地理と古代史（1） 3 klasė: geografija ir senovės istorija (1) Klas 3: Aardrijkskunde en Oude Geschiedenis (1) Klasa 3: Geografia i historia starożytna (1) Classe 3: Geografia e história antiga (1) Clasa 3: Geografie și istorie antică (1) Занятие 3: География и древняя история (1) Sınıf 3: Coğrafya ve Eskiçağ Tarihi (1) Заняття 3: Географія та стародавня історія (1) 第三课：地理与古代历史（1） 第三課：地理與古代歷史（1）

- Okay, greetings everybody.

Welcome to lecture three.

I knew when I was gonna give this lecture

that it would be after I had gone to Ukraine que seria depois de eu ter ido para a Ucrânia

and back in-between. e vice-versa.

So the nice people who are filming this ||||||recording video|

asked me not to wear the same shirt as I wore last week, ||||||||||носив||

both times, which I'm sure you guys noticed.

I didn't notice.

It was very tactful for you guys not to mention that. |||táctico|||||||

(class laughs)

'Cause I could've just worn the same shirt all semester,

and you guys would've been cool.

You wouldn't have said a thing.

I am wearing the same shirt that I wore on the train,

because the train is 30-

It's like, from here to,

in case you were thinking about doing this next weekend,

it's a solid 35 hours from here to the center of Kyiv.

And there's no way to make it shorter. |||||||less lengthy

That's like in the best case.

So I knew when I was gonna give this lecture

that I was gonna be going there and back again.

And so I thought I would make this subject of this lecture,

what I'm calling Geography and Deep History,

or maybe just Deep Geography for short.

That is, the way that we think about places

and how the way we think about places then has to do

with how we apprehend what happens in the world. |||understand||||| |||сприймати||||| mit der Art und Weise, wie wir das Geschehen in der Welt wahrnehmen.

So the subject today is going to be naming and placing ||||||||naming things||

and how the names and the places then affect ||the first|||||| ||||||||впливають на

how we understand events before our eyes.

Which may seem a little misty and abstract, |||||vague and unclear||vague and unclear

but hopefully as I get into the geography

and then a little bit into the war,

it will come clear

how the deep notions that we have of place

tend to suggest, trigger, push us in certain directions ||||||||paths or courses

when we're confronted with events.

So what is the place I was going to?

So in the reading, this is kind of ambiguous. ||||||||mehrdeutig

So the place that I was going to, maybe it was Ukraine,

or maybe it was the Ukraine?

What's the difference?

I have already told some of you what the difference is,

so don't cheat.

But what is the difference

between going to "Ukraine" and going to "the Ukraine"?

I mean, you probably know that if you say "the Ukraine", ||ти||||||||

you'll get disapproving looks from the Ukrainians. ||judgmental|||| ||непогоджувальні||||

But beyond that, what's the difference?

Yeah.

- [Student] Saying, going to the Ukraine

implies that Ukraine is a region, suggests|||||

a sub-region of something like Russia or the Soviet Union.

- Exactly.

So if you say "the Ukraine", it already, it means,

in Polish you can actually say "going to the Lithuania",

which you can't say in English,

but that suggests where this all comes from.

It's important to remember that English

is not the master language for everything.

And that very often, the way we say things in English

actually comes from somewhere else.

So we say "the Ukraine" because in Russian and in Polish,

you can say, "na Ukraina". ||||Ucrania (1)

Yeah, I even have this on the sheet this time, |||||||document||

you can say "na Ukraina",

which is something like more like "at".

So you're going to someplace which is not quite defined.

As opposed to "v",

"v Ukraina" or "v Ukraini," which means "in Ukraine". ||||Ucrania||||

It's a place that's like, if it's a "v",

that means it can be contained.

So it has a border. It's a defined place.

Maybe a state, because a state has borders

and a state is defined.

So if you say "na", you're not really talking about a state.

And you may be talking about something

which is kind of misty and undefined ||||||vague and unclear

and maybe a little bit poetic. |||||poetisch

So in your reading, up to now,

like the article from Rudnyts'kyi,

who cannot be accused of being anything but a Ukrainian, кого не можуть обвинувачувати ні в чому, крім того, що він українець,

it was still okay in the '60s for him to be saying, все ще було прийнятно в 60-х роках, щоб він говорив,

or maybe it was required of him, I'm not sure, або можливо цього від нього вимагали, я не впевнений,

to say "the Ukraine".

And while we're on the subject of-

Okay, so is that clear, the "v" and the "na"?

So it's very important,

if you're speaking Polish or Ukrainian or Russian.

And so, the Poles, it's interesting,

the Poles all switched over in the early '90s.

They switched over.

When I learned to speak Polish, you were supposed to say,

"na Litvia", but now people say- |Lituania||||

that means sort of "at Lithuania",

but now people say "v Litvia",

meaning "in the state of Lithuania".

And "na Ukraina" was how I was taught to say it in Polish.

But now I would say "v Ukraina" because it's a state.

And Ukrainians have very clear ideas about this, too.

So while we're on the subject, though,

you might have noticed that the capital of Ukraine du||||||||

is spelled a couple of different ways

in your readings as well.

What's the difference there?

Anybody wanna take a stab at that? Yeah. ||||attempt|||

- [Student] One is the Ukrainian spelling

and the other is the Russian spelling and pronunciation.

- Yeah. One is a transliteration. Exactly. ||||phonetic spelling| ||||transliteración|

So you guys know what transliteration is?

There are many alphabets, |||writing systems

and when you render from one alphabet to another alphabet, |||convert|||||| und wenn Sie von einem Alphabet auf ein anderes Alphabet übertragen,

that's called transliteration or transcription, technically. that is||||writing system|

So in the standard English spelling

of the capital of Ukraine, for a very long time,

until very, very recently, in fact, was Kiev, K-I-E-V.

And that was a transliteration from Russian.

In Ukrainian, it's Kyiv,

hence the English transliteration, K-Y-I-V.

Which is a little bit awkward,

because there just aren't that many words

that don't involve '90s punk bands,

which have Ys and Is in front of them. ||Ys(1)||||||

The Y-I is not a normal combination in English.

And this was an evolution.

So in my early books, I wrote Kiev, K-I-E-V,

just because I thought,

"This has been standard in English for so long.

It's not really such a big difference between Kiev and Kyiv.

People reading English are just gonna be distracted |||||||відволікатися

by this Y and the I together.

Why should I do it?"

But then at a certain point, I changed.

The last few books, I spelled it

with the Ukrainian transliteration.

And if you want, you can check and see

when the New York Times changes.

Because the New York Times always does everything right.

(class laughs)

And, (laughs) thank you, that was good.

The New York Times always does everything right,

but even the New York Times has to change from time to time,

how they're gonna do certain things.

And so you can check and see when they changed

from spelling it one way to another way,

'cause that represents a certain kind of cultural consensus.

And so, these things change.

And the reason why it's interesting that they change

is that these things that might seem to be superficial, |||||||||shallow

like language, are actually very deep,

because they're the things that you read and you take in,

you don't call them into question.

And then they may form how you see the world

when you're confronted with something surprising.

So, the "v" and "na" or the "the":

Is it a region or a country?

Kiev or Kyiv: Is it Russian or is it Ukrainian?

It's a pretty big-

And what is actually normal in English?

This is really interesting, because you might think,

let's say, you're, I'm assuming

many of you are native English speakers.

All of you know English, or you wouldn't be in this class.

Or you're in this class doing some kind of weird meditation

that involves listening to a language you don't understand,

which is cool. You'll probably pass, anyway. і це круто. Ти, мабуть, все одно не пройдеш.

(class laughs)

I'm assuming if you're doing that,

you're taking it pass/fail.

But you might think, "Well in English,

we all have a certain distance from all this.

There's a certain objectivity, |||impartiality

whatever it is in English is somehow just neutral."

But it's not.

What it is in English has effects too, very much so.

And what it is in English is also subject to change,

as we've seen in both of these examples.

Just in the little span of time ||||проміжок||

between when your readings start and now,

the basic uses in English

for both the country and its capital have changed.

And you're presumably, if you have kids, ||likely|||| ||припустимо||||

which I know that none of you are thinking about now,

because when you signed to go to Yale,

you promised not to get married and not have kids, I know.

But when you have kids, presumably,

they will think K-Y-I-V is totally normal.

Maybe you already think it's totally normal.

And they'll think, it will not occur to them

that it might have been some other way.

But these things change all the time.

Now this notion of deep geography also has to do, ||concept|||||||

so I've talked just about of words and letters.

It also has to do with narratives.

So a story can tell you where you are.

A story can tell you where you are before you get there.

And this occurred to me during this trip, ||came to mind||||| І це сталося зі мною під час цієї поїздки,

because I was talking to a bunch of American diplomats, |||||||||American diplomats

and we were pondering, |||thinking deeply and we were pondering,

I mean, just to put it very briefly and brutally, |||||||||harshly and directly

we were pondering why every American gets everything wrong ||reflecting on||||||

about Ukraine all the time.

Like that basic question, which you can't help dealing,

you can't help asking with respect to the war,

because even the people

who were supposed to know what they're talking about

were totally wrong.

It's a luxury for me to say this because I wasn't,

but in general, everybody was totally wrong

about everything with respect to the war. про все що стосується війни.

Ukrainians are gonna lose after three days. Українці програють через три дні.

They can't possibly fight back. Вони не зможуть відповісти.

They're gonna lose, it's a stalemate, blah, blah, blah. |||||deadlock|||

Everything that the consensus has said in the US

has been wrong the whole time.

And you can't kind of say,

"Well, this is just a matter of lack of military analysis,"

or whatever.

No, there's something else deeper going on.

And we were sort of trying to ponder that together. |||||||think about|| |||||||обмірковувати||

And I think it has to do with the deep narrative

that everyone is taught.

Because the deep narrative that everyone is taught,

all these diplomats were taught it too,

everybody who studied East Europe,

almost everybody, not in this class,

but almost everyone who studied East European history

in the US has the narrative, which says:

There was Kyiv.

And then, from Kyiv, somehow there was Moscow,

there was some kind of transfer.

And the thing in Moscow was the same state

as the thing in Kyiv, even though that,

I'm not gonna say "even thoughs", |||||aunque

I'm just gonna try to tell the narrative.

The thing in Moscow somehow inherited the traditions

of the thing in Kyiv.

And therefore the thing in Moscow fulfilled itself, ||||||came to fruition|

when it actually incorporated Kyiv in the late 17th century. |||took control of||||||

That was somehow natural.

That's part of the destiny of this place. ||||fate|||

And it's normal that Moscow and Kyiv

will be together forever.

And in some way, it's all Russia. It's all Russia.

So I didn't do a good job with that narrative,

because frankly, that's not what I'm being, |to be honest||||| |відверто кажучи|||||

that's not my job here to do a good job with that narrative.

But that's the basic narrative.

But the point is that everybody who has ever studied this

has that narrative.

And if you have that narrative,

then it makes you think that Russia's a real place.

And what is Ukraine?

Because in that narrative,

nothing called Ukraine ever appears.

So there must be something suspicious about Ukraine.

It must be somehow invented or somehow marginal |||||||insignificant or minor

or somehow provincial or in some way questionable. ||local||||| |||||||сумнівний

Whereas nobody ever questions Russia. While||||

No one ever- I mean, is that wrong? Not a single|||||||

No one ever questions that Russia is a real place.

No one ever questioned the Soviet Union