The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-10)

KLMNO

Outlook

SUNDAY, APRIL 10 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/OUTLOOK. SECTION B EZ BD

INSIDE OUTLOOK

An encyclopedia of grief and

mourning. B3

The QAnon codewords in Ketanji

Brown Jackson’s hearing. B4

INSIDE BOOK WORLD

Her grandfather wasn’t safe in

Iran; he stayed anyway. B7

Four defining years in the life of

Jackie Robinson. B8

I

n his 1926 poem “Debt to Ukraine,”

Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote: “It’s hard

to crush people into one. Don’t raise

yourself so high.” After all, the poet con-

tinued: “Do we know the Ukrainian

night? No, we do not know the Ukrainian

night.” But Vladimir Putin wants to crush

people into one. He says God told him that

Ukrainian souls are Russian. History re-

vealed to him that Ukraine strives to be

one with Russia; the very language he

speaks entitles him to invade any country

where Russian is spoken. An official Rus-

sian news service removed any ambiguity

a few days ago, publishing a text advocat-

ing the complete elimination of the Ukrai-

nian nation as such. And so Ukraine must

be crushed, and anyone who thinks or

speaks of Ukraine must be eliminated.

By way of these deep misunderstand-

ings, Putin has placed the Ukrainian na-

tion at the center of world history, for

everyone to see. A Ukrainian actor, Volod-

ymyr Zelensky, is now one of the most

recognizable people on Earth. Putin’s in-

vasion made visible not only that coura-

geous, democratically elected president

but also functional institutions, an im-

pressive civil society, and journalists, ac-

SEE PUTIN ON B3

By denying

a Ukrainian

culture, Putin

flattens his own

What is ‘Russia,’ with all

dissent crushed and only

conformity remaining, asks

historian Timothy Snyder

There’s something

delightfully distinctive

about works of political

history written by true

believers: The blind spots

are bigger, the

disagreements blunter,

the daggers sharper.

Insights emerge not just

from archives but from experience and,

often, from disappointment. Such works

can detour into nostalgia, with the

authors unable to resist sharing how

they wish the story had turned out and

how, they dare hope, it still might.

Such is the case with Michael Kazin’s

“What It Took to Win,” an electorally

minded study of the Democratic Party

from the 19th century through today,

and Matthew Continetti’s “The Right,” an

institutionalist survey of 100 years of the

American conservative movement.

Kazin, editor emeritus of the journal

Dissent, is a longtime thinker on the left;

Continetti, a fellow at the American

Enterprise Institute, is enmeshed in the

right through ties of profession, family

and conviction. When Kazin concludes

that “the Democracy,” as the party was

once known, has won power mainly

when it has pursued an egalitarian

vision appealing to workers’ interests, he

is speaking of a politics he has favored

since childhood and a labor-centered

project he wishes to revive. When

Continetti calls for a “new consensus” on

the right that joins constitutional

principles with populist impulses, he is

SEE LOZADA ON B5

Carlos

Lozada

Unapologetically

partisan histories

of the Democrats

and the GOP

bucha, ukraine

F

or weeks, I could see dark plumes of smoke rising above the city of Bucha from a

destroyed bridge in Irpin. I focused my lenses on heart-wrenching scenes of

people trying to keep their balance as they carefully crossed planks of wood

placed over the river — the only gateway toward safety for the massive exodus

of refugees fleeing with a handful of belongings. Once I got within walking

distance of Bucha, on March 10, I was warned of snipers. I photographed people passing

the bodies of two Russian soldiers lying on a railroad track. Another corpse lay in the

middle of the road, and I realized that any attempt to get closer would m ost likely be

lethal: I had heard too many hideous stories of people trying to escape who were instead

shot dead. Even cars with signs marked “children” in Ukrainian and Russian were

attacked.

Ukrainian forces were engaging in fierce battles against the Russians, but that

trapped thousands of civilians, all cut off from media access, cellphone connections,

electricity and water. Journalists couldn’t enter Bucha until Russian forces had

withdrawn and Ukrainian troops had secured control of a city that now looks like the

gateway to hell.

Once I got inside the city on March 30, I was stunned by the scenes of destruction

among the civilian population. It was difficult to imagine how anyone had survived.

Shattered Russian military equipment littered the streets, which were all lined by ruined

homes.

I’ve covered decades of conflicts and wars as a photojournalist, but I’m struggling to

find the words to express how horrified I am — and all my colleagues in the press are — by

what is happening in Ukraine, what people have endured and their immeasurable

resilience. Each day, I ask myself how this can be happening in 2022. My work has always

SEE BUCHA ON B2

What I saw

i n Bucha

Photojournalist Heidi Levine has been documenting

h orrific sights and possible Russian war crimes

TOP: A man’s body lies on the ground in Bucha, Ukraine, on Wednesday.

ABOVE: Victoria Verda, 44, visits a site Tuesday in Bucha believed to be a torture

chamber where her husband, Demitri, and others were killed.

PHOTOS BY HEIDI LEVINE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST