Yesterday, I was invited to a lecture at Harvard Business School twice. The professor's intention was to discuss a case: the war between Ukraine and Russia — who is to blame.
My role was to observe the discussion and then provide my perspective and feedback. In the audience were business leaders from around the world, predominantly from the USA and Europe.
After 20 minutes of discussion, I felt torn apart, shaking, with rising blood pressure, barely containing my anger… Almost the entire audience was echoing Russian narratives. Arguments suggesting that the victim provokes the aggressor, and therefore is guilty, were incessantly repeated. There were mentions of "failed state," "divided country," "corruption," and who knows what else… And this is Harvard. Top business people…
When I was called on, I shouted like a wounded bull, firing facts, figures, historical parallels, dismantling all the possible and jumbled lies and simplistic stories thrown out by the participants. I even had to defend "cookies on Maidan," "civil war," and "Yanukovych is legitimate." I had only 15 minutes…
For two hours, I walked in a trance. How is it possible that after four years of full-scale war, ten years of Russian aggression, so many victims, the genocide of Ukrainians, and all the facts, videos, and photos in the democratic world, such nonsense can still circulate in one of the leading schools?
The second group was more balanced, but I once again had to explain everything — from the Orange Revolution to the current struggle for Independence…
Why am I writing this? The realization that we are losing the historical narrative in the minds of our international partners, potential investors, and people in the democratic world is terrifying. We urgently need a concise, clear, English-language narrative of our transformation as a country. Not just about Cossacks, Kievan Rus, and the Holodomor, but straightforward and understandable facts and case studies that explain our modern history with its challenges and inspiring examples.