Chicken Kiev may be a popular dish but as the world has learned in recent days, the word “chicken” does not describe the people of Kiev (often spelled Kyiv by Ukrainians). Far from it. The courage of Ukrainians in the face of Moscow’s vile military invasion is the stuff of legend already. We will be admiring it for many years to come, regardless of the outcome of this tragic episode in European history.
Ukrainians are used to adversity and they have a special medieval role model who personifies their bravery in the face of hardship. The Mongol horde destroyed her tomb in Kyiv in 1240 but a Ukrainian Orthodox cathedral dedicated to her was consecrated there as recently as 2010.Any people who venerate the likes of St. Olga of Kyiv (d. 969) are a people to be feared. If Vladimir Putin had done his homework, he wouldn’t have been surprised by the ferocious resistance to his belligerence. “A fierce and proud woman who protected her young son and avenged her husband’s death,” writes Pattenden, “she was a crucial figure in the consolidation of the medieval kingdom of Kyivan Rus’ as a political entity and in its peoples’ conversion to Christianity.”
Mongol warriors plundered the city of its wealth and burned nearly every one of its buildings to the ground. Of a pre-seige population of about 50,000, it’s believed that only around 2,000 survived, though how many were killed during the siege and how many were executed afterwards is not clear.Ukrainians know from painful experience just how important the virtue of courage is. They understand probably better than the average American that survival depends on it. They are proving before our eyes that it’s a virtue they still possess in admirable abundance. I am grateful for the example they are giving the world, and I pray for their success.
I am also grateful for the courage of Russians who are in the streets of Moscow and other cities demanding an end to the violence. Having visited Russia seven times since 1985, I know the country is full of people of conscience who are ashamed by what Putin’s government has done. It’s a risky thing for a Russian citizen to challenge an autocrat who silences opponents, but more and more are doing it anyway.
In Prague where this essay is to be distributed, a young man named Jan Palach laid down his life to protest the Soviet invasion of his country. It was January 1969. Palach’s supreme sacrifice will be remembered for centuries as a statement for freedom, an act of defiant courage, an inspiration for Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution just 20 years later ...