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How Ukraine Wins Against Russia — with Historian Timothy Snyder
Yale historian Timothy Snyder visited Prague last week for the Plus and Václav Havel Library conference titled “Borders of (Un)Freedom.”
The following day, Snyder was interviewed by Czech Radio journalist Jan Bumba.
Their discussion covered various topics, including the Republican nomination of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate, the potential impact of a Trump presidency on Europe and Russia’s war on Ukraine, and Snyder’s upcoming book On Freedom.
The following is an edited version of their conversation I published for Radio Prague International. You can access the shortened version (approximately 15 minutes) here.
In this post, I included the whole interview, which is approximately 28 minutes long because I believe there are a lot of good nuggets of wisdom and insights worth observing.
I hope you enjoy.
“Democracy is always really hard. … If you really want a democracy, you have to be constantly engaged. It’s not a matter of it’s not a matter of waiting until there’s some crisis and then being worried.”
— Timothy Snyder
[Jan Bumba] Professor Snyder, if I may start with what’s going on now in the United States. Donald Trump has an official nomination of the Republican Party. His supporters at the convention in Milwaukee welcomed him with huge applause, some even had tears in their eyes. How big is his chance to win the elections in November?
[Timothy Snyder] “Nobody knows the answer to that because, first of all, all kinds of unpredictable things will keep happening between now and November. And secondly, it depends a lot on what people do.
“I think we’re in a moment where everyone wants to stare at the screen of their phone and let their phone tell them what the chances of something are. I think the Democrats will win if the Democrats are physically active in the real world and lead a human campaign. I think Trump has a good chance of winning if they don’t, but nobody knows who’s going to win. And like many things, it depends on what we do…
