Possible negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin may lead to a ceasefire, but not necessarily to lasting peace. This thesis is developed by Ukrainian historian and educator Igor Solomadin in an author's publication for “Ukrainskaya Pravda“, in which he draws a parallel between contemporary Russian politics and the ideas in the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky.
According to Solomadin, Putin's policy is less and less like the actions of a pragmatic leader who seeks only to increase the benefits for the state, and is increasingly determined by a specific historical idea. The author connects it with the notion of “historical Russia“, the restoration of lost imperial space, the denial of independent Ukrainian subjectivity and the return of Russia's special status in the world.
According to the historian, this is what creates a fundamental problem for attempts to reach a compromise. If a politician pursues an economic interest, economic benefits can be negotiated with him; if he seeks security, guarantees can be offered; if the goal is territory, territorial issues can be discussed. The problem arises when the territory itself is perceived as a material expression of a larger historical idea.
“If the idea means more to the adversary than benefit, security and territory, compromise with him cannot be sustainable”, writes Solomadin. According to him, such an agreement is perceived not as an end to the conflict, but as a respite and confirmation of the right to determine someone else's history.
“Such an agreement can stop the fire, but not change the goals“, the author also points out. Therefore, according to him, talks about “freezing“ the conflict, without resolving the issue of Ukraine's right to determine its own future, are actually talks about a pause, not about peace.
To explain his thesis, Solomadin turns to the concept of the Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin of the “idea-man“ in Dostoevsky. In such a person, the idea ceases to be a simple belief - it begins to determine the way he perceives the past and the future, friends and enemies, good and evil. The historian explicitly specifies that a literary character cannot serve as a political diagnosis, but uses the category as a tool for interpretation.
A special place in his analysis is occupied by the novel “Demons“. Solomadin examines three of his characters – Shigalov, Pyotr Verkhovensky and Stavrogin – as metaphors for different mechanisms of modern authoritarianism. The first personifies the system, the second – the technology of control through fear, chaos, suspicion and disinformation, and the third – the crossing of moral boundaries.
The author also places the analysis in the broader debate about Ukraine's attitude towards Russian culture after the start of the full-scale war in 2022. According to him, the answer should be neither an uncritical defense of “the great Russian culture“ nor its mechanical erasure from the public space. Instead, he proposes a shift from “Cancel“ to “Rethinking“ – from cancellation to critical rethinking.
In this reading, Russian classical literature can be used as a tool for analyzing the mechanisms through which an idea becomes a political system. Solomadin contrasts the imperial “monologue“, in which one center claims to determine the history and identity of the others, with polyphony – the right of different societies and people to have their own voice.
This is where his main conclusion about possible peace negotiations comes from. Solomadin does not claim that they are impossible, but he warns that the cessation of hostilities in itself does not mean the elimination of the causes of the conflict.