Climate Change, Russia, and the Race for the Arctic

Patrick Potyondy 

This is Writers Talk History a partnership between Origins, an online magazine covering current events and historical perspective from the Ohio State history department and the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing also at Ohio State University. All Origins articles and podcasts can be accessed for free online @Origins.osu.edu. Our guest today is Dr. Nick Breyfogle, associate professor of history at The Ohio State University who specializes in European and environmental history. He's the author of "Heretics and Colonizers: Forging Russia's Empire in the South Caucasus" and is co editor of "Peopling the Russian Periphery: Border Land Colonization and Eurasian History." He is currently working on a book tentatively titled by call "The Great Lake and its People". Today we're speaking to him about his recent article for Origins, "Russia and the Race for the Arctic", which is co authored with Jeffrey Dunifon. Thanks for being on the show, Nick and welcome.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Thank you so much, Patrick. It's a pleasure to be here.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Tell us a little bit about what you wrote for Origins.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Sure. I'd be happy to the article in many ways. stems from the fact that over really over the last 10 years, we've seen a lot of activity on the part of the Russian government, Russian scientific expeditions and this sort of thing in the Arctic Ocean and most kind of notoriously infamously, in 2007, the Russians went down and one of their mere submersibles and planted a titanium Russian flag at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean right to the North Pole and set off a whole fear around the globe that the Russians were trying to claim the Arctic for themselves. And so I started asked myself well, so what's going on here? Why all this interest and why the fear around the world I mean, the Canadians in particular, their heads exploded when the Russians planted this flag. So the article tries to kind of explore some of the reasons that the Russians are so interested in what's going on up in the Arctic. Perhaps most importantly, the Arctic is changing dramatically. The impact of climate change on the Arctic areas is perhaps a great deal more even than we're seeing anywhere else. And this summer alone, we saw the sort of maximal disappearance of ice in the Arctic that we've seen in the historic record, and by a great deal, I mean way, way lower than the than the average baseline that they use so that in summertime, much more water was opened up than we've seen before. And I think that with the ice disappearing, suddenly the Arctic is becoming a place that people are really starting to think about. The Russians are one of five countries that have both legal kind of geographic interest in, in this part of the world.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

And what are all those five countries?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

There's something called the UN Law of the Sea, sometimes called LOST, its acronym Law of the Sea Treaty, which I think is a great little were lost and lost. And, and so the UN, this UN Law of the Sea passed 1982 basically gives rights to various countries to the waters and whatever resources or fish or whatever else are in the waters off of their shores. And there are five countries in the world that have water rights to the Arctic Ocean, Denmark, Norway, Russia, Canada and the United States.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

And I'm wondering if this was put in place in response to kind of previous conflict in the region?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

You know, in terms of the Law of the Sea Treaty, this is something that's not Artic specific at all. This was an effort on Part of countries across the planet that the first efforts were several centuries ago to try to figure out some kind of set of laws and regulations that would govern who controlled what out on the open oceans other than simply, you know, who could blow up whom. But these really started to, to come together, you know, after the Second World War with the development of the United Nations, and then an effort within the United Nations to try to come to some kinds of agreements among different nations over who would control what so every country now that has some kind of ocean or sea coastline, now is for the most part governed by these rules and regulations. One of the things that's important is that the United States has not signed this this UN treaty. It is one of the things that makes the US quite different. Part of the terms of the Law of the Sea argue that whatever ocean is not does not fall within those Exclusive Economic Zones or territorial waters becomes part of the law of sea the boundary of the territory of everybody on the planet and whatever riches or resources are found there should be shared around among all the people the planet and the Reagan administration felt that the smacks a little bit too much of communism going on. So US has continued not to sign this treaty. In fact, now Russia, Denmark and Canada are all to a certain degree claiming that those ridges that run under the water in the in the Arctic Ocean, in fact, all are attached to their continental shelves. So they should be able to claim even more of the ocean territory than before.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

So in your article, "Russia and Race for the Arctic", you quote, a journalist who says that the Arctic Ocean is, quote, "The last piece of non-jurisdictional real estate on the planet." But it sounds like Russia's really challenging that idea here to try to claim parts of the Arctic.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Well, what we're seeing right now is the effort on the part of these five countries. But the effort on the part of all of these countries to stake a claim Russia, in some ways, has been perhaps the most forward they've been right out in front of this, they have realized some of the benefits of control of the Arctic in a way that some of the others in a little bit slower to come to terms with But still, every country now is trying to take a stake a claim to this and partly what's happened is, you know, for generations, the Arctic Ocean was a place that was covered in ice and what were you going to do with it right? You could I mean, maybe you could go out and do a little fishing and there were some lovely polar bears to go see and all that good stuff. But for human use, you know, you couldn't live on it, you couldn't really take anything away. And so no one particularly cared exactly who owned what or how. What's happening as a result of climate change., and the fact that the ice now is, particularly in summertime, in in winter, the ocean still freezes right over. But in summertime, now we have more and more water exposed and for longer periods of time. And there are two big economic outcomes of that. One is, is that it appears that under the ice, there are extraordinary amounts of oil and natural gas. The other thing that's happened in terms of economically is that as these waters open up, suddenly there are new transit routes that are available to move goods across the planet. And so their efforts also to be able to claim this to these waterways. And so all of these countries are now trying to position themselves in order to be able to claim as much of this ocean as they possibly can. So there really is it strikes me, you know, as a result of this kind of climate change, there's a there's this new race for the Arctic.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

On the one hand, the first thing people think of when you say climate change or Global Warming, things like stranded polar bears or you know, coastal flooding come up, those sorts of things. Right? But do you think international relations has been overlooked?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

You know for me one of one of the clearest signs that, in fact, climate change is something we should take seriously, is the fact that every military across the planet is taking it seriously and is transforming how they design their militaries, how they do their training, how they think about what the future is going to look like to be prepared for this. And so, you know, the military's and the insurance companies across the planet are all taking this very seriously. And so they're doing it because it is, you know, it's, it's real, and it's gonna have a huge impact. And I think that in terms of the Arctic just on its own, whoever gets access, there's this sort of sense that this is a game changer in terms of the amount of fossil fuels that would be available on this planet. And it's of course, you know, it's an irony that's lost on no one that that one of the great synthic kind of riches coming out of this change the Arctic, will be fossil fuels when fossil fuels are of course, part of the reason that we have this change the Arctic in the first place.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Yeah, it sounds like a huge change. But it also sounds like has some kind of cultural roots. And in your article, you discuss kind of the cultural importance of the Arctic, to Russia in particular. And you highlight this brand of kind of rugged Arctic Explorer, which is just fascinating. Can you expand on this point a little bit?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Sure. One of the things that I found really interesting is that the there's all sorts of changes that are happening now that in the Arctic that have drawn interest in on the part of the, what they call the A-Five, the Arctic five, but certain countries, particularly Russia, and particularly Canada, have been most aggressive in terms of in terms of responding to these changes in the Arctic and trying to stake a claim in those areas. Norway and Denmark are also doing their best, but much less aggressively than Russia, Canada and the US has been very, very slow and to certain degree until really just the last couple years, not particularly interested in what was going on. And so my question myself was, well, why? Why is it that Canada and Russia in particular have been so you know, have jumped out in front of have tried to really stake a claim early In this sort of thing, and then part of the answer to this comes from the fact that in both of those cases, these are countries that have a very long history of a relationship to the Arctic, where they see themselves when you're when they think of, you know, who you are as a Russian who you are as a Canadian, what we're a big part of that is, you know, people who live in, in big or cold countries that are connected to the Arctic. And so that there's a, there's a long-standing connection on the part of those countries to the Arctic and, and control of the Arctic and one's presence in the Arctic is a big part of how they think of themselves and their countries. And then the Russian case, you know, so you're back even in the 18th century, there was extensive scientific research that was being carried out on the part of Russians to try to map the shorelines and figure out you could you sail a boat through the Arctic Ocean, and at that point, you couldn't, the ice was there throughout the entire year, and there was no hope of ever getting a boat through. So the Russians have been have been thinking about the Arctic. They've been interested in it. They've been studying it for several hundred years, but Russia's kind of relationship to the Arctic, the kind of romance or love of the Arctic really took off in the early part of the 20th century, in particular, the 1920s and 1930s when it was the year of the Soviet Union. This was a time where were Russian polar explorers were among the leaders across the planet, and their exploits were, were just publicized all over the place in the Soviet Union as an example of just how great the Soviet Union was, and how great Soviet technology and soviet science was. But at the same time, even I mean, anywhere you went across the planet, the exploits of these explorers were also champion. The New York Times repeatedly ran stories about the Soviet explorers, some of them met up with US President Roosevelt and this sort of thing. So that it was, it was it was a big deal internationally and, and these explorers were amazing people. They did a whole series of kind of firsts. They were the first to fly plane and landed on the North Pole. They were the first to do kind of transpolar flights where they flew from the Soviet Union through across into North America, you know, thousands of miles over the Arctic. And they also were the first to set up these amazing research standards station where they would, they would fly into the North Pole, they would set up a kind of research station. You know, the ice in the Arctic isn't permanent, it moves, it flows during the year, so they would start there, the North Pole. And then over the course of months, the ice would take them out into the Atlantic Ocean, you know, and we could see there's an extraordinary heroism there. And here you have these people who are being basically stranded out on the ice who are going to then do all this this sort of amazing scientific study. At the same time, the dangers were enormously real. On several occasions, these drift stations collapse because the ice buckled, and you have these sort of mountains of ice that would shear after the-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Too unpredictable right?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

So unpredictable in that regard, and incredibly dangerous. And so suddenly, one night you're sleeping and the next thing you know, you've got this big thing of ice that's run up through your tent and you're running for your life. But even that, I mean, the Soviet press made a big deal even in those moments where there was great disaster because often they were was great disaster brought some kind of heroic, you know, saving of people-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

 Right.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

And so there's one great example of the _____________ where they were trying to prove that you could in fact, in a single season, take a boat all the way through the northern sea route, but it got stuck in the ice. So it's caught in the ice, it's got 100 and some people on board and the crew decides they're just going to stick it out, they're gonna they're going to live on the boat and hope that the ice eventually drifts out to the Pacific in this case, where they'll be safe but at a certain point, the ice starts to crush the hull and within a couple of hours the boat sinks. They practiced and practiced and practiced evacuation so basically all but one of them were able to get out but now they're stuck on the ice in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Right.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

 And the Soviet the Soviet government then decides to try a what had never been attempted before was to fly planes up to bring these people-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

And land on the ice?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

And to land right on the ice. And so the people on the ground, I shouldn't say on the ground, on the ice, you know, the people on the ice surface were, you know, they made a kind of makeshift landing strip. And then these Daredevil pilots came in and landed the planes, they got everybody out. And it was a huge I mean, it was internationally I mean, everybody was just an awe that, I mean, across the planet people were in all the Soviets being able to pull this off. And like I said, it was a big tour of the leaders of this expedition, did a big tour of the United States. Where their interviewed and kind of fed and, and they got to meet the president, all that good stuff. And then in the next kind of Mayday parade, they had their pictures hung up right next to Marxs and Ingles, and Lenin and Stalin, all this sort of good stuff. And so it was a really big deal. And I think that, going back to your kind of your your question about the kind of cultural roots, I mean, I think for Russians, this this love and romance of the Arctic, and the sort of sense of the Arctic is, is just a big part of who they are. That what it means to be Russian is to be in some ways in control or part of the Arctic, that develops in part because of these incredibly heroic exploits of these explorers and scientists and a long tradition of these explorers and scientists helps explain why the Russians have been so at the forefront of today's events in this kind of race to the Arctic. They clearly look back to those days. So Artur Chilingarov was a very, today is a very famous scientist, a member of parliament in Russia, and was in the mere submersible who went down to the Arctic Floor to plant the flag. You know, he sees himself in the same vein as these earlier polar explorers, you know, somebody who's really out there, doing amazing historic, historic and heroic things for the greater good of Russia. And that kind of that sense of heroism and romance and connection to the Arctic, I think is really plays a really big role in in Russia, and I think explains why, you know, as soon as they started to realize that the climate was changing up there, the Russians were quick to kind of start to make their move. And the Canadians I think, have a similar story, but their sense of connection to that, to the Arctic is also has its long roots and a strong cultural connection, which also explains why Canada has been so proactive in in these struggles.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

That's really fascinating. Now, I'm going to switch gears just a little bit and kind of throw a couple of stats at you. The Yale project on climate change reported some confusing poll data in September of 2012. So first, some 70% of Americans now believe that global warming is a reality. But also they found that only 54% of Americans believe that global warming is mostly caused by humans. And I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on why there's that discrepancy between those two numbers?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Well, it's a great question. I mean, I have some ideas. I'm not sure I have the final answers on that a minute. I think in part, it reflects the fact that we don't like to admit that we that we're part of this kind of issue, that humans could have such a substantial impact on the climate around us. In particular, I think we're reluctant to admit it, because for the most part, what it would mean is that we may have to give up some of the great goodies that we have, you know, at the moment, I mean, I think people don't want to give up their second freezer in the basement-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

 Right, right.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

 and their air conditioning blasting at 56 degrees in the summer, and all this sort of thing and so as much as the people may be able to look around them and see okay, yeah, climate change appear, you know, the evidence we have in front of us seems to indicate that there's changes things-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Something’s happening.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Exactly, something's happening. But the same time, we may not want to admit responsibility, in part because of what it might mean for our lifestyles. But I also think there's another aspect to it is that one of the things that's very clear is that the more we study climate science, from all of its different angles, the more we realize just how complicated this question is, and how you know the mechanisms of how our climate functions is, has so many different factors that go into create any one single event in air temperature, water, temperature, water, current wind currents are all these sorts of different sorts of things. And so partly, I think you see that discrepancy in the numbers because legitimately, there's some confusion. I mean, in the sense that I think top scientists are still trying to figure out exactly how all of these processes work and how, you know, the impact of humans might function within these kinds of larger systems. Because what's certainly declares that the climate changes whether we're here or not, that it's not as if there existed some kind of a static planet-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

 Right

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

And then, you know, humans came along and messed it up, but that the planet has transformed in major ways over time, you know, we live in a period of in the last 12, you know, 10 to 12,000 years give or take has been a period of a relative stability in terms of climate, which is partly explains the ability of humans to thrive and survive, because the Earth's climate at the moment is right in a range that really works well for us. But before that, there's lots of moments where the planet was deeply inhospitable to, to the kinds of needs that humans that humans had. So I think that, you know, to be fair, I think that's partly why we see that discrepancy is that, okay, yes, humans may have some impact on all of this, but we're just really starting to come to terms with the way in which you are changes are connecting in with the broader patterns of climate on the planet.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Great. And your article takes a very kind of international approach to the issue of climate change, and I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on how the attitudes of Americans towards climate change kind of stack up when compared to the rest of the world?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Statistically, I mean, I can only go on sort of the studies that people have done. I mean, what seems clear is that the US has much larger number of we might call sort of climate change deniers, you know, people who don't, in fact believe that any kind of climate change is happening, and if it was happening, then certainly the humans are not, you know, not involved in that process. And, and if you compare, I mean, certainly, if you compare the United States with, with Canada or with, with most countries in Europe, which are countries that that firmly believe that, in fact, there is substantial climate change going on, that humans do play a role and that we, we as a species, you know, both for our own survival in the long term, but also for the more general survival of other species and of the planet, need to take some action now if we're going to, and we have to start thinking not just about ourselves, and not just about the next generation, but you know, 7-10 generations down the road for whatever actions we take. And the US I think is a little bit more is a little bit slower to try to accept that partly, I think, because well, we're real beneficiaries of the model of, of economic production, and kind of consumer society and all that sort of thing that that we have at the moment. And so why would we want to change?

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Right, right.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

But I also think that there are other places around the world I mean, the Russians to have a peculiar relationship with climate change. There are a lot of climate change deniers in, in, in Russia as well. I mean, even with the Arctic, there are many people who say, well, you know, if you look at the 1930s, there was a time where we're sea ice started to recede. So are we really in in in some kind of long term trajectory at this time, or are we just in one of  these kinds of ebbs and flows were, which we've seen, we've seen before, the US is quite different in that way. We also are different compared to a lot of what we might call the sort of developing countries, you know, China, India, you know, Brazil, these sorts of countries, which are where their economies are really taking off at the moment. They're very well aware of climate change, but at the same time, they're also starting to see the benefits of new types of kind of industrial and productive based and consumption-based economies. And so then when the international organizations come  in to try to say, well, you can't, you shouldn't be polluting in this sort of way. We have to be careful climate change. They said, Well, you did it.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Right, right.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

And-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

 Those NGOs often coming from Western Europe or United States.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Right. Who are all in very good shape. And all have their conditioning on a 56 in the summer.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Yes, exactly. Right. Yeah. Interesting. So I'd like to shift gears a little bit. So your article "Russia and the Race for the Arctic" is something historians are not particularly accustomed to writing a digital media piece aimed at the broader audience. So what was the writing process for something like this?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Well, let me just say, sort of, first of all, that, you know, for me, this kind of writing where, you know, I'm trying to write for as broad an audience as I can, is something that I think is really important for, for all historians to do. It's part of the reason that, that it helped to kind of start this magazine was because I really felt that you know, academic historians have an enormous amount of knowledge, enormous amount of insight about what has happened in the world, you know, how we got to where we are today, ways of thinking about the world in which we live. And yet they don't come out into the media very often. And if you look at the talking heads that are on most, you know, totally Sunday morning talk shows and this sort of thing, you know, they're not historians, they're-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Right.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

-was part of their polisci, or their journalists or this sort of thing. And so the kind of historical way of thinking and approaching topics doesn't make it out as much as I think it needs to, into the mainstream media. And so, for me, it's very important that these kinds of ideas and these ways of thinking historians really, do, I mean, part they really help us to understand how is it that we got today? What are all the choices that people have made to bring us to where we are today? The same time that historians us, you-, and just because we explore the past, we have ways of kind of thinking about how people act and why they act and how just understand the structures of a human society and culture that I think really helped to make sense of today's, today's world. And so, you're just kind of writing strikes me as you know, is something that I'm really passionate about. And that I, you know, I'd like to see more of my colleagues do because of because of the kind of impact and just different ways of thinking that I think historical writing can bring out. You know, for me I find this kind of writing I mean ask us about it and how to go about writing this particular article you know for me this is it's sort of fun-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Okay great.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

-because I really get to him and there's a great deal of excitement for me right in this in the sense that I've got this contemporary question. Russia's dropping flags in the bottom of the North Pole, people around the world are exploding in concern over this, the Arctic ice is disappearing. What does all this mean? What does all this mean? How did we get to this particular point? And why are people acting the way that they did? And this kind of article then allows me to stop and really kind of think about these big historical processes you know, the way, what's Russia's relationship to the Arctic culturally in this sort of thing. You know, what are the patterns of climate change that we  seen, what are the ways in which you know, the world, the globe through the UN has tried to, to legislate the you know, who gets us what in the in the oceans This sort of thing. So these really big questions of human life, and then to read about them and to think about them, and then to try to bring across what are the patterns? What does really explain these amazing events that we have going on? And how can we make sense of them? And particularly for me exciting is the fact that so I read a great deal. No, in the contemporary press, I read a great deal in the history and the see the ways in which you know, you can read lots of great articles in the mainstream media about this this issue. But they miss they miss the big the big point about Russia's long term relationship to the Arctic, you know, they, they look at the ice, they look at the oil, they look at the Law of the Sea, but they don't think about the ways in which the Russians, Canadians, others are making decisions about how they're going to respond to disappearing ice or the discovery of oil based upon you know, who they think they are and their relationship to this place and that sort of thing. It's probably why the US is not interested because the United States for the most part doesn't think of itself as an Arctic country. You walk around United States, you ask people will you are we part of the Arctic? Well, I think a lot of people forget that we even have Alaska.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

 Right, unless you're gonna go to on a cruise or something.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Right, exactly. The lovely mountains and yeah, and all that sort of good stuff but they don't think that that's not who we are as Americans and for Canadians and Russians, that's a big part of who they are. They're really-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Interesting, okay.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

-northern kind of Arctic people. I don't think that since so, you know, the lack of us interest, I think is explained in part by this. And then the tremendous Russian and also Canadian interest, because the Canadians are up there too. They're developing a new mil-, naval base up in the Arctic, the Canadian Prime Minister makes basically annual trips now in the summer, up to the Arctic as part of part of a diplomatic effort to kind of show you know, we're here-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Right.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

-and we care. I mean, I've you know, I’m the leader of this country, and I'm here every summer to show that this is our territory, we're interested in this territory and everybody else should take notice. And, and this sort of thing. So these two countries that have had this long history in this deep connection to this place, are reacting very differently and much more forward and somewhat much more aggressive in terms of how they're, they're approaching the Arctic regions.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

So In the terms of kind of your presentation and writing here and for Origins, you know, a magazine that seeks to connect both the current events to the historical kind of longer historical perspective. In terms of your writing, so what can historians maybe do better or do more to affect that kind of broader debate that you brought up?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Well, I think partly I think there's several ways they can do i think historians really need to get, to start writing a great deal more for writing more in the in the mainstream media, whether it's, you know, through pieces in magazines and newspapers, whether it's through blogs, whether it's through, I don't know what, but I think that there's, you know, we as historical profession need to value a great deal more, that kind of work, where we're bringing our knowledge and our insight and our way of understanding events and our sense of, you know, how it is we got to today, you know, out into a larger audience. Yeah, it tends to be the case that, that a lot of on a professional level. Many historians don't value that kind of work in the way they might value some much more sort of specific research book. But at the same time, I think we do ourselves a disservice by not stepping out there and really bring our understandings and insights, you know, to a wider audience. And I think we can and we have to do, I think we have to do more about that. I also think that, you know, historians, we're people who are comfortable in the past and a lot of ways, and perhaps a little bit less likely to kind of jump out and say, well, this is what we have today, or this is where we're going in the future, and this sort of thing. And yet, I think that we have to have a little bit more courage to make those, you know, to enter into these kinds of contemporary debates with the kind of knowledge that we have about the past and to kind of change how we think and approach.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Interesting. So do you find it, do you find it kind of difficult to explain what you do as an academic to folks outside of academia or even outside of history departments some cases? Has Origins helped you to do that?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Yeah, I think it has. I mean, I think I've always been someone who's really tried as hard as I possibly can to think about ways to really connect what I do to a larger and it's part of what you do when you teach. I mean, when you're reaching out to an audience of students, you know, sometimes history majors, sometimes not but people who may or may not be interested in the kinds of things that you know that, that keep me up at night with thinking about historical questions. But how do you, how do you? How do you make the past come alive? How do you make the past feel important and relevant to their lives? You know, how do you get them to understand the ways in which, you know, some decision by somebody, you know, 540 years ago, now, in fact, has a huge impact on the way you live, you know, the way you live your life and this sort of thing to understand the kind of interconnectedness of human history. And so, you know, I've always worked as hard as I can to, to make those kinds of connections. And I think, partly because I want to make those connections. That's why we have Origins but I also think that now that I do it, you know, it is it's training my mind to think about, okay, we have these events in the past. We have these events today. How do I put them together? How we use the past to really help us explain what's, what's happening today. But it is I mean, sometimes it's harder to explain what we're up to. And when I think about when I try to explain to my family about my research, there is the eyes glazing over sometimes, but-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Right, right.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle  

 -but that's the nature for everybody who does kind of specialized research, whether it's in history or whatever, you know, I think about, you know, people were doing cancer research, well, most of them are not actually discovering the cures for cancer, they're, they're focused on one little gene or one little process or one little this, and they spend, you know, good chunks of their lives focused in on one on that one thing. But that one thing can be crucial in coming up with the bigger picture. And that I think, is one of the things that historians have to really work on is that we do that as well. We take one aspect of the past often quite specific and quite narrow to really make sense of it and understand it. But once we have that one piece in place, we put it together with the other pieces, then we start to have this really big and interesting picture that answers a lot of really important questions about human history and what does it mean to be human? What? What's the nature of the human experience? And how will we lived our lives? And how can this knowledge really help us in our lives today? And as we move forward, make sense of ourselves and what we've got, and we've got in front of us, 

 

Patrick Potyondy 

 You only write for a magazine like Origins, if you believe history matters. And so it's kind of a final concluding question: What makes history matter to you?

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Partly, it matters for me, because it's, that's just how I see the world. I mean, partly I became historian because I was trying to make sense of the world that I lived in. And almost I mean, I'm not sure where it came from. Does it come from my parents? Does it come from high school? I don't know. But from a very young age, whenever I tried to make sense of, okay, I see this event happen today. Where does it come from? It's one of the how I got interested in Russia in the first place. I was living at the time of, of the great kind of glasnost and perestroika in Russia with-

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Interesting, okay

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

-Gorbachev and this sort of thing. And I'm looking at it around and I'm thinking, well, where does this come from? How do we have this today? How do we make sense of the sudden change in Soviet Politics. And I found that for the most part, the people who were trying to explain it, we're having a really hard time making sense of it. But the more I went back into the past, the more I start to see, you know, how we got to where we are today, and, and what had led to it and then to be able to compare moments in the past what we had, at that time, really helped me to make sense of that point. And so I think partly for me, it's just, it's part of who I am. It's how I make sense of the universe is by taking what I have today, and then looking at how we how we got there.

 

Patrick Potyondy 

Nick, thank you for joining us today on Writers Talk History.

 

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Thank you so much, Patrick. It's been a pleasure.