Historical memory shapes policy responses to the Russia-Ukraine war and frames dialogues between the Global South and Eastern Europe.
The authors wish to acknowledge the funding of the European Union under the WIDERA program (EUROPAST project, Grant Agreement No. 101079466).
Since the outbreak of full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, Ukraine and its allies have attempted to gain support for Ukraine from the so-called Global South. These dialogues have generally been unsuccessful; Dmytro Kuleba, the former foreign minister of Ukraine, opined that Russia may well be better positioned than the West to engage with the Global South. Although he argued that it is important to renew efforts in this direction, Kuleba drew an important lesson from these attempts: “The global South does not exist. We have to treat each country separately.” Others have also pointed outdifferent approaches to Ukraine from the Global South, demonstrating its heterogeneity.
Kuleba’s point is well taken. Reactions to the Russia-Ukraine war in the Global South have varied, and it is crucial to acknowledge the existence of multiple Global Souths with conflicting perspectives of the war. Examples from Peru and South Africa demonstrate that historical memory plays a major role in shaping policy responses to the Russia-Ukraine war and in framing dialogues between the Global South and Eastern Europe. Sensitivity to historical memory and understanding of the different perspectives of colonial legacy are essential for starting and continuing such conversations.
A Global South or Global Souths?
To better understand global responses to Russia’s invasion, it is useful to disaggregate different states’ responses to the war. Take South Africa and Peru: Each is considered to be part of the Global South, and each has suffered from oppression and imperialism in the past, but their reactions to the Russia-Ukraine war have been different. In 2022, South Africa repeatedly abstained in the United Nations on votes condemning Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s state sovereignty. In 2023, South Africa abstained on another vote in the UN General Assembly demanding that Russia withdraw from Ukraine. Moreover, South Africa engaged in several amicable diplomatic encounters with Russia: hosting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in January 2023 and holding a naval drill with Russia and China—just before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s expedited invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24—to name a few.
Although Peru’s reaction did not come anywhere close to the “vicarious identification” with Ukraine exhibited by countries such as Lithuania and other Baltic states, it has been markedly more positive toward Ukraine than South Africa. Peru voted to approve UN Resolution 11/1 on March 2, 2022, condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It voted again in favor of the UN resolution demanding that Moscow withdraw from Ukraine in 2023. Peru’s support for Ukraine goes back to 2007, when Peru recognized the Holodomor as genocide. In 2015, Peru became the only Latin American country to offer humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
Possible Rationales for Differentiated Responses
How to explain these different approaches to the Russia-Ukraine war? And why have the approaches in South Africa and (to a lesser degree) Peru to the Russia-Ukraine war turned out to be different from those in the Baltic states and other parts of Central and Eastern Europe, which expressed passionate support for Ukraine? After all, each of these countries has experienced oppression from imperialist powers in the past. They all stand to gain from a world order based on the rule of law and respect for sovereignty. In theory, they share an interest in condemning the aggressive behavior of Russia toward Ukraine and ensuring the sovereignty of all states, regardless of size or power.
Scholars have offered several theories for the divergent approaches. Economic interest provides a relatively straightforward explanation in some cases. Many countries from the Global South continue to defy sanctions and trade with Russia not out of sympathy for Russia but because of dependence on its exports, which include food, fuel, fertilizer, and armaments. Pakistan, for example, is in the grip of rampant inflation that has devastated the livelihoods of large swathes of the population. Even though its government sold arms to Ukraine, it has also signed several agreements to buy cheap Russian oil and gas. Economic benefit, not solidarity, could explain both the arms sales to Ukraine and the energy deals with Russia.
Many other factors shape the policies of these countries in response to the war, such as their domestic political situation (Central Asian states), military ties with Russia (the Central African Republic and Mali), and more. However, historical memory is also a major factor accounting for these differences. Many Global South and Eastern European countries have developed different memory regimes—or biographical narratives—toward the historical atrocities of the 20th century. These memory regimes have affected the ways in which they reacted to the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war—in both 2014 and 2022.
The Role of Memory
Memory regimes refer to cultural and institutional ways of relating to historical memory, shaping foreign policy responses to international conflicts and other pressing global issues. For example, Germany’s openness to refugees during the 2015 Middle Eastern refugee crisis can be explained at least partially by its historical memory of World War II and acknowledgment of human rights abuses conducted during the Holocaust. Lithuania’s reaction to the Russia-Ukraine war has been shaped by its memory of resistance to Soviet occupation and repression, including mass deportations under Stalin. Russia is viewed as a successor to the Soviet Union, which continues to perpetuate crimes very similar to those of the past—only now in Ukraine.
In South Africa, the memory of apartheid is dominant, and the Soviet Union is remembered as a supporter of the African National Congress (ANC), which fought against apartheid. Russia is also viewed as a successor to the Soviet Union, but in a radically different light—as continuing the fight against imperialism. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is thus conceptualized as resistance to NATO and Western or American hegemony.
Meanwhile, Peru’s emerging memory regime focuses on recent political violence (1980-2000) perpetuated not only by the Shining Path insurgency but also by government forces. In the wake of the memory wars surrounding the attempts at historical justice by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the country has been developing a victim-centered historical narrative. Unlike in Lithuania or South Africa, this memory regime is not entangled to the same extent with the legacy of the former Soviet Union or its successor Russia. This may explain why Peru appears to be more open than South Africa to supporting the victim of aggression (Ukraine) in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Attempts at dialogue between Eastern Europe and the Global South in academic settings underscore the importance of historical memory. At the October 2023 conference “Intersections of Oppression: Comparative Historical Analysis of Contemporary Challenges” in Pretoria, South Africa, participants found parallels between past injustices in South Africa and parts of Eastern Europe (for example, Lithuania and Ukraine), including forced removals, ideological indoctrination, and economic discrimination against certain ethnic groups. However, these similarities did not fit into hegemonic memory regimes that embraced very different images of the USSR and Russia. The parallels between past injustices were not sufficient to overcome the different hegemonic memory regimes.
Likewise, during a July 2024 memory studies conference in Lima, Peru—which attracted scholars from all over the world, including Eastern Europe and members of the Global South—it became clear that national memory regimes are not set in stone: Transnational memories can be created, and local memories can be reshaped. During the past several decades, European memory became more receptive to the experiences of Stalinist repression and the Gulag. For example, since 2008, Europeans have been commemorating the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism on August 23, the day when the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed in 1939. The pact divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence in the run-up to World War II. Local responses to traumatic events, including the Holocaust, have been changing as well. This may turn out to be the case with the Russia-Ukraine war. Even in the case of South Africa, which has been reluctant to support Ukraine, an increasing number of people believe that Russia is an aggressive state, although the ANC remains committed to its pro-Russian position.
Engaging the Global Souths
Understanding the ways in which these memory regimes work is essential for establishing dialogue between Eastern Europe and the Global Souths. A growing body of literature in ontological security studies—which examines how states form and retain a sense of identity—has demonstrated that the biographical narratives of states (memory regimes) are essential for their stability and their interactions with the other states, and that challenges to these narratives are likely to erupt in crises or disagreements over historical memory. When challenged, states and non-state actors are likely to engage in “defending memory” instead of cooperation, making dialogue next to impossible. As observed during the international peace summit in Switzerland in summer 2024, in cases of reluctant conversation partners (who have hesitations about cooperation), for the initial stages of dialogue it may be useful to focus on pragmatic issues with mutual benefits—such as food security, from which both Ukraine and potential Global South partners stand to gain—instead of hoping for open support for Ukraine’s resistance against Russia based on political arguments.
Beyond this, the power of historical memory and its potential to shape policy responses to war does not necessarily translate into specific policy recommendations on how to initiate future dialogues among policymakers and politicians. But they provide insight into why there is powerful continued resistance to pro-Ukrainian diplomacy from some actors in the so-called Global South—despite energetic attempts by Ukraine and its allies to gain support for Ukraine’s fight for survival.
– Dovilė Budrytė, Violeta Davoliūtė, Published courtesy of Lawfare.
