Russia’s hijacking of Ukrainian history triggered a Twitter war to go along with the real war that has killed 10,000 Ukrainians after the Kremlin’s invasion of Crimea and the eastern Donbas in 2014.
The rhetorical dust-up took place after Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at France’s Palace of Versailles on May 29. Putin used the opportunity to appropriate Ukrainian history for Russia by referring to the Kyivan-born French queen Anne of Kyiv as “Russian Anne.”
“Enlightened French nationals know about Russian Anne — the queen of France, the youngest daughter of our grand prince Yaroslav the Wise,” Putin said, before going on to talk about the queen’s contribution to European history, highlighting the bonds between Russia and France.
But Putin’s claim of the Kyivan Rus princess for Russia prompted outrage among Ukrainians.
Anne of Kyiv, known in Ukraine as Anna Yaroslavna, came from Kyiv, at a time when it was the capital of the Kyivan Rus state and when Russia didn’t even exist. The medieval empire lasted from the mid‑9th to the mid‑13th centuries. But modern-day Ukraine and Russia trace their ancestry to Kyivan Rus, which historians describe as a loose confederation of eastern Slavs.
Putin’s statement made waves internationally mostly because it sparked a fight between the official Twitter accounts of Russia and Ukraine. The spat went viral and attracted media attention worldwide.
Spat starts
In response to Putin’s “Russian Anne” comment, Ukraine’s Twitter account, which is managed by the press service of the Presidential Administration and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tweeted on May 30: “When Russia says Anne of Kyiv established Russia-France relations, let us (recall) the sequence of events.”
The tweet included an info box about Anne of Kyiv saying that she became queen in 1051, nearly 100 years prior to the founding of Moscow in 1147. Below the information box a picture of a pristine forest of birch trees, with the caption “Meanwhile, in Moscow” was jokingly used to illustrate the fact that Moscow didn’t exist in 1051.
The official Twitter account for Russia, run by Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reacted the same day.
“We are proud of our common history. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus share the same historical heritage, which should unite our nations, not divide us,” Russia’s Twitter account said.
Russia’s post was accompanied by a picture of St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, a Kyivan Rus church built by Anne’s brother Volodymyr in 1050. The caption said “Meanwhile, in Novgorod” to show that some modern-day Russian cities already existed in 1051.
Ukraine’s account replied to Russia’s “shared history” tweet by saying “You really don’t change, do you?” and adding a famous GIF from “The Simpsons” that showed a Russian official changing the “Russia” sign on his desk to “Soviet Union” and laughing.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted to the GIF by asking Ukraine not to be “jealous.”
The spat continued, with Russia insisting on the bond between the “three brotherly nations” again, to which Ukraine demanded that Russia stop “the ‘triune nation’ nonsense” because the Kyivan Rus state had included “modern-day parts of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania” too.
Kyiv’s reaction
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko reacted during his speech about the Netherlands’ ratification of the political and trade Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine on May 30 by noting that both Anne of Kyiv and Yaroslav the Wise were Kyivans.
“Just yesterday Putin tried to steal (Anne of Kyiv) for Russian history in front of the whole of Europe,” he said.
Many other Ukrainian politicians also criticized Putin’s comments, with Verkhovna Rada deputy Iryna Gerashchenko labeling them as “schizophrenic,” and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin tweeting that he might as well now start considering Alexander Pushkin (the 19th century Russian poet and playwright) Ukrainian, as “Ukraine’s Odesa and Crimea have inspired his creative genius on more than one occasion.”
Earlier claims
Kyivan Rus has been the subject of many disputes between Ukraine and Russia, with Russia continuously trying to expropriate the ancient federation, which existed between 882 and 1240, referring to it as the “Ancient Russian State” or to Kyivan Rus royals as “Russian princes and princesses.”
In July 2015, when Ukraine was marking 1,000 years since the death of the Kyivan Rus ruler Volodymyr the Great, the grandfather of Anne of Kyiv, Putin referred to the prince as to the figure who “paved the way to building a strong centralized Russian state.”
It continued when in November Moscow erected a giant 17.5-meter-high statue of Volodymyr the Great in the center of the Russian capital. Putin attended the opening ceremony and proclaimed the event as a “nod to our remarkable ancestor, a particularly honorable saint and state leader.”
Anne festival
The Twitter feud came shortly after two historic celebration events: the days of Kyiv celebrated on May 27–28 and the start of the Anne de Kiev Fest, an annual festival celebrating the French queen and Ukraine’s relations with three French-speaking countries: France, Belgium and Switzerland.
On May 26, a small park opened next to the monument to Anne of Kyiv on Lvivska Square. The Kyiv festival consists of concerts, exhibitions and educational events and will go on until the end of June.
French queen Anne of Kyiv was the daughter of the Kyivan Rus Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise, who founded one of Kyiv’s top landmarks to this day — Kyiv Pechersk Lavra in 1051, and the granddaughter of Volodymyr the Great, the ruler of Kyivan Rus who brought the Christian religion to the state.
She became the queen of France when she married Henry I of France in 1051. The pair had four children, with their eldest son Philip I of France inheriting the throne at the age of 8, following the death of Henry I of France in 1060. Despite the crowning, Anne of Kyiv carried on to act as Regent of France until Philip turned 14.
In 1065, Anne of Kyiv founded St. Vincent Abbey in Senlis, France. The abbey was seized during the French Revolution in 1791 to later be used in various ways: from a military hospital to a prison to a boys’ school. These days the building is a part of a private school.
Anne of Kyiv died on Sept. 5, 1075, some 72 years before the founding of Moscow.
