A historian specialized in Central Europe and the Holocaust, Timothy Snyder is a professor at Yale University (Connecticut) and a researcher at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna (Austria). Author, in particular, of Lands of blood. Europe between Hitler and Stalin (Gallimard, 2012), just published of freedom (Gallimard, 416 pages, 26 euros).
He has dedicated his career to state violence, with particular interest in the Holodomor, the great famines organized by Stalin in Ukraine in the 1930s, and the Shoah. Now you turn to freedom. So that ?
In my previous works, I wanted to understand what remains the main historical theme of the 20th century.my century: what made these atrocities possible? Why did they occur in central and eastern Europe? In Tyranny. Twenty lessons of the 20thmy century [Gallimard, 2017]a pamphlet warning against the dangers of Trumpism, I was trying to explain to my fellow Americans how we can prevent the spread of this violence. But, in a way, a fundamental question that could no longer be avoided remained unanswered: what is that precious good, freedom, that must be preserved? What are the necessary conditions for its conservation? All these years of research have led me to finally question this topic: what is freedom and how can we ensure that it continues to flourish?
However, in your book you speak out against the dominant definition of freedom in the United States, so-called “negative” freedom, because it is based on the absence of obstacles, particularly by the State. What makes you question it?
Negative freedom is a simple and elegant idea, but it is also misleading. Defining freedom as the simple absence of barriers or any form of oppression is equivalent to affirming a half-truth, which becomes false if we consider that by itself it exhausts the subject. So, of course, we must recognize that nothing should hinder us, but we cannot be content with this form of emancipation. Once we remove the barrier that obstructs our movements, it remains to know who we are, who we are going to be, what values are important to us and how we intend to put them into practice. Limiting freedom to the absence of evil is insufficient. Freedom is also based on the presence of good, of what allows our humanity to flourish. Security, education, solidarity, for example, are essential for freedom; This should not only be seen as resistance to oppression, but also as a creative and fruitful force.
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