Russian historians left baffled by Putin's Crimean claims

Moscow - President Vladimir Putin's elevation of Crimea to the status of Russia's Holy Land has prompted puzzlement and scorn from historians and commentators in Russia and abroad.

Crimea for Russians was like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for Muslims and Jews, Mr Putin told Parliament and senior officials in the Kremlin in his annual address on Thursday, adding that the strategically important peninsula would be regarded this way from now on.

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"For our country, for our people, this event has a special meaning, because our people live in Crimea and the territory itself is strategically important," he said. "It was here in Crimea in ancient Khersones, or Korsun as the chroniclers called it, that Count Vladimir was baptised (in the 10th century), to then baptise the rest of Rus."

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"Prince Vladimir was Kievan, not Muscovite, and this probably only underlines the right of Kiev and not Moscow to Crimea," Andrei Zubov, a Russian historian and political scientist, said. Historians argue over whether Vladimir was baptised in Vasilev, near Kiev, rather than Kherson, said Dr Zubov, who lost his post at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in March, after he compared Mr Putin's takeover of Crimea to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938.

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http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/russian-historians-left-baffled-by-putins-crimean-claims-20141205-120pea.html