Timothy Snyder, the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale, opens his Ukraine course by grounding the modern nation in its physical geography and ancient past. He argues that Ukraine's resistance to the 2022 Russian invasion presupposes that Ukraine already existed as a society and polity, and he traces the deeper question of what makes a nation real, whether it rests on structures, actions, or both. The lecture moves through the terrain that shaped the region, the ancient peoples and empires that passed through it, and how Polish, Russian, and Jewish self-understanding have been bound up with experiences in Ukrainian lands. Snyder also previews the course's larger arguments about Soviet and Nazi terror, which struck Ukraine harder than any other country, and about whether a post-colonial, multilingual Ukrainian nation is a relic or a model. Part of a Yale lecture series, delivered shortly after Snyder's own visit to Ukraine.