Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy stopped at the National Archives during his visit to the United States this past week. He said he’d been shown a letter Lincoln wrote in 1864.
President Lincoln sent a telegram to his commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant, whose armies were locked in a struggle as they tried to advance against Confederates across Virginia during the Civil War. The spelling is Lincoln’s original:
I have seen your despatch expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bull-dog gripe, and chew & choke, as much as possible.
A. LINCOLN
Zelenskyy said his army would “chew and choke the Russian occupiers.”
Early in Ukraine’s war, when the comedian turned president became an international hero for refusing to flee Kyiv, some people compared him to Lincoln—an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances.
While we shouldn’t take such comparisons too far—different people, different countries, different wars, different centuries—it matters that Zelenskyy happens to be the person leading Ukraine. The war would seem very different if some other Ukrainian had been in charge, say some gray eminence with a political history stretching back to the Soviet era.
And it’s possible to see a few similarities. Both have understood the power of symbolism. Lincoln played up his humble roots—he was “the Rail Splitter,” based on his manual labor making fence rails some thirty years before his election to the presidency. As he won election and faced a national crisis, he grew a beard that added distinction to his face.
Zelenskyy having a portrait taken after his NPR interview, September 20.
Zelenskyy goes everywhere in military-style clothes. When he walked in those clothes among other world leaders at the United Nations this past week, and sat for an NPR interview, the clothing announced his embattled country’s cause. (Also he grew a beard during his country’s crisis.)
Lincoln understood the value of coalitions. Differ We Must tells the story of his desperate efforts to build and lead the antislavery coalition that propelled him to the presidency and helped his country endure the Civil War. It recounts Lincoln’s life through his meetings with people who differed with him.
Zelenskky knows the value of the international coalition that funds and arms the Ukrainian military. Shortly before his visit to the United States, he dismissed the entire leadership team of his defense ministry.
He told me his government has “zero tolerance” for corruption, and that part of the reason was to forestall any questions about how his government is spending U.S. aid. "We have to be very strict and very fast because we might lose the trust and the support of our partners,"he said.
In Washington he met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who had questioned the aid. McCarthy emerged from the meeting saying he was impressed that Zelenskyy had replaced his defense leadership.
One other similarity is that both men face the prospect of a long war. Lincoln’s lasted four years, with the leading Confederate force surrendering just a few days before his assassination. Zelenskyy’s has lasted a year and a half, and it’s not yet clear how it can end.
Thanks for reading Differ We Must, a companion to my book of the same name. It’s out October 3 and available for preorder at your local bookstore. The hardcover, ebook and audiobook are at this link and you can also order it from this independent bookstore website.
Pre-ordered just now!