The Road to Unfreedom

The Road to Unfreedom Plot Summary

Introduction

On a cold April morning in 2010, a Polish government plane crashed near Smolensk, Russia, killing all 96 people aboard, including Poland's president. The delegation had been traveling to commemorate the Katyn massacre, where Soviet forces had murdered thousands of Polish officers seventy years earlier. This tragedy would become a turning point, not just for Poland and Russia, but for the entire post-Cold War order. As families mourned in Warsaw, Vladimir Putin was already laying the groundwork for Russia's authoritarian turn and its eventual confrontation with Western democracies. This pivotal moment marked the beginning of what we might call "the politics of eternity" – a worldview that rejects progress in favor of cyclical threats and eternal enemies. Through examining Russia's transformation from a fledgling democracy to an authoritarian state, we gain crucial insights into how democratic institutions can be undermined from within and without. The historical journey from 2010 to 2016 reveals not just Russia's path, but the vulnerabilities within Western democracies that made them susceptible to similar authoritarian tendencies. Anyone concerned about the future of democracy, the power of information warfare, or the rise of nationalist movements worldwide will find in these pages both warning and wisdom about the fragility of freedom in the twenty-first century.

Chapter 1: The Politics of Eternity: Ilyin's Philosophy and Putin's Vision

In the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, as the world was still reeling from economic uncertainty, Vladimir Putin was developing a new ideological foundation for his rule. At the center of this project was an obscure Russian philosopher named Ivan Ilyin, who had died in exile in Switzerland in 1954. Though largely forgotten for decades, Ilyin was experiencing an unlikely resurrection in Putin's Russia. His remains were repatriated with great ceremony in 2005, and by 2010, Putin was regularly quoting him in speeches and recommending his works to government officials. Ilyin's philosophy offered a perfect justification for authoritarian rule. Having initially admired both Mussolini and Hitler, Ilyin developed a worldview where Russia was portrayed as an innocent, virginal nation constantly under attack from the corrupt West. He rejected democracy as a foreign implant unsuited to Russia's unique character and instead advocated for a "redeemer" figure who would emerge to rule through what he called "redemptive excess of patriotic arbitrariness." In this vision, elections were merely rituals of submission rather than meaningful transfers of power, and the leader embodied the nation's will without the constraints of law or democratic procedures. For Putin and his circle, Ilyin's ideas provided the perfect philosophical cover for their system of state-sanctioned corruption. By portraying Russia as eternally innocent and eternally threatened, they could dismiss any criticism as foreign subversion. By claiming that Western-style rule of law was inappropriate for Russia, they could justify their monopolization of wealth and power. As the author notes with biting clarity, "What robber would not prefer to be called a redeemer?" This framework transformed Russia's political discourse from debates about policy to assertions about identity – Russia was not a nation that needed to solve problems but a civilization that needed to defend itself. The revival of Ilyin coincided with Russia's transition from what the author calls "the politics of inevitability" to "the politics of eternity." Rather than promising progress toward some better future, Russian leaders now offered eternal resistance against eternal enemies. Time was no longer a line moving forward but a circle returning to the same threats. History became not a source of learning but a repository of mythical grievances to be avenged. This worldview proved remarkably exportable to other societies experiencing similar disillusionment with democratic promises. By 2011, as protests erupted in Moscow following fraudulent parliamentary elections, the Kremlin's response revealed how thoroughly it had embraced Ilyin's philosophy. Rather than addressing protesters' concerns about electoral fraud, the regime portrayed them as foreign agents and sexual deviants corrupting Russia's innocence. This approach would later be deployed against Ukraine's Maidan protesters and eventually against Western democracies themselves. The politics of eternity had become not just a domestic governing strategy but a template for undermining democratic movements worldwide.

Chapter 2: Democratic Collapse: Russia's Failed Transition (1991-2012)

The fall of the Soviet Union in December 1991 created a moment of extraordinary possibility. As the red flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time, many Russians and Western observers alike believed the country would naturally transition to democracy and free markets. Boris Yeltsin, standing atop a tank during the failed August coup attempt, had become an international symbol of democratic resistance. The "end of history" seemed at hand, with liberal democracy poised to spread worldwide. Reality proved far more complex and painful. The "shock therapy" economic reforms of the early 1990s created massive dislocation, with hyperinflation wiping out savings and state assets being transferred to a small group of well-connected businessmen who became known as "oligarchs." By 1998, when Russia defaulted on its debt, GDP had fallen by nearly 40% from Soviet levels – a traumatic national experience that many Russians compared to the devastation of World War II. Democracy became associated not with prosperity and freedom but with chaos and national humiliation. The pivotal moment came in 1999 when an ailing Yeltsin, whose approval ratings had fallen to single digits, appointed an obscure former KGB officer named Vladimir Putin as prime minister and designated successor. Putin's rise coincided with a series of apartment bombings in Moscow and other cities that killed hundreds of Russians. Though questions about the bombings' origins remain controversial, they created the pretext for launching a second war in Chechnya, which Putin prosecuted with brutal efficiency. His promise to restore order resonated with a population exhausted by a decade of upheaval. After winning the presidency in 2000, Putin moved systematically to consolidate power. He brought the oligarchs to heel, making clear they could keep their wealth only if they stayed out of politics – a lesson dramatically reinforced by the imprisonment of oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003. Independent television stations were brought under state control, regional governors became presidential appointees rather than elected officials, and electoral laws were rewritten to favor the ruling party. These changes were justified through what Putin's chief ideologist Vladislav Surkov called "sovereign democracy" – the idea that Russia needed its own special form of governance suited to its unique history and culture. The political system that emerged combined democratic appearances with authoritarian substance. Elections continued but were carefully managed to ensure predetermined outcomes. When Putin reached his constitutional two-term limit in 2008, he orchestrated a temporary handover of the presidency to his loyal lieutenant Dmitry Medvedev while remaining the real power as prime minister. This "tandem" arrangement preserved the fiction of constitutional governance while making a mockery of democratic succession. By 2011-2012, when Putin announced his return to the presidency, the system's contradictions became impossible to ignore. Blatant fraud in parliamentary elections triggered the largest protests of the Putin era, with tens of thousands of middle-class Russians taking to the streets of Moscow and other cities. Rather than addressing their grievances, Putin portrayed the protesters as foreign-backed traitors and doubled down on the narrative that Russia was under siege from Western powers bent on its destruction. His inauguration in May 2012 took place behind police cordons in a virtually empty Moscow, symbolizing the growing disconnect between the regime and society. Russia's democratic experiment had effectively ended, setting the stage for a more aggressive foreign policy that would soon shock the world.

Chapter 3: Ukraine Crisis: Battleground for Competing Worldviews (2013-2014)

In November 2013, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych suddenly announced he would not sign a long-negotiated association agreement with the European Union, triggering protests that would transform into a revolution. What began as students demonstrating for a European future evolved into a broad movement for dignity and the rule of law. The Maidan protests represented something genuinely new in Ukrainian politics – a civil society organizing itself horizontally, creating volunteer networks for everything from medical care to security, and practicing what one participant called "corporeal politics" – getting bodies off screens and into physical spaces of collective action. The Russian response revealed the depth of the Kremlin's fear of democratic movements. First came propaganda portraying the protests as a "gay conspiracy" orchestrated by the West. Dmitry Kiselev, head of Russia's international news agency, described the EU as an alliance of "sexual perversion" threatening Russia's traditional values. When this failed to stop the protests, violence followed. After riot police attacked demonstrators in November and again in December, Yanukovych introduced Russian-style "dictatorship laws" in January 2014. When protesters were killed by snipers on February 20, Yanukovych fled to Russia, and the Ukrainian parliament appointed an interim government. Russia immediately launched a military invasion, beginning with Crimea on February 24, 2014. The operation employed what the author calls "implausible deniability" – Putin denied Russian troops were in Ukraine despite overwhelming evidence, including Russian soldiers themselves confirming their identity on social media. This wasn't meant to convince skeptics but to create "a bond of willing ignorance" with Russians who chose to believe the official narrative despite its obvious falsehoods. The annexation of Crimea was justified by invoking an eternal Russian civilization – Putin claimed that because Vladimir of Kyiv had been baptized in Crimea a thousand years earlier, Ukraine and Russia were "one people." The conflict in Ukraine represented a fundamental clash between two visions of politics and history. The Maidan protesters embodied what the author calls "the politics of novelty" – the belief that citizens could create something genuinely new through collective action. They sought a future where Ukraine would be governed by law rather than corruption, where citizens would have rights regardless of ethnicity or language. Russia, by contrast, imposed a narrative of eternal return – painting Ukrainian revolutionaries as "fascists" while Russian soldiers wrote "For Stalin!" on their tanks and spoke of fighting Nazis as their grandfathers had in 1941. This "schizofascism," as the author calls it, involved actual fascists calling their opponents "fascists" while employing Nazi-like geopolitical concepts. Alexander Dugin, a Russian fascist intellectual who supported the invasion, promoted the idea that Russia was the heartland of a Eurasian civilization fundamentally opposed to the maritime, commercial powers of the West. The "Novorossiya" project – Russia's attempt to create a puppet state in eastern Ukraine – was explicitly framed as a civilizational struggle against Western decadence and "global Satanism." The Ukraine crisis marked a decisive turn in post-Cold War international relations. Russia had not only violated the territorial integrity of a sovereign state but had done so while rejecting the very concept of truth in international discourse. The politics of eternity had moved from domestic governance to foreign policy, with profound implications for European security and the future of democratic movements worldwide.

Chapter 4: Information Warfare: The Weaponization of Truth (2014-2015)

By 2015, Russia had transformed its invasion of Ukraine into a laboratory for a new kind of warfare – one that targeted not just territory but truth itself. "Information war is now the main type of war," declared Dmitry Kiselev, coordinator of Russia's international news agency. This assault on factuality would soon extend far beyond Ukraine's borders, reaching into the heart of Western democracies and fundamentally altering their political landscapes. The Russian approach to information warfare operated on multiple levels simultaneously. First came the direct assault on factuality – denying obvious realities like the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine. Putin claimed soldiers in Russian uniforms were locals who had "purchased their uniforms at local stores." When Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July 2014, killing 298 people, Russian media offered multiple, contradictory explanations – that Ukrainian fighter jets had targeted the plane, that it was filled with already-dead bodies, that the CIA had orchestrated the attack to frame Russia. The purpose wasn't to convince people of any particular version but to exhaust their critical thinking and foster cynicism about the possibility of truth itself. This strategy was implemented through a massive media apparatus. Inside Russia, state television channels with budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars bombarded viewers with contradictory narratives that shared only one consistent message: Russia was innocent, the West was corrupt, and no real change was possible. Internationally, RT (formerly Russia Today) operated with a budget of about $400 million annually to spread doubt rather than information. Its slogan, "Question More," encouraged not critical thinking but cynicism about the possibility of truth. As RT's director candidly admitted: "There is no such thing as objective reporting." The most sophisticated deployment of this information warfare came in the form of social media manipulation. The Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg employed hundreds of "trolls" to create fake personas and spread disinformation online. These operations targeted not just Ukraine but Western societies, exploiting existing divisions around issues like race, immigration, and religion. In April 2015, Russian hackers took over the transmission of a French television station, pretending to be ISIS terrorists to spread fear. Later that year, Russian bots and trolls began their campaign to influence the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. What made this information warfare so effective was its exploitation of Western media conventions. Journalists trained to present "both sides" of a story found themselves amplifying obvious falsehoods as legitimate viewpoints. Social media platforms, designed to maximize engagement rather than truth, inadvertently amplified emotionally provocative content regardless of its accuracy. The result was a fundamental erosion of the factual basis required for democratic deliberation. Without agreement on basic facts, citizens could not make informed decisions or hold leaders accountable. By 2015, this approach had evolved into a comprehensive strategy for undermining Western democracies from within. Rather than promoting a specific ideology, as Soviet propaganda had done, Russian information operations sought to amplify existing divisions and erode trust in democratic institutions. The goal was strategic relativism – the idea that Russia could gain relative power by making other societies as dysfunctional as itself rather than by improving its own performance. This approach would soon find its most dramatic application in the 2016 American presidential election.

Chapter 5: Exporting Authoritarianism: Russia's Influence Operations (2016)

In 2016, Russia's politics of eternity made its most dramatic leap beyond Russian borders, influencing two pivotal democratic events: the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States. These operations represented the culmination of years of preparation, as Russia had systematically built relationships with far-right political movements across Europe and America while developing sophisticated techniques of information warfare. The Brexit campaign became a testing ground for Russian influence operations. Russian state media outlets like RT and Sputnik strongly supported the Leave campaign, while Russian internet trolls and bots generated about a third of all Twitter traffic on Brexit. Four hundred and nineteen Twitter accounts later linked to Russia's Internet Research Agency posted extensively about Brexit before pivoting to support Donald Trump's presidential campaign. When 52% of British voters chose to leave the European Union, Putin gently supported their misunderstandings: "No one wants to feed and subsidize weaker economies, support other states, whole peoples—it is an obvious fact." The vote represented a triumph for Russian foreign policy – the beginning of the EU's potential disintegration. In the United States, Russian operations were even more extensive and sophisticated. Russian military intelligence (GRU) hacked the Democratic National Committee and the personal email account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta. These materials were strategically released through WikiLeaks to maximize damage to Clinton's campaign – emails appeared just before the Democratic National Convention to sow division between Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters, and again in October to distract from damaging revelations about Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Russia's Internet Research Agency created thousands of fake social media accounts posing as American citizens and organizations. These accounts didn't simply spread pro-Russian narratives; they amplified existing American grievances around race, religion, and immigration. The scale was massive – Russian content reached at least 126 million Americans on Facebook alone. Russian operatives created Facebook groups with hundreds of thousands of followers and even organized real-world rallies attended by unsuspecting Americans. They purchased thousands of targeted advertisements designed to inflame tensions around issues like race, immigration, and gun rights. Russian bots on Twitter generated millions of automated messages supporting Donald Trump and attacking Hillary Clinton, particularly during key moments like presidential debates. These efforts were sophisticated enough to target voters in crucial swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin, which Trump would win by razor-thin margins. The Trump campaign maintained numerous contacts with Russian representatives throughout 2016. In June, Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton, responding "I love it" when informed of the Russian government's support for his father. Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, had previously worked for Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine and maintained ties to Russian oligarchs. Trump himself publicly encouraged Russia to hack Clinton's emails and repeatedly praised Putin as a strong leader. These operations succeeded because they exploited vulnerabilities in Western democratic systems. Social media platforms prioritized engagement over accuracy, allowing false information to spread rapidly. Traditional media, caught in a cycle of covering scandals and controversies, amplified Russian-hacked materials without adequate context. Political polarization made citizens receptive to negative information about opponents, regardless of source. The politics of inevitability had left Western societies complacent about threats to democracy, while rising inequality created openings for politicians promising to disrupt the status quo.

Chapter 6: Democratic Vulnerability: How Western Institutions Were Undermined

By 2016, Western democracies had become surprisingly vulnerable to the same authoritarian tendencies that had taken root in Russia. This vulnerability wasn't primarily due to external threats but to internal contradictions that had been building for decades. The complacent assumption that liberal democracy represented the "end of history" had blinded Western societies to growing problems that undermined democratic legitimacy and created openings for authoritarian alternatives. The most significant vulnerability was the erosion of democratic institutions through capture by economic elites. Since the 1980s, Western democracies had experienced dramatic increases in economic inequality. In the United States, the percentage of national income going to the top 1% more than doubled between 1980 and 2016, while the share going to the bottom 50% fell by nearly half. Similar though less extreme trends appeared across Europe. This concentration of wealth translated directly into political influence, as wealthy individuals and corporations gained unprecedented ability to shape policy through campaign contributions, lobbying, and control of media. The result was a growing disconnect between public preferences and policy outcomes. Studies showed that American policy changes reflected the preferences of economic elites rather than average citizens. In Europe, the response to the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent Eurozone crisis prioritized bank bailouts and austerity measures over public welfare, creating a perception that democracy served financial interests rather than ordinary people. This democratic deficit created fertile ground for populist movements claiming to represent "the people" against corrupt elites. A second vulnerability was the fragmentation of the public sphere through technological change. The internet, once heralded as a democratizing force, instead created filter bubbles where people encountered only information that confirmed their existing beliefs. Social media platforms, designed to maximize engagement rather than truth, amplified emotional and divisive content. Traditional gatekeepers of factual information, particularly local newspapers, collapsed under financial pressure, leaving many communities without reliable sources of news. By 2016, citizens of the same country increasingly inhabited different information universes with few shared facts. This fragmentation made Western societies vulnerable to the same information warfare techniques Russia had perfected domestically. When Russian operatives promoted false stories like "Pizzagate" – which claimed Democratic leaders were running a child trafficking ring from a Washington pizzeria – they found an American audience already primed to believe the worst about political opponents. The distinction between factual reporting and partisan opinion blurred, with many citizens coming to view all information through a tribal lens where truth was whatever served their side's interests. Perhaps most fundamentally, Western democracies had lost their sense of shared fate and common purpose. As societies became more unequal and segregated, citizens increasingly sorted themselves into separate physical, media, and social environments with little interaction across class lines. This segregation made it easier for people to believe that those unlike themselves were responsible for their problems, fostering tribal identities that could be exploited by savvy political operators. When politicians like Donald Trump and Brexit campaigners offered simple narratives of national decline caused by corrupt elites and dangerous outsiders, they tapped into a profound sense of loss and betrayal felt by millions who had seen their economic security and social status erode. The result was a crisis of democratic legitimacy that created openings for authoritarian alternatives. By 2016, significant portions of Western populations had lost faith in democratic institutions and were receptive to leaders promising to bypass institutional constraints in the name of the people. The politics of eternity, with its comforting myths of national innocence and eternal enemies, found fertile ground in societies where the politics of inevitability had failed to deliver on its promises.

Chapter 7: Oligarchy and Inequality: The Economic Foundations of Unfreedom

By 2016, Russia had evolved into what economists described as the most unequal major economy in the world. According to Credit Suisse, the top 1% of Russians owned a staggering 74.5% of the nation's wealth, compared to about 37.3% in the United States and 20.9% in France. This extreme concentration of resources wasn't simply an economic phenomenon but the foundation of Putin's political system – a form of state-sanctioned oligarchy where wealth and power were inseparable. The roots of this inequality lay in the chaotic privatizations of the 1990s, when state assets were transferred to a small group of well-connected businessmen through rigged auctions and insider deals. Boris Yeltsin's "loans-for-shares" scheme in 1995-1996, where major state enterprises were effectively given away to oligarchs in exchange for political support, created a class of super-wealthy individuals with enormous influence over government. Rather than reforming this system, Putin merely changed its beneficiaries. Oligarchs who supported him, like Roman Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska, flourished, while those who challenged him, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovsky, were imprisoned or exiled. This oligarchic system functioned through a complex web of formal and informal arrangements. Officially, Russia maintained the institutions of a market economy, but in practice, business success depended on political loyalty. Major corporations paid a form of tribute to the regime through "voluntary" contributions to state projects, employment of regime-connected individuals, and support for Putin's foreign policy objectives. Those who challenged this arrangement found themselves facing selective tax investigations, criminal charges, or even violence. The result was a system where political power generated wealth, which in turn secured political power – a self-reinforcing cycle of oligarchic rule. For ordinary Russians, this system meant diminishing economic opportunity. While the early 2000s saw rising living standards thanks to high oil prices, by 2016 real incomes had been declining for three consecutive years. The middle class that had briefly flourished in major cities found itself squeezed by inflation, currency devaluation, and lack of economic diversification. Regional disparities grew extreme, with Moscow and St. Petersburg resembling European capitals while provincial cities and rural areas suffered from crumbling infrastructure and limited public services. Life expectancy for Russian men remained below the level achieved in the late Soviet period. The regime responded to these economic challenges not with reforms but with nationalism and foreign adventures. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 temporarily boosted Putin's approval ratings to over 80%, despite triggering Western sanctions that further damaged the economy. State media portrayed economic hardship as a necessary sacrifice in Russia's confrontation with the West, transforming material deprivation into patriotic virtue. As one Russian political analyst observed, "The regime replaced the social contract of 'stability and prosperity' with one of 'greatness and confrontation.'" What made this model particularly dangerous was its exportability. Unable to generate sustainable growth at home, the regime sought to weaken competitors abroad through what analysts called "strategic relativism" – the idea that Russia could gain relative power by undermining Western institutions rather than improving its own performance. Russian oligarchs used their wealth to influence politics in Europe and the United States through legal and illegal means. Russian capital flowed into real estate in London, political parties in France, and media outlets across Europe, creating networks of influence that served the Kremlin's interests. By 2016, similar patterns of oligarchic capture were visible in Western democracies, particularly the United States. Though less extreme than in Russia, American wealth inequality had reached levels not seen since the 1920s, with the top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. This concentration of economic power translated into political influence through campaign contributions, lobbying, and ownership of media. Studies showed that policy outcomes increasingly reflected the preferences of economic elites rather than average citizens. The 2010 Citizens United decision, which allowed unlimited corporate spending in elections, accelerated this trend by effectively permitting wealthy individuals and organizations to dominate the political process.

Summary

The journey from democracy to authoritarianism is not a sudden leap but a gradual erosion of norms, institutions, and shared truth. Russia's transformation from a fledgling democracy in the 1990s to Putin's authoritarian state offers a cautionary tale about how quickly democratic aspirations can give way to autocratic rule when economic dislocation creates demand for stability at any cost. The revival of fascist philosopher Ivan Ilyin's ideas provided intellectual justification for this shift, replacing the difficult work of building democratic institutions with comforting myths about Russia's unique civilization perpetually threatened by external enemies. This "politics of eternity" proved remarkably exportable, finding fertile ground in Western societies experiencing similar disillusionment with democratic promises. The defense of democracy requires more than just elections – it demands a commitment to factual truth over comfortable fictions, to equal citizenship over tribal identity, and to the patient work of institutional reform over the emotional satisfaction of blaming enemies. When economic inequality reaches extreme levels, when media environments fragment into competing reality bubbles, and when politics becomes a tribal contest rather than a means of solving common problems, the conditions for democratic erosion are present. The road back to freedom begins with rebuilding the shared factual reality that makes democratic deliberation possible, reducing the economic inequality that undermines political equality, and strengthening the institutions that translate popular will into policy. Without these foundations, democracy remains vulnerable to the siren song of authoritarianism, with its simple answers to complex problems and its promise of belonging in a world that increasingly feels beyond individual control.

About Author

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Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder is Housum Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1997, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. He has held fellowships in Paris, Vienna, and Warsaw, and an Academy Scholarship at Harvard. His most recent book is Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, published in September 2015 by Crown Books. He is author also of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), a history of Nazi and Soviet mass killing on the lands between Berlin and Moscow. A New York Times bestseller and a book of the year according to The Atlantic, The Independent, The Financial Times, the Telegraph, and the New Statesman, it has won twelve awards including the Emerson Prize in the Humanities, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Leipzig Award for European Understanding, and the Hannah Arendt Prize in Political Thought.His other award-winning publications include Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1998); The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (2003); Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine (2005); The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of A Habsburg Archduke (2008), and Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010). Snyder helped Tony Judt to compose a thematic history of political ideas and intellectuals in politics, Thinking the Twentieth Century (2012). He is also the co-editor of Stalin and Europe: Terror, War, Domination and Wall Around the West: State Power and Immigration Controls in Europe and North America (2001). Snyder was the recipient of an inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2015. He is a member of the Committee on Conscience of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and sits on the advisory council of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research Research.He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in modern East European political history.

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