The Childhood of Vladimir Putin

(original in German: https://kriegsursachen.blogspot.com/2022/05/die-kindheit-von-wladimir-putin.html; translation by Gabriella Becchina)

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Introduction

“Does Putin's traumatic childhood have a link with Ukraine and other wars? Looking at his backstory does not justify his actions but offers one of the many explanations for an unfolding crisis. And a lesson for many of us” (Singh 2022). I can’t but agree. His childhood explains a lot and yet excuses nothing!

In addition, one must keep in mind that there is also an inherent connection to childhood and trauma experiences in Russia. Russia is not just Putin. His actions would not be possible without the direct or tacit support of countless people. Childhood in Russia was and is a great source of strain (see: “The Cruel and Brutal Russian Family of the 17th Century and the Relation to Contemporary Times” (Fuchs 2022) and “Childhood in Russia” (Fuchs 2014). Of course, this also has (political) consequences.

Parents traumatized by war

Let us now tackle his childhood and family backgrounds. Putin's father fought on the front lines during World War II and was almost killed. Putin's mother also nearly died when her hometown of Leningrad was besieged and starved (Baker & Glasser 2005, p. 40).

In an article, Vladimir Putin (2015) explicitly described his parents' war experiences. His father was part of a diversion group of 28 people. They were once ambushed. His father survived only because he spent hours burying himself in a swamp and breathing through a reed. Of the 28 men, only four returned alive. Putin's father was immediately sent back to the front. There he was badly wounded and almost lost a leg. He had metal splinters in his body all his life. He was only fortuitously saved because a neighbor found him and dragged him to the military hospital at the risk of his life. While there, he diverted food for Putin's mother and their three-year-old son, which led to Putin's father sometimes fainting from hunger. Meanwhile, his mother had to withstand the siege of Leningrad. Her son was eventually taken away from her. He came into a home to save him from starvation. However, the little boy fell ill with diphtheria and died.

He was buried in a mass grave with over 470,000 further people (Myers 2015, p. 11). The family had previously lost a child who had died shortly after birth (Baker & Glasser 2005, p. 40).

At the time, Putin's mother was also closer to death than to life. Putin goes on to tell how one day his father was walking home on crutches. Paramedics were carrying bodies outside, including Putin's mother. The father discovered that she was still breathing. He cared for his wife and was able to save her (Putin 2015). Putin adds that five of his father's six brothers died in the war. His mother also lost relatives.

Putin's parents combined must have been highly traumatized people. We know today that this can put a heavy burden on the offspring (keyword: transgenerational transmission of trauma).

Childhood nightmare

The family lived in only one room and Vladimir's life arguably took place mainly outside and in backyards. "Everyone somehow lived within themselves," as recounted later by Putin in his description of that period and life with his parents. "I can't say that we were a very emotional family, that we discussed anything much. They kept a lot to themselves. I still wonder today how they dealt with the tragedies” (Seipel 2015, chapter: “Upheavals of the Past”). Another source describes how his parents left the boy to his own devices and he basically grew up as a type of street kid (Retter 2022). The living conditions were poor, they had to share the kitchen with others; to wash, the family went to public washhouses and often had to dodge hordes of rats in their home (Baker & Glasser 2005, p. 41).

Putin's father is described as a hard, strict and silent man who showed no feelings towards his son Vladimir and often argued with him. Once Vladimir left town with his friends without telling his parents. When he returned home, his father beat him with a belt (Baker & Glasser 2005, pp. 41f.). The biographer Steven Lee Myers (2015, p. 12) describes him in a very similar way: "Vladimir`s father was taciturn and severe, frightening even to people who knew him well." Myers (2015, p. 14) confirms the previously described fatherly violence against the son as well.

"His father was, by all accounts, concerned primarily with discipline, not with the quality of schooling his son received," writes Gessen (2014, p. 47f.) and adds that the boy initially had little interest in his education and most of the biographical descriptions from this period centered on the many "fistfights of his childhood and youth". On the street and with regard to the other boys, everything revolved around “constant drinking, cursing, fistfights. And there was Putin in the middle of all this,” reported a former classmate (Gessen 2014, p. 48).

Putin's former teacher, Vera Gurevich, relayed that she once visited the father and explained to him that his son was not developing his full potential. The father replied: "Well, what can I do? Kill him or what?" (Myers 2015, p. 15). Quite an unusual answer, which in turn testifies to the roughness of this person.

Putin, who was younger and slimmer than the other children around him, tried to hold up by persistently fighting. He also brought this violence to school, which got him into trouble and made him an outsider: "The school punished Putin by excluding him from the Young Pioneers Organization - a rare, almost exotic form of punishment, generally reserved for children who were held back repeatedly and essentially deemed hopeless. Putin was a marked boy: for three years, he was the only child in the school who did not wear a red kerchief around his neck, symbolizing membership in the Communist Organization for ten-to-fourteen-year-olds” (Gessen 2014, p. 48).

“As is almost always the case with bullies, Putin started out as a victim. (…) he was bullied and humiliated as a child” (Strick 2022). Myers also confirms that Putin was bullied and attacked because of his small size (Myers 2015, p. 15, 153). Ihanus (2022) describes another scene in which attacks against Putin took place: "His former teacher Vera Gurevich once said that the small Putin was locked by other schoolmates in the girls’ toilet where the girls slapped him."

Learning martial arts was evidently a way for the young Putin to be able to defend himself. He was used to violence since childhood. His teacher Vera Gurevich reported that when Putin broke the leg of one of his classmates at the age of 14, he said that some people "only understand violence" (Welt-Online 2022).

Are Putin's parents his biological parents?

In a research series (Dobbert 2015), Die ZEIT newspaper addressed the subject of Vera Putina, the woman who claims to be Vladimir Putin's real mother. Apparently, there is some evidence to justify publishing this story (including similarities in facial features between her and Putin). I myself don't want to skip this chapter, thus referring to the article (which can be viewed online and is very interesting). However, questions obviously still persist and there is no absolute certainty (through a genetic test) about this story. If the story is true, then Vladimir had an ominous odyssey of changing caregivers behind him, which would have implied an enormous burden for the child.

The story goes like this: Vera Putina fell in love with a man named Platon Privalov and became pregnant. Only then did she find out that he was married, and broke up with him. She moved in with her parents. During that time, she had to leave her barely two-year-old son with her parents for weeks at a time because her work took her out of town. Eventually, she met a Georgian, married him and moved to Georgia with her illegitimate son. A girl was born. For years there was a dispute about the boy. Her husband no longer wanted him to stay. Once her husband's sister simply gave the boy away to a strange man. The mother went looking for her son and brought him back. After that, she decided to place him with her parents again. However, her father became very ill and the boy had to move to foster parents who were distant (childless) relatives of her parents: Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin and Maria Ivanovna Putina (Putin's official parents).

Stanislav Belkovsky (2022, pp. 42f.) also doubted the official version of Putin's origins in his biography of Putin and basically explained the ZEIT story in a similar way (his book was originally published in 2013, i.e. before the ZEIT article). As a result of these experiences, Vladimir had become a withdrawn and grim child. In addition, he has hated Georgians as an ethnic group and as a category since then.

I find a further piece of information regarding the above-mentioned context noteworthy. Sadovnikova (2017, p. 30) specifies that Putin's father wanted a son. The mother actually didn't want a child (let’s also remember: she had lost two children before), but agreed. In this respect, Putin was an unwanted child on the part of his mother (which may have influenced the mother-son bond). For one. According to the source, the father wanted a son, which there is approximately a 50/50 chance for through natural pregnancy. The situation is different when a son is "offered" through relatives, as suggested in the above-mentioned ZEIT article. Just as an additional mental note.

Closing remarks

It is safe to say that Vladimir Putin's childhood was not "exotic" in the Russia of that time. Many Russians grew up with parents traumatized by war, in poverty and with violence, and were neglected and/or experienced the death of family members. With it loomed the shadows of Russian history: e.g. the oppression by the tsars, Stalin's terror, famines, all the wars, serfdom and despotism. Still, I would not use this information and background to say that not all people who grew up this way became like "Putin" (which is often used as an argument to downplay any contingent bearings). Needless to say, there is something psychopathic about Putin that few people develop in this fashion. However, his actions would not have been possible without the direct or tacit support of countless Russian people (including those following and helplessly frozen), as I already wrote at the beginning. The circle is now closing, especially in light of the suffering and trauma endured by many!

Or as Juhani Ihanus (2008, p. 255) expressed it: "The mystery and charisma of the leader reflect the secrets of abuse, shared by the majority of Russians in one form or another."

Bibliography

Baker, P. & Glasser, S. (2005). Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution. A Lisa Drew Book/Scribner, New York. Kindle e-book Edition.

Belkowski, S. (2022). Wladimir: Die ganze Wahrheit über Putin. Redline Verlag, München (3rd edition). Kindle e-book edition.

Dobbert, S. (2015, May 7): Vera Putina’s Lost Son. DIE ZEIT. https://www.zeit.de/feature/vladimir-putin-mother

Fuchs, S. (2022). Die grausame und rohe russische Familie des 17. Jahrhunderts und der Bezug zur heutigen Zeit. https://kriegsursachen.blogspot.com/2022/04/die-grausame-und-rohe-russische-familie.html

Fuchs, S. (2014). Kindheit in Russland. https://kriegsursachen.blogspot.com/2014/04/kindheit-in-russland.html

Gessen, M. (2014). The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. Granta, London. Kindle e-book edition.

Ihanus, J. (2008). Putin the Aging Terminator: Psychohistorical and Psychopolitical Notes. The Journal of Psychohistory, Winter 2008, 35(3), S. 240-269. 

Ihanus, J. (2022). Putin, Ukraine, and Fratricide. (will be published in Clio's Psyche, spring issue, discussed in advance and sent to participants of the "Psychohistory Forum Virtual Meeting" on May 14, 2022)

Myers, S. L. (2015). The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. Kindle e-book edition. 

Putin, W. (2015, May 9). Das Leben ist eine einfache und grausame Sache. Frankfurter Allgemeine-online. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/wladimir-putin-zum-70-jahrestag-des-kriegsendes-13578426.html

Retter, E. (2022, Feb. 23). Vladimir Putin's childhood explained - from 'miracle baby' to power-crazed president. Mirror. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/vladimir-putins-childhood-explained-miracle-26303775?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

Sadovnikova, A. (2017). Wenig folgsam und sehr frech. In: DER SPIEGEL-Biografie (Ed.). Wladimir Putin. 05/2017. SPIEGEL-Verlag, Hamburg.

Seipel, H. (2015): Putin. Innenansichten der Macht. Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, Hamburg. Kindle e-book edition.

Singh, D. (2022, March 15). Putin's rough childhood and its shadow over Ukraine and other wars. India Today. https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/russia-ukraine-war-vladimir-putin-childhood-1925663-2022-03-15?t_source=rhs&t_medium=It&t_campaign=readthis&utm_source=twshare&utm_medium=socialicons&utm_campaign=shareurltracking

Strick, K. (2022, March 24). Is Vlad mad or bad? The life of Putin — from a childhood being chased by rats to today’s isolation and paranoia. Evening Standard. https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/vladimir-putin-russia-ukraine-war-background-president-life-covid-pandemic-b988399.html

Welt-Online (2022, Feb 22). Putin als Jugendlicher: „Wenn der Kampf unvermeidbar ist, muss man als Erster zuschlagen“. https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article237062307/Putin-Wenn-der-Kampf-unvermeidbar-ist-muss-man-als-Erster-zuschlagen.html

Author profile (in german): https://mattes.de/autoren/fuchs_sven.html