This is present-minded history at its most urgent. Michael Ignatieff, Harvard Kennedy School of Government Plokhy's authoritative study will be of great value to scholars, students, policy-makers, and the informed public alike in making sense of the contemporary Ukrainian imbroglio.” A straightforward, useful work that looks frankly at Ukraine's ongoing "price of freedom" against the rapacious, destabilizing force of Russia.”įor a comprehensive, engaging, and up-to-date history of Ukraine one could do no better than Serhii Plokhy's aptly titled The Gates of Europe. "A sympathetic survey of the history of Ukraine along the East-West divide, from ancient divisions to present turmoil. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.īuy this book Give copies to your children and grandchildren. An authoritative history of this vital country, The Gates of Europe provides a unique insight into the origins of the most dangerous international crisis since the end of the Cold War. Plokhy examines the history of Ukraine's search for its identity through the lives of the major figures in Ukrainian history: Prince Yaroslav the Wise of Kyiv, whose daughter Anna became queen of France the Cossack ruler Ivan Mazepa, who was immortalized in the poems of Byron and Pushkin Nikita Khrushchev and his protégé-turned-nemesis Leonid Brezhnev, who called Ukraine their home and the heroes of the Maidan protests of 20, who embody the current struggle over Ukraine's future.Īs Plokhy explains, today's crisis is a tragic case of history repeating itself, as Ukraine once again finds itself in the center of the battle of global proportions.
Ukraine has also been a home to millions of Jews, serving as the birthplace of Hassidism-and as one of the killing fields of the Holocaust. The mixing of sedentary and nomadic peoples and Christianity and Islam on the steppe borderland produced the class of ferocious warriors known as the Cossacks, for example, while the encounter between the Catholic and Orthodox churches created a religious tradition that bridges Western and Eastern Christianity. For centuries, Ukraine has been a meeting place of various cultures. Situated between Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, Ukraine was shaped by the empires that used it as a strategic gateway between East and West-from the Roman and Ottoman empires to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.
As the award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues in The Gates of Europe, we must examine Ukraine's past in order to understand its present and future. But today's conflict is only the latest in a long history of battles over Ukraine's territory and its existence as a sovereign nation. Ukraine is currently embroiled in a tense fight with Russia to preserve its territorial integrity and political independence.
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