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Urgent, compelling reading from the author of Chernobyl on the
defining conflict of our times: do you know what is at stake in
Ukraine? On 24 February 2022, Russia stunned the world by launching
an invasion of Ukraine. In the midst of checking on the family and
friends who were now on the front lines of Europe's largest
conflict since the outbreak of the Second World War, acclaimed
Ukrainian-American historian Serhii Plokhy inevitably found himself
attempting to understand the deeper causes of the invasion,
analysing its course and contemplating the wider outcomes. The
Russo-Ukrainian War is the comprehensive history of a war that has
burned since 2014, and that, with Russia's attempt to seize Kyiv,
exploded a geo-political order that had been cemented since the end
of the Cold War. With an eye for the gripping detail on the ground,
both in the halls of power and down in the trenches, as well as a
keen sense of the grander sweep of history, Plokhy traces the
origins and the evolution of the conflict, from the collapse of the
Russian empire to the rise and fall of the USSR and on to the
development in Ukraine of a democratic politics. Based on decades
of research and his unique insight into the region, he argues that
Ukraine's defiance of Russia, and the West's demonstration of unity
and strength, has presented a profound challenge to Putin's Great
Power ambition, and further polarized the world along a new axis. A
riveting, enlightening account, this is present-minded history at
its best.
CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY SUNDAY TIMES AND HISTORY TODAY
'Absolutely stunning. . . a formidable achievement. A six-part
historical thriller that is essential reading for both our
politicians and the ordinary citizen' Kai Bird Best-selling
historian Serhii Plokhy returns with an illuminating exploration of
the atomic age through the history of six nuclear disasters In
2011, a 43-foot-high tsunami crashed into a nuclear power plant in
Fukushima, Japan. In the following days, explosions would rip
buildings apart, three reactors would go into nuclear meltdown, and
the surrounding area would be swamped in radioactive water. It is
now considered one of the costliest nuclear disasters ever. But
Fukushima was not the first, and it was not the worst. . . In Atoms
and Ashes, acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy tells the tale of the
six nuclear disasters that shook the world: Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym,
Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Based on
wide-ranging research and witness testimony, Plokhy traces the arc
of each crisis, exploring in depth the confused decision-making on
the ground and the panicked responses of governments to contain the
crises and often cover up the scale of the catastrophe. As the
world increasingly looks to renewable and alternative sources of
energy, Plokhy lucidly argues that the atomic risk must be
understood in explicit terms, but also that these calamities reveal
a fundamental truth about our relationship with nuclear technology:
that the thirst for power and energy has always trumped safety and
the cost for future generations.
BY THE AUTHOR OF CHERNOBYL: HISTORY OF A TRAGEDY, WINNER OF THE
BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2018 WINNER OF THE PUSHKIN HOUSE RUSSIAN BOOK
PRIZE 2015 On Christmas Day 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as
president of the Soviet Union. By the next day the USSR was
officially no more and the USA had emerged as the world's sole
superpower. Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy presents a
page-turning account of the preceding five months of drama, filled
with failed coups d'etat and political intrigue. Honing in on this
previously disregarded but crucial period and using recently
declassified documents and original interviews with key
participants, he shatters the established myths of 1991 and
presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union's final
months. Plokhy argues that contrary to the triumphalist Western
narrative, George H. W. Bush desperately wanted to preserve the
Soviet Union and keep Gorbachev in power, and that it was Ukraine
and not the US that played the key role in the collapse of the
Soviet Union. The consequences of those five months and the
myth-making that has since surrounded them are still being felt in
Crimea, Russia, the US, and Europe today. With its spellbinding
narrative and strikingly fresh perspective, The Last Empire is the
essential account of one of the most important watershed periods in
world history, and is indispensable reading for anyone seeking to
make sense of international politics today.
An illuminating account of the war in Ukraine - its historical
roots, its course, its possible outcomes - from the bestselling,
award-winning author of Chernobyl On 24 February 2022, Russia
stunned the world by launching an invasion of Ukraine. In the midst
of checking on the family and friends who were now on the front
lines of Europe's largest conflict since the outbreak of the Second
World War, acclaimed Ukrainian-American historian Serhii Plokhy
inevitably found himself attempting to understand the deeper causes
of the invasion, analysing its course and contemplating the wider
outcomes. The Russo-Ukrainian War is the comprehensive history of a
conflict that has burned since 2014, and that, with Russia's
attempt to seize Kyiv, exploded a geo-political order that had been
cemented since the end of the Cold War. With an eye for the
gripping detail on the ground, both in the halls of power and down
in the trenches, as well as a keen sense of the grander sweep of
history, Plokhy traces the origins and the evolution of the
conflict, from the collapse of the Russian empire to the rise and
fall of the USSR and on to the development in Ukraine of a
democratic politics. Based on decades of research and his unique
insight into the region, he argues that Ukraine's defiance of
Russia, and the West's demonstration of unity and strength, has
presented a profound challenge to Putin's Great Power ambition, and
further polarized the world along a new axis. A riveting,
enlightening account, this is present-minded history at its best.
*Shortlisted for the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History*
'An enthralling account of a pivotal moment in modern history. . .
replete with startling revelations about the deception and mutual
suspicion that brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of
Armageddon in October 1962' Martin Chilton, Independent The
definitive new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the author
of Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, winner of the Baillie Gifford
Prize For more than four weeks in the autumn of 1962 the world
teetered. The consequences of a misplaced step during the Cuban
Missile Crisis could not have been more grave. Ash and cinder,
famine and fallout; nuclear war between the two most-powerful
nations on Earth. In Nuclear Folly, award-winning historian Serhii
Plokhy tells the riveting story of those weeks, tracing the
tortuous decision-making and calculated brinkmanship of John F.
Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and of their advisors
and commanders on the ground. More often than not, Plokhy argues,
the Americans and Soviets simply misread each other, operating
under mutual distrust, second-guesses and false information.
Despite all of this, nuclear disaster was avoided thanks to one
very human reason: fear. Drawing on an impressive array of primary
sources, including recently declassified KGB files, Plokhy
masterfully illustrates the drama of those tense days.
Authoritative, fast-paced and unforgettable, this is the definitive
new account of the Cold War's most perilous moment.
1961. The height of the Cold War. Just hours before work begins on
the Berlin Wall, a KGB assassin and his young wife flee for the
West before the Iron Curtain comes down and traps them in the East
forever. This gripping story of real-life espionage and intrigue
began when the Soviets invented a special weapon that killed
without leaving a trace and put it in the hands of Bogdan
Stashinsky. It is a tale of exploding parcels, fake identities,
forbidden love and a man who knew the truth about the USSR's most
classified programme. By the time Stashinsky had his day in court,
the whole world was watching.
Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia's invasion
of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start
the war-and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable ways?
Ukrainians have resisted a superior military; the West has united,
while Russia grows isolated. Serhii Plokhy, leading historian of
Ukraine and the Cold War, traces this conflict to post-Soviet
tensions. Providing a broad historial context and an examination of
Ukraine and Russia's ideas and cultures, as well as domestic and
international politics, Plokhy reveals that while this new Cold War
was not inevitable, it was predictable. Ukraine, Plokhy argues, has
remained central to Russia's idea of itself even as Ukrainians have
followed a radically different path. It is now more than ever the
most volatile fault line between authoritarianism and democratic
Europe as a new division of the world emerges around the economic
superpowers of the United States and China.
On Christmas Day, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the
nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: earlier that
day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet
president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end
of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet
Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took
centre stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush's
speech and has persisted for decades,with disastrous consequences
for American standing in the world.As Prize-winning historian
Serhii Plokhy reveals in The Last Empire , the collapse of the
Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the United States.
On the contrary, American leaders dreaded the possibility that the
Soviet Union,weakened by infighting and economic turmoil,might
suddenly crumble, throwing all of Eurasia into chaos. Bush was
firmly committed to supporting his ally and personal friend
Gorbachev, and remained wary of nationalist or radical leaders such
as recently elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Fearing what
might happen to the large Soviet nuclear arsenal in the event of
the union's collapse, Bush stood by Gorbachev as he resisted the
growing independence movements in Ukraine, mouldova, and the
Caucasus. Plokhy's detailed, authoritative account shows that it
was only after the movement for independence of the republics had
gained undeniable momentum on the eve of the Ukrainian vote for
independence that fall that Bush finally abandoned Gorbachev to his
fate.Drawing on recently declassified documents and original
interviews with key participants, Plokhy presents a bold new
interpretation of the Soviet Union's final months and argues that
the key to the Soviet collapse was the inability of the two largest
Soviet republics, Russia and Ukraine, to agree on the continuing
existence of a unified state. By attributing the Soviet collapse to
the impact of American actions, US policy makers overrated their
own capacities in toppling and rebuilding foreign regimes. Not only
was the key American role in the demise of the Soviet Union a myth,
but this misplaced belief has guided,and haunted,American foreign
policy ever since.
Almost 145,000 Americans fled their homes in and around Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, in late March 1979, hoping to save themselves from an
invisible enemy: radiation. The reactor at the nearby Three Mile
Island nuclear power plant had gone into partial meltdown, and
scientists feared an explosion that could spread radiation
throughout the eastern United States. Thankfully, the explosion
never took place-but the accident left deep scars in the American
psyche, all but ending the nation's love affair with nuclear power.
In Atoms and Ashes, Serhii Plokhy recounts the dramatic history of
Three Mile Island and five more accidents that that have dogged the
nuclear industry in its military and civil incarnations: the
disastrous fallout caused by the testing of the hydrogen bomb in
the Bikini Atoll in 1954; the Kyshtym nuclear disaster in the USSR,
which polluted a good part of the Urals; the Windscale fire, the
worst nuclear accident in the UK's history; back to the USSR with
Chernobyl, the result of a flawed reactor design leading to the
exodus of 350,000 people; and, most recently, Fukushima in Japan,
triggered by an earthquake and a tsunami, a disaster on a par with
Chernobyl and whose clean-up will not take place in our lifetime.
Through the stories of these six terrifying incidents, Plokhy
explores the risks of nuclear power, both for military and peaceful
purposes, while offering a vivid account of how individuals and
governments make decisions under extraordinary circumstances.
Today, there are 440 nuclear reactors operating throughout the
world, with nuclear power providing 10 percent of global
electricity. Yet as the world seeks to reduce carbon emissions to
combat climate change, the question arises: Just how safe is
nuclear energy?
This book documents developments in the countries of eastern
Europe, including the rise of authoritarian tendencies in Russia
and Belarus, as well as the victory of the democratic 'Orange
Revolution' in Ukraine, and poses important questions about the
origins of the East Slavic nations and the essential similarities
or differences between their cultures. It traces the origins of the
modern Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nations by focusing on
pre-modern forms of group identity among the Eastern Slavs. It also
challenges attempts to 'nationalize' the Rus' past on behalf of
existing national projects, laying the groundwork for understanding
of the pre-modern history of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The book
covers the period from the Christianization of Kyivan Rus' in the
tenth century to the reign of Peter I and his eighteenth-century
successors, by which time the idea of nationalism had begun to
influence the thinking of East Slavic elites.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF
CHERNOBYL: HISTORY OF A TRAGEDY 'An indispensable guide to the
tragic history of a great European nation' Sunday Telegraph 'This
is present-minded history at its most urgent. Anyone wanting to
understand why Russia and the West confront each other over the
future of Ukraine will want to read Serhii Plokhy's reasoned,
measured yet passionate account' Michael Ignatieff Located at the
western edge of the Eurasian steppe, Ukraine has long been the
meeting place of empires - Roman to Ottoman, Habsburg to Russian -
and they all left their imprint on the landscape, the language and
the people living within these shifting borders. In this
authoritative book, Harvard Professor and acclaimed author of
Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy traces the history of Ukraine from the
arrival of the Vikings in the tenth century to the current Russian
invasion of eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. Fascinating
and multilayered, The Gates of Europe is the essential guide to
understanding not just Ukraine's past but also its future.
'Absolutely stunning. . . a formidable achievement. A six-part
historical thriller that is essential reading for both our
politicians and the ordinary citizen' Kai Bird Best-selling
historian Serhii Plokhy returns with an illuminating exploration of
the atomic age through the history of six nuclear disasters In
2011, a 43-foot-high tsunami crashed into a nuclear power plant in
Fukushima, Japan. In the following days, explosions would rip
buildings apart, three reactors would go into nuclear meltdown, and
the surrounding area would be swamped in radioactive water. It is
now considered one of the costliest nuclear disasters ever. But
Fukushima was not the first, and it was not the worst. . . In Atoms
and Ashes, acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy tells the tale of the
six nuclear disasters that shook the world: Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym,
Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Based on
wide-ranging research and witness testimony, Plokhy traces the arc
of each crisis, exploring in depth the confused decision-making on
the ground and the panicked responses of governments to contain the
crises and often cover up the scale of the catastrophe. As the
world increasingly looks to renewable and alternative sources of
energy, Plokhy lucidly argues that the atomic risk must be
understood in explicit terms, but also that these calamities reveal
a fundamental truth about our relationship with nuclear technology:
that the thirst for power and energy has always trumped safety and
the cost for future generations.
*WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2018* *WINNER
OF THE PUSHKIN HOUSE BOOK PRIZE 2019* 'As moving as it is
painstakingly researched. . . a cracking read' Viv Groskop,
Observer 'A riveting account of human error and state duplicity. .
. rightly being hailed as a classic' Hannah Betts, Daily Telegraph
On 26 April 1986 at 1.23am a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power
Plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded. While the authorities scrambled
to understand what was occurring, workers, engineers, firefighters
and those living in the area were abandoned to their fate. The
blast put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation,
contaminating over half of Europe with radioactive fallout. In
Chernobyl, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy draws on recently
opened archives to recreate these events in all their drama. A
moment by moment account of the heroes, perpetrators and victims of
a tragedy, Chernobyl is the first full account of a gripping,
unforgettable Cold War story. 'A compelling history of the 1986
disaster and its aftermath . . . plunges the reader into the
sweaty, nervous tension of the Chernobyl control room on that
fateful night when human frailty and design flaws combined to such
devastating effect' Daniel Beer, Guardian 'Haunting ...
near-Tolstoyan. His voice is humane and inflected with nostalgia'
Roland Elliott Brown, Spectator 'Extraordinary, vividly written,
powerful storytelling ... the first full-scale history of the
world's worst nuclear disaster, one of the defining moments in the
Cold War, told minute by minute' Victor Sebestyen Sunday Times
'Plays out like a classical tragedy ... fascinating' Julian Evans,
Daily Telegraph 'Here at last is the monumental history the
disaster deserves' Julie McDowall, The Times
In the years following the Napoleonic Wars, a mysterious manuscript
began to circulate among the dissatisfied noble elite of the
Russian Empire. Entitled The History of the Rus', it became one of
the most influential historical texts of the modern era. Attributed
to an eighteenth-century Orthodox archbishop, it described the
heroic struggles of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Alexander Pushkin read
the book as a manifestation of Russian national spirit, but Taras
Shevchenko interpreted it as a quest for Ukrainian national
liberation, and it would inspire thousands of Ukrainians to fight
for the freedom of their homeland. Serhii Plokhy tells the
fascinating story of the text's discovery and dissemination,
unravelling the mystery of its authorship and tracing its
subsequent impact on Russian and Ukrainian historical and literary
imagination. In so doing he brilliantly illuminates the
relationship between history, myth, empire and nationhood from
Napoleonic times to the fall of the Soviet Union.
This book documents developments in the countries of eastern
Europe, including the rise of authoritarian tendencies in Russia
and Belarus, as well as the victory of the democratic 'Orange
Revolution' in Ukraine, and poses important questions about the
origins of the East Slavic nations and the essential similarities
or differences between their cultures. It traces the origins of the
modern Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nations by focusing on
pre-modern forms of group identity among the Eastern Slavs. It also
challenges attempts to 'nationalize' the Rus' past on behalf of
existing national projects, laying the groundwork for understanding
of the pre-modern history of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The book
covers the period from the Christianization of Kyivan Rus' in the
tenth century to the reign of Peter I and his eighteenth-century
successors, by which time the idea of nationalism had begun to
influence the thinking of East Slavic elites.
In the years following the Napoleonic Wars, a mysterious manuscript
began to circulate among the dissatisfied noble elite of the
Russian Empire. Entitled The History of the Rus', it became one of
the most influential historical texts of the modern era. Attributed
to an eighteenth-century Orthodox archbishop, it described the
heroic struggles of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Alexander Pushkin read
the book as a manifestation of Russian national spirit, but Taras
Shevchenko interpreted it as a quest for Ukrainian national
liberation, and it would inspire thousands of Ukrainians to fight
for the freedom of their homeland. Serhii Plokhy tells the
fascinating story of the text's discovery and dissemination,
unravelling the mystery of its authorship and tracing its
subsequent impact on Russian and Ukrainian historical and literary
imagination. In so doing he brilliantly illuminates the
relationship between history, myth, empire and nationhood from
Napoleonic times to the fall of the Soviet Union.
'Brisk and thoughtful, this book could hardly be more timely'
Dominic Sandbrook, BBC History Magazine, Books of the Year From a
preeminent scholar of Eastern Europe and the prize-winning author
of Chernobyl, the essential history of Russian imperialism In 2014,
Russia annexed Crimea and attempted to seize a portion of Ukraine.
While the world watched in outrage, this violation of national
sovereignty was in fact only the latest iteration of a
centuries-long effort to expand Russian boundaries and create a
pan-Russian nation. In Lost Kingdom, award-winning historian Serhii
Plokhy argues that we can only understand the merging of
imperialism and nationalism in Russia today by delving into its
history. Spanning over two thousand years, from the end of the
Mongol rule to the present day, Plokhy shows how leaders from Ivan
the Terrible to Joseph Stalin to Vladimir Putin have exploited
existing forms of identity, warfare and territorial expansion to
achieve imperial supremacy. A strikingly ambitious book, Lost
Kingdom chronicles the long and belligerent history of Russia's
empire and nation-building quest.
Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, today's world
leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their
nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes. To
survive this new atomic age, we must relearn the lessons of the
most dangerous moment of the Cold War: the Cuban missile crisis.
Serhii Plokhy's Nuclear Folly offers an international perspective
on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced
and then resolved it, which involved John Kennedy and his advisers,
Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the
ground. In breathtaking detail, Plokhy vividly recounts the young
JFK being played by the canny Khrushchev; the hotheaded Castro
willing to defy the USSR and threatening to align himself with
China; the Soviet troops on the ground clearing jungle foliage in
the tropical heat, and desperately trying to conceal nuclear
installations on Cuba, which were nonetheless easily spotted by U-2
spy planes; and the hair-raising near misses at sea that nearly
caused a Soviet nuclear-armed submarine to fire its weapons. More
often than not, the Americans and Soviets misread each other,
operated under false information, and came perilously close to
nuclear catastrophe. Despite these errors, nuclear war was
ultimately avoided for one central reason: fear, and the
realization that any escalation on either the Soviets' or the
Americans' part would lead to mutual destruction. Drawing on a
range of Soviet archival sources, including previously classified
KGB documents, as well as White House tapes, Plokhy masterfully
illustrates the drama and anxiety of those tense days, and provides
a way for us to grapple with the problems posed in our present day.
The Frontline presents a selection of essays drawn together for the
first time to form a companion volume to Serhii Plokhy's The Gates
of Europe and Chernobyl. Here he expands upon his analysis in
earlier works of key events in Ukrainian history, including
Ukraine's complex relations with Russia and the West, the burden of
tragedies such as the Holodomor and World War II, the impact of the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and Ukraine's contribution to the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Juxtaposing Ukraine's history to the
contemporary politics of memory, this volume provides a
multidimensional image of a country that continues to make
headlines around the world. Eloquent in style and comprehensive in
approach, the essays collected here reveal the roots of the ongoing
political, cultural, and military conflict in Ukraine, the largest
country in Europe.
'Many books claim to tell an "unknown" story of the Second World
War. Few of them actually do. Forgotten Bastards is a rare
exception . . . This is gripping history' Duncan Weldon, Prospect A
riveting story of World War II from the author of Chernobyl, winner
of the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction In November 1943, with
the outcome of the Second World War hanging in the balance, the
Allies needed a new plan. The Americans' audacious suggestion to
the Soviets was to open a second air front, with the US Air Force
establishing bases in Soviet-controlled territory. Despite Stalin's
obvious reservations about the presence of foreign troops in
Russia, he was persuaded. Operation Baseball and then Frantic were
initiated in early 1944 as B-17 Superfortresses were flown from
bases in Italy to the Poltova region in today's Ukraine.
Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy tells the gripping,
little-known story of this encounter between American and Soviet
soldiers and how their collaboration quickly fell apart, mirroring
the transition from the Grand Alliance to the Cold War. Soviet
secret policemen watched over the Americans, shadowing their every
move. A catastrophic air raid by the Germans revealed the
limitations of Soviet air defences. As their initial enthusiasm
turned into disappointment, the American soldiers started calling
themselves the Forgotten Bastards of Ukraine. Ultimately, no common
purpose could overcome their cultural and political differences.
Drawing on newly opened Russian archives as well as CIA records,
Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front offers a riveting bottom-up
history of one of the Second World War's most unlikely alliances.
Almost 145,000 Americans fled their homes in and around Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, in late March 1979, hoping to save themselves from an
invisible enemy: radiation. The reactor at the nearby Three Mile
Island nuclear power plant had gone into partial meltdown, and
scientists feared an explosion that could spread radiation
throughout the eastern United States. Thankfully, the explosion
never took place-but the accident left deep scars in the American
psyche, all but ending the nation's love affair with nuclear power.
In Atoms and Ashes, Serhii Plokhy recounts the dramatic history of
Three Mile Island and five more accidents that that have dogged the
nuclear industry in its military and civil incarnations: the
disastrous fallout caused by the testing of the hydrogen bomb in
the Bikini Atoll in 1954; the Kyshtym nuclear disaster in the USSR,
which polluted a good part of the Urals; the Windscale fire, the
worst nuclear accident in the UK's history; back to the USSR with
Chernobyl, the result of a flawed reactor design leading to the
exodus of 350,000 people; and, most recently, Fukushima in Japan,
triggered by an earthquake and a tsunami, a disaster on a par with
Chernobyl and whose clean-up will not take place in our lifetime.
Through the stories of these six terrifying incidents, Plokhy
explores the risks of nuclear power, both for military and peaceful
purposes, while offering a vivid account of how individuals and
governments make decisions under extraordinary circumstances.
Today, there are 440 nuclear reactors operating throughout the
world, with nuclear power providing 10 percent of global
electricity. Yet as the world seeks to reduce carbon emissions to
combat climate change, the question arises: Just how safe is
nuclear energy?
In early 2014, sparked by an assault by their government on
peaceful students, Ukrainians rose up against a deeply corrupt,
Moscow-backed regime. Initially demonstrating under the banner of
EU integration, the Maidan protesters proclaimed their right to a
dignified existence; they learned to organize, to act collectively,
to become a civil society. Most prominently, they established a new
Ukrainian identity: territorial, inclusive, and present-focused
with powerful mobilizing symbols. Driven by an urban bourgeoisie
that rejected the hierarchies of industrial society in favor of a
post-modern heterarchy, a previously passive post-Soviet country
experienced a profound social revolution that generated new senses:
Dignity and fairness became rallying cries for millions. Europe as
the symbolic target of political aspiration gradually faded, but
the impact (including on Europe) of Ukraines revolution remained.
When Russia invaded -- illegally annexing Crimea and then feeding
continuous military conflict in the Donbas -- Ukrainians responded
with a massive volunteer effort and touching patriotism. In the
process, they transformed their country, the region, and indeed the
world. This book provides a chronicle of Ukraines Maidan and
Russias ongoing war, and puts forth an analysis of the Revolution
of Dignity from the perspective of a participant observer.
The question of where Russian history ends and Ukrainian history
begins has not yet received a satisfactory answer. Generations of
historians referred to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, as the
starting point of the Muscovite dynasty, the Russian state, and,
ultimately, the Russian nation. However, the history of Kyiv and
that of the Scythians of the Northern Black Sea region have also
been claimed by Ukrainian historians, and are now regarded as
integral parts of the history of Ukraine. If these are actually the
beginnings of Ukrainian history, when does Russian history start?
In Ukraine and Russia, Serhii Plokhy discusses many questions
fundamental to the formation of modern Russian and Ukrainian
historical identity. He investigates the critical role of history
in the development of modern national identities and offers
historical and cultural insight into the current state of relations
between the two nations. Plokhy shows how history has been
constructed, used, and misused in order to justify the existence of
imperial and modern national projects, and how those projects have
influenced the interpretation of history in Russia and Ukraine.
This book makes important assertions not only about the conflicts
and negotiations inherent to opposing historiographic traditions,
but about ways of overcoming the limitations imposed by those
traditions.
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