Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine

by Anna Reid (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $4.87

  The Ukraine is one of the most neglected countries in the world. It has a population of 52 million - larger than Britain's - and a land mass the size of France; it also has Chernobyl, and after Russia is the largest nuclear power. The word 'Ukraine' means 'borderland' and for most of its history the lands that make up present-day Ukraine have been a collection of other countries' border regions. Prior to Stalinism and Nazism, Ukraine was ethnically extremely diverse, including Russians, Poles, Jews, Greeks and Armenians. Their ghosts linger in language, literature, and architecture, quite distinct from Russia's.

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.27

  Borderland tells the story of Ukraine. A thousand years ago it was the center of the first great Slav civilization, Kievan Rus. In 1240, the Mongols invaded from the east, and for the next seven centureies, Ukraine was split between warring neighbors: Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Austrians, and Tatars. Again and again, borderland turned into battlefield: during the Cossack risings of the seventeenth century, Russias wars with Sweden in the eighteenth, the Civil War of 19181920, and under Nazi occupation. Ukraine finally won independence in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bigger than France and a populous as Britain, it has the potential to become one of the most powerful states in Europe. In this finely written and penetrating book, Anna Reid combines research and her own experiences to chart Ukraines tragic past. Talking to peasants and politicians, rabbis and racketeers, dissidents and paramilitaries, survivors of Stalins famine and of Nazi labor camps, she reveals the layers of myth and propaganda that wrap this divided land. From the Polish churches of Lviv to the coal mines of the Russian-speaking Donbass, from the Galician shtetlech to the Tatar shantytowns of Crimea, the book explores Ukraines struggle to build itself a national identity, and identity that faces up to a bloody past, and embraces all the peoples within its borders.