Old Ukraine

For decades, Ukrainian contacts with the outside world were minimal, impeded by politics, ideology, and geography. But prior to the Soviet period the country enjoyed diverse exchanges with, on the one hand, its Islamic neighbours, the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire, and, on the other, its central and western European neighbours, especially Poland and France. Thomas Prymak addresses geographical knowledge, international travel, political conflicts, historical relations with religiously diverse neighbours, artistic developments, and literary and language contacts to smash old stereotypes about Ukrainian isolation and tell a vivid and original story. The book treats a wide range of subjects, including Ukrainian travellers in the Middle East, from pilgrims to the Holy Land to political exiles in Turkey and Iran; Tatar slave raiding in Ukraine; the poetry of Taras Shevchenko and the Russian war against Imam Shamil in the High Caucasus; Ukrainian themes and the French writers Honoré de Balzac and Prosper Mérimée; Rembrandt's mysterious painting today titled The Polish Rider; and Ilya Repin's legendary painting of the Zaporozhian Cossacks writing their satirical letter mocking the Turkish sultan. Drawing together political and cultural history, languages and etymology, and folklore and art history, Ukraine, the Middle East, and the West is an original interdisciplinary study that reintroduces Ukraine's long-overlooked connections beyond Eastern Europe.

Dotyczy m. in. Kresów wschodnich Rzeczypospolitej.

A New York Times bestseller, this definitive history of Ukraine is “an exemplary account of Europe’s least-known large country” (Wall Street Journal). As Ukraine is embroiled in an ongoing struggle with Russia to preserve its territorial integrity and political independence, celebrated historian Serhii Plokhy explains that today’s crisis is a case of history repeating itself: the Ukrainian conflict is only the latest in a long history of turmoil over Ukraine’s sovereignty. Situated between Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, Ukraine has been shaped by empires that exploited the nation as a strategic gateway between East and West—from the Romans and Ottomans to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. In The Gates of Europe, Plokhy examines Ukraine’s search for its identity through the lives of major Ukrainian historical figures, from its heroes to its conquerors. This revised edition includes new material that brings this definitive history up to the present. As Ukraine once again finds itself at the center of global attention, Plokhy brings its history to vivid life as he connects the nation’s past with its present and future.

There are few lands upon the whole globe so imperfectly known to geographic science as the one which we shall try to describe in this little work. The geographic concept of the Ukraine does not exist in the geography of today. Even the name has been almost forgotten in Europe in the course of the last century and a half. Only occasionally on some maps of Eastern Europe the name “Ukraine” shows timidly along the middle of the Dnieper. And yet it is an old name of the country, originating in the 11th Century, generally known thruout Europe from the 16th to the end of the 18th century, and then, after the abrogation of the autonomy of the second Ukrainian state, gradually fallen into oblivion. The Russian Government has determined to erase the old name of the land and the nation from the map of Europe. Little Russia, West Russia, South Russia, New Russia, were officially introduced in place of the old name Ukraine, the Austrian part of the Ukraine receiving the name of East Galicia. The people were named Little Russians, South Russians, Ruthenians, and all remembrance of the old name seemed to have been blotted out. But, in the speech of the people and in the magnificent unwritten popular literature of the nation, the name of the land could not be destroyed, and, with the unexpected rise of Ukrainian literature, culture, and a feeling of national political independence in the 19th Century, the name Ukraine came into its own again. Today there is not an intelligent patriotic Ukrainian who would use another name for his country and nation than Ukraine and Ukrainian, and, slowly, these designations are penetrating foreign lands as well. The Ukraine is the land in which the Ukrainian nation dwells—a great solid national territory embracing all the southern part of Russia in Europe, besides East Galicia, Northwest Bukowina and Northeast Hungary. This district is a definite geographic unit. A discussion of its exact boundaries shall be reserved for the anthropogeographical part of this book. A division of Europe into natural regions almost invariably stops at Eastern Europe. While all the other portions of our globe have long been the object of the most detailed classification, Eastern Europe remains, as before, an undivided whole. To be sure, there have been many attempts at classification, but they are all based upon a non-geographical point of view. Only the Baltic provinces and Poland are, in their present political extent, regarded as possible geographic units.

This timely study provides a clear analysis of both the domestic and foreign policies and security issues confronting RussiaOs largest and most important neighbor during its first decade as an independent state. Roman Solchanyk emphasizes throughout the book, the complex, centuries-old Ukrainian-Russian relationship, which is so central that the ORussian questionO plays the determining role in UkraineOs foreign and domestic politics. In turn, the policy choices of UkraineOs leaders influence the direction of RussiaOs own transformation. The book opens with a conceptual framework that addresses the key issues of the Ukrainian-Russian relationship. The initial chapters illustrate how relations between Kyiv and Moscow changed_in the final analysis, dramatically_under the conditions of a crumbling and ultimately collapsing Soviet state. This is followed by a discussion of how the ORussian questionO influences UkraineOs internal developments_political, social, and economic_as well as its behavior in the international arena. The concluding chapters focus specifically on Crimea, a microcosm of the Ukrainian-Russian relationship. Basing his argument on a wealth of primary source material, the author argues that the success of both UkraineOs and RussiaOs nation- and state-building projects will be largely determined by the normalization of their historically conditioned relationship. Indeed, success or failure will profoundly influence the direction of regional and European foreign policy and security.

In 1988, the first edition of Orest Subtelny's Ukraine was published to international acclaim, as the definitive history of what was at that time a republic in the USSR. In the years since, the world has seen the dismantling of the Soviet bloc and the restoration of Ukraine's independence - an event celebrated by Ukrainians around the world but which also heralded a time of tumultuous change for those in the homeland. While previous updates brought readers up to the year 2000, this new fourth edition includes an overview of Ukraine's most recent history, focusing on the dramatic political, socio-economic, and cultural changes that occurred during the Kuchma and Yushchenko presidencies. It analyzes political developments - particularly the so-called Orange Revolution - and the institutional growth of the new state. Subtelny examines Ukraine's entry into the era of globalization, looking at social and economic transformations, regional, ideological, and linguistic tensions, and describes the myriad challenges currently facing Ukrainian state and society.