Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine

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A saga of technical incompetence and irresponsibility, of bureaucratic sloth, mendacity and plain contempt for human life, that Chernobyl affair epitomised everything that was wrong with the Soviet Union. At the beginning of the chapter Anna Reid speaks about a meeting with Ukrainian friends in London and her bewilderment how they spoke about funding the Ukrainian army through private donations. With the first of Stalin purges this period of – limited – openness to Ukrainian language and identity came to an end.

But in what form it will emerge from the war – the bloodiest in Europe since 1945 – remains to be seen. Anna Reid also mentions that “better-off reservists could avoid being sent to Chernobyl altogether by paying bribes. As I see it, A good history of Ukraine aknowledges the following 3 things that Ukraine is, 3 things that Ukraine is not and 3 things as not important.This book takes the reader on a fascinating and often violent odyssey, spanning more than 1,000 years of conflict and culture. From the Polish churches of Lviv to the coal mines of the Donbass to the Tatar shantytowns of Crimea, the book explores Ukraine’s struggle to build itself a national identity.

She mentions that there was a whole room full of Yanukovich portraits – “in beaten metal, dried beans, tapestry, porcelain and amber. It provides a chronological account of what happened in the two decades after the first edition and provides an extra 60 pages for the second edition taking us up to February 2015. In the spring of 2014, Russia responded by invading Crimea and sponsoring a civil war in the Russian-speaking Donbass. At beginning of the Second World War Ukraine’s Jewish population was about 3 million people (roughly 8% of the population). Anna Reid explains that the growth into a mass movement happened because of the violent handling of the protests through the government.

Killing more people than the First World War on all sides put together, the famine of 1932–3 was, and still is, one of the most under-reported atrocities of human history, a fact that contributes powerfully to Ukraine’s persistent sense of victimisation. Dużym plusem tego wydania jest jego druga część weryfikująca przewidywania autorki z lat 90 po upadku Związku Sowieckiego, choć części tej jest już dużo bliżej do typowego reportażu. On 20 February the police used snipers from the roofs of several public buildings and shot in the group of protesters. He became in 1846 a member of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius which had the utopian plan to abolish serfdom and monarchy and form a democratic federation lead by Ukraine. I thought to publish this blog post today on 24 August is particularly appropriate for two reasons: It is six months after Russia invaded Ukraine and today is День Незалежності України (Ukraine’s Independence Day).

These centuries in Ukraine’s history are a reason for the great debate whether Ukraine belongs to Europe, like Poland or is closer aligned to Russia. Reid captures this time and its people so well – the peasant women in the covered market, the old men playing chess in I ndependent S quare. I note that a number of comments, and reviews, on Goodreads are scathing about the book and its lack of in depth analysis (and accuracy). The most convincing explanation for the famine is that it was a deliberate, genocidal attack on rural Ukraine.Her first (and I hope not her last) book is a noble and praiseworthy attempt to correct this gross historical injustice. Photographs (some cooked up by Soviet propagandists,) show smiling Galician peasants running out of their houses to welcome the Panzer crews with bread and salt. By 1933, when forced grain collections ended, one-fifth of the rural population (five million people) were dead. Also in 2015 countries of the European Union provided Ukraine with money to help the economy, but they did not deliver weapons and Poroshenko, even so grateful for the humanitarian aid, mentioned that Ukraine could not “win the war with blankets”. Ukraine was hit hard with deaths because Russia was much more indoctrinated with 10X the party members than Ukraine had, and a loyalty lesson had to be taught by the famed sociopath who would later give Ned Flanders his moustache.