Ukraine and Russia

by Serhii Plokhy

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.

Genres: History, Ukraine, Russia, Nonfiction

424 pages, Hardcover

First published April 5, 2008

About the author

Serhii Plokhy is a Ukrainian and American historian. Plokhy is currently the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, where he was also named Walter Channing Cabot Fellow in 2013. A leading authority on Eastern Europe, he has lived and taught in Ukraine, Canada, and the United States. He has published extensively in English, Ukrainian, and Russian. For three successive years (2002-2005) his books won first prize of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies.

For his Ukrainian-language profile, please see: Сергій Плохій

Reviews

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, published in 2008, looks at the issues of writing a history of Ukraine, and how history has contributed to national consciousness.

The weakness of the book is that it is a collection of essays, so there is a "start/stop" feeling to parts of the book (particularly the second half). However, the first four chapters/essays fit together very well as they trace the development of writing Ukrainian history. There are some essays that are very interesting (such as comparing and contrasting Ukrainian and Russian Cossacks) and others that are of interest only to specialists (such as how Soviet historians struggled to classify 17th Century events.)

I keep going back to the fact that this book was written in 2008. It anticipates in so many ways the current (2014-5) crisis in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. On wishes that someone in our government had read this book and thought about these issues, but one doubts it. Plokhy is relatively optimistic in this book. It shows how much can change in 7 years.

While this is certainly no book for those just starting to look at Ukrainian history, it is very useful for people who have a strong background in Russian-Ukrainian-Polish history.

[Brandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should probably not even mark this as read... "skimmed" is really more like it. And only the second half. Another book for my research project, very little was useful for me - I only took one page of notes. Once again, however, I found myself very interested in most of the subject matter. The chapters are rather disjointed, organized both topically and chronologically, with each chapter basically comprising it's own, separate essay. I did accidentally read the entirety of chapter 12, on the Yalta Conference, even though it is not exactly relevant to my research. I made a note to track this book down again later and possibly do more reading on Yalta - super interesting stuff!