What do you think?
Rate this book
Die Frontlinie. Warum die Ukraine zum Schauplatz eines neuen Ost-West-Konflikts wurde
'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.
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.
544 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2021
29 people are currently reading
185 people want to read
About the author
Serhii Plokhy
47 books943 followersSerhii 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
For his Ukrainian-language profile, please see: Сергій Плохій
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 16, 2025
Ukrainians could not have wished for anyone better able to explain the history and plight of their amazing country to the rest of the world than Serhii Plokhy. These essays are a great companion to his earlier books "The Gates of Europe" and "Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy" and are an essential read to everyone seeking to increase their knowledge on the most relevant and fascinating European nation today.
April 6, 2022
In January 2010, a Ukrainian court ruled on the criminal responsibility of the Soviet leadership for the Holodomor—the Great Ukrainian Famine of 1932–33-and found Joseph Stalin and his associates guilty of causing the death of close to four million Ukrainian citizens.
This collection of 21 essays was published in 2021 by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) which was established in 1973 to support researchers and scholars in projects related to all aspects of Ukrainian studies. Most of these essays have been written and published in the last decade, a period of turmoil in Eastern Europe. The impetus for assembling this collection began with the 2013 Maidan Revolution (aka the Revolution of Dignity) as well as increasing public interest in more recent events in Ukraine. From the introduction: "As many of the essays show, history is central to Ukraine’s current war with Russia and its relations with the West."
The works are intended to show how history and culture relate to present events and future possibilities for the Ukrainian people. Trying to find historical connections among them is another goal of this collection. The essays cover the historical period from the rise of the Cossacks and princes to present times. Certain founding mythologies have been widely embraced but should be more closely examined for historical truth: the Cossack foundations, the Pereiaslav mythology that has been used to justify Russian domination of Ukraine, the rebellion of hetman Ivan Mazepa who was labelled a traitor but may actually have been a patriot.
There are several essays on the bloody and destructive events of the twentieth century that still resonate with the Ukrainian people today, from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Great Famine of 1932-1933, the invasions of the Second World War, to the fall of the USSR. During much of the 20th century Ukraine suffered terribly under both wartime destruction and the evils of the Stalinist regime.
The post-conflict Cold War also ended the ethno-nationalism that Stalin had used to claim territories with Ukrainian populations. Rather, the ethnic diasporas abroad were rebranded as dangerous tools of imperialist powers used to infiltrate and corrupt the Soviet regime. Soviet citizens were generally prevented from having contact with non-Soviets and there was even a law between 1947 and 1953 prohibiting marriage between Soviets and foreigners.
The Chornobyl nuclear accident in April 1986 marked a major turning point in the relationship between Ukrainian citizens and the Soviet communist regime. This disaster exposed the USSR as being reckless with nuclear energy and dishonest about the radiation dangers to Ukraine and the rest of Europe. It has since been discovered that Russia had experienced two previous nuclear reactor accidents, the first in 1957 and another in 1975, neither of which were ever made public by the communist regime.
Mikhail Gorbachev later claimed that Chornobyl had changed him. More importantly, it changed Soviet society as a whole. The policy of glasnost, or openness, which gave the media and citizens the right to discuss political and social problems and criticize the authorities, had its origins in the post-Chornobyl days.
There are some excellent maps in the center of the book, both ancient cartography and modern info-graphics representing "memory spaces" across the country. They illustrate the extent (or lack of) several correlations among political parties, attitudes towards Leninist monuments, the severity of the Holodomor, and geography of the oblasts, et al. (Somebody needs to run regressions on some of the map data to identify correlations more precisely. Maps aren't always the best tool for data visualizations.)
The conflict in the Donbas region is a result of Putin wanting a puppet state as a buffer between itself and NATO. This is a political habit carried over from the Russian Empire and Soviet Russia. It was previously achieved by the 18th century partition of Poland and the partitioning of Germany after WW II. In Ukraine, Russia seeks to establish a "frozen conflict" enclave as a partition against the West. And of course they want to extract this buffer area from Ukraine instead of establishing it inside their own borders.
Before the end of the [most recent] decade, Ukraine underwent a process of radical decommunization driven at least in part by the incompatibility of post-Soviet historical narratives that presented the Soviet period in a predominantly positive light and the Holodomor narrative, which portrayed the Soviet regime as a genocidal monstrosity.
Russia is making a big mistake in trying to reassemble the empire based on language and linguistics rather than a modern model of political values. It will not solve its identity crisis with a shooting war. The concept of a monolithic identity based on values of ethnicity, language, and religion will not succeed in a multiethnic and multicultural nation like Ukraine. Ukraine (rightfully) perceives Russia as a potential threat to its national values and survival. Of course this explains why Ukraine wants EU membership, not solely as an economic union but as a counterweight to Russia. The essays on recent negotiations with the EU are particularly enlightening as they expose a disappointing lack of engagement with Ukraine as a new European democracy.
I appreciated this collection for its variety, scope, and current relevance. In the West we are all trying to understand the Russo-Ukraine conflict which to outsiders seems unnecessary. These essays are very beneficial for better understanding motivations of the combatants.
I like two particular things about reading thIs work. First, the essay format was easy to read and shorter pieces are easier to digest. Second, the chapters don't need to be read sequentially so you can read them randomly or choose what order to read them.
I also recommend Professor Plokhy's book The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine and Anne Applebaum's Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine, 1921-1933 for those who desire a more in-depth and expansive chronicle of the consequential past events that were the building blocks of modern Ukraine.
The solution to the Russian question lies not in territorial expansion but in the formation of a law-based democratic society capable of living in harmony with its neighbors and playing a positive role in the modern world.
[The kindle ebook text ends at the 95% point, followed by an Index.]
This collection of 21 essays was published in 2021 by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) which was established in 1973 to support researchers and scholars in projects related to all aspects of Ukrainian studies. Most of these essays have been written and published in the last decade, a period of turmoil in Eastern Europe. The impetus for assembling this collection began with the 2013 Maidan Revolution (aka the Revolution of Dignity) as well as increasing public interest in more recent events in Ukraine. From the introduction: "As many of the essays show, history is central to Ukraine’s current war with Russia and its relations with the West."
The works are intended to show how history and culture relate to present events and future possibilities for the Ukrainian people. Trying to find historical connections among them is another goal of this collection. The essays cover the historical period from the rise of the Cossacks and princes to present times. Certain founding mythologies have been widely embraced but should be more closely examined for historical truth: the Cossack foundations, the Pereiaslav mythology that has been used to justify Russian domination of Ukraine, the rebellion of hetman Ivan Mazepa who was labelled a traitor but may actually have been a patriot.
There are several essays on the bloody and destructive events of the twentieth century that still resonate with the Ukrainian people today, from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Great Famine of 1932-1933, the invasions of the Second World War, to the fall of the USSR. During much of the 20th century Ukraine suffered terribly under both wartime destruction and the evils of the Stalinist regime.
The post-conflict Cold War also ended the ethno-nationalism that Stalin had used to claim territories with Ukrainian populations. Rather, the ethnic diasporas abroad were rebranded as dangerous tools of imperialist powers used to infiltrate and corrupt the Soviet regime. Soviet citizens were generally prevented from having contact with non-Soviets and there was even a law between 1947 and 1953 prohibiting marriage between Soviets and foreigners.
The Chornobyl nuclear accident in April 1986 marked a major turning point in the relationship between Ukrainian citizens and the Soviet communist regime. This disaster exposed the USSR as being reckless with nuclear energy and dishonest about the radiation dangers to Ukraine and the rest of Europe. It has since been discovered that Russia had experienced two previous nuclear reactor accidents, the first in 1957 and another in 1975, neither of which were ever made public by the communist regime.
Mikhail Gorbachev later claimed that Chornobyl had changed him. More importantly, it changed Soviet society as a whole. The policy of glasnost, or openness, which gave the media and citizens the right to discuss political and social problems and criticize the authorities, had its origins in the post-Chornobyl days.
There are some excellent maps in the center of the book, both ancient cartography and modern info-graphics representing "memory spaces" across the country. They illustrate the extent (or lack of) several correlations among political parties, attitudes towards Leninist monuments, the severity of the Holodomor, and geography of the oblasts, et al. (Somebody needs to run regressions on some of the map data to identify correlations more precisely. Maps aren't always the best tool for data visualizations.)
The conflict in the Donbas region is a result of Putin wanting a puppet state as a buffer between itself and NATO. This is a political habit carried over from the Russian Empire and Soviet Russia. It was previously achieved by the 18th century partition of Poland and the partitioning of Germany after WW II. In Ukraine, Russia seeks to establish a "frozen conflict" enclave as a partition against the West. And of course they want to extract this buffer area from Ukraine instead of establishing it inside their own borders.
Before the end of the [most recent] decade, Ukraine underwent a process of radical decommunization driven at least in part by the incompatibility of post-Soviet historical narratives that presented the Soviet period in a predominantly positive light and the Holodomor narrative, which portrayed the Soviet regime as a genocidal monstrosity.
Russia is making a big mistake in trying to reassemble the empire based on language and linguistics rather than a modern model of political values. It will not solve its identity crisis with a shooting war. The concept of a monolithic identity based on values of ethnicity, language, and religion will not succeed in a multiethnic and multicultural nation like Ukraine. Ukraine (rightfully) perceives Russia as a potential threat to its national values and survival. Of course this explains why Ukraine wants EU membership, not solely as an economic union but as a counterweight to Russia. The essays on recent negotiations with the EU are particularly enlightening as they expose a disappointing lack of engagement with Ukraine as a new European democracy.
I appreciated this collection for its variety, scope, and current relevance. In the West we are all trying to understand the Russo-Ukraine conflict which to outsiders seems unnecessary. These essays are very beneficial for better understanding motivations of the combatants.
I like two particular things about reading thIs work. First, the essay format was easy to read and shorter pieces are easier to digest. Second, the chapters don't need to be read sequentially so you can read them randomly or choose what order to read them.
I also recommend Professor Plokhy's book The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine and Anne Applebaum's Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine, 1921-1933 for those who desire a more in-depth and expansive chronicle of the consequential past events that were the building blocks of modern Ukraine.
The solution to the Russian question lies not in territorial expansion but in the formation of a law-based democratic society capable of living in harmony with its neighbors and playing a positive role in the modern world.
[The kindle ebook text ends at the 95% point, followed by an Index.]
August 1, 2025
Ich will dem Auto nicht Unrecht tun und habe lange zwischen 3 und 4 Sternen geschwankt. Es ist ein wirklich interessantes Buch, das einen wahnsinnig hilfreichen und detaillierten Aufriss über die Entstehungsgeschichte, Konfliktlinien und Hintergründe der Situation der Ukraine und den Herrschaftsanspruch Russlands gibt. Aber es mutet weit populärwissenschaftlicher an, als es ist. Sehr viel ist super verständlich, nachvollziehbar und steht in direkter Verbindung zum (wahrgenommenen) Ziel des Buches. Immer wieder verrennt der Autor sich aber massiv in akademische Diskussionen, beispielsweise zu Wort- und Namensherkünften und Definition, die das Verständnis des gesamten Themas minimal bis gar nicht voranbringen. Vielleicht zielt das Buch stellenweise auf ein anderes Publikum ab - ich bin im Prinzip sehr interessiert, die Querverweise und akademischen Grundsatzdiskussionen sowie die zu detaillierte Nacherzählungen von Historikerstreits waren mir in Summe aber zu viel.
Das Buch eignet sich aber sehr gut dazu, sich einzelne Themen genauer anzuschauen. Das gesamte Buch ist kapitelweise essayistisch aufgebaut und eigent sich daher für Cherrypicking.
Das Buch eignet sich aber sehr gut dazu, sich einzelne Themen genauer anzuschauen. Das gesamte Buch ist kapitelweise essayistisch aufgebaut und eigent sich daher für Cherrypicking.
August 26, 2023
Sehr interessantes Buch, um einen Überblick der Situation in der Ukraine zu erhalten. Dem Autor gelingt es hervorragend, die geschichtliche Entwicklung und Entstehung der Ukraine darzustellen. Gerade das ambivalente Verhältnis zu Russland wird dabei deutlich.
Teilweise hat das Buch ein paar Längen. Das ist der Tatsache geschuldet, dass es sich hier um eine Aneinanderreihung wissenschafftlicher Essays handelt. Bisweilen wirkt es dadurch auch etwas redundant.
Nichtsdestotrotz habe ich nach der Lektüre des Buches das Gefühl, ein wesentlich besseres Verständnis der Vorgänge und möglicher weiterer Entwicklungen in der Ukraine zu haben. Damit hat das Buch genau das erreicht, was ich mir erwartet und erhofft hatte.
Teilweise hat das Buch ein paar Längen. Das ist der Tatsache geschuldet, dass es sich hier um eine Aneinanderreihung wissenschafftlicher Essays handelt. Bisweilen wirkt es dadurch auch etwas redundant.
Nichtsdestotrotz habe ich nach der Lektüre des Buches das Gefühl, ein wesentlich besseres Verständnis der Vorgänge und möglicher weiterer Entwicklungen in der Ukraine zu haben. Damit hat das Buch genau das erreicht, was ich mir erwartet und erhofft hatte.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews