The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine

by Serhii Plokhy

Overview

"An exemplary account of Europe's least-known large country" (Wall Street Journal) by an award-winning historian.

Ukraine is currently embroiled in a tense fight with Russia to preserve its territorial integrity and political independence. But today's conflict is only the latest in a long history of battles over Ukraine's territory and its existence as a sovereign nation. As the award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues in The Gates of Europe, we must examine Ukraine's past in order to understand its present and future.

Situated between Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, Ukraine was shaped by the empires that used it as a strategic gateway between East and West—from the Roman and Ottoman empires to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. For centuries, Ukraine has been a meeting place of various cultures. The mixing of sedentary and nomadic peoples and Christianity and Islam on the steppe borderland produced the class of ferocious warriors known as the Cossacks, for example, while the encounter between the Catholic and Orthodox churches created a religious tradition that bridges Western and Eastern Christianity. Ukraine has also been a home to millions of Jews, serving as the birthplace of Hassidism—and as one of the killing fields of the Holocaust.

Plokhy examines the history of Ukraine's search for its identity through the lives of the major figures in Ukrainian history: Prince Yaroslav the Wise of Kyiv, whose daughter Anna became queen of France; the Cossack ruler Ivan Mazepa, who was immortalized in the poems of Byron and Pushkin; Nikita Khrushchev and his protege-turned-nemesis Leonid Brezhnev, who called Ukraine their home; and the heroes of the Maidan protests of 2013 and 2014, who embody the current struggle over Ukraine's future.

As Plokhy explains, today's crisis is a tragic case of history repeating itself, as Ukraine once again finds itself in the center of the battle of global proportions. An authoritative history of this vital country, The Gates of Europe provides a unique insight into the origins of the most dangerous international crisis since the end of the Cold War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541675643
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	05/25/2021
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	33,994
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard and the director of the university’s Ukrainian Research Institute. The author of numerous books, including the award-winning The Last Empire, for which he received the Lionel Gelber Prize, and Chernobyl, the recipient of the Baillie Gifford Prize, Plokhy lives in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

I. ON THE PONTIC FRONTIER
1. The Edugeo f the World
2. The Advent of the Slavs
3. Vikings on the Dnieper
4. Byzantium North
5. The Keys to Kyiv
6. Pax Mongolica

II. EAST MEETS WEST
7. The Making of Ukraine
8. The Cossacks
9. Eastern Reformation
10. The Great Revolt
11. The Partitions
12. The Verdict of Poltava

III. BETWEEN THE EMPIRES
13. The New Frontiers
14. The Books of the Genesis
15. The Porous Border
16. On the Move
17. The Unfinished Revolution

IV. THE WARS OF THE WORLD
18. The Birth of a Nation
19. A Shattered Dream
20. Communism and Nationalism
21. Stalin's Fortress
22. Hitler's Lebensraum
23. The Victors

V. THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE
24. The Second Soviet Republic
25. Good Bye, Lenin!
26. The Independence Square
27. The Price of Freedom

Epilogue: The Meanings of History

Editorial Reviews

"[An] exemplary account of Europe's least-known large country... one of the joys of reading the The Gates of Europe is that what might seem a dense account of distant events involving unfamiliar places and people is leavened by aphorism and anecdote."—Wall Street Journal

"An assured and authoritative survey that spans ancient Greek times to the present day."—Financial Times

"Readers can find no better place to turn than Plokhy's new book.... Plokhy navigates the subject with grace and aplomb."—Foreign Affairs

"[An] admirable new history.... In his elegant and careful exposition of Ukraine's past, Mr. Plokhy has also provided some signposts to the future."—Economist

"Elegantly written."—New York Review of Books

"The timeframe and subjects covered here are extraordinary...students, academics, and readers with a general knowledge of Ukraine will appreciate. Alternatively, chapters can be read independently, allowing those with a strong interest in the subject to focus on a specific era of Ukraine's history."—Library Journal

"Injecting appropriate nuance and complexity into a single-volume overview of 2,000 years of Ukrainian history is no small task, but Plokhy approaches this charge with dexterity and skill.... Plokhy's work serves as a welcome introduction to Ukraine's ethnic and national history."—Publishers Weekly

"[A] concise, highly readable history of Ukraine...a lively narrative peopled with a colorful cast of Norse and Mongol marauders, free-booting Cossacks, kings, conquerors and dictators, and conflicted 19th century intellectuals who believed fervently in a Ukrainian cultural identity but were fatally divided as to how that cultural identity could evolve into national entity."—Washington Times

"A masterly surveyor of Ukrainian history."—Independent (UK)

"A sympathetic survey of the history of Ukraine along the East-West divide, from ancient divisions to present turmoil.... A straightforward, useful work that looks frankly at Ukraine's ongoing "price of freedom" against the rapacious, destabilizing force of Russia."—Kirkus Reviews

 “Complex and nuanced, refreshingly revisionist and lucid, this is a compelling and outstanding short history of the blood-soaked land that has so often been the battlefield and breadbasket of Europe.”—Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

"This is present-minded history at its most urgent. Anyone wanting to understand why Russia and the West confront each other over the future of Ukraine will want to read Serhii Plokhy's reasoned, measured yet passionate account of Ukraine's historic role at the gates of Europe."—Michael Ignatieff, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

"For a comprehensive, engaging, and up-to-date history of Ukraine one could do no better than Serhii Plokhy's aptly titled The Gates of Europe. Plokhy's authoritative study will be of great value to scholars, students, policy-makers, and the informed public alike in making sense of the contemporary Ukrainian imbroglio."—Norman M. Naimark, Stanford University

From the Publisher

10/26/2015
Injecting appropriate nuance and complexity into a single-volume overview of 2,000 years of Ukrainian history is no small task, but Plokhy (The Last Empire), the Mykhailo Hrushevsky professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University, approaches this charge with dexterity and skill. Plokhy’s analysis is a comprehensive narrative, touching upon the myriad factors that figured into the establishment of the Ukrainian state and a Ukrainian national identity. He also introduces readers to the seemingly endless barrage of threats to both of these constructs, from without as well as within. Plokhy’s strongest inquiry may well be in his epilogue, where he engages the forces of history at play regarding the most recent bout of political instability gripping Ukraine. He asserts that the Russian “annexation” of Crimea, as well as Russian support of so-called separatist movements crippling the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, are continuations of a centuries-old narrative, the roots of which are evident throughout his discussion of the tenuous historical relationship between the two countries. Though interested readers must look elsewhere for deeper examinations of Ukraine’s role in European and world history, Plokhy’s work serves as a welcome introduction to Ukraine’s ethnic and national history. Maps. Agent: Jill Kneerim, Kneerim, Williams, and Bloom. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

A comprehensive, unbiased history.”

Winnipeg Free Press (Canada)

Plokhy’s authoritative study will be of great value to scholars, students, policy-makers, and the informed public alike in making sense of the contemporary Ukrainian imbroglio.”

Stanford University Norman M. Naimark

Narrator Ralph Lister has an impressively large British-accented voice that leads listeners through the text with insistence.”

AudioFile

No one can understand today’s sad, tangled confrontation over Ukraine without some knowledge of the complex, crosscutting influences that have shaped eastern Europe over the millennia. For that history, readers can find no better place to turn than Plokhy.”

Foreign Affairs

10/15/2015
At different points in its history the Swedes, Hapsburgs, Vikings, Huns, Mongols, Russians, Germans, Poles, and the Ottoman Empire ruled parts of Ukraine. Plokhy (history, Harvard Univ.; The Last Empire) expertly covers the complicated and dizzying history of Ukraine, starting when Neanderthals first arrived in the area, and discusses what it means to be Ukrainian. The early beginnings of Kyivian-Rus can be difficult to follow, featuring an ever-changing group of players and territory; an included historical time line provides perspective. Religious, linguistic, and cultural influences that impacted the development of Ukrainian identity are explored, as are the devastating famines, atrocious wars, and politics that influenced everything from independence to the Orange Revolution and the recent Revolution of Dignity. VERDICT The timeframe and subjects covered here are extraordinary; although this is more an overall survey than an in-depth resource, students, academics, and readers with a general knowledge of Ukraine will appreciate. Alternatively, chapters can be read independently, allowing those with a strong interest in the subject to focus on a specific era of Ukraine's history.—Zebulin Evelhoch, Central Washington Univ. Lib.

Library Journal

At a time when events in Ukraine are at the center of world events, an audiobook on its remarkable history is welcome. The book serves as a repository of sober analysis that counteracts the conflicting narratives put forth by both Ukrainian nationalists and the Russian government of Vladimir Putin. Narrator Ralph Lister has an impressively large British-accented voice that leads listeners through the text with insistence. However, his performance overshadows the text. Because he emphasizes everything he reads, we lose perspective and context regarding the extraordinary history of this nation. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2016 - AudioFile

2015-09-02
A sympathetic survey of the history of Ukraine along the East-West divide, from ancient divisions to present turmoil. That the Ukrainian national anthem begins with the words "Ukraine has not yet perished" is a telling depiction of the country's riven history, as patiently, chronologically delineated by Plokhy (Ukrainian History/Harvard Univ.; The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union, 2014, etc.). The author balances a sense of the diversity and richness of the Ukrainian heritage—the remarkable comingling of early nomads and barbaric invaders through the lands north of the Black Sea—with the later appropriation by Russia. The early migrants who stayed were the Slavs, whose tribes settled along the rivers Dnieper, Dniester, and others and formed the predecessors of today's Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians. The Vikings named the land Rus', giving way to a new relationship with its southern neighbor, the Byzantium capital, Constantinople, and beginning the long process of embracing Christianization. Political consolidation from the 10th to the mid-13th centuries was shattered by the Mongolian invasion in 1240, which underscored for the first time the tension between choosing the East (Byzantium) or the West (the pope). With the rise of princely kingdoms, Plokhy emphasizes the significance of the Cossack raids in the 16th century, leading to an alliance with Muscovy princes in 1654, a watershed moment that would henceforth see the division of Ukraine along the Dnieper between Muscovy and Poland. The rise of Ukrainian nationalism grew in the 19th century, and the author explores the industrial age and its concomitant revolutions, pogroms, dictators, and world wars. The Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in 1986 underscored discontent with Moscow. This awakening of national sentiment would snowball over the years until independence was officially established on Dec. 1, 1991. Plokhy also includes a helpful historical timeline from 45,000 B.C.E. and a "Who's Who in Ukrainian History." A straightforward, useful work that looks frankly at Ukraine's ongoing "price of freedom" against the rapacious, destabilizing force of Russia.

Kirkus Reviews