Serhii Plokhy, Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University, has published a new book. No surprise there. Hardly a year goes by without a new publication authored by Dr. Plokhy. The title of his newest monograph is “Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine.”
“Located at the western edge of the Eurasian steppe,” writes the author, “Ukraine has been a gateway to Europe for many centuries.” Serving as “a bridge between Europe and Eurasia,” Ukraine is part of the European story.
Tracing Ukraine’s fascinating history from the time of the ancient Greek settlements to the Maidan, this 395-page treatise is not an academic monograph. Suggested further readings are offered, but there are no footnotes. Maps, a historical timetable and a who’s who of major players are included. This is a book for the average reader.
Prof. Plokhy’s monograph is divided into five sections: “On the Pontic Frontier” addresses the advent of the Slavs, the rise of Kyiv and what the author has labeled “Pax Mongolia.” Significant here are the differences that existed between the 13th century Mongol rule of Ukraine and the Mongol rule of Russia. “In Ukraine, ruled by Galician and Volynian princes, the Mongols were less intrusive and oppressive than they were in Russia… a difference that would have a profound impact on the fates of two lands and the people who settled them.”
Konstiatyn Ostrozky, an influential prince in western Ukraine, is featured in the second section, titled “East Meets West.” At the end of the 16th century, Ostrozky presided over a huge personal empire that included 40 castles, 1,000 towns and 13,000 villages, all owned by the prince.” Vehemently opposed to Orthodox Union with Rome but aware of the relative shortcomings of Orthodox scholarship, the prince assembled a team of scholars in the town of Ostrih, where they established an academy and published the Ostrih Bible. By the late 16th century, Ostrih “became perhaps the most important center of Orthodox learning.” Today, this tradition of academic excellence is being continued at the National University of Ostroh Academy.
We further learn that “The absolute majority of Cossacks [Kozaks] were Ukrainians who came from the huge manorial estates to avoid what historians call the ‘second serfdom.’ ” We are introduced to the Ukrainian girl Roksolana who became the wife of the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent. Four noteworthy hetmans claim center stage during this period: Bohdan Khmelnytsky, whose “vision for the Cossack state was one of territorial expansion”; Ivan Vyhovsky, hero of the Battle of Konotop, during which the Muscovite army was routed; Petro Doroshenko, who attempted to unite Left- and Right-Bank Ukraine; and the ill-fated Ivan Mazepa, whose capital city, Baturyn, was destroyed by Muscovites who “massacred over 10,000 defenders and citizens, including women and children,” in the process.
The third section, “Between the Empires,” focuses on a Ukraine squeezed between two empires, struggling to maintain its identity. Napoleon ‘s armies stir local national feelings and in Ukraine, “language, folklore and… history became building blocks of a modern national identity.” We meet Ivan Kotliarevsky, who wrote in the Ukrainian vernacular, the inestimable poet Taras Shevchenko and the historian Mykola Kostomarov in eastern Ukraine.
In western Ukraine, meanwhile, life under the Habsburgs is relatively productive. We have the rise of the Prosvita (Enlighten-ment) Society and the emergence of the Ruthenian Triad led by Father Markian Shashkevych, “founder of Ukrainian literature in Galicia.” Ukrainian publications begin filtering into Moscow-controlled eastern Ukraine, alarming the tsar.
In 1839, Moscow convenes a church council that declares “the reunification of the Uniates with the Russian Orthodox Church.” This leads to the “Orthodoxiation” of former Uniates, followed by their cultural Russification. In 1876, the tsar issues an ukase prohibiting the importing of Ukrainian-language publications from abroad, echoing an earlier decree by the Russian minister of education, Pyotr Valuev, asserting that “there was not, is not and cannot be any special Little Russian language.”
In the fourth section, titled “The Wars of the World,” we read that in “[Symon] Petliura’s mind, attacking Jews was equivalent to betraying Ukraine.” Unfortunately, the otaman had little control of his “forces that were responsible for up to 40 percent of the pogroms… The only soldiers who seemed to steer clear of pogroms were the Galician Ukrainians.” The slogan for White Russian forces under Gen. Anton Denikin was “Beat the Jews, save Russia.”
After the war, Ukraine is divided among four nations. Under the Soviets, Ukrainian fortunes initially improve. Stalin changes all that. “Altogether, close to 4 million people perished in Ukraine as a result of the famine…,” Dr. Plokhy writes.
Ukrainians living under Polish rule cope by creating cultural organizations such as Prosvita and the militant OUN. The Polish response is a government-led “pacification.”
Ukrainians experience more terror under the Nazis, who murder more than a million Jews and tyrannize the rest of the population. Some Ukrainians participate in the killing, openly condemned by Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky, who also sheltered Jews. Today, Israel recognizes more than 2,500 citizens of Ukraine as “Righteous Among the Nations” for protecting Jews. As the Wehrmacht began to retreat, the “Polish population of Volhynia and Galicia was under attack from Ukrainian nationalists.” Returning to Ukraine, the Soviets “convoked a special council of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, forcing the participants to absolve their Church and join the Russian Orthodox Church instead.” History repeats.
“The Road to Independence” is the title of the fifth section. Dissidents such as Ivan Dzyuba and Lev Lukianenko emerge to reclaim Ukraine’s right to existence. Independence in Ukraine brings feeble efforts by three presidents to shed the Soviet shroud; a fourth president is a certifiable traitor; the jury is still out on Petro Poroshenko. Two democratic revolutions have not dislodged the corrupt creeps and cronies who still lord it over Ukraine.
But hope remains. Ukraine’s miraculous survival after centuries of Polonization, Russification and Nazification is testimony to the Ukrainian spirit.
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