Borderland: A Journey Through the History of the Ukraine - Hardcover

Anna Reid

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9780297818182: Borderland: A Journey Through the History of the Ukraine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 029781818X ISBN 13: 9780297818182

Publisher: WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON, 1997

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Inspired and informed by the author's own experiences in Ukraine, this is a history of a politically and culturally rich collection of borderlands. The word "Ukraine" means "borderland" and, for most of its history, the lands that make up Ukraine have been a collection of other countries' borders. Split between Russia and Poland in the 18th century, between Austria and Russia in the 19th century and between Russia, Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia between World War I and II, before being swallowed whole by the Soviet Union in 1945, Ukrainians have never, until 1991, known anything approaching a state of their own. Until the depradations of Stalin and Naziism, Ukraine was ethnically diverse: Russians, Poles and Jews lived in the cities; Crimea belonged to Muslim tartars, Greeks and Armenians; Boyks, Lemks and Hutsuls farmed the Ukrainian Carpathians. Their ghosts linger on in literature (Gogol, Bulgakov), language and in an architecture quite distincitve from that of Russia. Combining history, her own adventures in Ukraine and personal interviews, Anna Reid charts the tragic past of this land and the troubles inflicted upon it, and considers how a country builds itself up from scratch and creates a sense of national identity.

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From the Back Cover:

Borderland tells the story of Ukraine. Centre of the first great Slav civilisation in the tenth century, and divided between warring neighbours for the next thousand years, Ukraine finally won independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bigger than France and as populous as Britain, it has the potential to become one of the leading states of Europe. Talking to peasants and politicians, rabbis and racketeers, dissidents and paramilitaries, survivors of Stalin's famine and of Nazi death camps, Anna Reid combines historical research and her own experiences to dissect the bloody and controversial past of this little-known land.

'If you think you couldn't be interested in Ukraine - and I thought I couldn't - you should read this book' Matthew Parris, A Good Read, Radio 4

'A beautifully written evocation of Ukraine's brutal past and its shaky efforts to construct a better future...Borderland is a tapestry woven of the stories of all its inhabitants, recording their triumphs and their conflicts with the fairness of a compassionate outsider' Financial Times

PHOENIX NON-FICTION/HISTORY UK �7.99 CAN $17.95

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Isbn: 1 84212 722 5

About the Author:

Anna Reid has a master's degree in Russian History and reform economics from London University's School of Slavonic and East European Studies. She was the Kiev correspondent for the Economist and the Daily Telegraph from 1993 to 1995.

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