Plokhy S. The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine

Basic Books, 2015. — 460 p.Ukraine is currently embroiled in a tense battle with Russia to preserve its economic and political independence. But today’s conflict is only the latest in a long history of battles over Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign nation. As award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues in The Gates of Europe, we must examine Ukraine’s past in order to understand its fraught present and likely future.Situated between Europe, Russia, and the Asian East, Ukraine was shaped by the empires that have used it as a strategic gateway between East and West — from the Romans and Ottomans to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, all have engaged in global fights for supremacy on Ukrainian soil. Each invading army left a lasting mark on the landscape and on the population, making modern Ukraine an amalgam of competing cultures.Authoritative and vividly written, The Gates of Europe will be the definitive history of Ukraine for years to come.On the Pontic frontier
The edge of the world
The advent of the Slavs
Vikings on the Dnieper
Byzantium north
The keys to Kyiv
Pax mongolicaEast meets West
The making of Ukraine
The cossacks
Eastern reformations
The Great Revolt
The partitions
The verdict of PoltavaBetween the empires
The new frontiers
The books of the genesis
The porous border
On the move
The unfinished revolutionThe wars of the world
The birth of a nation
A shattered dream
Communism and nationalism
Stalin's fortress
Hitler's Lebensraum
The victorsThe road to independence
The second Soviet republic
Farewell to the empire
Independence at last!
The price of freedomEpilogue: The meanings of history