Ukraine''s Many Faces : Land, People, and Culture Revisited

Russia''s large-scale invasion on the 24th of February 2022 once again made Ukraine the focus of world media. Behind those headlines remain the complex developments in Ukraine''s history, national identity, culture and society. Addressing readers from diverse backgrounds, this volume approaches the history of Ukraine and its people through primary sources, from the early modern period to the present. Each document is followed by an essay written by an expert on the period, and a conversational piece touching on the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine. In this ground-breaking collection, Ukraine''s history is sensitively accounted for by scholars inviting the readers to revisit the country''s history and culture.

With a foreword by Olesya Khromeychuk.

»The thought-provoking contributions in this volume will clarify some of the unfamiliar pages of Ukrainian history and identity. They shed light on the origins of the complex identity of Ukraine, its imperial past, the contradictions of the interwar Soviet period, and the present, showing that modern war is not accidental or caused by the sick imagination of one person. The reader has the opportunity to see in the actions of the Russian aggressor a kind of attempt to reconstruct the Soviet period of nation-building in Ukraine during the interwar period, to understand the reaction of the Ukrainian people as another attempt to protect its independence and freedom.«

»There is no other comparable publication on Ukraine with this specific methodological approach. Ukraine, its history and present, has to be (re)introduced to anglophone Non-Ukrainians – and this not only in the light of the ongoing Russian war of aggression against this largest country of Europe but with regard to Ukraine as a sui generis case of European-type statehood and national identity. Each of the three sections is divided into ›primary sources‹, ›conversation pieces‹ and ›analytical articles‹. A particular strength are the ›conversation pieces‹ in the three section is the didactic value of the book. This makes it also an excellent textbook for highschool and university teaching.«