The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine

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I don’t want to get political, I’m far too busy bashing the books, but … maybe one of the few good things that will come from what that horrid man did when invading this incredible country is that we in the West will learn more of the monumental place Ukraine claims in the history of Europe. Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Plokhy agrees with the position that the historical Slavic inhabitants of Kyivan Rus are the forefathers of modern Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians (thereby recognizing the ethnic, culture, religious, and historical commonality between them) but argues convincingly that the various historical trajectories, though oftentimes overlapping, sets them apart from each other as unique ethnic and cultural groups. No surprise, after reading this, that its people are brave fighters. They have had to do it throughout their history. The country, or at least one region or another of it, has been almost constantly fought over. An amalgam of regions, each with its own history and identity. The same is true of Serhii Plokhy's history of Ukraine, though he is far more objective and fair in his presentation of Ukrainian history than the mere nationalists on either side of the Ukrainian debate. Plokhy is definitely not pro-Russian, but he doesn't come across as someone on the far side of Ukrainian nationalism. He's a Ukrainian patriot who recognizes that the history of Ukraine consists of the union of a plurality of identities, languages, faiths, and cultures. When I started this journey into the books, I did have this ‘little dream’ of one day being recognised as an Historian. Naaa, I ain’t the slightest chance of standing beside people such as Professor Serhii Plokhy (the author), a Ukrainian. An Historian.

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I also appreciate his fairly balanced presentation of the complex history of the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. He relates both the good and the bad as well as the difference of opinion within the Ukrainians communities themselves. While many Ukrainians living in Russian Imperial lands longed for Ukrainian autonomy there were also the Russophiles who lived in the Austrian controlled lands. The history of Ukrainian opinion about Russia has been varied and Plokhy does well to present this. They [Ukrianian writers and poets] envisioned Ukraine as a free republic in a broader Slavic union. The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance. I said, in my review of ‘The History of Ukraine and …’, “If you want to understand why things are as they are in Ukraine today, read this.” So has Russia essentially already lost? Is the full-scale invasion of Ukraine a convulsion of a dying empire? “Yes, exactly,” he says. “We just don’t know how long it will go on, and what the price will be.” Death throes, he points out, can go on for a pretty long time. Russian imperial disintegration began in 1914, he argues, with the outbreak of the first world war – and he points out that “the Ottoman empire, for example, has been in the process of disintegration since the 17th century”, with the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the rise of Islamic State, he says, being a part of that slow-flowing story. “So, I’m not prepared to jump to the conclusion that the invasion of Ukraine is the absolutely last chapter of the Russian empire. But I have no doubt that it is an important chapter.”

Plokhy starts with the ancient Greeks, and then continues through to the Vikings, the Byzantine Empire, the Mongolian Empire, the Habsburg and Russian Empires, and the Soviet Union. Ukrainian nationalism, like other European nationalisms, became more pronounced in the 19th century. Plokhy emphasizes how that impacted other multinational empires, and how other wars accelerated demands for independence. For a general survey, Plokhy finds a lot of time to study opinions of political elites and intellectuals. He finds time to include the debate over Russian and Ukranian identity, and the debates between the "Little Russian" and "Ukrainian" debates over what Ukrainian identity is - and those debates have become painfully relevant.I'm passionate about history and don't mind scholarly tomes, but this book proved to be a slog. I finished it only because it felt virtuous and worthy. Another consideration is that the author makes a strong argument for Ukraine's separate (from Russia) identity, with is a counter-argument to Russian propaganda focused on Novorossia/New Russia, and he succeeds in that. Meanwhile, he fails to deliver context on controversial figures such as Stepan Bandera. Going by this book, I know he existed and was important, but there's no context or insight given at all. Kyivan Rus' development stretched over hundreds of years, but its end came abruptly. Kyivan Rus', a polity with no generally recognized date of birth, has a definite date of death. It occurred on December 7, 1240, when yet another wave of invaders from the Eurasian steppes, the Mongols, conquered the city of Kyiv. The city of Kyiv diminished in importance under Mongol rule (also known as the Golden Horde). In a decisive battle in 1362, Lithuanian and Rus’ forces defeated the a leading tribe of the Golden Horde. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth subsequently controlled the Ukrainian region for many years. Ukrainian history is interwoven with Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Poland. Lithuania, Austro-Hungarian Empire (Galicia) and several other European countries. But soon he began to change his mind. History, after all, is a weapon in this conflict. Vladimir Putin’s justification for his aggression towards Ukraine is rooted in his (twisted and faulty) understanding of the past. He even wrote a sprawling, inaccurate essay laying out his views in 2021, titled On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians. Plokhy began to feel compelled to fight the Russian president’s terrible history writing with good, solid history writing of his own.