Serhii Plokhy's "The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine"

Pam Shelton-Anderson: Like many educated in the US/Western Europe, I have some decent knowledge on the history of Europe-western Europe. Very little in my education included details on the history of eastern Europe, including Ukraine. This was a fascinating book, that starts in very ancient times and goes right up to the present, a monumental task. It covers a lot of ground and yet has enough detail to not be just an overview. It was likely my own educational shortcomings in this topic where I struggle to keep a lot of it straight. Nonetheless, I learned a great deal and want to find out more about the fascinating people and heritage in this part of the world.

United States on Nov 18, 2023

irene: If you want to understand what is happening in the Russian/Ukraine War, this book will take you step by step through the process to better understand and appreciate the events leading to the invasion of Ukraine.

United States on Sep 29, 2023

Kindle Customer: For a long time it was difficult to find an introductory/overview history of Ukraine as such. With this and other books, the topic comes out of the shadows. Comprehensive and accessible, from earliest times to the near present. Plokhy writes in an easy
idiom, almost as he might speak, with occasional wit to keep you engaged. I imagine him as a friendly professor with interested and attentive students. My interest arose out of wanting to know more about the country that fills the headlines for sure, but more importantly realising from other reading why the 'gates of Europe' have mattered in differing epochs.

Australia on Jul 25, 2023

docread: The historiography of Russia and to some extent Poland are extensive, reflecting the crucial historical and political dominance of the first and the important role of the second country in European affairs. Ukraine by comparison, the second largest European country after Russia, seems to be the voiceless orphan, suffering from the Historians’ neglect, often denied historical definition or wrongly assimilated to its big Russian neighbour. It’s history is complex and like many of its Eastern European neighbours tragic, particularly during the last century and the present one. Even its name as a polity was transformed over the centuries from Kievan Rus to Cossack Hetmanate, from little Russia or Ruthenia to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Ukrainians were described as Ruthenians, or little Russians. It took the recent brutal conflict to propel the Ukraine into our conscience and to focus our minds on the profound chasm separating it from its Russian neighbour.

The complexity of its history arises from its geographical location at the gates of Europe, its partition and absorption by different Empires. It was crossed and occupied by many invaders from the East; the...

United Kingdom on Jun 22, 2022

Mac McAleer: Looking at the front cover (1), I assumed that this was a book from the 1970s, but it is a recent book, first published in 2015, and at the end includes the 2014 Russia takeover of the Crimean Peninsula and the Donbas. The book is quite detailed and authoritative, the author being Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard.

I found it a complex and unfamiliar story of an ever changing area with unfamiliar names. Understanding what is going on can take several re-readings. It starts with the Scandinavians in the north, the tribal south and the Greek colonies in Crimea. Later there are links to the Byzantine Empire and conversion to the Orthodox Church. Then there is the Golden Horde, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Cossacks, the Poles, the Tatars, the Ottoman Empire, Muscovy, Russia and the Soviet Union. Now there is post-Soviet Ukraine.

THE BOOK has 27 chapters divided into 5 sections (2). The chapters are short. There is a set of 10 black and white maps at the start of the book, which are very useful (3). Each map is on its own page. There are no other illustrations. The paperback is a smaller than the hardback and I found the font size of the paperback a...

United Kingdom on Apr 15, 2022

T. J. Mathews: This book is a must read for anyone interested in learning about the roots of the current Russo-Ukrainian war.

The Ukraine is situated at the center of the 'Old World' and as such has been invaded over the centuries from every direction and occupied by just about everyone, including the Vikings, Persians, Greeks, Byzantines, Romans, Mongols, Huns, Austrians, Poles, French, British, Germans and most recently, the Russians. I say this to make the point that there is no single strand of DNA that identifies someone as Ukrainian and no country that can claim possession of Ukraine by playing the 'We were here first,' card. What becomes obvious when reading this book is that the people who live there should determine if they want to be independent or to become part of another country. With that in mind, here are a few passages from the book that should enlighten readers. First, in a 1991 referendum on independence,

"The turnout reached 84 percent, with more than 90 percent of voters supporting independence. Western Ukraine led the way, with 99 percent in favor in the Ternopil oblast of Galicia. But the center, south, and even the east were not far behind. In Vinnytsia, in...

United States on Apr 04, 2022

John Ferngrove: I've previously read several substantial histories of Russia which tells the story of the foundation of Kievan Rus by the Viking Rurikids in the 8th Century AD, and the eventual emergence of Muscovy as the dominant principality which would go on to become the centre of the sequence of polities that have had Russia at their heart, one way or another, ever since. Given the recent eruption of horribly miserable events I thought it was time that I tried to get my facts straight regarding the parallel historical trajectory of the Ukrainian grouping of peoples and occasional polity that has remained centred on the central principality of Rus, Kiev. Having read Harvard professor of Ukrainian history, Serhii Plokhy's The Last Empire detailing the frantic days of the collapse of the USSR and admiring his lucidity and tautness of narrative, this seemed a natural contender for a place to start.

I began reading with some concrete questions in mind that I hoped would be answered: i) to what extent is present day Ukraine a viable project as an independent nation state, given the bewildering complexity of its ethnic, linguistic and religious makeup and configuration, ii) to what extent,...

United Kingdom on Mar 15, 2022

Massimiliano Di Pasquale: [...]
Nel breve arco di qualche settimana – il volume è uscito in libreria lo scorso dicembre – The Gates of Europe, saggio di Serhii Plokhy, docente di Storia Ucraina ad Harvard e direttore dell’Istituto di Ricerca Ucraina presso la stessa Università, che ripercorre più di mille anni di storia del Paese, è già diventato un classico dell’ucrainistica.

Il libro, che ha ricevuto le lodi pubbliche sia dell’ex ambasciatore statunitense a Kyiv John Herbst sia dell’accademico inglese Andrew Wilson, professore di Studi Ucraini all’University College di Londra, è lettura imprescindibile per chi voglia approfondire alcune fondamentali questioni emerse in tutta la loro drammaticità nel recente conflitto tra Russia e Ucraina.

Come sottolinea l’autore nelle pagine introduttive, le immagini del febbraio 2014 relative ai cecchini del governo Azarov che aprono il fuoco sulla folla di dimostranti in Maidan Nezalezhnosti a Kyiv uccidendo e ferendo decine di manifestanti filoeuropei, hanno scioccato il mondo e prodotto un punto di discontinuità nella storia europea degli ultimi venticinque anni le cui conseguenze sono destinate ad influenzare non solo i...

Italy on Feb 15, 2016

Oksana Piaseckyj: I believe John Herbst, former US Ambassador to Ukraine, best characterizes the book with his critique, quote “Serhii Plokhy offers a short yet comprehensive history of Ukraine that contextualizes Mr. Putin's current policies as aggression against the wishes of the Ukrainian people, as well as the order established at the end of the Cold War. A pleasure to read, The Gates of Europe will take those familiar with the Moscow narrative on a mind expanding tour of Ukraine's past."

Prof. Serhii Plokhy, the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard and the director of the university's Ukrainian Research Institute, has written a history not to offend. Which is almost impossible as Adoplhe Thiers, in his preface to “Histoire de la Révolution Française” in 1838 wrote…”I intend to write the history of a memorable revolution which profoundly disturbed men, and which still divides them today. I do not conceal from myself the difficulties of the enterprise ... whereas we have the advantage of having heard and observed these old men who, still full of memories, and still aroused by their impressions, reveal to us the spirit and the character of the causes,...

United States on Jan 11, 2016