Agent: Jill Kneerim, Kneerim, Williams, and Bloom. Though interested readers must look elsewhere for deeper examinations of Ukraine’s role in European and world history, Plokhy’s work serves as a welcome introduction to Ukraine’s ethnic and national history. He asserts that the Russian “annexation” of Crimea, as well as Russian support of so-called separatist movements crippling the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, are continuations of a centuries-old narrative, the roots of which are evident throughout his discussion of the tenuous historical relationship between the two countries. Plokhy’s strongest inquiry may well be in his epilogue, where he engages the forces of history at play regarding the most recent bout of political instability gripping Ukraine. In employing the gates of Europe as a metaphor, he asserts that the relationship between Europe and Ukraine is intimate and long-standing, and that the. From award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe is the definitive history of Ukraine that helps us understand the country's past and the current crisis At the western edge of the Eurasian steppe, caught between Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, Ukraine has long been the meeting place of empires - Roman to Ottoman, Habsburg to Russian - that left their imprint on the. He also introduces readers to the seemingly endless barrage of threats to both of these constructs, from without as well as within. Plokhy’s analysis is a comprehensive narrative, touching upon the myriad factors that figured into the establishment of the Ukrainian state and a Ukrainian national identity. Injecting appropriate nuance and complexity into a single-volume overview of 2,000 years of Ukrainian history is no small task, but Plokhy ( The Last Empire), the Mykhailo Hrushevsky professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University, approaches this charge with dexterity and skill.
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