I enjoyed this book, which probably needs another chapter or two, because of what has been happening in recent events with the possibility Russia will invade Ukraine and various countries - NATO - offering resistance of some sort. I thought the author did a good job of being unbiased, using population statistics, and taking us through events through history including border changes and so on. Reading this book helped me better understand just how complicated it has been. Maps and photos are so helpful. What impressed me is how passionate people have been about the politics and economic aspects of life in this part of the world and how violent it has been.
Like Hungarians in Romania, there is a sizeable population of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. It seems there long been various ethnicities, from tribal days forward, in this land.
Still, it is my not so humble opinion that the real reason Russia wants the Ukraine is not just to expand its already sizeable turf or because it wants its borders to be up against many a European nation. I think it is because the Ukraine has fertile farmland and poverty and that it is a 'breadbasket' that can feed people and with the possibility of low wage agricultural workers. In the United States a 'breadbasket' can be a place like the central valley of California where the low wage workers are migrants, often from Mexico.
If I were someone who could influence Russia - Putin - I would say to him that Russia has the opportunity to create new cities and use new technologies for the benefit of people there and can lead the way towards new forward thinking culture and society - there in the country they already have - and that is where they should put resources rather than military actions. I realize that much of Russia is considered too difficult because of the weather to easily sustain people at this point, but I think this is possible. Who knows? If Global warming is the continuing trend this cold place may become most desireable.
I wonder how many people self-identify as solely Ukrainian these days.
The history of this area of the word includes the Greeks and the Scythians, the Khazars anbd the Kievan Rus, the Mongols and the Tartars, and just about every kind of Slavic ethnicity.
In this book you will be guided with knowledge of what was Ukraine during the Austrian Empire of 1772-1815, in 1875 Austria-Hungary, after World War I including the West Ukrainian National Republic. Soviet Ukraine of 1932, lands in Poland circa 1930, what the situation is with Rusyn (Ruthenian) people living in Romania and Czechoslovakia in 1930, Carpatho-Ukraine in the World War II era of 1939-1941, and Soviet Ukraine in 1945.
I wish for peace.
C 2022 Magyar-American BlogSpot
