A History of Ukraine: The Gates of Europe(an War) - part 4

2 years ago
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Something of a Ukrainian history lesson, using Serhii Plokhy's 2015 book The Gates of Europe, and focused on matters relative to today's war, including Ukrainian cultural development and nationalism, Russian influence, the role of Jews in this history, and even the Ukrainian Greek Catholic or Uniate Church.

This fourth part addresses the beginning of the 20th century and the rise of popular political activity, and in this chapter Plokhy finally is forced to address the Jews, something he managed to avoid regarding the 19th century, and almost-impossible task. But he starts out talking about Jews as victims of pogroms and then plays down their role in the rise of more radical political parties. At this point it becomes impossible not to make a comparison of his history to that of Solzhenitsyn's in 200 Years Together - to be continued. And it's impossible not to notice the growing trend in the book, which is ignore or avoid the Jews as much as possible and instead focus on Ukrainian nationalism, something that has echoes to this day. Huh.

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