Borderland: A Journey through the
History of Ukraine by Anna Reid
Excellent
Borderland tells the story of Ukraine. A thousand years ago it was the
center of the first great Slav civilization, Kievan Rus. In 1240, the Mongols
invaded from the east, and for the next seven centureies, Ukraine was split
between warring neighbors: Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Austrians, and
Tatars. Again and again, borderland turned into battlefield: during the
Cossack risings of the seventeenth century, Russia’s wars with Sweden in
the eighteenth, the Civil War of 1918–1920, and under Nazi occupation.
Ukraine finally won independence in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet
Union. Bigger than France and a populous as Britain, it has the potential to
become one of the most powerful states in Europe.In this finely written and
penetrating book, Anna Reid combines research and her own experiences
to chart Ukraine’s tragic past. Talking to peasants and politicians, rabbis
and racketeers, dissidents and paramilitaries, survivors of Stalin’s famine
and of Nazi labor camps, she reveals the layers of myth and propaganda
that wrap this divided land. From the Polish churches of Lviv to the coal

mines of the Russian-speaking Donbass, from the Galician shtetlech to the
Tatar shantytowns of Crimea, the book explores Ukraine’s struggle to build
itself a national identity, and identity that faces up to a bloody past, and
embraces all the peoples within its borders.
Personal Review: Borderland: A Journey through the History of
Ukraine by Anna Reid
As all the postings and appraisal of Anna Reids book reflects this is a very
good introduction to Ukrainian history. That is with stress on both *good*,
*introduction* and *up to 1997*. If you have allready read several histories
of Ukraine, chances are slim you will find much new here. If you need an
update on the orange revelution, you will simply not find what you look for
here. If you find another book to cover the orange revelution, it might even
be an advantage that it is published in 1997, in the sense that it is likely to
focues more on the Kuchma era than a book published more recently will.
It is not unlikely that you anyway will enjoy here anectodical introductions
to each chapeter though, using personal experiences as illustrations to the
different regions and historical periods of the country. To illustrate the
strenght and the (less important) weekness of this style of writing, an could
tell you about my reading of her book as preperation for a 3 weeks journey
though Ukraine. Like a similar incident after reading Kapuscinski's story
about Pinsk in Belarus, Reid has made me get off the train at 5 o'clock in
the morning after a though night in the restaurant wagon caused by
reading her chapter from this region - Chernivtsi is simply somewhere that
you have to see before you die. The truth is a bit more complex. I guess
what I try to say that her writing is better litterature than travel advice (read,
to see what I mean).
I would like to add a few lines of why I think this book is as good as it is.
As I see it, A good hisoty of Ukraine aknowledges the following 3 things
that Ukraine is, 3 things that Ukraine is not and 3 things as not important.
3 things you necesarily needs to find in a history of Ukraine is that
-It's history is above everything else multicultural and about a peasant
culture
-The by far most significant buiding-blocks of Ukrainian national identity is
to be found in the 1800s and 1900s.
-It is primary Ukraine itself that created the economic and political disaster
of the 1990s (unlike in the 1920s, when Ukraine recovered after, say, 7
years of economic crisis the neo-Brezhnevism corruption is what probably
makes the big difference)
Second to a cover picture of an Ukrainian peasant with a Russian
bureucrate and a Jewish merchant on each side, the picture chosen for the
front page is the perfect choice! Read the book and understand why. I am
very surprised why someone have objections to the photo. What ever is
the basis of their objection it is not Ukrainian history.

As of other peoples included in multicultural Empires in Eastern Europe up
to World war I, national identity came late to Ukraine. Anna Reid gives a
good and balanced understanding of this.
More important than any other explaination to the political and economic
disaster of the 1990s was the policy of Ukraine itself. Anna Reid manages
to give a good introduction to this not-so-proud recent past.
3 things you necesary *not* will find in a good history of Ukraine is:
-that Ukraine is an acient Eastern Slavonic Nation
-a history of Ukraine that is not closely related to Russian history
-a place in Ukraine that represents "real Ukraine"
Middle-age settlements in the Eastern Slavonic region was highly
autonomious, there was several of them both in Ukraine, Belarus and
Russia and Kiev was an important but not the oldest of them.
The southern and Eastern Ukraine is both a crucial part of Russian and
Ukraine and Ukrainian-Russian history. The Ukrainian impact on Soviet
history and the great importance of the Soviet Union for Ukrainian national
identity. Reid gives a good and balanced understanding of this. I take the
objection of some reader that she puts to little emphasis of the
collectivisation and starvation as a sign that she succeeds to present
Ukraine as much more than victims of starvation. Also important, Ukraine
was the politically most priviledged republic after the Russians in the
Soviet Union.
Though this side of the story is included in Anna Reid's book, the fact that
it is published in 1997 does that some important developments that we can
see though the last 10 years is missing. I miss some important
development lines in post Soviet Ukraine, compared to Russia and
Belarus. When Yury Andropov introduced the perestroyka policy in Russia
(yes, this was originally Andropov's and not Gorbies initiative) backed by
the army and KGB, one might say that the Russians (who were in charge
of the milirary powers, while the Ukrainians had a huge influence on the
Post-Stalin political power) took over the political wing of the Soviet Union
from Ukraine, who on their site continued the corruption and
maleconomies of the disasterous Brezhnev years into the Kuchma era.
Belarus, on thir side, seems to never got as badly hit by the Brezhnev's
Dnipropetrovsk mafia as did Russia and Ukraine.
3 things a hsitory of Ukraine will reflect that is not important is
-whether you prefere to write Kyiv or Kiev
-what Ukraine really means
-what place is the orign of Eastern Slavonic civilisation
Anna Reid does not make a big deal out of any of this. Combined with
good writing and the succsessful use of anecdotes from her personal

experiences and research you have the reason why it is so interesting to
read her book, while hardly interesting to read some of the polemics over
this kind of choices in some of the customer reviews.
One final pice of advice. If you on this or other books of Ukrainian history
finds single reviewers who has totally different views than the other
reviewers - views that you find it difficult to fit with other reviews, you might
want to check if the reviewer is a member of the Ukrainian Diaspora,
especially Nothern American Diaspora. They often tend to have very
unbalanced views on Ukrainian history and I would not give their views to
much weight when it comes to how non-diaspora readers will experience
the book.
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