A newcomer to Kyiv is develops a number of curious observations. Some people are hypersensitive to which language I studied or spoke -- Ukrainian or Russian. There are a vast number of big black Mercedes, Lexus', Bentleys and even a few Maybachs on the streets, even though everybody I know lives in fairly modest apartments. Once again on meager budgets, the young women dressed sensationally, and look wonderful, while the older women by and large dress simply in look their age. The streets are safer than any big city in the United States, but the population has a kind of paranoia. One reads about tremendous social problems such as HIV, abandoned children, alcoholism and absolute penury, but they are not highly visible. These are some of the most attractive people on earth, to outward appearances almost uniformly heterosexual, openly affectionate with each other, but with the lowest birth rate in Europe. Lastly, the Ukrainians are as thoroughly European, and appear to have a worldview much closer to western Europe and America than Orientals, Africans, or Latin Americans, but their society is afflicted with problems such as corruption that seem more appropriate to other regions. I read Mr. Subtelny's book to learn their history in an effort to understand the people.
Ukraine's history is a litany of tragedies following one on the heels of another. The geography of the steppes offer no natural defenses. They only significant military barrier, the Dnieper River, runs right through the middle of the country.
Ukraine was surrounded by empires for most of the last millennium. In clockwise order, the Habsburgs, the third Reich, the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Russians, the Mongols, and the Ottomans. The very name of the country means "the edge." It was a desirable piece of territory, great for farming and pasturage, that excited the expansionist instincts of every despot in the region.
Agriculture has always been the most attractive way to make a living, given the fertile land. The downside is that agriculturalists are tied to the land, and tend to remain parochial in their thinking. Ukraine was slow to come to a vision of itself as a single entity. Rather, they were the peasant base of more urban civilizations such as those of the Poles and the Russians, whose nobles exploited them mercilessly.
The exploiters appear always to have had success with a divide and conquer strategy. Ukraine's institutions, political, religious, and otherwise, appear always to have been split. In tough political times they always appear to have had to choose between two evils: Poles and Russians, Nazis and Russians, and most recently, among equally corrupt candidates for political office.
Ukraine's brightest days appear to be have been those of the Cossacks, who enjoyed a brief decade of triumph in the middle of the 17th century. The Cossacks were an institution bred of necessity. Crimea was dominated by Tatars, ruthless nomadic horsemen who would descend on their farming villages, rape, pillage, and carry off slaves to be sold in the Ottoman Empire. To the north of the steppe were cruel and oppressive Polish nobleman who abused their peasants. The Cossacks were peasants who ran away from serfdom and took their chances on the open steppes fighting off the Tatars. Needless to say they became like America's pioneers -- tough fighters, and fiercely independent.
The tragedy of the Cossacks was that they were ahead of their time. They tried to live democratically, but all around them were feudal hierarchies, and they continually reverted to strongman rule. The very existence of the Cossacks threatened the feudal order in all the surrounding empires. Just as all of Europe united against a republican France, all of the empires had a vested interest in extinguishing the Cossacks. Time after time they would neutralize them politically, turn them against each other, or enlist them as mercenaries fighting their own far-off battles.
Many of my friends from Bethesda are descended of Jews from this region. According to Subtelny's history, the Jews were city dwellers, merchants and tavern owners, money lenders, and most insidiously, the overseers hired by absentee landlords belonging to the nobility to manage the estates on which the peasantry worked. The Jews and the peasants were often pitted against each other in the divide and conquer strategies. Later, the Jews would be seen as a political threat by the Czars and the Communist leadership. Hence, the less populous and obviously different Jews seemed to suffer one pogrom after another, the very word meaning "massacre" in Ukrainian.
The book is well organized, with several threads such as religion, society, economy, political organization, culture, and military activity being addressed by separate chapters and subheadings within each era, so it is possible to follow a cohesive history of each of them separately and of the nation as a whole. My use of the word nation here raises the question of what a nation is. In the context of this book, it is generally equated with populations that spoke the Ukrainian language, and the significant minorities such as Russians who lived among them. The book also has an extensive bibliography.
The book was most recently updated in 2009, and it appears to do a good job of describing the events that have taken place since I have been here. Subtelny ends the book on optimistic note, one with which I would concur. Although there are vast problems in today's Ukraine, chief among them being the great inequality in wealth, dysfunctional political and legal systems, a lack of opportunity for young people, and the demographic crisis of a rapidly shrinking population, there is a considerable bright side. The country has been at peace for 65 years, the longest such stretch in a millennium. It has had free elections and reasonably free institutions for about 20 years. It has an intelligent and highly homogeneous population, sparing at the diversity issues which now occupy the West. Lastly, the Ukrainians have a healthy suspicion of government. If they are going to make it, they will make it on their own.
