Borderland (Revised and Updated Edition)

A Journey Through the History of Ukraine

By: Anna Reid

Narrated by: Anna Reid

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 centuries, 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, an identity that faces up to a bloody past, and embraces all the peoples within its borders.

©1997, 2015, 2022 Anna Reid (P)2023 Tantor

Historical Context

Historical context that everyone needs to hear and understand. Thank you to the author for the journalism and the narration.

Good update

Glad it was able to be hopeful in its update. Just simply reading the updated chapters is a recommendation that I’ll make to many.