Understanding Ukraine: Tracing the Roots of Terror and Violence

The 2013–2014 Euromaidan Revolution’s call for justice, dignity, and liberty brought Ukraine, which had ’disappeared ’ behind the Iron Curtain for decades after the horrors of World War II, into the world’s public consciousness. Yet, the country was soon almost forgotten again. In early 2022, the rapid escalation of Putin’s war on Ukraine has put the country back into the spotlight. Without knowing the country’s past, one cannot understand its present.

This anthology tackles the complex history of terror and violence in Ukraine – from the millionfold starvation of the Holodomor to the changing occupation regimes, from the ’Shoah by Bullets’ to the Chornobyl disaster. Those ready to delve deeper into the checkered, painful history of the country will better understand Ukraine’s current quest for independence, freedom, and democracy.

The volume’s contributors are Serhii Plokhii, Timothy D. Snyder, Anna Veronika Wendland, Anne Applebaum, Eduard Klein, Gelinada Grinchenko, Gerhard Simon, Irina Scherbakowa, Jan Claas Behrends, Karel C. Berkhoff, Kateryna Mishchenko, Klaus Wolschner, Nikolai Klimeniouk, Nikolaus von Twickel, Oksana Grytsenko, Ottmar Trașcă, Rebecca Harms, Sebastian Christ, Sébastien Gobert, Viktoria Savchuk, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Wilfried Jilge, Christoph Brumme, and Yevhen Hlibovytsky.

Marieluise Beck has for decades been a notable German politician. She was, among others, Member of the German Bundestag for the Green Party and speaker of her parliamentary group for Eastern Europe. Beck co-founded, in 2017, the Center for Liberal Modernity (LibMod) in Berlin. LibMod is an independent think tank that stands for the defense of liberal democracy and accompanies Eastern European countries in their transition to internationally embedded, law-governed, and pluralistic societies.

Timothy Snyder is the Levin Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University and the author of a number of books, including Bloodlands, The Road to Unfreedom, and the forthcoming On Freedom.

Dmytro Kuleba has been Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine since 2020.