This book examines four dramatic periods that have shaped not only Ukrainian, but also Soviet and Russian history, over the last hundred years: the revolutionary struggles of 1917-20, Stalin's "second" revolution of 1928-33, the mobilization of revolutionary nationalists during the Second World War, and the Euromaidan protests of 2013-14. The story is told from the perspective of "insiders." It recovers the voice of Bolshevik historians who first described the 1917-21 revolution in Ukraine, citizens who were accused of nationalist conspiracies by Stalin, Galician newspapers that covered the 1933-34 famine, nationalists who fomented revolution in the 1940s, and participants in the Euromaidan protests and Revolution of 2013-14. In each case, the narrative reflects current "memory wars" over these key moments in history.
Myroslav Shkandrij has taught Slavic studies at the University of Manitoba (from 1987), Calgary, and Ottawa. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. His research has focused on Ukraine's cultural history: the cultural flowering of the 1920s, the avant-garde, nationalism, and Jewish-Ukrainian relations. His books include:Modernists, Marxists and the Nation: The Ukrainian Literary Discussion of the 1920s (1992; in Ukrainian 2006),Russia and Ukraine: Literature and the Discourse of Empire(2001; in Ukrainian 2004),Jews in Ukrainian Literature: Representation and Identity(2009),Ukrainian Nationalism: Politics, Ideology, and Literature, 1929-1956(2015), and Avant-garde Art in Ukraine: Contested Memory, 1910-1930(2019).