BOOK REVIEW: "A History of Ukraine" by Paul R. Magocsi (02/02/97)

BOOK REVIEW: "A History of Ukraine" by Paul R. Magocsi

Paul Robert Magocsi, A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996, 784 pp.

by Marta Dyczok

All who are interested in joining the debate on whether Ukraine has an independent history would do well to arm themselves with Paul Robert Magocsi's newly published "A History of Ukraine." The book begins with a presentation of the various perceptions of Ukrainian history that developed as a result of Ukraine's existence under foreign rule for extended periods.

In an easy, accessible style, Prof. Magocsi provides a good introduction to the fundamental questions that surround the issue. Why did Russian, Polish and Soviet historians challenge the legitimacy of the concept of a Ukrainian history? How and why did Western historians largely accept this perspective? How did Ukrainian historians answer these arguments?

In so doing, Prof. Magocsi has gone beyond the polemics and produced an eminently useful reference work. The 784-page door-stopper volume was designed as a university textbook, but will also be of interest to the general reader. "Ukrainians are a large people and deserve a large history," Prof. Magocsi said at the official book launch, held at the new premises of the Chair of Ukrainian Studies's University of Toronto on December 12, 1996.

The book is original in its approach to Ukrainian history as "the history of the territory of Ukraine, and not Ukrainians alone." While tracing the development of the Ukrainian people, it also includes an account of many of the peoples who live within the borders of present day Ukraine, including Crimean Tatars, Poles, Russians, Germans, Jews, Mennonites, Greeks and Romanians.

For example, it includes a detailed description of the appearance of the Golden Horde in the 13th century, its impact on Kyivan Rus' and the subsequent Kozak-Tatar encounter. The text also chronicles Russia's imperial expansion to the Crimean peninsula (effected as recently as 1783), which provides a useful background to the current debate on the status of Crimea.

No stranger to controversy, Prof. Magocsi tackles the much-debated issues of Ukraine's history during the second world war in a forthright manner. An entire chapter devoted to Nazi German rule, includes an account of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists' relations with the Germans, and places the Waffen SS Division Galizien ("Dyviziia Halychyna") in its broader historical context.

The Holocaust in Ukraine is described as an integral part of Nazi racial policy that labeled Ukrainians "Untermenschen" (subhumans), a notch below the Jews and Gypsies on the cruel hierarchy of extermination.

Prof. Magocsi notes that "the Nazi extermination task forces often strove to employ local Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Germans and even Jews in the organization and implementation of their murderous missions."

Displaying rigorous even-handedness, he writes: "Even though the murders were systematically carried out under the direction of Nazi extermination units, Jewish survivors of the time have stressed in memoirs and other testimonies that Ukrainian auxiliary police and militia, or simply 'Ukrainians,' participated in the over-all process."

Being marketed as a book that covers "2,500 years of Ukraine's history," "A History of Ukraine" is divided into 50 chapters and 10 chronological spheres, beginning with pre-Kyivan Rus' times and ending with the achievement of full Ukrainian statehood in 1991. In an interview Prof. Magocsi joked that "The greatest thing about Ukrainian independence is that it made it possible for me to end the book."

The volume's equal coverage of political, economic and cultural developments is highlighted by the inclusion of 66 text inserts of commentaries and documents. The inserts include a discussion of the language of Kyivan Rus' (pp. 100-102), an account of courtship and wedding practices of the Zaporozhian Kozaks (pp. 184-185), and reproductions of documents such as the First Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada (pp. 473-475), the treaty of Union between the Russian SFSR and the Ukrainian SSR (pp. 527-528), and Ukraine's Act of Declaration of Independence of 1991 (p. 673).

University of Toronto Press Editor-in-Chief Ron Schoeffel noted at the book launch that the book's 42 maps add to the soundness of its geographical approach. Mr. Schoeffel also voiced his expectation that the text will be translated into Ukrainian.

Prof. Magocsi has held the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto and served as director of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario since 1990. After receiving a doctorate in history from Princeton University in 1972, Prof. Magocsi worked at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute as a scholarly associate and lecturer (1976-1980). He has published over 60 scholarly articles and some 18 books on the Eastern Slavic peoples of East Central Europe.

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In a related story, on November 22, 1996, Prof. Magocsi was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada's Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences.

During the ceremony, held at the Parliament Building in Ottawa, a letter was read from Stanislav Kulchytskyi, associate director of the Institute of History at Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences; and Stepan Vidnianskyi, the Institute's international academic liaison. The Ukrainian scholars hailed Prof. Magocsi's "particularly influential contribution to scholarly research and the propagation of the history of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people among North Americans."

Canada's Prime Minister Jean Chrétien sent greetings to the honoree, noting "The dedication and skill [Prof. Magocsi has] displayed throughout [his] distinguished career has yielded important contributions to Canadian society."

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