Luka is a veteran of the First World War and the Russian Civil War. All he wants now is a quiet life with his wife, twin sons and young daughter. Their small village has, so far, managed to remain hidden from the advancing Soviet brutality and labour camp deportations. But everything changes the day the stranger arrives, pulling a sled bearing the bodies of two children. In a fervour, the villagers lynch the stranger, despite Luka's protests. But when calm is restored, the mob leader, Dimitri, discovers his daughter has vanished. Luka is the only man with the skills to find who could have stolen a child in these frozen white wastelands - and besides, the missing girl is best friends with Luka's daughter Lara, and he promises her that he will find her friend and bring her home. Together with his sons and Dimitri, Luka sets out in pursuit across lands ravaged by war and gripped by treachery. Soon they realise that the man they are tracking is a no ordinary criminal, but a skilful hunter with the kidnapped child as the bait in his violent game. It will take all of Luka's strength to battle the harshest of conditions, and all of his wit to stay a step ahead of Soviet authorities. And though his toughest enemy is the man he tracks, his strongest bond is a whispered promise to his family back at home.

    Entitled The History of the Rus', it became one of the most influential historical texts of the modern era. Attributed to an eighteenth-century Orthodox archbishop, it described the heroic struggles of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Alexander Pushkin read the book as a manifestation of Russian national spirit but Taras Shevchenko interpreted it as a quest for Ukrainian national liberation and it would inspire thousands of Ukrainians to fight for the freedom of their homeland. Serhii Plokhy tells the fascinating story of the text's discovery and dissemination unravelling the mystery of its authorship and tracing its subsequent impact on Russian and Ukrainian historical and literary imagination. In so doing he brilliantly illuminates the relationship between history, myth, empire and nationhood from Napoleonic times to the fall of the Soviet Union.

    This book has a highly stylized design and a unique layout with photos spanning the decades. In it you will find explanations as to: why our national symbols are the blue and yellow flag and the tryzub; why Ukrainians are sentimental towards the nightingale, vyshyvanka and salo; why we are proud of Pylyp Orlyk, Serge Lifar, the Klychko brothers and the AN-225 "Mriya" airplane; why Kazantyp has attracted young people for years; and why the centre of Europe is located in Zakarpattia Oblast.

    So Baba (Grandma) is brewing up Old Country customs in her kitchen. "Baba's Kitchen" is a collection of heart wrenching and hilarious stories and 190 traditional recipes from refugees and immigrants. Narrator Baba instructs on how to cook traditional Ukrainian dishes The Lazy Way, make love to a bald man, cope with gossipy neighbors and utter Slavic curses such as, "May you be kicked by a duck!" Delicious food and womanly wiles with which to hunt Nazis/Soviets, snag hot bachelors and rescue animals, too. Bonus chapter: folk remedies for PMS, arthritis, cranky mates, yeast infections and chapped nipples.

    Stymied by the lack of progress and change in post-communist Ukraine, Valeriy the artist finds he is unable to paint. Anna is a lonely woman who attends strangers’ weddings to offer a curious gift. The arrival of a wayward parakeet during the 2004 Orange Revolution forces an elderly woman into action. These nine stories -- set in Ukraine, the United States and Greece -- highlight universal conflicts and dilemmas, along with the uncertainties and complexities of change, and introduce a strong new voice in storytelling.

    Yet, despite its influence andpopularity in the ancient world, the play remains curiously under-investigated in both mainstream cultural studies and more specialized scholarship. With Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris, Edith Hall provides a much-needed cultural history of this play, giving as much weight to the impact of theplay on subsequent Greek and Roman art and literature as on its manifestations since the discovery of the sole surviving medieval manuscript in the 1500s. The book argues that the reception of the play is bound up with its spectacular setting on the southern coast of the Crimean peninsula in what isnow the Ukraine, a territory where world history has often been made. However, it also shows that the play's tragicomic tenor and escape plot have had a tangible influence on popular culture, from romantic fiction to Hollywood action films. The thirteen chapters illustrate how reactions to the playhave evolved from the ancient admiration of Aristotle and Ovid, the Christian responses of Milton and Catherine the Great, the anthropological ritualists and theatrical Modernists including James Frazer and Isadora Duncan, to recent feminist and postcolonial dramatists from Mexico to Australia.Individual chapters are devoted to the most significant adaptations of the tragedy, Gluck's opera Iphig�nie en Tauride and Goethe's verse drama Iphigenie auf Tauris. Richly illustrated and accessibly written, with all texts translated into English, Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris argueselegantly for a reappraisal of this Euripidean masterpiece.