Best of
Ukraine

2020

Grey Bees


Andrey Kurkov - 2020
    Who better than Ukraine's most famous novelist - who writes in Russian - to illuminate and present a balanced portrait of this most bewildering of modern conflicts?

How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News and the Future of Conflict


Nina Jankowicz - 2020
    The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it?Central and Eastern European states, however, have been aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading.How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself.

Motherland: An epic and heartbreaking story of love, loss, and motherhood during and after WW2


Tetyana Denford - 2020
    Paperback and e-books available online have been corrected**Ukraine, 1940. Julia flees her childhood home, never to see her parents again. She is captured and forced into a labour camp in Germany, where she slowly starts to give up on all hope of survival. Her redemption comes in the form of Henry, a fellow Ukrainian working for the SS.Julia and Henry promise themselves to each other, and the days pass with little hope, but just before liberation, they welcome a daughter into the world and decide to board a boat filled with thousands of immigrants heading to Australia. Salvation. They begin again, trying to make sense of their life in the barren sugarcane fields.But Julia feels isolated and frustrated, and tensions slowly mount between her and Henry, until one day, Julia is forced to reveal a tragic secret; a secret that she'd never revealed for fear of losing him, and their daughter. It breaks Henry's heart and shatters his trust, and so he gives her an ultimatum before they immigrate to New York. It's a choice no mother should ever have to make.Her decision changes the course of her life forever, until 65 years later, the forgiveness she seeks comes from someone she never thought would find her again.Based on extraordinary true events, Motherland is a powerful debut, self-published novel about love, loss, and perseverance against the odds, perfect for fans of We Were The Lucky Ones, The Light Between Oceans, and The Nightingale.

Crimean War: A History from Beginning to End


Hourly History - 2020
    More men died in the Crimean War than in the American Civil War which followed soon after, but while the Civil War has been the subject of countless books, articles, and movies, the Crimean War has been virtually ignored.Part of the reason for this is that the causes of the Crimean War are not well understood. Just what made four empires go to war in the Black Sea in 1854? The outcome of the war was also partly responsible; it can be argued that the Crimean War changed nothing and that it is not at all clear why and for what half a million men died. Even the name by which this war is now known was not used at the time; until the twentieth century, this war was known in Britain as the Russian War.Yet the Crimean War is important for a number of reasons. Although it did not change the map of Europe and did not directly cause the fall of any of the combatants, it did indirectly shape the second half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century in Europe. This war also introduced newspaper reporters and photographers who provided regular dispatches direct from the battlefield, something that became a feature of virtually every war which followed. The presence of these reporters gave the public some idea, almost for the first time, of what war was really like for the men who fought it.Although the Crimean War did not fundamentally change the world, nothing would be quite the same after its conclusion. This is the story of the Crimean War.Discover a plethora of topics such asThe March to WarThe Charge of the Light BrigadeDeath, Disease, and the Lady with the LampInkerman and the Death of the TsarThe Naval WarThe Fall of SevastopolAnd much more!

Beyond Borscht: Old-World Recipes from Eastern Europe: Ukraine, Russia, Poland More


Tatyana Nesteruk - 2020
    From growing up in a close-knit Slavic community that gathered daily to celebrate food, Tatyana Nesteruk learned the art of honoring tradition while also making the recipes accessible for the modern home cook. Her simple instructions and treasure chest of time-honored dishes will have you flawlessly re-creating the food you love—or have yet to discover! Capturing the classic tastes of Eastern Europe is easy no matter where you live, thanks to Tatyana’s nifty cooking hacks, such as rinsing cottage cheese to quickly transform it into the beloved Russian tvorog (farmer’s cheese). Dive into timeless recipes like Beef and Cheese Piroshki (hand pies), Smoked Salmon and Caviar Blini and Classic Beef Borscht. Whip up epic main dishes like Shashliki (Shish Kebabs), Plov (Beef and Garlic Rice Pilaf) and Potato Latkes with Chicken, and pair them with delicious sides like Mushroom Buckwheat and Olivier Potato Salad for a truly unbeatable spread. With desserts like Sweet Cherry Pierogi, Russian Tea Cookies and Poppy Seed Roll, you’ll be transported back to the old world by the end of the night. If you grew up eating this incredible cuisine, visited this part of the world and can’t stop dreaming of the food, or are trying these authentic dishes for the first time, the unique, comforting and nostalgic flavors packed into Tatyana’s recipes will send your taste buds on an unforgettable journey.

A New Orthography: Poems


Serhiy Zhadan - 2020
    In these poems, the poet focuses on daily life during the Russo-Ukrainian war, rendering intimate portraits of the country's residents as they respond to crisis. Zhadan revives and revises the role of the nineteenth-century Romantic bard, one who portrays his community with clarity, preserving its most precious aspects and darkest nuances. The poems investigate questions of home, exile, solitude, love, and religious faith, making vivid the experiences of noncombatants, refugees, soldiers, and veterans. This collection will be of interest to those who study how poetry observes and mirrors the shifts within a country during wartime, and it offers solace as well.

The Poet of Ukraine: Selected Poems of Taras Shevchenko


Taras Shevchenko - 2020
    This compilation features a detailed biography, as well as, historical and political contextual commentary for each of the thirty-one selected poems.Taras Shevchenko is the poet of Ukraine. There is hardly a Ukrainian home from the humblest to the richest that does not contain a portrait of the poet who during his short life touched every chord of the Ukrainian heart. He shared the fortunes of his people and during his unhappy life he suffered all the hardships of serfdom, of exile, of police supervision that was the fate of the greater part of his compatriots. Seldom has a poet lived and suffered to the full as did Shevchenko and rarely has a man so fully incorporated all the aspirations of his people.That is not all. As an artist and a thinker Shevchenko deserves the sympathetic knowledge and understanding of the entire civilized and democratic world. He deserves it as the representative of his people, a nation of forty millions who have so far failed to receive that independence for which they have long struggled. He deserves it also for himself, for his own writings, since it can be truly said that he is one of those men who have a message for all humanity, for the suffering and the downtrodden, the victims of injustice and oppression every where.It is the object of this book to make available in English translation some of the masterpieces of this poet whose works have lived for a century with an ever widening influence and an ever increasing appreciation of his genius both at home and abroad. It has been a strange fate that has confined knowledge of his works to some scanty references in books on literature, while lesser men in other languages have received fantastic praises. Such was fate. In his lifetime many of the most penetrating critics in Russia saw fit to place him above Pushkin and Mickiewicz for his mastery of language and for the depth and sincerity of his ideas. Yet they were in the minority, for the vast multitudes were only inclined to see in him a young serf writing in his native language and they passed him by with a shrug of the shoulders.He formed part of that great flowering of poetry which commenced with the period of Romanticism in Europe and he was one of those men who passed by a natural evolution to the great period of realism and of sensitiveness to the social problems of the day. Now in the twentieth century we are learning as never before to judge him for himself, as a flowering of the Ukrainian character and as a man who has a message not only for his own times and country but for the entire world. He has stood the test of time and he deserves due recognition in these days when the entire world is sunk in war and desolation.There can be no doubt today that Taras Shevchenko is one of the great Slavonic poets. He is one of the great poets of the nineteenth century without regard to nationality or language and his fearless appeal to right and truth and justice speaks as eloquently in the New World as it did in the Old or in the little village where he was born, the city to which he was taken or the treeless steppes to which he was exiled.