Description
Book SynopsisIn her Four Essays on World War II, Olena Stiazhkina inscribes the Ukrainian history of World War II into a wider European and world context. Among other aspects, she analyses the mobilization measures on the eve of the war, and reconsiders Soviet narratives on them. Scrutinizing social and political processes initiated by the Bolshevik leadership in the 1920s and 1930s, she outlines how mobilization and militarization became integral parts of Soviet politics. Today, the Kremlin uses Soviet and post-Soviet Russian narratives of World War II to justify its aggressive policies towards a number of democratic countries. Russia is engaged in falsification of the past to underpin claims of a so-called Russian World and its ongoing war against Ukraine. Against this background, Stiazhkina offers a new understanding of what happened in Ukraine before, during, and after World War II.
Trade Review"Here you get answers that will change your knowledge both of Ukrainian history and how the building of a new society by a totalitarian regime affected everyone, even children. This fascinating book reinforces interest not only in the history of Ukraine, but in the history of all Eastern Europe. -- Andriy Kurkov, novelist and President of PEN Ukraine
Table of ContentsPreface; Essay I: World War II in the Life and Death of Ukrainians: An Attempt to Adjust the Methodological Framework; Essay II: The Regime of Continuous War: Mobilization, Militarization, and Practices of Maintaining an Undeclared State of Emergency in Soviet Ukraine From the 1920s to the 1940s; Essay III: Occupation Regimes in Ukrainian Lands: Establishment and Fall/Stabilization, Similarities and Differences; Essay IV: Ukraine in 19431953: Re-Sovietization and an Unexpected Turn of the Unfinished War; Abbreviations; Index.
