Preface to the Second Edition

Fifteen years have gone by since A History of Ukraine was first published. During that time, much has happened in the evolution of Europe’s second largest coun­try. No less impressive has been the virtual explosion of scholarship published about various aspects of Ukraine’s distant and more recent past.

This fully revised and expanded second edition of what is now entitled A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples takes into account both the recent develop­ments in the country’s history as well as the information and insights found in the vast body of recent publications. Included in this revised edition are three new chapters that deal with the Crimean Khanate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the reaction of Ukraine’s other peoples to the post-World War I revo­lutionary era, and the developments in Ukraine since it obtained independent statehood in 1991. Other issues not dealt with in the first edition are now given the attention they deserve, including the role of symphonic music and opera in the nineteenth-century Ukrainian national awakening, socialist realism and work competition in the early Soviet period, and the Polish-Ukrainian conflict at the close of World War II. The number of text inserts, which proved to be an extremely useful and enjoyable aspect of the first edition, has increased by seven to a total of seventy-two. Among the new topics covered are the pre-historic Trypillians, the Italianate Crimea and the Black Death, the Karaites, Ottoman and Crimean slav­ery, Soviet-style ethnic cleansing, and the Orange Revolution. All the maps have been significantly revised and three new ones added for a total of forty-six. Finally, the “For Further Reading” section has been expanded by one-third more than what it was in the original edition.

In keeping with the innovative approach of the first edition, the emphasis on depicting the multicultural reality of past and present Ukraine has been main­tained, and reflected in the newly added sub-title of the book.

Aside from the addition of factual data, this second edition of a A History of Ukraine argues for a new conceptual approach aimed, in particular, at reconfigur­ing our understanding of developments before the eighteenth century. In that regard, the third phase in Ukrainian historical development is referred to here as the Lithuanian-Polish-Crimean period, in order to emphasize that the Crime­an Khanate (which for centuries ruled nearly one-third of present-day Ukraine) should be moved from the periphery and treated as an integral part of the Ukrain­ian historical narrative.

Whatever improvements may be found in this revised edition are in no small meas­ure due to the comments by a whole host of colleagues (including reviewers) and students who have used the first edition of the A History of Ukraine. I am particularly grateful to other colleagues who more recently have generously devoted their time to review certain parts of the revised edition before publication. Among them are the cohort of Ottoman and Crimean specialists led by Victor Ostapchuk (Univer­sity of Toronto) and his graduate students Maryna Kravets and Murat Yasar. Other sections of the work were read critically by Doris Bergen, Peter Galadza, Roman Serbyn, and Stephen Velychenko. The chapter on independent Ukraine benefited enormously from the information provided by Taras Kuzio and the critical com­ments of Serhiy Bilenky.

Preparation of this second edition posed some new challenges, which mod­ern technology did not substantially alleviate. Thanks to the efforts of Gabriele Scardellato, the text of the first edition was “electronically recovered” and the bur­den of preparing a revised index was rendered less time consuming. The coordina­tion between the author and publisher necessary to make this large-scale project possible was graciously provided by the University of Toronto Press editor Richard Ratzlaff. Rendering with consistency place names and proper names from other languages into English was once again a challenge. Most place and geographic names follow the preferred (first) form given in Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dic­tionary, 3rd ed. (Springfield, Mass. 2001). Maryna Kravets kindly prepared a list of modified Turkish spellings for names/terms that are originally in Crimean Tatar, Ottoman Turkish, and modern Turkish. Most of the names/terms referring to Jew­ish matters are based on those used in an outstanding new resource on the subject, compiled under the direction of Gershon David Hundert, The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eaistern Europe, 2 vols. (New Haven and London 2008).

I am deeply grateful to all these colleagues, but most of all to Nadiya Kushko, a daughter and patriot of the land of Ukraine, whose vast knowledge of pre-historic and historic times as well as insights into Soviet life have truly enriched and made this revised edition better than it could ever have been without her. Of course, whatever shortcomings may still exist are mine alone.

Paul Robert Magocsi

Toronto, Ontario

February 2010