Reflections on Yaroslav Hrytsak's 'Ukraine: The Forging of a Nation'
A Book Review
The question why people are drawn to autocratic ideas, and to the subjugation of other people, is a question that I find hard to answer. The idea of subjugating oneself to the iron fist of a Caesar is so abhorrent to me that I cannot fully grasp it. Neither do I know why the systemic oppression of other people’s cultures is something so prevalent in human history. From the Norman invasion of Anglo-Saxon England in 1066 to the colonisation of Ukraine by Russia, the attempted erasure of societies and national identity is a pattern that continually repeats itself throughout the history of man. See it as a morbid design, a dark, macabre thread that continually evolves and resurfaces on the tapestry that is the history of humanity.
Yet the oppressed culture itself, despite the attempts of its oppressors, thrives and continues: it experiences a rebellious Renaissance, impossible to erase, even when that culture is subject to repression. And this is the story told by Professor Yaroslav Hrytsak, a Ukrainian professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University.
Ukraine: The Forging of a Nation is not just a history book- it is a story with sub-themes of epic history in it: a retelling of how a culture and a country never ceases to fight for itself and for what it stands for- up to today. Professor Hrytsak begins his book with an introduction describing the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, describing how Russian soldiers expected to arrive in Kyiv in no less than three days. Their Kremlin-induced delusions were shattered by the resistance of the Ukrainian people- in some places, the Russians were held back by ‘mere’ volunteers. The defenders protecting Kyiv were mostly made out of civilians.
Sometimes, I wonder- and reading this book made me think- whether we in Western Europe, would have the strength to do this. Have Western Europeans have been coddled by almost a century of post World War Two peace? Have we lowered our guard? Our democracies, however, are fragile, misused from within, due to societal and political decadence: there are many complaints that (Western) universities are no longer fortresses of academic freedom and creativity, and have been turned into bastions of left-wing, Marxist thinking where academic freedom is curtailed by dogma (I have personally experienced this). Simultaneously, Europe is also facing a rise of far-right political parties. This phenomenon could be called ‘cultural schizophrenia’.
Reading Professor Hrytsak’s monograph, and reflecting on the above problems, has made me wonder whether Western countries, with their decaying democracies and academic institutions could have the guts to do what Ukraine has done. Say, we would be invaded by some imperialistic force, would we be able to scramble and unite? Or would we still sink into the quagmire of individualistic political and societal factions?
Professor Hrytsak, correctly, claims that Ukrainian history is permeated with examples of survival, solidarity, and resistance. Ukraine’s past offers, both alarming warnings and grounds for optimism.
In order to counteract Russia’s false claim that Ukraine is part of Russia, Professor Hrytsak dives straight into the etymological history of his country. The name/word Ukraine has a double meaning- it may be read both as ‘borderlands’ and a country. In 1187, the Kyiv Chronicle refers to Ukraine as a country, when it describes the death of Prince Volodymr Hibovych: ‘all Ukraine groaned for him’. In the 16th century, ‘Ukraine’ was used as a word to describe other things as well- it meant ‘borderlands’ in documents post 1509, when Ukrainian lands entered the Polish-Lithianian commonwealth. ‘Ukrainia’, reported by Professor Hrytsak, has been used to reference certain provinces, such as Volhynia-Ukraine, Kyiv-Ukraine. And the word ‘Ukrainian’ emerged around the turn of the seventeenth century. In the early Middle Ages, a state emerged, and it was called ‘Kyivian Rus’.
‘Rus’ was neither a Russian nor Ukrainian state. In fact, calling it a state, Professor Hrytsak states, is a questionable thing. Rus emerged and operated as a trading company, which then turned it into a state at the end of the 10th century. Rus was founded by Varangians- a Scandinavian ethnic group, otherwise known as Vikings, originating mostly from Norway and Sweden. According to Historic Mysteries, their relentless expansion threw eastern Europe into disarray as they established themselves in what came to be called the Kievan Rus. They mingled with Ugro-Finnish tribes, Turkic nomads, and Slavic tribes. Hrytsak quotes The Tale of Bygone Years, which describes who the ‘Rus were: these particular Varangians were called Rus, just as others are called Swedes and other Normans and Angles and still others Gotlanders. Kyvian Rus ceased to exist as a political union after the deaths of the sons of Prince Volodymr Molomakh, and various Rus princes began to fight amongst themselves. Later, the Russian empire tried to lay claim to former historical ‘Rus’ lands.
The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore elaborates more on the distinction between Rus, Russian, Ukraine, and Russia: In The World: A Family History, Montefiore writes that Peter the Great, a Russian tsar, used the word ‘Rus’ to create the name of his new empire, Russia. Again: ‘Rus’ and ‘Russian’ are not synonymous.
Rebelling against the USSR
It is worthy to note that one very strong ‘pattern’ that reveals itself in this monograph is that culture is used as a form of rebellion.
The Idler magazine (March-April 2025 edition) has an interesting article in it written by Ferdinand Mount- ‘How to be a Tyrant’. In his article, Mount states that ‘to survive, the Caesar has to create his own universe of truth’. Countries that have a habit of invading and occupying others have a track record of creating, indeed, their own ‘universes’, concocted out of half-truths, falsified historical evidence, religious zealotry, and barefaced lies. Ukraine, as a nation, had and has an answer to the ‘fake universes’ of colonisers. Despite Soviet occupation and influence, in the 20th century, Ukraine formed what Professor Hrytsak calls the ‘Lviv-Kyiv axis’: at the start of the 1960s, the creatives and intelligentsias of these two cities began to communicate. It is also worth noting that a place where Communist repression was the hardest was also the place which produced the most cultural resistance- according to Professor Hrytsak, the Donbas was a harsh, brutal region where criminals and ‘anti-Soviet elements’ were sent to labour after serving sentences in jail. The enforcement of Soviet ideas and punishments naturally bred more ‘anti-Soviet elements': Donbas produced many dissidents, such as Ivan Dziuba; Vasyl Stus, Ivan Svitlychnyi….Nadiya Svitlychna; and Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who is now one of the most prominent political figures in Israel.
Although I do not doubt, for one moment, the validity of Ukraine’s victimhood and grievances, despite the continual repressions, censorships, and invasions, Ukraine’s culture and national identity thrived, and continues to do so. Repression doesn’t work, at least, long-term. A historical parallel would be the development of the Robin Hood myth in post-Conquest England: during and after 1066 A.D., Normans actively repressed and massacred the Anglo-Saxons (even inducing an artificial famine that reduced people to cannibalism, this is called The Harrowing of the North). A few centuries later on, folk tales, plays, and ballads reveal the emergence of ‘Robin Hood’, and other similar figures; country men, yeomen, Englishmen, that fight against the aristocracy, which, even more than a hundred years after the Conquest, was culturally French. The same cultural process is evident in Ukraine.
The Donbas area was also a centre of ‘decommunisation’. In 1989, miners expelled Communist organisations from the mines. During the 60s, Ukraine experienced a form of cultural rebellion; Professor Hrytsak mentions dissident poets, such as Lina Kostenko, Vasyl Symonenko, and Ivan Drach. The ‘Sixties Group’ was also alarmed by the arrest of Ukrainian intellectuals, and feared a return of Stalinist repression. However, despite repression, Ukrainian culture wasn’t erased: an example of this is Lina Kostenko- mentioned by Professor Hrytsak- who was part of the ‘Sixties Group’ and considered the founder of contemporary Ukrainian poetry. Her work was censored by the USSR. The Kyiv Post describes Kostenko as an incredibly brave woman, who during the Soviet period preferred to remain unpublished rather than submit to censorship and was ready to risk everything by protesting publicly against political repression. Another example of cultural expression as a form of rebellion is embodied in Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus, who, despite being in custody by Soviet authorities, composed a major collection, Time of Creativity (later to become part of Palimpsests), the title of which communicates the choice he had made: to keep creating against all odds. Here is a translation of one of Stus’ poems by the Los Angeles Review of Books:
Oh this confrontation of half-souls —
of these two fragments of the heart,
which corrupt hope with memories,
and tie the memories to hope!
Multi-directed sealed soul!
Hemmed in between the future and the past,
you will neither find yourself, nor lose yourself,
you are the dark black shadow of my body.
Culture and National Unity
Referring back to Mount’s quote about Ceasars making their own ‘universes’, it appears that Ukraine has a track record of being able to form an antidote to the universes of autocrats. Despite systemic oppression, both physically and culturally, despite the efforts of imperialists to enforce a societal amnesia upon Ukrainians, Ukrainian culture still survived; and thrived. And perhaps that is the reason why Ukraine manages to resist Russia’s onslaughts, and why civilians were prepared to defend Kyiv, why there are still students studying at Ukrainian universities. There is a strong sense of national and cultural identity and a shared hatred of communism and nazism.
I believe that the West should learn from this. Our national and cultural identities are being frayed by various different forces. In other words: there are too many forces trying to dismantle European culture and notions of Liberté, égalité, fraternité (yes, a French motto, but I’d like to argue that democracy is built upon these tenets). The West isn’t unified.
The history of Ukraine provides an antidote to this fragmented national identity. Despite the continuous repression by autocratic forces, Ukraine developed its own culture- unlike Western culture, which is being demolished by toxic left-wing university culture and ultra-right populist politicians. Ukraine did not break down beneath the pressure of propaganda and autocratic imperialism.
Ukraine has no time now for polarised political and societal behaviour. It has formed a national identity that encompasses all Ukrainians- an example would be that Ukraine is a predominantly Christian country, and yet its president Zelenskyy is Jewish. Ukraine’s strong sense of national identity and patriotism is something the West can learn from.
Final Thoughts
To anyone who is interested in Ukrainian culture, cultural rebellion, and national unity, I would highly recommend Ukraine: The Forging of a Nation. It is a template and an inspiration for those who wish to defend democracies against autocratic and tyrannical forces. Professor Hrytsak’s book is also an inspiration for creatives- artists, writers, musicians, poets- because it illustrates the importance of culture in forming a national identity and in resisting dictatorships. Too often are the arts dismissed as useless, powerless. This book shows that this is not true.
Maryse Kluck 2025
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Sources Used
Ukraine: The Forging of a Nation by Yaroslav Hrytsak
Lina Kostenko- Ukraine’s Poetic Sphinx by Bohdan Nahaylo https://www.kyivpost.com/post/49374
The World: A Family History by Simon Sebag Montefiore
How To Be a Tyrant: Idler Magazine, No.101, by Ferdinand Mount
The Varangians: https://www.historicmysteries.com/history/varangian/31008/ by Bipin Dimri
Thriving in Isolation and Beyond: The Empowering Poetry of Vasyl Stus: Bohdan Tokarsky https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/thriving-in-isolation-and-beyond-the-empowering-poetry-of-vasyl-stus/#
A really thoughtful commentary. Thank you.