Review of: Thomas M. Prymak. Ukraine, the Middle East, and the West. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021

Liliya Berezhnaya

Review (journal)

Abstract

Already in the year 2000, the grand dame of Ukrainian early modern historiography, Nataliya Yakovenko, claimed that “the continued denial of the Eastern factors in Ukrainian history—not only Byzantine, which has been studied to an extent, and Russian, which is for the moment limited to demonizing the ‘asiatics,’ but also Turkic—is absurd” (Nataliya Yakovenko, “Early Modern Ukraine Between East and West: Projecturies of an Idea” in Regions: A Prism to View the Slavic-Eurasian World: Towards a Discipline of “Regionology,” ed. by Kimitaka Matsuzato, 68). By that time, she was not alone, and appeals to position Ukrainian history beyond the binary framework of Ukraine between the “Russian East and Polish West” came from other places as well. Particularly constructive were the reflections of Ukrainian specialists in Middle Eastern studies, whose work helped counterbalance the disproportionate number of studies of Ukraine’s western borders versus those addressing its eastern borders. Thomas M. Prymak’s latest book fits with this general historiographical trend. It is a collection of essays—some previously published—that summarize the author’s earlier research in the field of Ukrainian historiography, published throughout his lengthy career. If Yakovenko’s plea was mainly addressed to historians of Ukraine, Prymak’s audience is mostly and undoubtedly Western colleagues who, according to him, have little knowledge of the complex history of eastern and western influences in this East European country. Indeed, this volume aims to present a certain “mosaic treating Middle Eastern and western motifs in Ukrainian history and culture” (16). It is not a monograph, but a chronologically structured collection of sketches intended to correct “historical errors” (20) committed by Soviet censorship boards, which prohibited oriental studies in Ukraine. In this way, the book also contributes not only to Ukrainian history but to Eastern European historiography more broadly.

Details zur Publikation

Release year: 2023
Language in which the publication is written: English
Link to the full text: https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/128/2/1036/7204536?redirectedFrom=fulltext