Russia's large-scale invasion on the 24th of February 2022 once again made Ukraine the focus of world media. Behind those headlines remain the complex developments in Ukraine's history, national identity, culture and society. Addressing readers from diverse backgrounds, this volume approaches the history of Ukraine and its people through primary sources, from the early modern period to the present. Each document is followed by an essay written by an expert on the period, and a conversational piece touching on the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine. In this ground-breaking collection, Ukraine's history is sensitively accounted for by scholars inviting the readers to revisit the country's history and culture. With a foreword by Olesya Khromeychuk.

Olena Palko is an assistant professor at Universität Basel. She was awarded her Ph.D. from the University of East Anglia in 2017 and previously held a position of the Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her first book, Making Ukraine Soviet. Literature and Cultural Politics under Lenin and Stalin (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) was awarded the Prize for the Best Book in the field of Ukrainian history, politics, language, literature and culture (2019-20) from the American Association for Ukrainian Studies. Her research interests lie in the field of early Soviet cultural history and the interwar history of Eastern Europe.