ENGLISH

The Cossack Myth: History and Nationhood in the Age of Empires

By Serhii Plokhy

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
2012
ISBN
110702210X, 9781107022102
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
3 MB (3643808 bytes)
Series
New Studies in European History
Pages
402\406
Topic
History
Time added
2012-12-23 08:15:16
Исторические дисциплины;История Украины;Украина в

Description

In the years following the Napoleonic Wars, a mysterious manuscript began to circulate among the dissatisfied noble elite of the Russian Empire. Entitled The History of the Rus', it became one of the most influential historical texts of the modern era. Attributed to an eighteenth-century Orthodox archbishop, it described the heroic struggles of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Alexander Pushkin read the book as a manifestation of Russian national spirit but Taras Shevchenko interpreted it as a quest for Ukrainian national liberation and it would inspire thousands of Ukrainians to fight for the freedom of their homeland. Serhii Plokhy tells the fascinating story of the text's discovery and dissemination unravelling the mystery of its authorship and tracing its subsequent impact on Russian and Ukrainian historical and literary imagination. In so doing he brilliantly illuminates the relationship between history, myth, empire and nationhood from Napoleonic times to the fall of the Soviet Union.

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