It is inconceivable to think that a year has passed since Russia first launched its devastating invasion of Ukraine. The following books shed light on the ongoing conflict and provide a better understanding of Ukrainian history as well as the complicated, intertwined pasts of both countries as the war continues. Recent titles published by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute also highlight the voices of Ukrainian writers through timely and harrowing narratives.
The Torture Camp on Paradise Street
Stanislav Aseyev
Ukrainian journalist Stanislav Aseyev details his experience as a prisoner for nearly three years at a modern-day concentration camp overseen by the Federal Security Bureau of the Russian Federation in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk. This compelling memoir offers critical insight into the operations of Russian forces in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
The Moscow Factor: U.S. Policy toward Sovereign Ukraine and the Kremlin
Eugene M. Fishel
Eugene Fishel asks whether, how, and under what circumstances the United States has considered Ukraine’s sovereignty in its relations with Moscow. The Moscow Factor brings together for the first time documentary evidence and declassified materials, retrospective articles by former policymakers, and memoirs by erstwhile senior officials.
The Length of Days: An Urban Ballad
Volodymyr Rafeyenko
In The Length of Days, featuring a wild cast of characters, Volodymyr Rafeyenko combines poetry and wicked humor with elements of magical realism. The novel is set in 2014, mostly in the composite Donbas city of Z—an uncanny foretelling of what this letter has come to symbolize since February 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In Isolation: Dispatches from Occupied Donbas
Stanislav Aseyev
In this collection of dispatches, Aseyev attempts to understand the reasons behind the success of Russian propaganda among the residents of the industrial region of Donbas. For the first time, an inside account shows the toll on real human lives and civic freedoms that citizens continue to suffer in Russia’s hybrid war on its territory.
Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love
Volodymyr Rafeyenko
Mondegreen tells the story of a refugee from Ukraine’s Donbas region who has escaped to Kyiv at the onset of the Ukrainian-Russian war. Written in beautiful, experimental style, the novel shows how people—and cities—are capable of radical transformation and how this, in turn, affects their interpersonal relations and cultural identification.
The Ukrainian West: Culture and the Fate of Empire in Soviet Lviv
William Jay Risch
Months before crowds in Moscow dismantled monuments to Lenin, residents of the western Ukrainian city of Lviv toppled theirs. William Jay Risch argues that Soviet politics of empire created this anti-Soviet city, and that opposition from the periphery as much as from the imperial center was instrumental in unraveling the Soviet Union.
Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament: A History
Yuri Kostenko
Based on original and previously unavailable documents, Yuri Kostenko’s account of the negotiations surrounding the Budapest Memorandum agreement between Ukraine, Russia, and the US reveals for the first time the internal debates of the Ukrainian government, as well as the pressure exerted upon it by its international partners.
Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule
Karel C. Berkhoff
Karel C. Berkhoff describes how a blend of German nationalism, anti-Semitism, and racist notions about the Slavs produced a reign of terror and genocide in the Third Reich’s largest colony. He also shows how a pervasive Soviet mentality worked against solidarity, explaining why the vast majority of the population did not resist the Germans.
Russia: The Story of War
Gregory Carleton
Outsiders view Russia as an aggressor, but Russians see themselves as surrounded by enemies, defensively fighting off invader after invader, or called upon by history to be the savior of Europe, or Christianity, or civilization itself, often at immense cost. As Gregory Carleton shows, war is the unifying thread of Russia’s national epic.
The Frontline: Essays on Ukraine’s Past and Present
Serhii Plokhy
The Frontline collects essays in a companion volume to Serhii Plokhy’s The Gates of Europe and Chernobyl. The essays present further analysis of key events in Ukrainian history, including Ukraine’s relations with Russia and the West, the Holodomor and World War II, the impact of Chernobyl, and Ukraine’s contribution to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
