Poltava 1709

Poltava 1709

Author: Serhii Plokhy

Publisher: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781932650099

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In 2009, the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute gathered scholars from around the globe and from various fields of study to mark the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava. This collection of their papers provides a fresh look at this watershed event and sheds new light on the legacies of the battle's major players.


The Battle That Shook Europe

The Battle That Shook Europe

Author: Peter Englund

Publisher: I.B. Tauris

Published: 2013-04-15

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9781780764764

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'This victory', exulted Peter the Great, 'has laid the final stone in the foundations of St Petersburg!' The Battle of Poltava, 1709, marks the birth of the Tsar's vast Russian Empire. In 1700, seeking to open Russian trade routes to the West, the Tsar combined with Denmark, Saxony and Poland to attack Swedish hegemony in the North. Against the odds, King Charles XII of Sweden subdued the hostile coalition for nearly a decade, but in 1708 took his fatal decision to march for Moscow. His defeat at Poltava, in the Ukraine, proved the turning-point of the Great Northern War, heralding the collapse of the Swedish Empire and the rise of Russia, the effects of which would be felt for almost three hundred years. Swedish historian Peter Englund's vivid account of the three violent days of battle is an internationally acclaimed classic of military history, admired by scholars and the lay reader alike.


Ivan Mazepa and the Russian Empire

Ivan Mazepa and the Russian Empire

Author: Tatiana Tairova-Yakovleva

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2020-12-10

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 0228003083

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Ivan Mazepa (1639-1709), hetman of the Zaporozhian Host in what is now Ukraine, is a controversial figure, famous for abandoning his allegiance to Tsar Peter I and joining Charles XII's Swedish army during the Battle of Poltava. Although he is discussed in almost every survey and major book on Russian and Ukrainian history, Ivan Mazepa and the Russian Empire is the first English-language biography of the hetman in sixty years. A translation and revision of Tatiana Tairova-Yakovleva's 2007 Russian-language book, Ivan Mazepa and the Russian Empire presents an updated perspective. This account is based on many new sources, including Mazepa's archive - thought lost for centuries before it was rediscovered by the author in 2004 - and post-Soviet Russian and Ukrainian historiography. Focusing on this fresh material, Tairova-Yakovleva delivers a more nuanced and balanced account of the polarizing figure who has been simultaneously demonized in Russia as a traitor and revered in Ukraine as the defender of independence. Chapters on economic reform, Mazepa's impact on the rise to power of Peter I, his cultural achievements, and the reasons he switched his allegiance from Peter to Charles integrate a larger array of issues and personalities than have previously been explored. Setting a standard for the next generation of historians, Ivan Mazepa and the Russian Empire reveals an original picture of the Hetmanate during a moment of critical importance for the Russian Empire and Ukraine.


The Battle of Konotop 1659

The Battle of Konotop 1659

Author: Oleg Rumyantsev

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9788867050505

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Exploring alternatives in East European history. The battle that took place near Konotop in late June 1659 was a continuation of the Muscovite-Cossack war, which began in the fall of 1658, soon after the signing of the Union of Hadiach. Cossack and Tatar detachments trapped a significant portion of the Muscovite army, leading to enormous Russian losses.


Tsars and Cossacks

Tsars and Cossacks

Author: Serhii Plokhy

Publisher: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13:

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Ukrainian Cossacks used icon painting to investigate their relationship not only with God but also their relationship with the Russian tsar. In this groundbreaking study, Serhii Plokhy examines the political and religious culture of Ukrainian Cossackdom, as reflected in the Cossack-era paintings, icons, and woodcuts.


Courage and Fear

Courage and Fear

Author: Ola Hnatiuk

Publisher: Academic Studies PRess

Published: 2020-01-28

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 1644692538

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Courage and Fear is a study of a multicultural city in times when all norms collapse. Ola Hnatiuk presents a meticulously documented portrait of Lviv’s ethnically diverse intelligentsia during World War Two. As the Soviet, Nazi, and once again Soviet occupations tear the city’s social fabric apart, groups of Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish doctors, academics, and artists try to survive, struggling to manage complex relationships and to uphold their ethos. As their pre-war lives are violently upended, courage and fear shape their actions. Ola Hnatiuk employs diverse sources in several languages to tell the story of Lviv from a multi-ethnic perspective and to challenge the national narratives dominant in Central and Eastern Europe.


Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front

Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front

Author: Serhii Plokhy

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 0190061014

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The full story of the first and only time American and Soviets fought side-by-side in World War II At the conference held in in Moscow in October 1943, American officials proposed to their Soviet allies a new operation in the effort to defeat Nazi Germany. The Normandy Invasion was already in the works; what American officials were suggesting until then was a second air front: the US Air Force would establish bases in Soviet-controlled territory, in order to "shuttle-bomb" the Germans from the Eastern front. For all that he had been pushing for the United States and Great Britain to do more to help the war effort--the Soviets were bearing by far the heaviest burden in terms of casualties--Stalin, recalling the presence of foreign troops during the Russian Revolution, balked at the suggestion of foreign soldiers on Soviet soil. His concern was that they would spy on his regime, and it would be difficult to get rid of them afterword. Eventually in early 1944, Stalin was persuaded to give in, and Operation Baseball and then Frantic were initiated. B-17 Flying Fortresses were flown from bases in Italy to the Poltava region in Ukraine. As Plokhy's book shows, what happened on these airbases mirrors the nature of the Grand Alliance itself. While both sides were fighting for the same goal, Germany's unconditional surrender, differences arose that no common purpose could overcome. Soviet secret policeman watched over the operations, shadowing every move, and eventually trying to prevent fraternization between American servicemen and local women. A catastrophic air raid by the Germans revealed the limitations of Soviet air defenses. Relations soured and the operations went south. Indeed, the story of the American bases foreshadowed the eventual collapse of the Grand Alliance and the start of the Cold War. Using previously inaccessible archives, Forgotten Bastards offers a bottom-up history of the Grand Alliance, showing how it first began to fray on the airfields of World War II.


Warfare, Loyalty, and Rebellion

Warfare, Loyalty, and Rebellion

Author: Mindaugas Šapoka

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-13

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1317000307

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This book examines the politics of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the crucial period between the Russian tsar Peter the Great’s victory over Sweden at the battle of Poltava and the 1717 Silent Sejm, the Polish-Lithuanian parliament’s session which is traditionally seen as responsible for opening the way to Russian domination of Polish-Lithuanian politics. It not only challenges the accepted view of the passivity of the Lithuanian gentry and their subservience to the Russians, but also presents a clear view of how the Lithuanian economy and political system were functioning in 1710–1717, factors which have never been studied in depth in any language. Šapoka argues that much more blame for the Confederations of Vilnius and Tarnogród that had led to the Silent Sejm can be attributed to the Polish king Augustus II than is argued by the conventional scholarship. By so completely and deliberately ignoring the Commonwealth’s institutions and refusing to work within them, the Polish king provoked justified suspicion that by destroying the basis of the consensual political system, he wanted to introduce absolute monarchy.