War and Peace

How did we end up on February 24, 2022? How was this even possible? The Russian historical narrative is built on myths: about the unity of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples, about some ancestral Russian territories, about the traitor Mazepa and the terrible Bandera followers, and about the greatness of the beautiful invincible empire. These myths were formed and supported by Russian historians, poets, writers, and rulers. Vladimir Putin believed in these myths and became obsessed with them. It's high time to debunk these myths. In his book, Mikhail Zygar talks about how the relationships between Ukraine and Russia developed over the course of 350 years. But he shows this not through the history of states, parties, or organizations, but through the stories of people. Hetmans Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Kyrylo Rozumovskyi, poets Taras Shevchenko and Vasyl Stus, political figures Mykhailo Hrushevskyi and Stepan Bandera. But the main character of the book is Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian and now the most popular politician in the world, a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression. The fates of the heroes of this book are stories of love, passion, courage, resistance to despotism, and the struggle for their national identity and freedom. For this book, Mikhail Zygar studied hundreds of historical sources and also interviewed key Ukrainian and Russian businessmen and politicians.