Russia was and still is given to promoting the view that Ukraine is no more than a minor province (‘Little Russia’) and that the independent state of Ukraine is merely an ‘accidental’ country created by foreign intrigue against Russia. This view still influences the Western world. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed argues gracefully and forcefully against this through the work of modern Ukrainian literary figures, such as Taras Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrainka, Ivan Franko, and Volodymyr Vynnychenko, who resisted and contested Russia's attempts to extinguish the cultural and historical memory of Ukraine. Nikolai Gogol, a celebrated ‘Russian’ writer, was in fact Mykola Hohol, a Ukrainian at his core. From this eminently readable book reverberates a chorus of cries from the Ukrainian National Anthem: ‘Ukraine is not yet dead.’

Hiroaki Kuromiya, Indiana University Bloomington

This is a passionate, provocative, and uncompromising exploration of Ukraine’s cultural memory, as transmitted from generation to generation. It charts a new direction in the study of mnemonic resistance, the bedrock on which support for independence was always built. A must-read for anyone wishing to hear the voice of Ukrainians who in their letters, both public and private, discussed Russia’s Otherness. Shpylova-Saeed explores conflicts and tensions in cultural memory that appeared in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and then came to global attention in 2014 when Russia began its war against Ukraine. Her focus is on memory clusters that over the generations have demonstrated Ukraine’s distinctiveness and have defied imperial injunctions to forget. As she points out, Ukrainians have remembered themselves differently—not as one people with the Russians, not as part of one land, one language, or one culture. The letters written by leading intellectuals made this reality visible, even when it was not possible to present it in a public forum. This is a book for anyone interested in understanding how in the twenty-first century collective community resistance can work against suppression and silencing.

Myroslav Shkandrij, University of Manitoba

This book is one of the best studies written in any language about the “memory wars” led by imperialistic Russia against Ukraine since the early nineteenth century. This book, based on a meticulous research of the letters, written by the iconic figures for Ukrainian identity (Mykola Hohol, Taras Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrainka, Ivan Franko, and Volodymyr Vynnychenko), is a fascinating historical-philological study, which represents a unique scholarly analysis of the very important and sometime forgotten (especially by mainstream historians) history of the contested memory of Ukraine and Ukrainian national identity vs. the imperial Russian/Soviet attempts to suppress and replace them with the Russian/Soviet cultural models. This book will be must-read for any student of Ukrainian history and literature.

Sergei I. Zhuk, Ball State University