Ukraine Books

I noticed Curt Leviant's novel, "The Man Who Thougt He Was Messiah", on your website and was fascinated by the title. The book too is fascinating, a page-turner full of exciting adventures, a great love story and loads of spirituality. The hero, Reb Nachman, exchanges melodies with Beethoven whom he meets in Vienna; he also has the ability to levitate. After reading the book, I looked for reviews, and they were terrific. The New York Times Book Review (Dec 16, 1990) and Publishers Weekly (Aug 24, 1990). And Elie Wiesel wrote (quoted on the dust jacket) "This beautiful and moving fictional narrative -- Curt Leviant's best -- deserves our attention. It is the work of a gifted writer. Read it and you will plunge into an enchanting spiritual universe -- filled with imagination, humor and warmth -- that to our deep regret exists no more."

Great article in CHIEF EXECUTIVE Magazine about how a partnership was formed between a U.S. Company and a Russian entrepreneur to introduce a line of U.S. cosmetics to the newly formed Republic of Russia just after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Worthwhile reading on how to develop these kinds of relationships and alliances.

THIS is the heart of Torah. Each hidden nugget of Truth excavated, brought to the surface, and given to the reader as a jewel. One, of course, familiar, for they knew it somehow already. So that one may smile, beam, and nod at the end of a teaching- saying, "I know! And somehow I knew, already." For each member of humanity is a Torah and the students of Nahum describes all that we embody in this book. Accessible and complex. As is Torah, and so we, and our relationship to All That Is, was, and will be.

A must have resource for people of any religion (or no affiliation at all) interested in knowing what Torah is all about or simply to revel in an entirely different realm of thinking. Different from the everyday, yet completely integral of the everyday. Accessible every minute of every day. Enjoy.

This book is Professor David Rempel's posthumous magnum opus. David Rempel was born in 1899 in Nieder Khortitsa, Ukraine, into the thriving Russian Mennonite community that had existed there since late 18th century. And as such, he was an eyewitness to the events recorded in this book, the events that surrounded the final destruction of the Mennonite community in Russia.

This book begins by tracing the migration on the Mennonites from Prussia to the Ukraine, and the growth of the Mennonite communities there. When the book gets to Professor Rempel's own era, it shifts, becoming a biography of himself and his immediate family. As this part of the story proceeds, you get to see the sad fate of the Russian Mennonites, seeing their experiences through the eyes of the author.

Now, I must say that I found this book to be both highly informative and very moving. The author does an excellent job of presenting the Russian Mennonites with all of their faults, as an imperfect people (as all are), who found themselves caught up in a catastrophe that they could not deal with.

I must admit that I cannot find words enough to express my feelings about this wonderful book, and fear that this review does not even begin to do it justice. Let me just say that I loved this book, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Russian Mennonites, or the fate of minorities in Revolutionary Russia.

My two and a half year old granddaughter made me read this story over and over. She wouldn't take off the mittens, even wearing them to bed. The pictures are wonderful and if played up by the reader, they increase the interest in the story. This would be a great Christmas present.

Music in the Culture of Polish Galicia, 1772-1924 was a co-winner of the 2003 AAASS/Orbis Books Prize for Polish Studies awarded annually for the most outstanding English-language book
on any aspect of Polish affairs.

The other winner was Jolanta T. Pekacz's Music in the Culture of Polish Galicia, 1772-1914 (University of Rochester Press).

The Prize committee - Izabela Kalinowska-Blackwood, Andrzej Tymowski, and Halina Filipowicz - wrote the following about the winning volumes:

Both books are exemplary monographs based on meticulous archival research. Both provide an important point of entry for exploring a lost symbolic world in a rather out-of-the-way place, at least in geopolitical terms: the multiethnic province of Galicia in the Habsburg Monarchy. Ezra Mendelsohn's elegantly written book concentrates on the work of Maurycy Gottlieb, a founding father of modern Jewish art, who was born in a small town known in Polish as Drohobycz, now associated primarily with the internationally acclaimed writer Bruno Schulz. Jolanta T. Pekacz's study addresses an understudied area - popular music genres in nineteenth-century Galicia - within a well-informed historical framework. In examing their topics, both Mendelsohn and Pekacz also tell us much about the multiethnic society of nineteenth-century Galicia - about its social tensions, divisions, and hierarchies, and about about its strength and fragility.

Mendelsohn's and Pekacz's studies not only expand our knowledge and understanding of the social and symbolic world of old Galicia, but they also challenge our tendency to think of culture - any culture - as a static and homogeneous entity (if only to make it possible to talk about it). To do justice to the complexity of their project, both Mendelsohn and Pekacz keep alive several perspectives, chief among them the perspective of cultural studies. They show that, contrary to a common misconception, cultural studies are not primarily concerned with banal populism. They agree that all forms of cultural production need to be studied - not as self-contained and independent entities, knowable apart from their own time and place, but rather in their particular historical contexts. They also agree that the perspective of cultural studies offers fresh insights into the underlying importance of literature and the arts in the formation of national identities.

Ezra Mendelsohn's Painting a People: Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art and Jolanta T. Pekacz's Music in the Culture of Polish Galicia, 1772-1914 are highly original studies on the cutting-edge of several disciplines: social history, history of ideas, cultural studies, Jewish studies, Polish studies, and Polish Jewish studies. Both books offer the rare intellectual pleasure that goes with disentangling intricate historical patterns behind the mythologized image of Galicia as a land of pride and tears, where good men and women were busy shaking the dead hand of the past.

First off, the subject of the book is the transition of allegiance/identity of Galician peasants from being a subject of a Lord (landlord) to being independent citizens of the Kingdom of Poland. The time period involved is 1848-1914.

Secondly, this book was written by a history professor with the intended audience being fellow academia. It is not a "light read". It is a college-level research text. It's packed full of well researched details of the lives and times of Galician peasants. If you've got Polish roots, you'll learn a tremendous amount about them in this book! If you want more than just names on your family tree... If you're interested in knowing what life was like for the people whose names are on your family tree, you should read this book. It touches on what the peasants feared, how they celebrated (and what they celebrated), what educational opportunities they had, what opportunities they had for socializing, the role of women in farm life, lots about their struggles to become politically involved beyond their own villages and more. If you want well researched facts and details this is the book for you. I highly recommend it.

This is history at its greatist, at its finest and purest; though amort, unquestionably, Prusin has the rare skill of analyzing the topic in the powerful and fair methods that men have tried to accomplish since the begining of writing yet few have since achieved. Prusin has spent what seems like a lifetime gathering information for this well-stocked book. overall a great read for the history lover in all of us and standard material for any intro to Russian/Soviet History class.

The nations of Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus are the new Eastern Europe sandwiched between a larger European Union and a resurgent Russia. Historically the object of fluid and volatile geopolitical shifts, none has ever existed as a state within its current borders, and none enjoys consensus on its respective national identity. All are located along key military, transportation and energy corridors linking Europe to Eurasia. Their problems - infectious diseases, organized crime, drug and human trafficking, pollution and illegal migration - directly spill over into the EU. Their success could have a beneficial impact on the development of democracy, pluralism and the rule of law throughout the post-Soviet space. Their future will help shape Russia's own destiny and ultimately determine where Europe ends.
In this volume leading European, Russian and American scholars examine the dynamics of the new Eastern Europe. Their analysis is the result of a collobarative research project organized by the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP) in Vienna, and the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation.

This is an excellent book on Odessa, filled with hundreds of vintage photos of Odessa, all from before the 1917 revolution.

I would also recommend:

*Odessa: A history, 1794-1914 and

*Tales Of Old Odessa: Crime And Civility In A City Of Thieves

Also check out the most comprehensive guide on odessa

2odessa . com