Ukrainian nationalism in the 1990s : a minority faith /

Rejecting simplistic accounts of Ukrainian nationalism and building on archival research, election analysis, interviews, and other primary sources, Wilson presents a portrait of the new Ukraine suffering from historical, regional, ethnic, religious, and linguistic divisions. Wilson finds the task for Ukraine, unlike, for example, Poland or the Czech Republic, is as much to build a nation as to build a state. Ukraine's fragmented nationalism covers a range of ideologies, which even with independence are able to come together in a social consensus only with difficulty. The possibility of a "Weimar Ukraine" is considered. Yet while the roots of fascist movements are compared to trends in Ukrainian politics in the early 1990s, the author refuses to predict the ultimate course of events. Overall, this is not the best volume for undergraduate classes or general readers, yet it deserves to be on the bookshelves of specialists in the region. Recommended for research libraries. D. McIntosh; Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania