Lost Kingdom, Serhii Plokhy
Lost Kingdom, Serhii Plokhy
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Lost Kingdom
The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation

Author: Serhii Plokhy

Narrator: Peter Ganim

Unabridged: 16 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 10/10/2017

Synopsis

From a preeminent scholar of Eastern Europe and the prizewinning author of Chernobyl, the essential history of Russian imperialism.

In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea and attempted to seize a portion of Ukraine -- only the latest iteration of a centuries-long effort to expand Russian boundaries and create a pan-Russian nation. In Lost Kingdom, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues that we can only understand the confluence of Russian imperialism and nationalism today by delving into the nation's history. Spanning over 500 years, from the end of the Mongol rule to the present day, Plokhy shows how leaders from Ivan the Terrible to Joseph Stalin to Vladimir Putin exploited existing forms of identity, warfare, and territorial expansion to achieve imperial supremacy.

An authoritative and masterful account of Russian nationalism, Lost Kingdom chronicles the story behind Russia's belligerent empire-building quest.

About Serhii Plokhy

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and the director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. The author of numerous books, including The Last Empire, which received the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book on international relations, and Chernobyl, which was awarded the Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction, Plokhy lives in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Brian on September 12, 2023

Plokhy puts the current Russia–Ukraine war into a 600-year perspective. Over that whole period, he traces the almost constant tension between three major “tribes” of East Slavs, with the Moscow-based “Great Russians” constantly pushing to legitimate and impose their dominance over “Little Russians”......more

Goodreads review by Corina on February 21, 2021

I finished this fantastic book this morning and it was mind-blowinngly good. I couldn’t put it down - I guess most part of Russian and Soviet history reads like a political thriller. • It deals with the Russian question of national identity. It’s quite hard to pinpoint the start of the Russian nation......more

Goodreads review by Wick on July 27, 2022

Excellent overview of the history of Russia. I came into this book with very little knowledge about Russian history. I was looking for something that gave me a good overview without too much excruciating detail and this book definitely met that goal. We get a nice intro into the early Muscovites and......more

Goodreads review by Anthony on August 19, 2022

In Search of Identity. The question you’re probably asking is ‘which kingdom is the Lost Kingdom?’ The answer is the Kievan Rus. Lost Kingdom by Serhii Plokhy centres around inheritance of this medieval state. From the release of the grip of the Mongols to present day Russia has struggled to build a......more

Goodreads review by Zane on March 01, 2019

I really enjoyed reading Plohky's Lost Kingdom. As a history buff with very limited knowledge of Russian imperial history, this book was both insightful and a pleasure to read. Capturing five centuries in such a short book obviously means cutting corners here and there, but the red thread of both Ru......more

Quotes

"[A] sweeping study... Mr. Plokhy seeks to explain the centrality of the so-called western provinces to Russian identity. This is not merely an intellectual exercise but one closely linked to contemporary geostrategic debates. As Mr. Plokhy writes: 'The question of where Russia begins and ends, and who constitutes the Russian people, has preoccupied Russian thinkers for centuries.' ... his study...show[s] why this question is of such importance."—Wall Street Journal

"Plokhy eloquently relates the historical ebbs and flows of Russian nationalism and imperialism... [his] thorough historical analysis places President Vladimir Putin's 21st-century foreign policy in a firm historical context."—PublishersWeekly, starred review

"The kind of magisterial history that only a seasoned historian with full command of his field can writer... [a] masterful text."—Russian Review

"A timely work of impeccable research that elucidates the Russian impulse toward regaining lost lands under a powerful myth of origins.... Plokhy continues to show that he is the master of this terrain."—KirkusReviews

"In Lost Kingdom, Serhii Plokhy does for Russia what only great historians can do -- make the connections between the distant past and vital present feel relevant and alive. He brings Russia's centuries of struggle with nationalism and imperialism into the near focus of Vladimir Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. Lost Kingdom carefully and colorfully relates how the fires of history and myth burned from before the first tsars to Peter the Great, through the Bolsheviks, World War II, and the fall of the Soviet Union. With Russia everywhere in the news today, and every pundit pretending to be an expert, Lost Kingdom is essential reading for those wishing to understand Russia beyond the headlines."
—Garry Kasparov, author of Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped

"Lost Kingdom is an erudite exploration of the contradictions of Russian nationalism, whose history shows it to be both inclusive and exclusive, universalistic and identitarian, often in quick succession or even simultaneously. A master historian on top of his game, Serhii Plokhy lays out the challenges this past presents for transforming Russia into a better country for its people and its neighbors."
—Odd Arne Westad, author of The Cold War: A World History

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