Un pueblo de Ucrania

Several decades ago, the historian Bernard Wasserstein set out to study the past of a town located more than 60 kilometers west of Lviv from which his family, especially his grandfather Berl, came: Krakovets. He wanted to observe and understand how several of the great forces determining the history of our time could affect ordinary people. Wasserstein traces the arc of history through centuries of religious and political conflict, as different armies of Cossacks, Turks, Swedes and Muscovites rampaged through the region. In the midst of the Enlightenment, the Polish magnate Ignacy Cetner built a palace in Krakovets and, with his spirited daughter, Princess Anna, created an arcadia of refinement and serenity. From 1772, under the Habsburg emperors, Krakovets became a typical shtetl, with a motley population of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews. In 1914 disaster struck. "Seven years of terror and carnage" left a legacy of fierce national antagonisms. During World War II, Jews were murdered in circumstances that Wasserstein heartbreakingly describes. After the war, the Poles were expelled and the city was reduced to a border post. Today, the storm of history sweeps Krakovets again, with the multitudes of refugees fleeing Ukraine to survive. In Wasserstein's own family and in many others that he has rediscovered, the inhabitants of Krakovets become a prism through which we can feel the shocking immediacy of history. Original and magnificent, A Ukrainian Village is a masterpiece of recovery and understanding.