REVIEW: The Gates of Europe by Serhii Plokhy

From the very first chapter, Plokhy unsettles the familiar view of Ukraine; a tapestry where “it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw a straight line” and where resilience often comes in the form of adaptation or even quiet resistance.

Plokhy is at his best when shifting from big geopolitical drama to the everyday, almost personal moments of cultural collision. Plokhy lets the reader sit both inside and outside Ukraine’s drama. You are there with the Cossacks,“We were born in liberty, brought up in liberty and, as free men, we are returning to it” and also feeling the chill as “the boats went past the city showing their crews with swords raised as if threatening the city with death by the sword, and all human hope ebbed away from men”.

The sections on Putin and Zelenskyy felt especially topical. Putin’s argument, that “Russians and Ukrainians [are] one people,” is grounded in imperial nostalgia and selective storytelling. But Plokhy shows the cracks, how Zelenskyy, with his inclusive vision, gives voice to a country determined “not with money but with blood” to defend its right to define itself. For anyone following distant conflicts, it’s a poignant reminder that narrative power, the stories empires tell, shapes realities as much as tanks and treaties.

The brutal details Plokhy refuses to gloss over are compelling, “His whole body was torn to pieces by whips, his eyes plucked out and the sockets filled with silver…” or simply “Slavery is our lot”. These moments are stark, but by including them Plokhy refuses comforting myth for honest reckoning.

Plokhy’s book is history, reportage, and elegy rolled in one. Definitely worth reading.