Against a geopolitical backdrop upended by the war in Ukraine, Oxana Melnychuk-Viktorsvit delivers a work that is as ambitious as it is indispensable: a deep dive into the millennia-old history of a country that has been overlooked by Europe for far too long, yet whose fate is intimately linked to our own.
The author is no distant observer. Born in Kyiv in 1970 and trained as a historian at Taras Shevchenko University, she devoted her academic work to Russian domination and Ukrainian resistance—a thesis that now reads like a prophecy. A participant in the Maidan protests and a refugee in France since the start of the conflict, she has established herself as one of the most influential voices in the French media when it comes to deciphering the reality of Ukraine.
Her book begins with a troubling paradox: Ukraine has offered its history to Russia, and Russia, in return, has relentlessly sought to erase it. Why such relentless determination? Because Ukraine holds the true memory of the tsars of Moscow—the very memory that Peter I and Catherine II tried to conceal in order to establish the grandeur of an empire built, in large part, on myth.
Through a rigorous yet accessible narrative, Melnychuk-Viktorsvit debunks the major deceptions of Russian propaganda and reveals the depth of a Ukrainian civilization dating back more than 6,000 years. A people with millennia-old roots, ignored or marginalized by Europe for centuries, and who, since 2022, have brutally reminded the entire world of their existence—at the cost of blood.
Far from being a mere historical essay, Kyiv, the Other Cradle of Europe is an invitation to rethink our perceptions. In it, the author powerfully demonstrates that the ties between Ukraine and Europe are not recent, but deep, ancient, and fundamental. To understand Ukraine is to better understand Europe itself.
At a time when Ukraine is preparing to fully rejoin the European family, this book is a timely contribution. It is at once a history lesson, an act of cultural resistance, and a bridge toward a necessary reconciliation of memory.
An essential book for anyone who wants to understand.
