Lecture by Dr. George O. Liber on his new book Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914-1954

George Liber spoke about his book Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914–1954 (University of Toronto Press, 2016). Between 1914 and 1954, the Ukrainian-speaking territories in East Central Europe suffered almost 15 million “excess deaths” as well as large-scale evacuations and population transfers, the consequences of two world wars, revolutions, famines, genocidal campaigns, and purges. George Liber argues that these events made and re-made Ukraine’s boundaries, institutionalized its national identities, and pruned its population according to various state-sponsored political, racial, and social ideologies. In short, the two world wars, the Holodomor, and the Holocaust played critical roles in forming today’s Ukraine.