Who are we—Ukraine or Little Russia? Europe or Russia? Is Ukrainian religiosity the same as Byzantine Orthodoxy? Are Ukrainians truly a “peasant nation”? What secret did the “secret societies” of 19th-century Little Russian nobles guard? Where in *The Forest Song* is the legend of the Grail encoded? What is democracy, and what is chamocracy? What was the modern “Ukrainian project,” and did we succeed in realizing it?..
One of Oksana Zabuzhko’s most famous books, first published in 2007 and honored with many prestigious awards, offers readers a striking intellectual journey through the ages, cultures, and faiths in search of “the Ukraine we have lost.” The key to this journey is the myth of Lesya Ukrainka—the most misread and most dramatically underappreciated writer in the pantheon of our national classics.
This is not only a fundamental work of history and culture and an exquisite philological exegesis. It is also a cautionary tale about our present—about how cruelly we are paying for the loss and oblivion of a centuries-old chivalric culture.
