Městečko na kraji dějin – Wasserstein Bernard (2024)

A place from which we came, a place to which we return. A poignant yet terrifying tale about the history of an "ordinary" town in Galicia. ***** Historian Bernard Wasserstein decided decades ago to uncover the unknown history of a small town in present-day Ukraine near Lviv, from where his family hails. Krakowiec, an ordinary town on the Polish-Ukrainian border, has been swept by political storms and the armies of great powers, and it has a troubled and dramatic history. However, the great power interests taught in history classes do not capture the fates of ordinary people, which the author has rectified. ***** An exciting journey through centuries of political and religious conflicts, during which Galicia was traversed by the armies of Cossacks, Turks, Swedes, Russians, and Poles, ends only in the present day. Krakowiec has experienced the dominance of Poles, Russians, Habsburgs, Czechoslovaks, Nazis, and the Soviet Union. From the glory of the Enlightenment, only the ruins of magnificent gardens of the palace remain. And today, Krakowiec finds itself once again in the whirlwind of history as people flee from war in Ukraine. ***** The town on the edge of history conveys an almost encyclopedic amount of information in a readable and engaging manner, and the Galician Krakowiec rises like a phoenix from the ashes of history.