Few might have realized it at the time, but the year 1845 was significant, indeed seminal, in the history of the Ukrainian people. It was the year that the preternaturally gifted poet and painter Taras Shevchenko produced some of his…

“The resurrected political dinosaur from California proposes a … ‘policy of rolling back communism,’” scoffed Yuri Zhukov in the pages of Pravda in April 1975. “It is incredible but true!” That kind of language aimed at Ronald Reagan was standard…