"The Cossacks are back, both on the pages of academic monographs and the battlefields of the new East European wars. They wear traditional garbs but carry modern weapons and advance new ideologies. As is persuasively argued by Olexander Hryb, nationalism explains their return on the political and cultural stage more than anything else. It is impossible to understand the rise of modern Russian and Ukrainian national identity without examining the unexpected revival of the Cossacks. This book offers invaluable insight into both."—Serhii Plokhy, Harvard University