This book offers a nuanced exploration of Donetsk and Luhansk regions prior to the 2014 Russian invasion. While the region, collectively known as Donbas, frequently appears in news headlines, it remains under-researched by scholars, and myths about it abound. Combining rigorous research and captivating narration, Kateryna Zarembo debunks common myths about the region, such as its long-standing gravitation towards Russia and its rejection of everything Ukrainian. Through multiple trips to the region and interviews with the locals, the author paints a very different picture of the region than the one often seen in the media: Donetsk and Luhansk have been shedding their Soviet past and reestablishing themselves as Ukrainian up until the 2014 invasion. Kateryna Zarembo takes the reader to pockets of the region most of us will never see, and amplifies the voices of locals whose agency has historically been denied first by the Soviet myth of Donbas, and then by the political elites of Ukraine. Since the 2014 Russian invasion, and especially since the full-scale war, the region has become the site of the most intense fighting, and many of the places mentioned in this book are now reduced to ruins. This book is an essential read to get to know the Ukrainian East and its people, now forever altered by the Russian invasion.
