Summary of Anna Reid 's Borderland

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 Ukraine is a borderland country, and as such, they have inherited a legacy of violence. They have never been an independent state, and their neighbors have never recognized the existence of Ukrainian history.

#2 Kiev is a city that visitors usually hate, but those who live there grow to love it. Its defining features are failures, absences. The city’s residents are living lives of a precariousness that is unknown in the West.

#3 The past that gives Kiev its unique glamour is not the brash commercial city of the turn of the last century, but the Kiev of a thousand years ago, which was the capital of the eastern Slavs’ first great civilization.

#4 The Scandinavians came to Russia in the eighth century as merchants, but they ended up ruling the country. They built their first outpost on Lake Ladoga, near St Petersburg, and in 830 they sailed their dragon-headed longboats downriver to the little wooden settlement atop sandstone bluffs that became the trading center of Kiev.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669383802

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on Anna Reid's Borderland

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Ukraine is a borderland country, and as such, they have inherited a legacy of violence. They have never been an independent state, and their neighbors have never recognized the existence of Ukrainian history.

#2

Kiev is a city that visitors usually hate, but those who live there grow to love it. Its defining features are failures, absences. The city’s residents are living lives of a precariousness that is unknown in the West.

#3

The past that gives Kiev its unique glamour is not the brash commercial city of the turn of the last century, but the Kiev of a thousand years ago, which was the capital of the eastern Slavs’ first great civilization.

#4

The Scandinavians came to Russia in the eighth century as merchants, but they ended up ruling the country. They built their first outpost on Lake Ladoga, near St Petersburg, and in 830 they sailed their dragon-headed longboats downriver to the little wooden settlement atop sandstone bluffs that became the trading center of Kiev.

#5

The conversion of Volodymyr was a pragmatic one. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the pagan party, and he had three hundred concubines at Vyshorod, three hundred at Belhorod, and two hundred at Berestrovo. He was insatiable in vice.

#6

Volodymyr’s conversion to Christianity in 988 was one of the most important events in the history of Europe. It allowed Rus’s ambitions to be cast in Europe rather than Asia, and it bound the future Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarussians together in Orthodoxy.

#7

Kievan Rus was a sophisticated empire that impressed Europeans with its size and power. It was also short-lived, as