Lost Kingdom cover art

Lost Kingdom

The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Lost Kingdom

By: Serhii Plokhy
Narrated by: Peter Ganim
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

From a preeminent scholar of Eastern Europe and the prizewinning author of Chernobyl, the essential history of Russian imperialism. In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea and attempted to seize a portion of Ukraine - only the latest iteration of a centuries-long effort to expand Russian boundaries and create a pan-Russian nation. In Lost Kingdom, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues that we can only understand the confluence of Russian imperialism and nationalism today by delving into the nation's history. Spanning over 500 years, from the end of the Mongol rule to the present day, Plokhy shows how leaders from Ivan the Terrible to Joseph Stalin to Vladimir Putin exploited existing forms of identity, warfare, and territorial expansion to achieve imperial supremacy. An authoritative and masterful account of Russian nationalism, Lost Kingdom chronicles the story behind Russia's belligerent empire-building quest.

©2017 Serhii Plokhy (P)2017 Hachette Audio Eastern Europe Politics & Government Russia Russian & Soviet World Eastern Europe Imperialism Stalin Royalty War Hungary

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Gates of Europe cover art
Scots and Catalans cover art
The Reconstruction of Nations cover art
The Unification of Germany: The History and Legacy of the German Empire’s Establishment cover art
Collapse cover art
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia: The Turbulent History of the Country’s Formation and Occupation During World War I and World War II cover art
The Soviet Century cover art
Putin's Wars cover art
Children of the Night cover art
Bully of Asia cover art
Overreach cover art
Gulag cover art
Russia's War on Everybody cover art
My Russia cover art
All the Kremlin's Men cover art
Creating Russophobia: From the Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria cover art

Critic reviews

"In Lost Kingdom, Serhii Plokhy does for Russia what only great historians can do - make the connections between the distant past and vital present feel relevant and alive. He brings Russia's centuries of struggle with nationalism and imperialism into the near focus of Vladimir Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. Lost Kingdom carefully and colorfully relates how the fires of history and myth burned from before the first tsars to Peter the Great, through the Bolsheviks, World War II, and the fall of the Soviet Union. With Russia everywhere in the news today, and every pundit pretending to be an expert, Lost Kingdom is essential reading for those wishing to understand Russia beyond the headlines." (Garry Kasparov, author of Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped)
" Lost Kingdom is an erudite exploration of the contradictions of Russian nationalism, whose history shows it to be both inclusive and exclusive, universalistic and identitarian, often in quick succession or even simultaneously. A master historian on top of his game, Serhii Plokhy lays out the challenges this past presents for transforming Russia into a better country for its people and its neighbors." (Odd Arne Westad, author of The Cold War: A World History)
All stars
Most relevant  
Understanding the Russian leadership psyche is very hard work, putin is a nationalist and autocrat, fits nicely into the story of Russian leaders. Unfortunately he belongs in the 19th century.

Interesting but hard work

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a major survey of the construction of Russian by a leading Ukrainian American scholar. The book focuses particularly on

Excellent survey of the creation of the Russian national mythology

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
this is a thorough and insightful study of Russia's history of considering itself a Kingdom and an Empire. The Russians are stuck in an identity crisis. Who are they if they are not a great power, if they are not an Empire - and without Ukraine they cannot be an Empire. Russia's love of and need for autocratic goverment was strong, and risked breaking down - hence the stiff Putin with his limited vision goes for more repression, Stalin style, rather than easing up and giving Russians the chance to learn choice and democracy. So sad, and it's killing Ukrainians, and Russians,and destroying a country - and to whose benefit. Not even Putin's, that pitiable, miserable thug. What a fate the Russians have, czars and would be czars.

So much help in understanding thsi Ukraine war

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Thoroughly fascinated by the story, I learned a lot of things.
One thing that bothered me as a Polish speaker with a decent grasp of Russian and Ukrainian, is the lack of experience of the person reading the book within the field of Slavic phonetics. it resulted in many names being mangled.

informative.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.