Customer Reviews

Ukrainian Armies 1914-55 (Men-at-Arms)

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You have got to love Osprey. No matter how obscure the topic, it seems as though Osprey Publishing has produced a book about it. Today, Ukraine is one of the most important countries in Eastern Europe but for many centuries, the Ukraine was devided up between Russia, Austria-Hungary and Poland. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the idea of a Ukrainian people and a sovereign nation was re-born in the aspirations of the Ukrainian intelligensia and professional classes. "Ukrainian Armies 1914-1955" chronicles the first fifty years of the military struggle to resurrect the Ukrainian nation. This is an inherently interesting story and this volume is one of the few English language sources that covers this endeavor.

On the positive side, Peter Abbott is a strong writer and he does an excellent job of navigating the intricate story of Ukrainina nationalism. Unfortunately, because this is an Osprey publication, he has to spend a lot of time describing uniforms. The illustrations provided by Rudenko and Admenko are not up to the usual high standards of Osprey.

This book covers some very interesting history. It is just a matter of time before additional books come out in English discussing this period of European history. Until that time, this volume will serve as an excellent introduction.

This is an excellent short history of Ukraine's early 20th Century armies. Sometimes (most times) the side that they were on was not always the "right" side. But in the face of Tsarist and then Soviet occupation Ukrainians had difficult choices to make. As an American of Ukrainian ancestry I am proud of every Ukrainian soldier no matter what uniform they wore. In their own way they were fighting to liberate their or their parental homeland. This book gives a good overview of how the struggle began in earnest; it is well written, historically accurate and wonderfully illustrated. Nice job to all the contributors.

Thanks to Osprey for taking on Ukrainian military history which is extremely rich but seldom examined. I greatly appreciated their balanced approach to the ambiguity that has impacted Ukrainian forces from the Russian Revolution and including World War 2. What is incredibily fascinating is the post second world war accounts of the anti-Soviet action taken by Ukrainian irregulars. Hard to imagine battalion size battles up to 1955 which no one heard about at the time. We need a definitive account on that subject.