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Decades ago the historian Bernard Wasserstein set out to uncover the hidden past of the town forty miles west of Lviv where his family especially his grandfather Berl originated Krakowiec KrahKOVyets In this book he recounts its dramatic and traumatic history I want to observe and understand how some of the great forces that determined the shape of our times affected ordinary people

Wasserstein traces the arc of history across centuries of religious and political conflict as armies of Cossacks Turks Swedes and Muscovites rampaged through the region In the Age of Enlightenment the Polish magnate Ignacy Cetner built his palace at Krakowiec and with his vivacious daughter Princess Anna created an arcadia of refinement and serenity Under the Habsburg emperors after 1772 Krakowiec developed into a typical shtetl with a jostling population of Poles Ukrainians and Jews In 1914 disaster struck Seven years of terror and carnage left a legacy of ferocious national antagonisms During the Second World War the Jews were murdered in circumstances harrowingly described by Wasserstein After the war the Poles were expelled and the town dwindled into a border outpost Today the storm of history once again rains down on Krakowiec as refugees flee for their lives from Ukraine

In the lives of Wassersteins own family and the many others he has rediscovered the people of Krakowiec become a prism through which we can feel the shocking immediacy of history Original in conception and brilliantly achieved A Small Town in Ukraine is a masterpiece of recovery and insight

2023 Bernard Wasserstein P2023 Penguin Audio