Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry by Anatol Lieven

Review by: Robert Legvold

Foreign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1999), p. 181
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20049502 .
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Recent Books
and prejudices.
public fears
exploiting
not
that
Thomas
would
One
suspects
that Milosevic's
hold high expectations
defeat

soon

will

in Kosovo

lead to the

be much

would

by ANATOL
United

L. CARL

and Public
Confessions: Prisons
Recantations
inModern
Iran, by

Washington:
Institute
of Peace Press,

and Russian

will

nationalists

nor will Westerners

not like this book,

see Ukaine
as a useful

who
to

counterbalance

two main
Lieven's
expansionism.
arguments provide them little ammunition.
First, he argues, because most Ukrainian

Russian

are very close in

and attitudes
behavior,

Russians

and Ukrainians

culture, language,
after centuries
of coexistence,
the more
of both Russian
untrammeled
aspirations
and Ukrainian
with

them. The

do not

extremists
natural

an

disposition
but one

sit well
is for
that is

Ukraine,
independent
mixed
and culturally
tolerant.
ethnically
His
second argument
follows from the
first: with

both

countries

now

genuinely
it
would
be
linked,
separate
closely
a grave mistake
to
for outside powers
alone insist?that
Ukrainian
imagine?let
but

independence
Russia.
Lieven
Ukrainian-Russian

must

set Ukraine

against
in
the pitfalls
recognizes
relations
and writes

in
the many
elements
lucidly
play,
cast
the
shadow
the
Ukainian
by
including
economic
dismal
perfor
leadership's
mance. He also
that if
acknowledges
about

the cruder variety of Russian

nationalists
come to power,
will
actually
they
likely
his own predictions.
A very
jeopardize
sensible book, enhanced
by exceptionally
graceful

of California

University

284 pp. $45.00

Berkeley:
Press,

1999,

$16.95).

(paper,

on Iran to broader
articles

his

in Iranian
History"
Style in Iranian Politics."

case in
again, he places the Iranian
a
context
the methods
larger
by discussing
of imprisonment,
and
torture,
(often)
in
execution
of political
Iran,
prisoners

Here

the Pahlavis

first under

and then

in the

Islamic Republic since 1979.The Pahlavis

were

cruel

but only

enough,

the Islamic

forcibly extracted public

Republic

that put it in a
practice
with
Stalin's
league
Europe's
Inquisition,
Soviet Union,
and Mao's China. Tortured
were
confessions
aired on
routinely
television
until the late 1980s, when
recantations?a

public skepticism finally undercut their

utility
combed
public
official

to the
regime. The author has
all available
sources, including
and clandestine
party tracts,
Iranian

International
selections

statements,
reports. He

from

prison

and Amnesty
fuses judicious

memoirs

with

to the
comparisons
prison
genre and a careful account

insightful
literature

of the ebb and flow of imprisonment

and torture
War

ushered

executions

(the end of the Iran-Iraq

in the worst
period of
since 1979). Tortured

Confessions

offers both the somber readability of a

detail

AFFAIRS

themes: witness

"The Crowd

or "The Paranoid

Darkness

prose.

FOREIGN

ami an.

Abrahamian has often linked his studies

1999,182 pp. $19.95 (paper).

Ukrainian

ab rah

ervand

Rivalry.

LiEVEN.

States

BROWN

Tortured

better.

and Russia: A Fraternal

Ukraine

East

that the alternatives

demise?or

regime's
toMilosevic

Middle

atNoon

and the documented

of an investigative

September/October

1999

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.189 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 22:15:50 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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