"Behind the filter of Soviet rhetoric…Wojnowski restores voices, representing a spectrum of attitudes, often complex and ambiguous. The result is an original, balanced, and well-organized work, a significant contribution to our understanding of the late Soviet period and the field of Ukrainian studies."

"Wojnowski frames his monograph in a way that encourages scholars to see Soviet Ukraine the way politically savvy Soviet Ukrainians saw it, as a bulwark of Sovietness confronting a sea of suspicious Central Europeans on its borders. This perspective is important not only because it persists in today’s Ukraine but also because it has been largely overlooked by scholars who, like many in the Soviet center, could never quite take Ukraine’s proclamations of Soviet loyalty at face value. Wojnowski’s study forces scholars to examine their own stereotypes about Soviet Ukraine by seeing it through the eyes of its not at all silent Soviet loyal majority."