“This is a study of one of the most intriguing Ukrainian activists of a century ago by one of the most important Ukrainian thinkers of today. Anyone who wishes to see demanding theories of nationalism tested in the practice of nuanced historical research should read this book. It is the culmination of a long discussion about the origins of nations that began in the 1980s and one of the most important books in its field.”

“Yaroslav Hrytsak’s brilliant study of Ivan Franko illuminates the history of Ukraine, Galicia, and the late Habsburg monarchy. Franko emerges as a dynamic, complex figure whose life and work were deeply important for the history of politics and ideas. Hrytsak presents him with great skill and subtlety, and this book should be read by anyone interested in the intellectual history and comparative literature of Eastern Europe.”

“Yaroslav Hrytsak is one of Ukraine’s most prominent liberal intellectuals, an essayist and historian. Ivan Franko and His Community is not his first book on Franko, the writer and polymath, but it is certainly his most ambitious and best. The Ukrainian original was an award-winner in Ukraine. It is a conceptual book, very creative, and extremely readable in the excellent translation by Marta Daria Olynyk. Franko’s strong personality jumps from the pages. Franko was forever falling in love and making hot-headed marriage proposals, but Hrytsak also tells us about his more unconventional relationships. Franko consciously fashioned his self-representation as a son of the people, a peasant boy borne aloft into higher social spheres by the sheer power of his talent. But Hrytsak tells us a rather different, and more interesting, story. I can recommend this book without reservation to lovers of biography, those curious about life in the peripheries of Habsburg Austria, and to readers who like to think.”

“This book is a quintessential imperial biography of Ivan Franko, written by a historian who seems to know everything about turn-of-the century nationalizing empires, their challenges and opportunities. Covering just thirty years of Franko’s life, the book itself possesses many “imperial” qualities—from its length to its author’s all-embracing gaze, which is attentive to even the seemingly most marginal details of Franko’s early life. … In accessible and engaging prose, Hrytsak narrates the powerful yet subtle story of life as experimentation with gender, linguistic, national and cultural identities and loyalties. In the end, this is a fascinating and painstakingly researched story about nationalization as the reduction of past imperial ambiguities and complexity.”