For more than 1000 years, the Greek and Ukrainian people have journeyed alongside each other, always maintaining strong spiritual ties, engaging in heroic struggles to protect their common faith, and fighting against the same enemies.

However, despite these centuries-long relations, the rich history of Ukraine, particularly the pre-revolutionary period, remains, for many reasons, less or more unknown to the modern Greek. This book aims to contribute to addressing this ignorance by presenting the history of Ukraine from 840 AD to 1654 AD in a concise manner.

In the 10th century, the very significant river trade route "From the Varangians to the Greeks" passed through the territory of Ukraine, bringing together the Eastern Slavs, the Vikings, and the Byzantines. In the middle of this route, around what is now the capital of independent Ukraine, Kyiv, the first organized feudal state of Eastern Europe was established, the famous "Kievan Rus".

The Byzantine missionaries transmitted Orthodoxy directly to the first rulers of this state, the most important of whom was Vladimir Sviatoslavich, later Saint Vladimir. The first chapters of the book specifically refer to the Kievan period of Ukraine, a time when the intrigues and rivalries of the princes coincided with the heroic struggles against the steppe nomads and the Mongol onslaught.

The subsequent chapters discuss the period of Polish-Lithuanian occupation of Ukraine, when the Cossacks and the inhabitants of towns and countryside united in the struggle for national and religious independence and the overthrow of the feudal yoke imposed by foreign conquerors.