(CIUS) EDMONTON the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute recently published a book by the director of the Church Studies Program at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), Dr Serhii Plokhy, entitled Tsars and Cossacks: A Study in Iconography. This publication marked the completion of another important project of the Church Studies Program at CIUS. The book is richly illustrated with black-and-white and color reproductions of early modern woodcuts and Cossack-era icons. It appeared in the series "Harvard Papers in Ukrainian Studies" and is distributed by Harvard University Press.

Tsars and Cossacks explores the ways in which the Ukrainian Cossacks used icon painting to navigate not only their relationship vis-à-vis God, but also vis-à-vis the Russian tsar and other authorities. Could Emperor Peter I and his adversary in the Battle of Poltava (1709) the Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa be depicted in the same icon? Why did the Cossack colonels commission icons with the portraits of their tsars but not of their own Cossack leaders, the hetmans? Could a Catholic king be portrayed in an Orthodox icon? Why are the Russian tsars and Orthodox hierarchs missing on some of the Zaporozhian Cossack icons? In this groundbreaking study, Dr Plokhy provides answers to these and many other questions pertaining to the political and religious culture of Ukrainian Cossackdom as reflected in the Cossack era paintings, icons and woodcuts. By encouraging the iconography to "speak", Tsars and Cossacks helps broaden and deepen our understanding of Ukrainian iconography, as well as Russian imperial political culture.

To order the book, priced at $18.95, contact: Harvard University Press, Customer Service Department, 79 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Toll-free fax: 1-800-406-9145 (US and Canada). Toll-free telephone: 1-800-405-1619 (US and Canada) M-F, 9am-5pm (EST). www.hup.harvard.edu.