O P I N I O N
G. Rossoliński-Liebe
Distorted Nationalist History in Ukraine
Studies on Nazi Collaboration in Ukraine and Current Attempts to Glorify the Collaborators
Recent Publications by Dr. Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (Berlin):
2011: “The Act of 30 June 1941, and its 2011 Commemoration in Ukraine” in Defending History, 25 June 2011.
Public Statement Concerning Instrumentalization of Academic Publications in Ukraine
O P I N I O N
by Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe and Per Anders Rudling
Vadym Kolesnychenko, a member of the parliamentary faction of the Party of Regions, recently published a volume (http://r-u.org.ua/kniga/kniga.pdf) of Russian language translations of articles written by Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, Per Anders Rudling and Timothy Snyder.
The articles appeared originally in journals such as Kritika, New York Times Review of Books, Carl Beck Papers and KakanienRevisited. Mr. Kolesnychenko translated and published the volume without the approval or consent of the authors. We regard this conduct as unethical.
Our objections to the political instrumentalization of our work by the Party of Regions are the same as our reservations to analogous instrumentalization by pro-nationalist groups and organizations.
- Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe
- University of Hamburg
- Per Anders Rudling
- Lund University
‘Academic’ Article Co-Authored by Alexander Gogun (University of Potsdam), Posted on the Nationalist Website ‘OUN-UPA’, Obfuscates the Ukrainian Holocaust, Denying OUN and UPA Anti-Jewish Violence
O P I N I O N
by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe
Aleksander Gogun, a historian at Potsdam University and at Humboldt University
of Berlin, and Aleksander Vovk, are the joint authors of an article, originally published in 2005, that obfuscates the Holocaust and denies the anti-Jewish violence of the Ukrainian nationalists. The article, in Russian, Evrei v bor’be za nezavisimuiu Ukrainu (Jews in the Struggle for an Independent Ukraine), presented in academic format, continues to appear on the nationalist website titled OUN-UPA at http://oun-upa.org.ua.
The article, posted at http://lib.oun-upa.org.ua/gogun/pub07.html, gives the impression that Jews served and fought willingly and enthusiastically in the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Ukraїns’ka Povstans’ka Armiia) for an independent Ukrainian state. From the very outset of their article the authors claim that there were no pogroms in Ukraine in 1941, that Ukrainian nationalists never had a negative attitude toward the Jews and that Ukrainians who served in the German police during World War II did not participate in the Holocaust. The authors call all these things “stereotypes of Soviet propaganda” and imply that they never existed or happened.
Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe reviews Timothy Snyder’s ‘Bloodlands’
O P I N I O N
by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (Berlin)
Review of Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands. Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, Basic Books: New York 2010. This review first appeared in German in H-Soz-u-Kult (online version here; PDF here). This English version and publication in DefendingHistory.com are by authorization of the author and H-Soz-u-Kult, which has kindly supplied the following copyright notice: Copyright © 2011 by H-Net, Clio-online, and the author, all rights reserved. This work may be copied and redistributed for non-commercial, educational purposes, if permission is granted by the author and usage right holders. For permission please contact H-SOZ-U-KULT@H-NET.MSU.EDU.
The Act of 30 June 1941, and its 2011 Commemoration in Ukraine
O P I N I O N
by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (Berlin)
On 8 June 2011, the internet journal Maidan announced that “on 30 July [2011] at 11 AM exactly a flash mob will read the Act of Renewal of the Ukrainian State simultaneously in seven places in Kiev”. The “flash mob” in Kiev will be commemorating the 70th anniversary of the proclamation of the Ukrainian state by the leading OUN-B politician Iaroslav Stets’ko, who in the evening of 30 June 1941 read out the “Act of Proclamation of a Ukrainian State” during a meeting in the hall of the Prosvita Society in the market place in L’viv, the center of western Ukraine.