Ukraine

Volhynia and the Noxious Weed of Antisemitism



O P I N I O N

by Jared McBride

During my dissertation research in Rivne, I’ve been going through a number of contemporary Volhynian newspapers for articles on a range of historical matters. As a historian of the Second World War, I do not tend to spend as much time with contemporary publications, yet at the end of the day, every activity and research experience is a lesson in some manner when you’re “in country” working.

I spent time working through what I already understood to be the right-wing nationalist newspaper, Volyn’, which is a Rivne oblast’ level paper that comes out once a week. The paper sees itself as the reincarnation of the Nazi occupation newspaper of the same name, which was edited by Volhynian writer Ulas Samchuk, if that tells you anything about the orientation just to start out.

When one orders a run of a paper, you get an entire year at once bound together. I’ll now take you through some of what I saw in the collection for 2002.

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Glorifiers of Pro-Hitler Fascist Groups March in Lviv



by Frank Brendle (Berlin)

Activists in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv wearing uniforms of the former Ukrainian Insurgent Army (known as UPA, from its Ukrainian language initials) marched in a large scale event in the city center today.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bandera, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Frank Brendle, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Comments Off on Glorifiers of Pro-Hitler Fascist Groups March in Lviv

Ukrainian Writer Iurii Andrukhovych Asks the EU to Approve Celebration of Local Holocaust Perpetrators and War Criminals as ‘Freedom Fighters’



O P I N I O N

by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe

Iurii Andrukhovych complains in an article published in Gazeta Wyborcza about the sorry state of Polish-Ukrainian relations. He correctly informs readers that in the last ten years Polish-Ukrainian relations, in particular concerning contentious World War II questions, have not improved at all and “if something has changed then perhaps only for the worse”. Yet Andrukhovych’s solution to the problem would be to republish Paweł Smoleński’s collections of essays Pochówek dla rezuna (“Burial of a Butcher”) which, like Andrukhovych in his article, looks for solutions in the revision of stereotypes while ignoring the actual historical causes of current problems.

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On Academic Integrity: In reply to Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe on the Presence of Jews in the UPA


 


O P I N I O N

by Alexander Gogun

An emotional review[1] written by the PhD candidate Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe and published in this journal, is devoted to a popular scientific article written by me in collaboration with Olexandr Vovk.  Our text about the presence of Jews in the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) was written seven years ago and published more than six years ago by the Moscow Jewish magazine Korni (“Roots”)[2]. It was later reproduced on an amateur history website about Ukrainian nationalism.

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‘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.

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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.

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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.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bandera, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, G. Rossoliński-Liebe, History, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The Act of 30 June 1941, and its 2011 Commemoration in Ukraine

Myth, Violence, Genocide



O P I N I O N

by Christopher Hale

There are a number of books about the ‘foreign divisions of the Third Reich’. Most seem to be written for military history buffs and those fascinated by uniforms and arcane details of military insignia. Some are downright sinister. The series of books written by Richard Landwehr, an American ‘historian’ associated with the far right, are overtly favourable and have titles like ‘Lions of Flanders’, ‘Steadfast Hussars’ and ‘Nordic Warriors’.  His Wiki entry includes the following rationale:

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Can Timothy Snyder’s ‘Bloodlands’ be Appropriated by East European Nationalists?



O P I N I O N

by Per Rudling

The great strength of Professor Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands (Basic Books, 2010) is that it contextualizes the violent 1930s and 1940s in Eastern Europe.

FOR MORE SEE DEFENDING HISTORY’S PAGE ON RESPONSES TO TIMOTHY SNYDER

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