Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

To say that Ukrainians must address “Banderite challenge” rather than focus attention on the most imminent danger to Ukraine’s independence coming from the recently formed Putin-Yanukovych coalition borders on the irresponsible. Russia’s imperialism is alive and is showing itself irreversibly in its historic aggression sites such as Chechnia and in the entire nearby region. Russia’s cardinal geopolitical aim remains to recapture Ukraine into its bag of acquisitions. Russian President Vladimir Putin, as master of the KGB methodology, can be thankful to professor Andreas Umland for joining and encouraging those who are barking up the wrong tree.

Hai-Nyzhnyk, Pavlo. Ukrainian State: socio-political model and social-economic system in the theory and ideology of the OUN-b (1940–1990). Kyiv: Krok, 2020. 432 p.

Гай-Нижник П. Українська Держава: суспільно-політична модель і соціально-економічний лад в теорії та ідеології ОУН-б (1940–1990 рр.). – К.: Крок, 2020. – 432 с.: іл.

This paper analyzes the involvement of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Nazi genocide during World War II in Ukraine. The issue of the political rehabilitation of these organizations became one of the central political issues in this post-Soviet state. The research question is whether leaders and members of the Bandera faction of the OUN (OUN-B) and the UPA were involved in the Nazi-led genocide. This article devotes particular attention to Volhynia where the UPA was established by the OUN-B in 1943. The study analyzes the biographies of 329 OUN-B and UPA leaders and documents concerning the OUN-B and the UPA, local police, and Nazi mass executions of Jews, Ukrainians, and Poles from the State Archive of the Volyn Region, the State Archive of the Rivne Region, the Archive of the State Security Service of Ukraine in the Volyn Region, the Archive of the State Security Service of Ukraine, the National Archives in the US, and other archives. This paper shows that large proportions of leaders and members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army served in various police and militia formations, collaborated with security and intelligence agencies of Nazi Germany, and took part in the Nazi genocide, primarily in assisting roles during mass executions of Jews in the first two years of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine.

This paper analyzes the mass-murder of Poles in Volhynia in Western Ukraine during World War II. The mass murder of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Stepan Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) during the Nazi occupation of Volhynia in 1943 became an important political issue in Poland and Ukraine after the collapse of communism. Previous studies by Polish, Ukrainian, and Western researchers offered different and often divergent theories of this historical event. It is often presented in Ukraine as a mutual Ukrainian-Polish conflict. In contrast, in Poland, the mass murder of Poles in Volhynia is often characterized as genocide. A research question is whether this was a Ukrainian-Polish conflict, ethnic cleansing or genocide. This study analyzes a variety of archival documents, historical studies, and eyewitness accounts. It offers an estimate of Polish casualties derived from analysis of OUN-UPA, Polish, and Soviet, and sources and demographic data. This study concludes that the mass murder of the Polish minority in Volhynia by the OUN-B, the UPA, and their security service (SB) represented not a mutual Ukrainian-Polish conflict or genocide of Poles but that it was a part of ethnic cleansing.

The paper argues that it is less important to affix a label, like fascist or Ustashist, to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) than to examine its activities during World War II, namely collaboration in the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing of national minorities, especially Poles. It critiques the concept of Ustashism advanced by Oleksandr Zaitsev and the similar viewpoint of Alexander Motyl.

The present—as illustrated below, heated—discussion originated from two intriguing conceptual articles on interpretative and classificatory issues in the comparative study of European and, in particular, East European permutations of interwar and wartime ultra-nationalism, as well as on the utility of an application of new overarching taxa to them.

Neither whataboutism, nor negationism, isolationism or escapism will help Ukrainians to alleviate the accumulating embarrassment that Kyiv’s glorification of war-time ultra-nationalists creates among its friends in the EU, North America and other world regions. The various lapses of Ukraine’s misconceived memory policies, especially during the last two-and-half years, are now hitting back, as they provide plenty of convenient manipulation material for the Kremlin’s propagandists, proxies and sympathisers. They undermine the trust of Ukraine’s major foreign partners in Kyiv’s project for a modern European Ukrainian state, at a time when Ukrainians need their help most.

The present assembly of interventions is set up as an academic discussion designed deliberately and explicitly to take the form of a disputation. We present here a partially interactive, and, sometimes, polemical controversy around a topical conceptual question in the study of historical Ukrainian radical nationalism as well some related empirical and theoretical issues in the cross-cultural study of the international extreme right. The essays were therefore not peer-reviewed, but largely left in their original form as submitted by the authors. They are meant to express viewpoints, opinions, and ideas, sometimes tentative or speculative in nature, rather than traditional scholarly outlines of inferences from systematic data collection and analysis.

Andreas Umland and Yuliya Yurchuk: Introduction: Discussing Ukrainian Historical Ultra-Nationalism in Comparative Perspective. 
https://ibidem-verlag.de/pdf/07-01-Intro_02.pdf.
Oleksandr Zaitsev: On Ustashism and Fascism: A Response to Critics.
Roger Griffin: Fascism, Ustashism, and the Ecumenical Application of Ideal Types.
Angel Alcalde: A New Turn: On the Need for a Transnational Interpretation of the Ustasa and OUN.
Stephen Shenfield: Accommodating "Stateless Nations" in the Conceptualization of Fascism.
Ivan Gomza: Gravity of Void: Remarks on the Structural Consistency and Empirical Validity of the Notion of "Ustashism."
Per Rudling: "Saving the OUN from a Collaborationist and Possibly Fascist Fate:" On the Genealogy of the Discourse on the OUN's "Non-Fascism."

Hai-Nyzhnyk, Pavlo. The OUN(r-b) in the 1970s and 1980s: a vision of the socio-political system of the Ukrainian State // Східноєвропейський історичний вісник [East European Historical Bulletin]. – Дрогобич: Видавничий дім «Гельветика», 2022. – Вип.22. – C.178–193.

Abstract. The aim of the research is to analyze and highlight the programme and ideological foundations of the Ukrainian nationalism by the Organization of the Ukrainian Nationalists (the Bandera revolutionaries) in the 1970s and 1980s and its vision of the socio-political and socio-economic system in the future Ukrainian State. The research methodology is based on the principles of scientificity, historicism, critical analysis, systematics. During the research work, both general scientific (analysis and synthesis, systematization and generalization) and special scientific methods were used: problem-thematic, chronological, as well as system-structural. The scientific novelty of the article is to elucidate the little-known pages of the history of the Organization of the Ukrainian Nationalists (the Bandera revolutionaries) in general and the place and role in its leadership in the 70s-80s of the twentieth century Yaroslav Stetsko, Vasyl Oleskiv and Slava (Yaroslava) Stetsko. It is directly about changes and clarification of programme, ideological and political principles of the Organization in its concept of building the Ukrainian Independent Conciliar State and the foundations of its socio-economic system, etc., the project of reviving the role of the Ukrainian state government in the liberation movement, political life of the OUN, due to the departure of the older generation, the stagnation of the political programme of the Organization and its isolation in the diaspora from the then existing reality in Ukraine, and etc. The Conclusions. It has been determined that the long stay under the conditions of emigrant, and diasporic political life under the conditions of the “iron curtain” and the Cold War caused stagnant phenomena in the ideological and political evolution of worldviews and the concept of statehood of the future Ukraine in the OUN(r-b) at the end of the twentieth century, as well as led to its gradual organizational decline, which caused the crisis in this political force and its unwillingness to powerfully and influentially interfere in the political and state-building processes in Ukraine with its independence.

Writing about the various implications of Ukraine's divided historical memory for the conduct of her post-Soviet politics is a thankless task. Ukraine's nationalist intelligentsia's response to voicing the most elementary facts on, and assessments of, the corroding role of the promotion of World War II themes for Ukrainian statebuilding is always the same: Kill the messenger! It is less important what is said and for which purpose. The person who dares to point out even widely known trivialities and makes all too evident conclusions related to the ambivalent meaning of a heroization of war-time nationalists, will be lectured or defamed, or both. The analyst and not the matter of the issue will be questioned -if necessary through wild allegations, far-going accusations, and outright libel. The reason and justification for such far-reaching denunciations will be the attacker's strong patriotism and love of Ukraine. But are mainstreaming symbols, slogans and ideas related to the so-called Bandera movement really patriotic when soberly considering the socio-political realities of post-Soviet Ukraine?

This is the third instalment in an ongoing series of thematic JSPPS sections dedicated to the memory and history of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its military arm, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukr. abbrev.: UPA). The first two special sections focused on some contentious issues in the history and memory of the OUN and UPA and their comparatively informed interpretation. They tackled questions related to the historical, political, sociological, and ethical assessment of these organizations, and the contemporary use of their history against the background of the Russian-Ukrainian war since 2014. This section has similar general foci, yet deals in more detail—though, by no means, exhaustively!—with a particular subset of controversial topics in the history of the OUN and UPA, as well as issues surrounding their legacy for present day Ukraine, already touched upon by, among others, Igor Barinov in previous instalments. These articles provide additional observations and perspectives on both OUN(b) and OUN(m), and their complicated relationships to war-time fascism, in general, and German Nazism, in particular, as well as on the relation of the OUN’s ideology to the participation of some of its members in the Holocaust.

Golinkin’s text is in so far of interest as his argument is symptomatic for a recently emerged, more common Western approach to Ukraine that has become widespread among intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic, and that understands itself as being left-wing. On closer inspection, the structural pattern of many of these interpretations of Ukraine, including Golinkin’s, reveals a style of argument whose stereotyping of a nation – in this case, of Ukraine – is characteristic of right- rather left-wing thought.

Yuliya Yurchuk, Andreas Umland: Introduction: Studies in the Course and Commemoration of the OUN’s Anti-Soviet Resistance.
Grzegorz Motyka: NKVD Internal Troops Operations against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in 1944–45.
Oksana Myshlovska: History Education and Reconciliation: The Ukrainian National Underground Movement in Secondary School Curricula, Textbooks, and Classroom Practices (1991–2012).
Marian Luschnat-Ziegler: Observing Trends in Ukrainian Memory Politics (2014–2019) through Structural Topic Modeling.

знали) 2 . Российская историография попросту обходит вниманием львовский инцидент: достаточно сказать, что специалистами по истории советских спецслужб деятельность Майлова до сих пор не изучена. То же касается исследований в области советско-польских отношений. Так, в работе И. В. Михутиной, несмотря на ее достаточно узкие хронологические рамки -1931-1935 гг.,львовский «аттентат» и связанный с ним дипломатический протест советской стороны даже не упоминаются 3 .

The articles in this and our three previous special sections highlight not only certain differences between the history and memory of the OUN and UPA. They also indicate changes in the ways these organizations have been remembered by Ukrainian society since independence in 1991. In spite of otherwise significant transformations, the topic of the OUN and UPA has, over the last thirty years, remained a uniformly contentious issue triggering not only heated scholarly discussions, but also larger public debates. Moreover, against the background of the Russian‐Ukrainian war since 2014, a process of “securitization” of national memory underway in Ukraine, whereby historical discourses become matters of national security, and within which the topic of the OUN and UPA occupies a central position.

This article investigates the involvement of the Stepan Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) in the Nazi-led mass executions in Ukraine during World War II. It focuses mostly on the mass murders in the summer of 1941 in historic Volhynia. The study shows that the OUN-B leaders and its expeditionary groups played a key role in organizing militia (police) formations, which participated—typically in assisting roles—in the mass murders of Jews, Soviet and Polish “activists,” and Soviet prisoners of war by the Einsatzgruppen and other formations of Nazi Germany. It analyzes such collaboration in these mass executions in the Volyn, Rivne, and Zhytomyr Regions and some locations in the Lviv, Ternopil, and Kyiv Regions. The specific cases examined include executions, primarily of Jews and Soviet “activists,” in the summer of 1941 in the towns of Lutsk, Rivne, Dubno, Kostopil, Kremenets, Matseiv (Lukiv), Olyka, Torchyn, Tsuman, Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Zhytomyr, Sokal, and Bila Tserkva. This study also analyzes the contemporary memory politics in Volhynia concerning the OUN-B and the Nazi mass murder. It focuses on the misrepresentation by many local politicians and mass media of mostly Jewish victims of the Nazi-led executions, who were exhumed in 2011-2013 in the town of Volodymyr-Volynskyi, as Polish victims of Soviet executions in the beginning of World War II. The article argues that this politically-motivated misrepresentation exemplifies the attempts to deny or ignore involvement of the OUN-led militia and the OUN-controlled police, which provided the majority of commanders and members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1943, in the Nazi genocide, and to cast the OUN-B and UPA leaders and members as national heroes.

Гай-Нижник П. Самолегітимізація ОУН(р) і визначення моделі майбутньої Української Держави на ІІ Великому зборі ОУН (квітень 1941 р.) // Вісник Львівського університету. Серія історична. – Вип.53. До 75-річчя Української Повстанської Армії. – Львів: ЛНУ ім. Івана Франка, 2017. – С.286–310.

The article presents an overview of the process of expansion of the heroic memory narrative of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Insurgent Army to the whole territory of Ukraine in the 1990s - 2000s. The process presented as an evolution from political rehabilitation of these organizations towards their political appropriation and further apologetic representations as an all-nations' symbols. The article deals with the challenges and problems posed by these developments. Language - Russian.

Форум новейшей восточноевропейской истории и культуры. 2018. T. 15. №№ 1-2. http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/inhaltruss29.html .
Политика памяти и интерпретация ОУН в постсоветской Украине.

Георгий Касьянов:
Толкования ОУН и УПА в публичном дискурсе Украины 1990-х-2000-х гг.: от «реабилитации» к апологии.

Яна Примаченко:
Украинская историческая политика и Холокост: проблемы осмысления.

Мирослав Шкандрий:
Книга 'Вторая польско-украинская война' Владимира Вятровича:
искажения истории в публикациях директора УИНП.

Юрий Радченко:
Отношение ОУН к евреям: дискуссия без «совместных деклараций».

Although the Polish elite can hardly remain silent in response to some unfortunate signals from Ukraine’s nationalist memory activists, Warsaw’s policies towards Kyiv should still follow Polish strategic interest and use the various instruments at Polish disposal to help make the current grey zone in Europe more secure. In spite of the current memory conflict with parts of Ukraine’s elite, Warsaw should—out of its own national concerns—fully support the stability, resilience, and development of the Ukrainian state. Poland can do so through various activities ranging from lobbying Ukrainian interests in the EU and NATO or enhancing Ukrainian energy independence to the design of specifically Eastern European responses (security alliances, joint actions, transnational cooperation etc.) to the continuing Russian threat.

The repercussions of Ukraine’s failure to properly study, acknowledge, and teach the darker sides of its past are making themselves felt. Indeed, they seem to be causing international scandals with increasing regularity. The UINP and other activists are alienating Ukraine’s most important international partners and allies at a time when Ukraine needs their help the most. For these and other reasons, Ukraine should embrace a more academic and less escapist approach to understanding its wartime history — as most Western countries have eventually done.

Форум новейшей восточноевропейской истории и культуры. 2016. T. 13. № 2. http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/inhaltruss26.html

I.1. Истоки и память о Волынской трагедии 1943-1944 гг.

Тимоти Д. Снайдер
Причины украинской этнической чистки поляков в 1943 году: региональный контекст и историческое значение Волынской трагедии

Гжегож Мотыка
Как классифицировать Волынскую трагедию в историческом и сравнительном контекстах? «Война в войне», геноцид и сталинские этнические чистки

Элеонора Нарвселиус
Волынь 1943-1944: украинские дискуссии о националистическом повстанчестве, поликультурных «вселенных» пограничья и польском региональном наследии

Юлия Юрчук
Прошлое под прицелом амнезии: память об ОУН и УПА в Волынском регионе на примере памятника Климу Савуру

Лукаш Адамский
Волынский негационизм как фактор, отягощающий польско-украинские отношения: анализ дискуссии 2016 года

I.2. Формирование идеологии ОУН в межвоенное время

Александр Зайцев
Идеология и политическая стратегия ОУН до 1939 года: возникновение и эволюция украинского интегрального национализма в межвоенное время

Иван Гомза
Каталитическая мобилизация радикальных украинских националистов во Второй Речи Посполитой: роль структуры политических возможностей

Ярослав Божко
«Новый национализм» Дмитрия Донцова: между интегральным национализмом и консервативной революцией

"Starting Post-Soviet Ukrainian Right-Wing Extremism Studies from Scratch: Guest Editor's Introduction." By Andreas Umland. "Ukrainian Integral Nationalism in Quest of a "Special Path" (1920s-1930s)." By Oleksandr Zaitsev. "Ultraright Party Politics in Post-Soviet Ukraine and the Puzzle of the Electoral Marginalism of Ukrainian Ultranationalists in 1994-2009." By Andreas Umland and Anton Shekhovtsov. "Right-Wing Extremism on the Rise in Ukraine." By Viacheslav Likhachev. "Social-Nationalists in the Ukrainian Parliament: How They Got There and What We Can Expect of Them." By Viacheslav Likhachev. "A Typical Variety of European Right-Wing Radicalism?" By Andreas Umland

How do you write a history of a country that for centuries was split into several empires, lacked both an uninterrupted tradition of statehood and an established high culture with a standardized language, was inhabited by several ethnic groups, the dominant one -the "little Russians" or "Ruthenians" -being mostly illiterate peasants concentrated in rural areas who left no written records for wide swaths of time and lacked any national consciousness until World War I? How does one write about the history of these people who, even when they became literate, were forbidden to publish literature in Ukrainian (within the Russian Empire), and when Ukrainian history did not even exist as a field of study in universities? The answer, according to an international consortium of historians, is to write "transnational history," which they generally define as the study of relations between cultures and societies, focusing on "agents of cultural exchange" (pp. 3, 86). The purpose of this book, A Laboratory of Transnational History. edited by Georgiy Kasianov (Institute of Ukrainian History of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Kiev) and Philipp Ther (European University Institute, Florence), is to contemplate alternative, more accurate, ways of interpreting Ukrainian history, eschewing "linear and longue durée causal explanations, as well as teleology,"

Biletskyi still seems to be planning a separate slate for his party in the upcoming fall elections. A representative of the National Corps reportedly asserted in November 2018 that his organization’s “prospects and human resources are much larger than those of all the other signatories [of the far right’s 2017 National Manifesto] combined.” If President Poroshenko is not reelected in April 2019 and a less militantly patriotic candidate becomes president of Ukraine, a competition for far-right votes between the National Corps, on the one hand, and a united list of the remaining parties, on the other, could become significant. In such a case, nationalist voters currently attracted to the incumbent could decide to support the ultra-nationalists in the fall elections. This could provide the far right with an opportunity to regain a faction in the next Verkhovna Rada convocation. However, under such favourable conditions if Biletskyi’s National Corps was to run an effective campaign, Svoboda’s slate—currently the option with the best prospects—could again miss the 5% barrier in October 2019, as it did in October 2014.

Гай-Нижник П. П. Основи економічного ладу майбутньої Української держави крізь призму політичної концепції ОУН(б) 1940–1970 рр. // Економічний націоналізм. Матеріали VІІІ всеукраїнської наукової конференції з міжнародною участю. Івано-Франківськ, 12–13 жовтня 2018 р. – Івано-Франківськ: Лілея НВ, 2018. –С.35–54.

Gloryfikując nacjonalistów ukraińskich Kijów ryzykuje odwrócenie się od siebie swoich zachodnich sojuszników – akurat wtedy, gdy ich najbardziej potrzebuje. Pogodzenie się z przeszłością nie należy do łatwych zadań. Ale niewiele jest na świecie krajów, gdzie historyczna debata nosiłaby tak bardzo ostry charakter – i byłaby tak brzemienna w skutki – jak na Ukrainie. Wynika to głównie z powodu skomplikowanej historii tego kraju, który przez większą część XX wieku znajdował się w kleszczach pomiędzy dwoma totalitarnymi mocarstwami, dążącymi do jego zniszczenia.

Форум новейшей восточноевропейской истории и культуры. 2017. T. 14. № 2. http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/inhaltruss28.html

Формы героизации Степана Бандеры и его движения

Тимоти Д. Снайдер
Фашистский герой в демократическом Киеве: по поводу присвоения звания «Герой Украины» Степану Бандере в 2010-ом году

Ярослав Грыцак
Развитие украинской культуры памяти после 1991 года: пример Степана Бандеры

Оксана Мышловская, Андре Либих
Культ Бандеры до и после Евромайдана: топографический обзор памятников и мемориальных практик

Форум новейшей восточноевропейской истории и культуры. 2017. T. 14. № 1. http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/inhaltruss27.html

II.1. ОУН в 1930-е годы и во время германо-советской войны 1941-1945 гг.

Олена Петренко
Игры в эмансипацию: женщины и ОУН в 1930-х годах

Джон-Пол Химка
Львовский погром 1941-го: немцы, украинские националисты и карнавальная толпа

Гжегож Россолински–Либе
«Украинская национальная революция» 1941-го года: дискурс и практика фашистского движения

Дмитрий Титаренко
Пресса Украины периода нацистской оккупации как фактор украинской националистической пропаганды

Михаил Тяглый
«Цыганский вопрос» в идеологии и практике украинского национального движения во время Второй мировой войны


II.2. Формы и последствия коллаборационизма ОУН с нацистской Германией

Кай Струве
Команда особого назначения «Львов», украинская милиция и т.н. «Дни Петлюры» 25-26 июля 1941-ого года

Пер Андерс Рудлинг
Обучение убийству: шуцманшафт батальон 201 и гауптман Роман Шухевич в Белоруссии в 1942-ом году

Игорь Баринов
Союзники или коллаборанты? ОУН и нацистская Германия в ходе оккупации Украины в 1941-1943 гг.

Юрий Радченко
Дневник нацистского идеолога и бюрократа Альфреда Розенберга: Холокост и «восточная политика» Третьего Рейха

Андреас Умланд перебільшує не лише роль В'ятровича та його інституту, а й вплив наукових знань на масові уявлення загалом і погляди політиків зокрема. Насправді популярні знання формуються головним чином мас-медіями та масовою культурою, з досить обмеженим і здебільшого непрямим проникненням наукових знань у царину узвичаєного і непроблематизованого. Україна слугує чудовою ілюстрацією того, як імідж країни за її межами визначається передусім невіглаством, медійними кліше, ментальними спрощеннями та вправними маніпуляціями московського аґітрпропу.

Гай-Нижник П. П. Українська Держава: історична доконаність і розвіяна паралельна дійсність (Акт 30 червня та революційне державотворення під проводом ОУН(р) у 1941–1942 рр. як вияв національного чину та символ суверенних прагнень українського народу) / Павло Гай-Нижник // Гілея. – 2015. – Вип.98 (№7). – С.49–65.