Assessment
In the summer of 2005, the Ukrainian Minister of Justice, Roman Zvarych, requested that central executive bodies in Ukraine peruse materials advanced by the government commission, put together to examine the activities of the OUN and UPA.
The ministry intended to submit a draft proposal to the Cabinet of Ministers that recommended the recognition of the OUN and UPA by the Ukrainian state. Commenting on the work of this commission, in the spring of 2005, Shapoval states that the working group did not want to whitewash or blacken anyone. People seem to comprehend that the OUN and the UPA were struggling for an independent Ukraine rather than against it. However, he adds, the authorities during Kuchma's time did not say this out loud, and neither to date had the Orange leadership. It was time therefore for the government, and first and foremost the president to make his own comments on the topic.14 On 12 May 2005, immediately following the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, the president obliged in a live interview that was broadcast on ICTV, New Channel, STB, and Channel 5. As a precursor to this interview, Yushchenko had taken the unusual step of inviting UPA veterans to attend the events in Kyiv for the anniversary. Now he advocated reconciliation between former adversaries in the UPA and the Red Army soldiers, noting that Ukrainians had already forgiven the Germans, the occupiers of their land during wartime, as well as the Poles for the events of Operation Vistula. Why cannot Ukrainians forgive themselves, he wondered? He noted that on the individual level, many combatants had shaken hands and made their peace with each other, for which their offspring would be grateful. Once again, this humanitarian attitude did not extend to veterans of the SS Division Halychyna, as was evident from a response of the president to a question from Donets'k, and he refused to deal with the issue of compensation for UPA veterans and victims of repression, which clearly irked some of the wartime participants.15As a final note on the issue of rehabilitating the OUN and UPA, one can turn to the pages of the Kyiv Post, which published a memorable editorial in October 2005.
There was an outburst of violence in the streets of Kyiv between the UPA and Red Army veterans, during a protest by the former to demand that it be granted the same benefits that the latter continue to receive. Having discussed the polarized viewpoints, the (unnamed) author writes:The horror is that both sides are right, and both sides are wrong. There are no easy answers in this corner of the European nightmare of the twentieth century. This is the sort of situation that any morally salient person can only approach with humility, and a recognition that the ambiguity cannot be expunged. That's why it is a tragedy. The controversy also cuts to the root of the question of independent Ukraine's identity. Is today's Ukraine the descendent of Soviet Ukraine? In that case, honoring the UPA would be inappropriate. Or is it the child of the Ukrainian nationalists, the western guerrilla fighters? Who can say?
The editorial doubts whether providing funds for UPA veterans would resolve the problem, though it feels that the president could provide some sort of compensation that is not directly comparable to that given to the veterans of the Red Army. It ends with the following statement:
There's no reconciling the Red Army and the UPA—the “Stalinists” and the “Fascists.” The best that can be done is not to try, but to paper over the dispute for the sake of social harmony until all these old men are gone taking with them into the grave their terrible history.16
Will the problem disappear once the veterans are gone? With the OUN and several other nationalist organizations operating now in Ukraine, it seems unlikely. Indeed the traditions, the memories, stories, songs, and memorabilia of the OUN and UPA have been transferred from one generation to another as though they constitute the only outlook and the only past of Ukrainians from all walks of life. In North America the nationalist organizations continue to be the most influential despite the disparate views, arguments, and disputes that have always existed between different factions.
The Famine of 1932- 33—known among these organizations today as the Famine-Holodomor or “Genocidal Famine”—is an issue that is directly related. How could Ukrainians be loyal to a state that tried to eliminate them in the millions? It is an unanswerable question.Notes
1 A book has now been published to accompany this pamphlet. See Stanislav Kul’chyts’kyi, et al, OUN³ UPA: Istorychni narysy (Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 2005).
2 H. V. Kas'yanov, 1Tdeolohiya OUN: istoryko-retrospektyvnyi analiz,” Ukrains'kyi istorychnyi zhurnal, No. 2 (February 2004): 30-32.
3 Ibid., pp. 35-36.
4 Ibid., pp. 38-39.
Ibid., pp. 39-41.
Henadii Sakharov, “Natsionalizm?—Natsionalizm! ” 17 August 2006; [http://maidan. org.ua].
For a brief overview, see Bohdan Chervak, “Ostatochnu krapku ne postavyv nevblahannyi chas,” Maidan, 10 June 2005. Part 14, written by H. Kas'yanov, is an abbreviated version of the article discussed above: “Ideolohiya OUN: Istoryko-retrospekytvni analiz,” Ukrains’kyi Istorychnyizhurnal, No. 2 (2004): 68-82.
National Academy of Sciences, Institute of History of Ukraine, “Problema OUN-UPA: Zvit robochoi hrupy istorykiv pry Uryadovii komisii z vyvchennya diyal'nosti OUN i UPA. Os- novi tezy z problemy OUN-UPA (istorychnyi vysnovok),” Kyiv, 2004: [http://www.ukraine- poland.com/u/publicystyka/publicystyka.php?id=3480], and ff.
There is an evident error here: the majority of former Division combatants took up initial residence in the United Kingdom.
The figures are from a report to the Presidium of the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet by the KGB archival and registration department with the Council of Ministers, Ukrainian SSR, April 1973.
John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism (Littleton, Colorado: Ukrainian Academic Press, 1980).
Andrew Wilson, Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s: a Minority Faith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Amir Weiner, Making Sense of War: The Second World War and the Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
Yurii Shapoval', “Ukrains'ka druha svitova,” Dzerkalo tyzhnya, No. 15 (23 April-6 May 2005); [http://www.zn.kiev.ua/ie/show/543/49834/]
The interview with Yushchenko appeared in Ukrains'ka pravda, 12 May 2005, [http://ww2. pravda.com.ua/archive/2005/may/12/efir.shtml].
Editorial, Kyiv Post, 19 October 2005.