Reviewing the Issue of the OUN and the UPA

Even before the end of the Soviet period, the question of rehabilitation of the OUN and UPA had surfaced. The 28th Congress of the CC CPU in De­cember 1990 condemned such attempts which, it claimed, were being pro­moted by the Rukh, the Ukrainian Republican Party, the Ukrainian National Party, and the Union of Ukrainian Youth.

On the other hand, in Western Ukraine, the sentiments were quite differ­ent. Thus Mykola Porovs'kyi, a parliamentary deputy from Rivne oblast, draws attention to the problem of rehabilitating participants in armed resistance against German Fascism who fought in UPA units. That the insurgents at­tacked the Germans is indisputable, he claims, and he suggests that UPA members that cannot be accused of fighting against the Soviet army should be rehabilitated.²⁶ Another author writes that it is impossible to root out from the memory of Western Ukrainians their slain parents, brothers, and sisters. He calls for reconciliation and understanding of such sentiments. One way to do this, in his view, would be to erect a monument to all Ukrainians who per­ished in different historical periods, which could be a monument “of national reconciliation.”²⁷ Ukraine's main literary weekly informed its readers in early 1992 about the creation of an All-Ukrainian Brotherhood of former UPA sol­diers. Its first assembly was held in Ivano-Frankivs'k, and the newspaper reis­sued its appeal to young people, which purported to explain the past misinter­pretations of the UPA as a hostile force in Ukraine.²⁸ In the spring of the same year, an editorial in this newspaper states that “we” have learned the truth about many things: about the so-called reunion with Russia, the Central Rada of 1917-18, the wars that followed the revolution, the affair of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine, and the enforced Famine of 1932-33. Now, says the writer, it is time to study the emotional pages in the history of the libera­tion phenomenon: OUN-UPA.

The anniversary of the official creation of the UPA was the occasion for a speech by the Ukrainian Minister of Culture, Larysa Khorolets', which was published in Literaturna Ukraina. She begins by declaring that at the next stage of the strengthening of Ukrainian statehood “we bow our heads” to those upon whom Ukraine called for its defense at a time of great turmoil. She evokes images of past heroes, such as Ivan Mazepa, Taras Shevchenko, and the Sich Sharpshooters, and then adds that on the eve of the first anniversary of the declaration of Ukrainian independence everything that is related to the history of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army returns to our official narrative of history. Under the new “democratic conditions,” the attitude to UPA's role in the Second World War is changing. Historians have not yet shed light on all aspects of this heroic formation, but already Ukrainians could be confident that with the assistance of foreign historians, a revised, unbiased version of UPA history can be written. This would be undertaken in the name of histori­cal justice, and it would not try to diminish the sacrifices of those Ukrainians who fought against the Germans in the Red Army. People should not be upset with those who do not recognize the UPA because for a long time “an alien spirit” was directing the way that people think, Khorolets' said. After the Sec­ond World War, insurgents were left alone to fight the mightiest army in the world. Today people must express their debt to the victims of this fratricidal war, during which the Ukrainian nation lost its most active stratum.

Khorolets' passionate speech seemed to herald a new era in the evaluation of Ukraine's recent past: the government's recognition of the place of the UPA as a heroic army dedicated to Ukrainian independence. Changes, how­ever, did not come as rapidly as anticipated, even with allies in high places such as the Minister of Culture. Yurii Shapoval recalls that in August 1992 in Kyiv there was a scientific conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the UPA. The speeches of veterans and scholars continued for two days and Shapoval recognized clearly how difficult it was to deal with the history of the insurgents—a complex scientific and political problem for post-Commu­nist society. In reality, people who declare their profession to be a fighter for nationalism and are labeled as traitors and fascists cannot be declared na­tional heroes overnight. He also recognizes that it would be dangerous to ide­alize the history of the UPA as some historians have started to do. What is required is understanding and elucidation of those facts that have been con­sciously suppressed. This would provide an opportunity for an objective ap­praisal of the history of the UPA.³¹ Meanwhile at the regional level, progress seemed to be discernible.

How do such people relate to the OUN and UPA? The author writes that they oppose the rehabilitation of these organizations because allegedly Ukrainian nationalists were in the service of the Nazis; they killed innocent civilians; and they attacked Soviet army units. He will have none of it. The OUN, he writes, was always independent of the Germans other than a mild form of collaboration that occurred until the summer of 1941, which was dic­tated by tactical requirements. The UPA fought the Germans. He also refutes the charge that the UPA killed innocent civilians, which he dismisses as Communist propaganda directed at “ignorant” people in Central, Southern, and Eastern Ukraine. The best retort to such fabrications, he writes in a strained form of logic, is that the UPA is least liked in those areas where there was no nationalist insurgency. As for the third charge, he has less concern about it other than to note that UPA's opposition to Soviet rule is the main reason why it has not been rehabilitated. Yet the Soviet army, and today's So­viet veterans, were not protecting Ukraine but rather were fighting for its de­struction and the success of Russian colonial policies and NKVD terror.³³ Remarkable in this narrative is the casual dismissal of the views of a majority of Ukrainians as a result purely of ignorance (and implicitly stupidity) and Russian influences.

In the 1990s, writers often differed in their assessment of the impact of the campaign to restore the memory of the OUN and the UPA in Ukraine. Even though the Ukrainian government had established a commission to investigate the question, profound cleavages remained in Ukrainian society. One Rukh activist and former UPA member, who was depicted as living in poverty not far from Luts’k, commented in 1998 that the attainment of a Ukrainian state has not affected the issue substantially. People go “where the wind blows” and although Ukraine has its own army; it does not hold prayers, as in UPA. He recalls that among the Communists in the Soviet period there were many good people, because in their hearts they had remained Ukrainians. He calls for forgiveness and reconciliation between the UPA and Soviet Partisans, or Red Army soldiers. Yet he cannot comprehend why former NKVD members whose task it was to destroy insurgents should be living well and receiving pensions today, whereas those who conceivably are about to be rehabilitated “by history and the state” receive nothing.³⁵ Poliszczuk, on the other hand, perceives the physical and spiritual transfer of UPA ideology to Ukraine, along with a “rebirth of OUN fascist ideology.” He notes that the Rukh leader Ivan Drach, described as a democrat, contributed R1,000 for the construction of a monument commemorating the UPA in Rivne, and describes the physical arrival in Ukraine of emissaries of the OUN abroad, such as Taras Hunczak, former editor-in-chief of the journal Suchasnist', created by Mykola Lebed. A nationwide conference of Ukrainian nationalists occurred in 1992, and the OUN newspaper, Ukrains'ke slovo, had relocated from Paris to Kyiv.³⁶