Summary

This chapter has surveyed some of the recent debates about controversial events in Ukrainian-Polish relations, many of which remain in the memory of people and have the potential to foster differences between the two countries.

The focus has been exclusively on those narratives that have appeared in Ukraine. Those in Poland, as well as a number of new books on issues such as Volhynia, are of interest but are peripheral to this study, even though they have contributed to the debate and responses from the Ukrainian side. Two key issues have arisen with regard to the construction of Ukrainian national history: the first is context. As some Ukrainian writers have noted with justification, it is impossible to treat the Volhynia massacres in isolation; they need to be examined within the context of—at least—recent history. On the other hand, they cannot be ignored, and it seems simplistic to argue, as Radionov does, that they can be justified simply by the fact that Volhynia belonged historically to Ukraine. The opposite line of reasoning incidentally is used by other nationalist writers to avoid responsibility, namely that Ukraine cannot be responsible for these events because no Ukrainian state existed at that time. One surely cannot have it both ways. The second issue, and it surfaces repeatedly in articles, is that what occurred in Volhynia tarnishes irrevocably the image of the OUN and UPA as heroes and liberators of the Ukrainian lands. Snyder has explained such actions by the fact that the UPA consisted, in part, of former Nazi auxiliaries, extremists and fanatics who had already witnessed some of the worst horrors of the war and were now prepared to apply them to the local Polish population.

A distinction may be made between academic and popular writings on Polish-Ukrainian relations. Popular writings have made significant steps in coming to terms with issues like Volhynia and Operation Vistula—as for that matter have the respective governments in recent times.

However, the issue is far from resolved, and not least because of the existence of the two neighboring states. The perceived architects of the dilemma—Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—have long exited the stage. In the case of the latter, the successor nation, the Russian Federation, has never acknowledged any direct inheritance from the Soviet state, which might be considered illogical given its material gains, such as embassies, former party buildings, and the Kremlin itself. For Ukraine, the problem has always been that if one is to construct a national history that includes the struggle for independence in the wartime years—and it is hard to imagine how that history can be constructed without this pivotal period—then all aspects of the history of the OUN and UPA have to be included, both the heroic and the terrible, no matter how difficult this may be for Ukrainian historians to accept. The position is exacerbated by the “complex” of Ukrainians as victims and the fact that the acclaimed representatives of the nation were armed men who wished to cleanse their perceived territories as thoroughly as possible. It is complicated by the decades of monotonous Soviet narratives of OUN-UPA treachery and collaboration, which without doubt has had a lasting influence in many areas of Ukraine. On the other hand, the massacres were largely absent from Soviet narratives until the last years of the USSR—these writings did not wish to single out persecution of Poles just as Soviet accounts of the war years rarely focused on the Jewish Holocaust. In conclusion, one can say that Volhynia has entered the public consciousness of contemporary Ukraine but it sits uneasily with many people. Many would rather choose to forget such events.

Notes

1 Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 15691999 (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 169.

2 Timothy Snyder, “The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing,” Past and Present, Vol.

179, Number 1 (2003): 197-234.

3 Cited in N. Karpova, “Vybor,” Pravda Ukrainy, 4 January 1990, p. 4.

4 A. Veremeichuk, “My obvinyaem natsionalizm,” Pravda Ukrainy, 11 April 1990, p. 3.

V. I. Maslovs'kyi, “Shchto na ‘oltari svobody'? Dekil'ka utochen' shchodo viiny ‘na dva front.' Yaku vela UPA ta skil'koma nevynnymy zhertvamy oplachuvas' tsey propahandyts'- kyi myf,” Komunist Ukrainy, No. 7 (July 1991): 72-73.

S. Dluskiy, “Tragediya sela Ganachevka,” L'vovs'kayapravda, 2 July 1991, p. 3.

Evgeniy Guzhva, “Kolodets smerti,” Pravda Ukrainy, 22 August 1991, p. 3; and 23 August 1991, p. 3.

Wiktor Poliszczuk, Legal and Political Assessment of the OUN and UPA (Toronto, 1991), pp. 32-38.

Nina Romanyuk, and Yurii Mykolayenko, “Vsyaki uryad, yakui vidmovyvsya b vid Zakhid- noi Ukrainy, buv by rozbytyi,” Ukraina moloda, 11 January 1995, p. 3.

Myroslav Paranchak, “Tyahar nespravedlyvosti zhyvuchyi,” Za vil'nu Ukrainu, 23 July 1998, p. 2.

Yan Hasten, “Ne til'ky pro Volyn,” Za vil'nu Ukrainu, 24 September 1998, p. 2.

Koval', Ukraina v Druhii svitovii i Velykii Vitchyznyanii viinakh, p. 153.

Stanislav Kul'chyts'kyi, “Ukrainski natsionalisty v chervono-korychnevii Yevropi (do 70- richchya stvorennya OUN),” Istoriya Ukrainy, No. 5 (February 1999): 6-7.

Yaroslav Isayevich, “Ukrains'ko-pol's'ki vidnosyny periodu Druhoi svitovoi viiny: interpre- tatsii istorykiv i politykiv,” Istoriya v shkolakh Ukrainy, No. 2 (2003): 39.

Ibid., pp. 39-40.

Ibid., p. 40.

Wladyslaw and Ewa Symaszko, Ludobojstwo dokonan przez nacjonalistow ukrainskich na ludnosci polskiej Wolynia, 1939-1945 (Warsaw: Wyd. Von borowiecky, 2000).

I. I. Il'yushyn, “Do pytannya pro Volyns'ku trahediyu v 1943-1944 rr.,” Ukrains'kyi istorich- nyi zhurnal, No. 3 (2003): 116-117. Presumably the perpetrators were former members of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine since that party was dissolved by the Comintern on Stalin's orders in 1938.

Ibid., pp. 116-122.

Editorial, “Vernut' narodu istoriyu,” L'vovs'kaya pravda, 18 February 1990, p.

S. A. Makarchuk, “Z istorii druhoi svitovoi viiny. Pereselennya polyakiv iz zakhidnykh oblastei Ukrainy v Pol'shchu u 1944-1946 rr.,” Ukrains'kyi istorychnyi zhurnal, No. 3 (2003): 103-104.

Ibid., pp. 104-105.

Ibid., pp. 105-108, 110-111.

Ivan Vorobel', “Staly zhertvamy kliky Beria-Stalina,” Za vil'nu Ukrainu, 30 August 1994, p. 2. Petro Kostyk, ““Polumya, shcho nurtuye donyni slida my trahedii sela Sahrybn na Kholmsh- chyni,” Za vil'nu Ukrainu, 10 September 1999, p. 6.

Oleksandra Potichna, “I bratove-lyatky po khrystyyans'ki vyrizaly Ivanovi na hrudyakh khresta,” Za vil'nu Ukrainu, 30 July 1999, pp. 8-9. See also Peter J. Potichnyj, Pavlokoma, 1441-1945: istoriya sela (L'viv and Toronto: Fund for Pavlokoma, 2001).

Ibid.

V. Danylenko and V. Baran, “Ostanni period Stalinshchyny (suspil'no-politychni rozvytok),” Istoriya Ukrainy, No. 12 (March 2000): 1-3.

Ibid.

Natalya Klyashtorna, “Vyselennya,” Ukraina moloda, 19 February 2002, p. 11.

Kataryna Wolczuk, “The Difficulties of Polish-Ukrainian Historical Reconciliation,” paper published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 2002.

32 Georgiy Gongadze, a journalist for the on-line newspaper Ukrains’ka Pravda, was kidnapped and later murdered in 2000. He had written a number of critical articles about the Kuchma regime, which was implicated in the murder by tapes smuggled out of the country by a former bodyguard of the president. See J. V. Koshiw, Beheaded: The Killing of a Journalist (London: Artemia Press, 2003).

33 Wolczuk, “The Difficulties of Polish-Ukrainian Historical Reconciliation.”

34 Ibid.

35 Evhen Dudar, “Pravda—odna. Vidkrytyi lyst prem'er-ministrovi Pol'shchi p. Lesheku Mil- leru,” Literaturna Ukraina, 7 November 2002, p. 1.

36 Ibid.

37 Maksym Strikha, “Asymetrychnist' Volyni,” Krytyka-Komentar, 5 May 2003; [http://www. krytyka.kiev.ua/comments/Strixa24.html].

38 Prus has been a prolific and hostile analyst of the OUN and UPA and has also authored a biography of Stepan Bandera.

I am not acquainted with the cited source. His recent works include Rycerze zelaznej ostrogi: oddzialy wojskowe ukrainskich nacjionalistow w okresie II wo- jny swiatowej (Wroclaw: Atla 2, 2000); and SS-Galizien: patrioci czy zbrodniarze? (Wroclaw: Nortom, 2001).

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Bohdan Oleksyuk, “Chy musyt' ukrains'kyi natsionalist nenavydity polyakiv? Krytyka, 23 May 2003; [http://www.krytyka.kiev.ua/comments/Oleksjuk14.html].

42 Wiktor Poliszczuk, Bitter Truth: the Criminality of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA): the Testimony of a Ukrainian (Toronto,

1999).

43 Volodymyr Serhiichuk, Nasha krov-na svoii zemli (Kyiv: Ukrains'ka vydavanycha spilka,

2000), pp. 1, 3, 7, 18, and 48-49.

44 Ibid., pp. 64, 67-68.

45 Ibid., pp. 78, 85-86.

46 Grzegorz Motyka, Pany i rezuny : wspolpraca AK-WiNi UPA, 1945-1947 (Warsaw: Volumen, 1997).

47 Volodymyr Serhiichuk, Trahediya Volyni: Prychynyi perebih pol’s’ko-ukrains’koho konfliktu v roky Druhoi svitovoi viiny (Kyiv: vydavnycha spilka, 2003), pp. 1-15, 20-21.

48 Ibid., pp. 26, 29, 32, 41-43, 52-53, 58-59.

49 Ibid., pp. 74-75, 97.

50 Serhii Hrabovs'kyi, “Yaka Ukraina potribna Polshchi?” Ukrains’ke slovo, 24-30 July 2003, p. 5.

51 Ibid. His reference is to the founder of the Soviet Cheka, the Pole Felix Dzerzhinsky, and to the Ukrainian National Republic of 1918.

52 “Volyns'ka trahediya,” Moya bat’kivshchyna, No. 7 (July 2003).

53 Viktor Radionov, “Vidhomin,” Ukrains’ke slovo, 4-10 September 2003, p. 4.

54 Ibid. Compare here the attitude of a Canadian of Ukrainian ancestry, Orysia Tkacz, who commented on the Info-ukes internet list that “What was lost in all the discussion re Volyn was—and yes, retribution is ugly, but—this was Ukrainian land. Ukrainians had been ruled and persecuted by the Poles for centuries on this land, serfdom, the pany/lords, the “Pacification,” Brigidky, Bereza-Kartuz'ka, Akcija Wiszla later and on and on and on, and finally, as they say in Ukrainian, terpets' virvavsia [it was the last straw]. In this specific case it was the Poles who were killed. They, particularly, would not/may not have been guilty of anything but this was what happened, in reaction to all that happened before.” Info-ukes, History list, 8 November 2003. One could hardly find a better example of a victimization complex being used to justify a wholesale massacre.

55 Bohdan Oleksyuk, “Natsionalizm ne teroryzm,” Ukrains’ke slovo, 4-10 September 2003, p. 4.

56 Viktor Zamyatin, “Adam Michnik: One must think ahead,” The Day Digest, 15 April 2003; [http://www.day.kiev.ua/260479/].

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Source: Marples David R.. Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine. udapest—New York: Central European University Press,2007. — 363 p.. 2007

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