Myths of National Consolidation, the Holodomor, and the Holocaust: A Response to Roman Serbyn

John-Paul Himka

First off, I would like to thank Roman Serbyn for his critique of my positions as enunciated in my text “Interventions” in its abridged version. I am glad to see the arguments of the other side presented in an articulate fashion. I will not be able to respond to all the points Roman raises in his “Erroneous Methods,” but I will pick those that I understand to be the most important. The text of mine that he critiques, “Interventions,” states my positions on the Holodomor and Holocaust only in condensed form, to provide the audience a context for my discussion of what it is like to challenge widely accepted and sensitive interpretations of national history. A much longer version of that text will appear later, but with the emphasis still on the experience of challenging rather than on the merits of my case. I have been making my case for the actual history and its interpretation in a number of publications1 and in conference papers that I have made available on the internet.2 In these other texts one can find references to primary sources and fuller explanations of my thinking. There are many other important publications on these same issues by other authors.3

Myths of National Consolidation

A major point of difference between Roman and me, one that may be irreconcilable, is our attitude to national myths. He writes that I fail to see the benefit of “positive myths of national consolidation” or “consolidation myths” or “a constructive, foundational national myth.” This is true. I look at myths, especially national myths and victimization myths, with profound distrust.4 I cannot even imagine one that I could endorse. Roman is in error to assume, stereotypically, that I accept Jewish myths and even their instrumentalization while denying Ukrainian myths. I hate to see the Holocaust used as a victimization narrative to build community or support for Israel and especially to justify Israel’s harsh policies toward the Palestinians (and I am no enemy of Israel). In the Israeli-Arab conflict I see the mobilization of competing myths and little room for rational discussion. I am for history – complicated, messy, honest history where, at least in theory, the underlying rationality in the acceptance of facts and in the investigation of causalities creates a space for the possibility if not of a shared narrative, then at least of a shared community of discourse. The problem with myths is that they are transcendent, in Popper’s terms: metaphysical, based on something other than rationality, ultimately irrational. Myths cannot “talk” to one another as histories can. They are closed systems that fall out of dialogic discourse. In Ukrainian nationalism – and I will be using this term to refer to the nationalism of the capital N nationalists, i.e., the ideological postulates of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists – myths have priority over history. History should, in its view, serve myths. This makes perfect sense for an ideology that embraces voluntarism and irrationalism.

In Roman’s view, good myths bring about national consolidation. Here I am also distrustful. Every consolidation is also an extrusion. National consolidation extrudes groups that do not fit the consolidated model. In nineteenth-century Galicia, the consolidation of the modern Polish and Ukrainian nations went hand in hand with the extrusion of Jews.5 In mid-twentieth-century Galicia and Volhynia, Ukrainian nationalists attempted to consolidate the nation by eliminating the national minorities (especially Poles and Jews, but also Roma and others), persecuting religious groups they did not approve of (Baptists, Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox, and Russian Orthdox), and executing fellow Ukrainians who opposed their policies.6 The logic of any particular national consolidation requires examination, since this logic can prove dangerous. At the same time, I cannot deny that deep divisions in a society, such as exist in Ukraine, or in the United States for that matter, also pose a danger. But here again, I would prefer to see the demobilization of the myths – the closed thinking – that impede dialogue or agreement on a set of future-oriented positive goals. I teach an undergraduate course on the History of the World in the Last Ten Years, and I assign readings from both The Weekly Standard and The New York Times. It is my view that an informed citizenry must take into account the arguments of all sides; it should not be constrained by the consolidation of one position, particularly not of a nationalist position.

Myths, Roman argues, should be judged by their usefulness and morality, not by their truthfulness. Why should we not believe that Jews fought for UPA if that myth promotes positive attitudes of Ukrainians toward Jews? The idea, and it has been formulated by some of my other critics as well,7 is that we can take the OUN-UPA myth and render it harmless and useful by only promoting the positive side of the heritage (struggle for Ukrainian independence, resistance to Soviet occupation) and downplaying the harmful side (antisemitism, ethnic cleansing, fascism). As long as we use OUN-UPA to promote Ukrainian patriotism and do not take up, for example, its idea that we should destroy Muscovites, Poles, and Jews, it is okay. To me, this looks exactly like the argument that we should honor Stalin as the man who led the Soviet Union when it defeated Nazi Germany; we do not have to agree with him about the need to deport and kill millions in order to consolidate the state, but it would be counterproductive to the goals of our good myth to harp on his unfortunate crimes. There are other arguments against this idea that I have made many times in the past, in other texts, and here I will only mention them concisely: denial of crimes against humanity inevitably leads to their justification and thus to the continuation of the crimes; admission of atrocities is inadequate to remedy them, but it is the least that is required of those who identify with their perpetrators; and Ukrainian nationalist thinking, even when partially excised of negative elements, has its own baggage which reinforces xenophobia and antisemitism, persecution of those who think differently, and a nostalgia for fascism.8

As to the idea of myths being judged by their morality: How does one reconcile with morality the glorification of organizations and military units that engaged in the mass murder of civilians? This has always been hard for me to understand. Roman expresses disappointment that Yushchenko did not also bring into his national consolidation project “the Waffen SS Division Halychyna and other units of the armed forces of the Axis powers.” What does he mean by these “other units”? Does he think that the Ukrainian Schutzmannchaften, which included a strong nationalist presence, should form part of the basis of our national myth? These units engaged in brutal actions against the civilian population of Belarus during their antipartisan warfare. They, including former members of OUN-M’s Bukovynsk’kyi kurin’, committed horrendous murders at Khatyn, immortalized in Elem Klimov’s film of 1985, Come and See.9 The members of the stationary Schutzmannschaften in Volhynia and elsewhere in the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine (popularly referred to as the Ukrainian police) were not only crucial accessories in the Holocaust, but they murdered the families of pro-Soviet partisans and enslaved hundreds of thousands of their fellow Ukrainians. The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in Galicia was also a major instrument in the Holocaust. Are these part of the national project? Is there any line to be drawn anywhere?

I also find the idea to include SS Galizien in the national consolidation myth highly problematic. That the Deschênes commission cleared it is not, to me a serious argument, at least for historians. I cannot accept that judicial pronouncements or government authorities have the power to settle matters of scholarship. And judicial opinions in such matters are dependent on circumstances, particularly political circumstances. Nuremberg, of course, declared the Waffen SS a criminal organization. Like the Austrians for a long time10 and like some other East European nations today,11 Ukrainians claim that their Waffen SS unit was an exception. And to a certain extent this is true. Although OUN-M and some Ukrainian leaders with at least personal ties to that organization, such as Volodymyr Kubijovyč and Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, had been lobbying the Germans for a Ukrainian unit since the German-Soviet war broke out, a Ukrainian SS division was only permitted after the Holocaust was essentially over in Galicia. Hence, it did not, as a unit, play much of a role in that bloodbath. True, Dieter Pohl writes of the “high probability” that the division was used to round up Jews in Brody in February 1944.12 More important, however, many former Ukrainian policemen and Schutzmänner who had indeed been Holocaust perpetrators entered the unit, particularly as NCOs and particularly in the later stages of the division‘s existence, when it became the first division of the Ukrainian National Army. Also, all those who entered this unit were very aware of how the Germans had killed the Jews of Galicia, and the question therefore arises: How, after witnessing such a crime, could men voluntarily join forces with such an ally? Finally, we know that after the debacle at Brody, the Ukrainian SS was used primarily to suppress partisans in Slovakia and Slovenia. In Slovakia they worked hand in hand with Dirlewanger’s notorious unit composed of criminals. There are reports that the division liquidated whole villages, which was a typical method the Germans employed in antipartisan warfare. From my perspective, it does not seem that the inclusion of SS Galizien and other Ukrainian units in German service into a consolidation myth scores high on the usefulness or morality tests.

The last point I wish to make about national-consolidation mythology is its intolerance toward intellectual pluralism. As I have said, national consolidations necessarily involve extrusions. There are moments in Roman’s text which suggest that my taking a different stance may mean that I stop being a Ukrainian. This has also been suggested by Yurii Shapoval.13 Policing of what it means to be Ukrainian is rather ruder once I leave the company of scholars whom I have known for a long time. Ever since Askold Lozynskyj, a former president of the Ukrainian World Congress, declared that I was in the pay of the Jews, I have received some pretty nasty comments, including an email that hoped I would choke on all the money I’ve earned. On some internet sites you can discover that I am not only a “Ukrainophobe“ but a Russian Jew. A retired physician in Toronto has made a sculpture of a jackal called “John-Paul svoloch,” a photograph of which he has been circulating to various people in the community along with a blank-verse denunciation of my “incessant howling, in promiscuous pursuit of self-promotion” (cf. Roman’ characterization of me as one who “heads for the limelight of the public intellectual”). People coming to hear me speak in Winnipeg and Toronto have been leafletted by Ukrainian student organizations. This is all par for the course when you consolidate a national myth in a community and someone from that community actually begins researching the past to which the myth refers – the community undertakes to extrude him or her. Just a few years back Peter Borisow, a vocal Holodomor activist, took Alexander Motyl to task for an article that appeared in The New York Times, for which Dr. Motyl was a source. Borisov was upset that the article contained “a weak mention of ‘Genocide’”and too many references just to “famine”; moreover, the article suggested that the number of victims was three to six million. Here is what Borisow proposed: “If Prof. Motyl refuses to retract his statement and publicly apologize, he should be drummed out of Ukrainian organizations and be rendered unwelcome in the Ukrainian community.”14

Roman states that my positions strengthen “Russian World” myths. I do not share this binary thinking. In her comments at the 2011 meeting of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, Oxana Shevel said that it is more useful to think of three positions in the debate over memory: 1) those who focus on Soviet crimes and downplay the crimes of the national socialists and nationalists; 2) those who focus on the crimes of the national socialists and nationalist and downplay the crimes of the Soviets; and 3) those who attempt to treat all such crimes evenhandedly, using the same criteria and practices of investigation and interpretation. A much-discussed contribution to the third position is Timothy Snyder’s recent Bloodlands.15 From my point of view, the third position is best. Roman feels that to abandon position 1 is automatically to fall into position 2. His attitude is widespread in the Ukrainian community and in the Ukrainian studies community.16

Lemkin and Genocide, Holodomor and Holocaust

A number of passages of Roman’s “Erroneous Methods” take me to task for not sufficiently recognizing the importance of the work of Raphael Lemkin for understanding the Ukrainian genocide. Indeed, he is correct. I really do think that Lemkin’s work in this respect has nothing to offer but antiquarian interest.

To begin with, ever since the time of the scientific revolution, it has been a principle of science and scholarship that arguments, not authorities, are required to settle disputes. The invention of the concept of genocide did not automatically give Lemkin the historical knowledge necessary to determine whether any particular case fit his definition or not. Moreover, Lemkin’s thinking on genocide changed over time. At the time of Lemkin’s greatest influence, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the United Nations took up his definition, he was not yet thinking of Ukraine as an object of genocide; rather the fate of the Armenians during World War I and of the Jews during World War II were uppermost in his mind. His thinking about Ukraine came later in the Cold War, in the mid-1950s, at which time Lemkin was both marginalized and impoverished. He was, in fact, at that time dependent on the Baltic and Ukrainian communities for material support. Moreover, his definition of genocide expanded dramatically. Almost everything the communists did he now dubbed genocide, including the suppression of the Hungarian revolution in 1956. His new usage of genocide encompassed so much that it was growing increasingly meaningless.17 It was in this context that the work Roman so admires appeared.

As far as I can ascertain, Lemkin did not himself study the Ukrainian situation independently, but relied on information he obtained directly from émigré nationalists. Hence, it is not surprising that nationalists today resonate to the rediscovered ideas of this Polish-Jewish jurist. To me, Lemkin’s outline of the Ukrainian genocide is nothing striking. Since I was twelve years old I have been aware of the repression of Ukrainian cultural activists by Stalin in the 1930s. I have no doubt that this repression – even without the famine – can be classified as genocide even under the 1948 definition, if one simply matches the history to the words. The famine too can be classified as genocide, especially if linked with the cultural repressions. But I agree totally with Timothy Snyder that classification gets us nowhere and that juridical definitions do not belong in scholarship. My interpretation of the famine is very close, virtually identical, to Snyder’s, as presented in Bloodlands, and so is my reluctance to use the term genocide.18 (In fact, I do occasionally use the term genocide loosely in relation to the Ukrainian famine, something Snyder does not do in his book on principle.)

I think there are immensely more interesting and important questions about the famine of 1932-33 to research than whether or not it can be considered a genocide, even though that has consumed so much of the discourse around the Holodomor in the diaspora and in pronationalist regions and circles in Ukraine. One thing I find interesting and important is the study of memory politics and in this connection particularly the Ukrainian campaign for the recognition of the famine as genocide. I have written about this in the past and plan to write more. Here I will deal only with certain aspects of these memory politics which were mentioned in Roman’s text.

I have never questioned that it is appropriate to empathize with the victims of the famine. I would not use Roman’s formulation, however: “This right [to empathize]…belongs to the victim group of every genocide or mass atrocity.” I think the obligation to empathize is not restricted to the “victim group,” and I think that the term “victim group” is a problematic category. Roman’s stark formulation seems to free Ukrainians from the necessity to empathize with victims of the Holocaust and Jews from the necessity to empathize with victims of the Holodomor. I do not think this is what he means, however, or else he would not be part of the campaign to have non-Ukrainians recognize the Ukrainian genocide. The category “victim group” confuses me. Does anyone else constitute the ”victim group” of the Holocaust other than the Jews who actually suffered during the Nazi occupation? Do their siblings in North America belong? The children of their siblings? North American Jews who arrived in the 1840s? Yemeni Jews? Converted Jews? Anyone who identifies with Jewish suffering? In the case of Ukrainians, the “victim group” is obviously problematized by acute regional differences and the fact that Western Ukraine did not directly experience the famine. In every locality where collectivization and the famine occurred some Ukrainians were on the side of the perpetrators. Are they part of the “victim group”? Are their children and grandchildren? I prefer a more universal formulation about the obligation to empathize.

I believe, however, that what Roman is getting at is one of my problems with the Holodomor genocide campaign. It has been my belief that we should not embark on such a campaign until we deal honestly with accusations of genocidal actions perpetrated by Ukrainians. Probably Roman’s objection hearkens back to an older exchange, from February 2010, in which I debated with Zenon Kohut. Roman wrote at that time:

I did not intend to stray into this discussion until I read John-Paul’s flippant moralizing at the end of his letter:

“And what about the hypocrisy of demanding that the world recognize the famine of 1932-33 as a genocide at the same time as one refuses to give adequate recognition to what OUN and UPA did to Poles and Jews?”

This is a non sequitur. The recognition of one crime is not contingent on the recognition of another. Each crime is judged on its own attributes. Furthermore, these crimes are not related. And then what exactly does “adequate recognition” mean? I have been active for some time in promoting the recognition of the Ukrainian genocide of the 1930s in academic and political circles. Must I preface every communication with an “adequate recognition” of “what OUN and UPA did to Poles and Jews”?19

I did not respond to this at the time, so let me make my position clear now. I am looking for the same standards to be applied in evaluating both what happened to the rural population in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33 and what happened to the Jews under the German and Romanian occupation of Galicia, Bukovina, and Volhynia in 1941-44. I want to see the same level of empathy for victims and the same evaluation of perpetrators. I do not think it is right to remember only Ukrainians as victims without remembering those who were the victims of Ukrainians. I do not think it is right to bend all the argumentation to make OUN, UPA, the Ukrainian police, and other Ukrainians look as innocent as possible, while bending the argumentation to make the Soviets (or Russians or communists or whoever we blame) look as guilty as possible. The same kind of striving for objectivity must mark our understanding of both mass killings. We must give the same kinds of credence to the same kinds of evidence, to testimonies by NKVD or komnezam victims as to testimonies by OUN and UPA victims. The same applies to Soviet documentation. We cannot simply accept all Soviet documentation that reveals the criminality of those who condemned millions of Ukrainians to death while simultaneously rejecting any documents found in Soviet archives that incriminate nationalist organizations or leaders. Clearly, different kinds of Soviet documents demand differential evaluation; but similar kinds of documentation require similar evaluation. What I am looking for is a single standard, not a double standard, a more inclusive approach to replace national egoism.

Roman downplays my point about competing victimology, saying that only a fringe element engages in it. Here is an excerpt from a speech made in the provincial parliament of Ottawa by Yuri Shymko on 20 July 1985, the day that Holocaust denier James Keegstra was sentenced by an Alberta court: “Today we are united with the Jewish community in Canada in remembering the six million victims of the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime. We are equally united with the Ukrainian community in remembering the seven million victims of the Soviet genocide by means of the great artificial famine in Ukraine.” I note also that the speech was made with the idea of defending Ukrainians against charges of war crimes.20 Or more recently, while raising money for their film about the Holodomor, Marta Tomkiw and Bobby Leigh put a trailer on the internet that declared the Ukrainian famine “exceeded” other tragedies they named – Darfur, the Armenians, and the Holocaust. In fact, they claimed: “History knows no other crime of such nature and magnitude.” These offensive declarations of competitive victimology were only removed from the internet after my public protest.21 The film was promoted in The Ukrainian Weekly, and Taras Hunczak joined the project as a historical consultant.

Roman also contests my point about Yushchenko suppressing the history of the Holocaust at the same time he was promoting the Holodomor. Let me remind him that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on his watch published both a falsification purporting to exonerate OUN from involvement in the Lviv pogrom22 as well as a totally arbitrary list of Holodomor perpetrators consisting about 40 percent of Jews.23 Yushchenko’s SBU also set up the Lonsky Street Prison Museum, where the NKVD’s murder of Ukrainian nationalists is commemorated but the nationalists’ subsequent violence against Jews at the very same site is passed by in silence. Yushchenko also changed the character of Babyn Yar commemorations. While under previous presidents, this site, so important in Holocaust history, was the venue for the annual commemoration of the tens of thousands of Jews murdered here, Yushchenko shifted the emphasis drastically to commemorate rather the hundreds of Ukrainian nationalists who were also buried here.24

The genocide campaigners do not spout anger at Russians and Jews? Some do not, to be sure, but some definitely do, and not just marginal elements. Some prominent spokesmen have blamed the Holodomor on Jews, including former ambassador to Canada Levko Lukianenko25 and former Ukrainian World Congress president Lozynskyj.26 There is a noticeable antisemitic tinge to the work of the Association of Researchers of the Holodomors in Ukraine, which Lukianenko has headed for a long time.27 I took a photo on Prospekt Svobody in Lviv in 2003 of a sign erected to mark the seventieth anniversary of the famine. The sign reads: “2002-2003. 70th anniversary of the Holodomor of 1932-1933. Russian occupants murdered by artificial famine in occupied Ukraine 10,000,000 peasants-Ukrainians. The land that was depopulated by the Jew-commissars was settled by Muscovites from the Russian Federation.”

The Holocaust and Ukrainian History

In his text, Roman relegates the Holocaust to “Jewish history.” I am going to argue that it is also a part of Ukrainian history. For one thing, the national approach is not the only legitimate approach to Ukrainian history. Some of the most prominent practitioners of the discipline proceeded rather from a territorial approach. I think particularly of Viacheslav Lypynsky and Omeljan Pritsak in the past and Paul Robert Magocsi in the present. When we consider that 1.5 million Jews perished on the territory encompassed by the present boundaries of Ukraine, i.e., a quarter of the Holocaust’s victims, it is hard to imagine that this was something separate from Ukrainian history.

The murder of the European Jews was initiated, sponsored, and largely accomplished by the Germans. But really it was pretty much an all-European project. Vichy France and Nazi-occupied France cooperated in the Holocaust. Slovakia paid Hitler to take its Jews to the death camps. Romania killed Jews partly on its own initiative. Poles, as Jan Gross has been reminding them for over a decade, also took part in the killing of the Jews. In Western Ukraine, the dominant Ukrainian political force, OUN, took an active role in the Holocaust; in numerous rural localities the inhabitants slaughtered their Jews spontaneously in the summer of 1941; and the Germans could rely on a steady stream of denunciation from the local population. Omer Bartov noted in an important recent article, “much of the gentile population in this region both collaborated in and profited from the genocide of the Jews.”28 And throughout Ukraine, not just in the West, Ukrainians were sucked into the destruction process, as Schutzmänner and civil administrators, as cooks for the German shooters or guards of victims slated for execution.29 To quote Bartov again: “Because the Holocaust in Eastern Europe was often experienced as a communal massacre, it left a deep and lasting imprint on all surviving inhabitants of these areas.”30 The Holocaust cannot be cordoned off from Ukrainian history.

The disappearance of the Jews resulted in a transfer of much of their property to Ukrainians. The newspaper Krakivs’ki visti took over the printing press of a Jewish newspaper, for example.31 In cities, Ukrainians took Jewish apartments; in the country, their former homes, their cows, their duvets. Jews gave gold, money, and jewelry as bribes to Ukrainian policemen. They traded valuables and furs to farmers in exchange for potatoes and flour. By all accounts, the Ukrainian cooperative movement flourished under the Nazi occupation. One of the reasons, of course, is the disappearance of Jewish competitors. Some of these economic gains were rolled back by the Soviets, but not all. Ukrainians (and Russians too) moved to the cities and towns where Jews had once constituted a third or more of the population. All this is part of Ukrainian history. It is also Jewish history, of course, but maybe it is not so wise to be apportioning historic processes to some imagined discrete ethnic histories.

Roman complains that I did not write about rescue in my “Interventions” piece. But I have written about it elsewhere,32 and I have a long piece coming out about the efforts of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky on behalf of the Jews.33 In my view, however, there are too few scholarly studies of Ukrainian rescue, and those that do exist must be regarded as preliminary.34 I hope that the new project on rescue undertaken by Orest Zakydalsky moves the scholarship forward. Rescue, it should be recognized, is a complex issue, anything but straightforward. I have a PhD student, Nina Paulovicova, who has nearly completed her thesis on rescue in Slovakia. She paints a picture that is almost entirely composed of different shades of grey. One of the large issues – and it affects also some aspects of Ukrainian rescue – is that perpetrators of various kinds (Hlinka guardists, civil servants with responsibilities vis-à-vis the Jewish population) are usually in the best position to rescue Jews, so they figure rather disproportionately high among categories of rescuers.

I do want to take exception, however, with the implication of Roman’s text – and I have run into it frequently – that somehow rescue balances out perpetration. Only nationalists think that there is some kind of accounting ascribed to nations as a whole – x number of Ukrainians did this, but they are balanced by y number of Ukrainians who did that. It is, of course, precisely this logic that leads to blaming Soviet crimes on Jews in general, whether in the only apparently harmless Lozynskyj form or in the decidedly deadly Stetsko form. Ukrainian nationalists often play the rescue card quite cynically, too, although I do not wish to suggest that this is the case with Roman. But it was the case with the Ukrainian feminist Olena Kysilevska. She contributed a long antisemitic article to Krakivs’ki visti in June 1943, just as the Germans were liquidating the last of Galicia’s Jews. Indeed, she endorsed what was going on, satisfied that there were no more Jews left in the Hutsul region. She published it under a pseudonym and received 187 zlotys for it. Until I found out all the details of this in my late father-in-law’s archive (he was editor of Krakivs’ki visti), no one knew that this leader of the Ukrainian women’s movement in Galicia and later America had written such an appalling piece. Yet she also had the nerve, once in America, to write an article to defend Ukrainians’ reputation during the Holocaust. She wrote that in spite of all that the peasants had suffered from the Jews through economic exploitation, they still helped and fed Jews during the war.35 In short, this collaborator in the Holocaust hid behind the deeds of good people who took risks to help the hunted Jews. To me, this seems little different than when members and champions of the Bandera faction of OUN refer to the rescue activities of Andrei Sheptytsky to whitewash the dirty deeds of pogromists, policemen, and murderers in the forest. Sheptytsky roundly condemned the Banderites, their involvement in the murder of Jews as militiamen and policemen, and their murder of Poles as members of UPA.36

In closing, I would like to put these Ukrainian memory issues into a comparative context. Many countries have gone through a reckoning with the dark past of the Holocaust, and it has always been difficult. In Germany, a real confrontation with Germans’ responsibility for the Shoah came decades after the end of the war, at the earliest in the 1960s, but only properly in the 1980s. It is still very difficult for Germans to accept that members of their own families – beloved grandfathers – took part in such evil.37 The French have been torturing themselves over Vichy for decades now, and the trials of Klaus Barbie and Maurice Papon shook French society to its foundations. Everywhere in postcommunist Europe, where the memory of the Holocaust was relatively frozen, it has been difficult to deal with this past. People still remember who took part in the killings in the villages; they still remember where the Jews are buried. And we need to bear in mind that the deeper horror of the Holocaust unfolded not in France and Germany, but in Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Romania. Then there is the whole layer of mass killings committed by the communists, which were sometimes also intertwined with the Holocaust. These are not easy things to sort out. In the postwar Ukrainian emigration to North America, Britain, and Australia, the proportion of nationalists and persons associated with German administration or military was very high. These are our fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends. All these layers and all these personal ties make it difficult for us to work through the dark past. But that is nonetheless what we have to do.

NOTES

1. See especially: “Krakivski visti and the Jews, 1943: A Contribution to the History of Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during the Second World War,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies 21, no. 1-2 (Summer-Winter 1996): 81-95. “Ukrainian Collaboration in the Extermination of the Jews during the Second World War: Sorting Out the Long-Term and Conjunctural Factors,” in The Fate of the European Jews, 1939-1945: Continuity or Contingency, ed. Jonathan Frankel (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), Studies in Contemporary Jewry 13 (1997): 170-89. Review of Making Sense of Suffering: Holocaust and Holodomor in Ukrainian Historical Culture, by Johan Dietsch, and Holod 1932-1933 rr. v Ukraini iak henotsyd, by Stanislav Kul’chyts’kyi. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 8, 3 (Summer 2007): 683-94. Co-authored with Taras Kurylo, “Iak OUN stavylasia do ievreiv? Rozdumy nad knyzhkoiu Volodymyra V”iatrovycha,” Ukraina Moderna 13 (2008): 252-65. “Dostovirnist’ svidchennia: reliatsiia Ruzi Vagner pro l’vivs’kyi pohrom vlitku 1941 r.,” Holokost i suchasnist’ no. 2 (4) (2008): 43-73. Ukrainians, Jews and the Holocaust: Divergent Memories (Saskatoon: Heritage Press, 2009). “Debates in Ukraine over Nationalist Involvement in the Holocaust, 2004-2008,” Nationalities Papers 39, no. 3 (May 2011): 353-70. “The Lviv Pogrom of 1941: The Germans, Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Carnival Crowd,” Canadian Slavonic Papers, forthcoming December 2011. “Ethnicity and the Reporting of Mass Murder: Krakivs’ki visti, the NKVD Murders of 1941, and the Vinnytsia Exhumation,” in Shatterzone of Empires: Identity and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands, ed. Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming).
2. I have posted them, as well as many of the publications, on my site at academia.edu.
3. In addition to those I will be citing below, some important recent works include: Heorhii Kas’ianov, Danse macabre: holod 1932-1933 rokiv u politytsi, masovii svidomosti ta istoriohrafii (1980-ti – pochatok 2000-kh (Kyiv: Nash chas, 2010). Joanna Michlic, “The Soviet Occupation of Poland, 1939-41, and the Stereotype of the Anti-Polish and Pro-Soviet Jew,” Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society n.s. 13, no. 3 (Spring/Summer 2007): 135-76.Vladimir Melamed, “Organized and Unsolicited Collaboration in the Holocaust: The Multifaceted Ukrainian Context,” East European Jewish Affairs 37, no. 2 (August 2007): 217-48. Franziska Bruder, “Den ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder sterben!” Die Organisation Ukrainischer Nationalisten (OUN) 1929-1948 (Berlin: Metropol, 2007).Ray Brandon and Wendy Lower, eds., The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008). Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, “The ‘Ukrainian National Revolution’ of 1941: Discourse and Practice of a Fascist Movement,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 12, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 83-114. Christoph Mick, “Incompatible Experiences: Poles, Ukrainians and Jews in Lviv under Soviet and German Occupation, 1939-1944,” Journal of Contemporary History 46, no. 2 (2011): 336-63.
4. I am not alone. See, e.g., Charles S. Maier, “A Surfeit of Memory? Reflections on History, Melancholy and Denial,” History and Memory 5, no. 2 (Fall-Winter 1993): 136-52.
5. There is an excellent study of this process: Kai Struve, Bauern und Nation in Galizien: Über Zugehörigkeit und soziale Emanzipation im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2005).
6. Alexander Statiev, The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 123-32. Marco Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth: Ukrainian Nationalist Discussions about Jews, 1929-1947,” Nationalities Papers 39, no. 3 (May 2011): 315-52. Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 166-201.
7. See especially the article by Volodymyr Kulyk in Krytyka, no. 3-4 (2010).
8. On the latter point, see the torchlight parade in Lviv in 2011 to honor the heroes of Kruty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBo9CUgn2d0.
9. Per Anders Rudling, “The Khatyn’ Massacre: A Historical Controversy Revisited,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, forthcoming November 2011. Per Anders Rudling, “Terror and Local Collaboration in Occupied Belarus: The Case of Schutzmannschaft Battailion 118,” Historical Yearbook, Nicolae Iorga History Institute, Romanian Academy, 8, forthcoming December 2011.
10. Heidemarie Uhl, “Of Heroes and Victims: World War II in Austrian Memory,”
11. See John-Paul Himka and Joanna Michlic, Bringing the Dark Past to Light:The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe (University of Nebraska Press, forthcoming).
12. Dieter Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941-1944: Organisation und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechens (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1997), 365.
13. Iurii Shapoval, “Pro vyznannia i znannia,” Krytyka, no. 1-2 (2011): 17-20.
14. Peter Borisow, “A Subversion of Holodomor,” The Ukrainian Weekly, 2 March 2008.
15. New York: Basic Books, 2010. I have reviewed it in Krytyka, no. 3-4 (2011).
16. See for example: Peter Borisow, “The ABCs of Holodomor Denial,” The Ukrainian Weekly, 17 August 2008. (I understand that Borisow’s text is a response to my own, “How Many Perished in the Famine and Why Does It Matter?” BRAMA: News and Community Press, 2 February 2008 http://www.brama.com/news/press/2008/02/080202himka_famine.html). Jars Balan, “Gullible Leftists Play into the Hands of Putin’s Neo-Soviet Apologists,” Ukrainian News, 28 December 2009 – 19 January 2010.
17. Anton Weiss-Wendt, “Hostage of Politics: Raphael Lemkin on ‘Soviet Genocide,’” Journal of Genocide Research 7, no. 4 (December 2005), 551-59.
18. Snyder, Bloodlands, 21-58 (presentation of famine), 413 (objections to using the term “genocide”).
19. The Ukraine List (UKL), no. 441 (16 February 2010).
20. Yuri Shymko [MPP High Park-Swansea], “Statement on the Proposed Use of Soviet Evidence by the Deschenes Commission of Inquiry on War Crimes,” 20 July 1985. Oseredok Ukrainian Cultural and Education Centre (Winnipeg), “War Crimes removed from Archives Office G-3-5.”
21. Himka, “How Many Perished.”
22. Dmitrii Rybakov, “Marko Tsarynnyk: Istorychna napivpravda hirsha za odvertu brekhniu,” LB.ua, 5 November 2009, http://lb.ua/news/2009/11/05/13147_marko_tsarinnik_istorichna.html (accessed 6 May 2011). John-Paul Himka, “Be Wary of Faulty Nachtigall Lessons,” Kyiv Post, 27 March 2008. John-Paul Himka, “Falsifying World War II History in Ukraine,” Kyiv Post, 9 May 2011.
23. The list was posted on 23 July 2008. It has since been removed from the website of the Security Service, but I have retained a printout of it. It was widely commented on in the press at the time.
24. Aleksandr Burakovskiy, “Holocaust Remembrance in Ukraine: Memorialization of the Jewish Tragedy at Babi Yar,” Nationality Papers 39, no. 33 (May 2011): 371-89.
25. Lukianenko’s position is presented in some detail in Per Anders Rudling, “Organized Anti-Semitism in Contemporary Ukraine: Structure, Influence and Ideology,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 48, nos. 1-2 (March-June 2006):90-92.
26. In the interests of accuracy, I will quote Lozynskyj’s exact words: “Some Ukrainians will perceive this excessive reaction by Jewish media as a self-preserving defense tactic since, statistically, a disproportionate component of the Holodomor’s executioners were Jews and an equally overwhelming amount of Soviet accomplices during the Soviet’s two years in western Ukraine from 1939-41 were Jews.” Askold S. Lozynskyj, “How Insensitive Bigots Continue to Play Ukrainians and Jews against Each Other,” Kyiv Post, 8 November 2010.
27. Lyudmyla Grynevych, “The Present State of Ukrainian Historiography on the Holodomor and Prospects for its Development,” Harriman Review, 16, no. 2 (1 November 2008): 17.
28. Omer Bartov, “Wartime Lies and Other Testimonies: Jewish-Christian Relations in Buczacz, 1939-1944,” East European Politics & Societies 25 (2011): 491.
29. On the varieties of tasks Ukrainians found themselves performing for the German executioners, see Patrick Desbois, The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 97.
30. Bartov, “Wartime Lies,” 491-92.
31. John-Paul Himka, “Krakivs’ki visti: An Overview,” in Cultures and Nations of Central and Eastern Europe: Essays in Honor of Roman Szporluk, ed. Zvi Gitelman et al. (Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed by the Harvard University Press for the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, 2000), 251.
32. Himka, Ukrainians, Jews and the Holocaust.
33. John-Paul Himka, “Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky and the Holocaust,” Polin 26 (forthcoming).
34. Frank Golczewski, “Die Revision eines Klischees. Die Rettung von verfolgten Juden im Zweiten Weltkrieg durch Ukrainer, in Solidarität und Hilfe für Juden während der NS-Zeit, vol. 2, ed. Wolfgang Benz and Juliane Wetzel (Berlin: Metropol, 1998), 9-82. Zhanna Kovba, Liudianist’ u bezodni pekla. (Povedinka mistsevoho naselennia Skhidnoi Halychyny v roky “Ostatochnoho rozv”iazannia ievreis’koho pytannia”) (Kyiv: Biblioteka Instytutu Iudaiky, 1998).
35. Himka, “Krakivs’ki visti and the Jews,” 87-88, 90.
36. I also have a detailed study on this issue forthcoming in New Religious Histories: Rethinking Religion and Secularization in Russia and Ukraine, ed. Catherine Wanner (Woodrow Wilson Press and Oxford University Press).
37. I particularly recommend: Harald Welzer, Sabine Moller, and Karoline Tschuggnall, “Opa war kein Nazi,” Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust im Familiengedächtnis (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2002).

Editor’s note: Roman Serbyn’s article was published on this site, August 7, 2011.

The V-Day Spectacle and Beyond

Mykola Riabchuk

“Show,” “spectacle,” “theater,” and “performance” seem to be the most popular metaphors employed by Ukrainian observers to describe the May 9 clashes in L’viv between local nationalists and Russian barnstormers who came with red flags from Odesa and the Crimea to celebrate Victory Day in a city that has a substantially different view of the “victory” and a radically different view of red flags.

The “theatrical” metaphors should not undermine the seriousness of the conflict and its consequences for Ukraine’s future. Rather, they signal the staged, prefabricated character of the event, pointing to its Kyiv directors and, arguably, Moscow architects.

The stage for the conflict was set on April 21 when the Ukrainian parliament amended the 2000 law on commemoration of victory in the so-called “Great Patriotic War” of 1941-1945. A politically crucial request was added to raise the red Soviet flag (euphemistically defined as the “Flag of the Victory”) on all official buildings and sites, and to use it at all official ceremonies on V-Day and at relevant events, alongside the national yellow-and-blue flag.

Neither Ukrainian MPs nor the president needed to have been great statesmen to understand the provocative and subversive character of this suggestion. Even if they watched only Russian TV and used no other sources of information, they would certainly have known that the Soviet flag is absolutely unacceptable for a significant portion of the Ukrainian population, primarily in the western but also in the central part of the country. They should certainly have known that for millions of Ukrainians the red flag is first and foremost the symbol of occupation, of terror and genocide, Gulag and Holodomor, Russification, and national humiliation.

For many Ukrainians, like for Poles and the Balts, the Second World War on their territory was a clash of two equally dreadful predators, the Nazis and Bolsheviks. Which of the two was more oppressive might be an interesting question for academic debates, but it is of little relevance for people who feel today that the Nazi regime is dead and buried, while the Soviet regime, in its Putinist neo-imperial reincarnation, is alive and well and still threatens their shaky stability and sovereignty by various means.

This is why a significant portion of Ukrainians does not buy the Stalinist notion of the “Great Patriotic War” and rejects defiantly Russian attempts to capitalize politically on the historical victory by promoting particular nationalistic and imperialistic agenda.

So, the main question is not whether president Yanukovych and his Party of Regions (in fact, the party of one region, mostly comprised of the Donbas) share the Russian nationalistic view of the Second World War as a great victory of the Soviet (read Russian) people and the proof of their superiority over their neighbors, thus legitimizing their current “privileged interests” in the region. This might well be true taking into account the provincial character of the ruling Donbas “elite,” their extremely low cultural and educational level, poor knowledge of both national and global history and the outside world in general, the profound entrenchment of Soviet values and stereotypes in their minds, and, of course, their sheer opportunism driven by multiple business (political-cum-economic) interests. Thus, the real question is not about their views and commitments, whatever they are, but about their complete ignorance of the beliefs of the other part of society that makes up, by various surveys, between one quarter and one half of the national population.

Why have the “Regionals” reintroduced the red flag that is a clear irritant for so many co-citizens? Is it just an attempt to appease and to mobilize their Sovietophile electorate at the cost of the perceived anti-Soviet minority? Is it a symbolical gesture to indulge Russia in exchange for some personal/corporate benefits? Is it merely a maneuver to divert public attention from the dramatic failures of their social and economic policies, from the rampant corruption within their own ranks and growing international criticism of their heavy-handed dealing with opposition? Or, maybe, as Alexander Motyl suggests, it is a part of a wider strategy: to undermine the Ukrainian, i.e. largely pro-European and anti-Soviet identity, and thereby to weaken the social base of the Orange opponents?

All these assumptions may hold some truth but they hardly justify the costs to be inevitably paid for the presumed benefits. In long run, the Sovietophile policies would definitely subvert Ukraine’s European integration, preclude any chances to become a part of the first world, and deadlock it perhaps forever in the Russia-dominated “Eurasian” space of backwardness and despotism. This actually might not be a problem for the ruling “elite” since they personally joined the EU long ago, keeping their accounts, families, and real estate rather in the hostile West rather than in friendly Russia. But the real cost of contentious, divisive policies stubbornly pursued by the Donbas “elite” might be the division of the country at best or its “Ulsterization” at worst.

One may find some disturbing analogies between Russian supremacists waving red flags in Western Ukrainian cities and Ulster unionists marching with their flags through the Catholic quarters to celebrate the 1688 historical victory and symbolic dominance of the colonizers over the aborigines. Aborigines apparently dislike it and react emotionally, as happened in Lviv, to the great joy of Moscow propagandists who represent Ukrainians’ outrage at imperial symbols as a crypto-fascist denial of the “Great Victory” and another proof of solidarity with the defeated Nazis arguably inherent in Western Ukraine. “Perception of past Nazi collaborators divides Ukraine” ran the headline of Russia Today, the leading Kremlin mouthpiece, clearly outlining how the clashes in Lviv should be interpreted for both the domestic and international market.

Both the Russians and foreigners buy the news at face value. Even the respectable BBC informed its readers about the “clashes between Ukrainian nationalists and pro-Russian activists,” as if “pro-Russianness” was the main feature of rabidly chauvinistic and Ukrainophobic provocateurs purposely brought to L’viv from southeastern Ukraine. The pre-war Sudetenland Nazis might have been labeled “pro-German activists” by the same logic and with the same precision.

The Russian intent to deepen the Ukrainian divide has become an obsession, as well as efforts to discredit any strong anti-Soviet, pro-European Ukrainian identity as rabidly anti-Russian, xenophobic, and crypto-fascist. These intents may perfectly resonate with the Party of Regions’ desire to marginalize the political opposition by a complex two-fold strategy. One aspect was mentioned already: re-Sovietization and Russification of Ukraine as a way to weaken Ukrainian identity and undermine the power-base of the Orange opponents. The other aspect is aimed at promotion and covert support of radical nationalists in Western Ukraine in order to undermine Ukrainian moderates as real political rivals with potentially a much broader electoral base all over the country.

But the price for this perfidious game might be too high. And there are some signs that the Party of Regions, despite appearances to the contrary, is not homogenous and monolithic in this regard. First, Viktor Yanukovych opted not to sign the controversial decree on the red flag’s official usage and relied on so-called legal expertise. He condemned the violence in Lviv and promised a “determined response to those who want to bask in a bloody fire” but did not specify the culprits. In fact, his reference to “some “activists” [that] are trying again to split the Ukrainian people,” and to the “attempts to exploit politically the tragedies of the twentieth century” can be applied to both sides http://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/20032.html . Hanna Herman, his top adviser, expressed this idea unequivocally by saying that the both sides of the conflict deserve each other: “Яке їхало таке здибало” (“Like guests, like hosts”).

Oleksandr Yefremov, the head of the parliamentary faction of the Party of Regions, seemed to backtrack when he stated that ”probably we have to stipulate this [the red flag official status] not by law but by parliamentary decree and to think more deeply about this matter” http://gazeta.ua/articles/politics/382050. And the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to its Russian counterpart with a sharp—albeit wrapped in diplomatic wording—call to tone down anti-Ukrainian hysteria in the Russian mass media and pay more attention to nationalistic and xenophobic excesses in Russia itself. The statement implies that Russia, unlike Ukraine, has not yet got rid of “politicians who earn political dividends through provoking tensions in bilateral relations.” Still worse, some Russian politicians try to “divide peoples into more or less worthy heirs of the victory over fascism” http://www.mfa.gov.ua/mfa/en/publication/content/53249.htm.

Ukrainian TV, even though largely state-controlled, covered the May 9 events in L’viv in a much more balanced and moderate way than Russian TV networks, engaged in overtly propagandistic Galicia-bashing and anti-nationalistic witch-hunts, in which “anti-nationalism” was as subtle a substitute for anti-Ukrainian angst as Soviet “anti-Zionism” for anti-Semitism.

It is not clear yet whether we are witnessing some splits within the ruling team between the pro-Moscow hawks and more pragmatic doves, or this reflects some backtracking from too rough and assertive anti-Ukrainian policies of today’s mostly Russian and Russophone “elite,” or perhaps some hesitation evoked by the obvious fact that re-Sovietization in Ukraine, despite initial expectations, has not proceeded as smoothly as in Russia and Belarus. One thing is clear, however: the Genie of Russian/Russophone nationalism in Ukraine has been released from the Soviet bottle and is very unlikely to be put back. What looked like mere Sovietophile nostalgia throughout the 1990s has been institutionalized recently as a vociferous political movement, with very strong Russian and probably FSB connections and even stronger Ukrainophobic zeal. This might be a greater challenge for any Ukrainian government than the antithetical and ideological Frankenstein from the Ukrainian far right cherished covertly by the Party of Regions.

Whatever Viktor Yanukovych does with the as yet unsigned law, he will encounter a problem. The red flag has been used already without his signature and is likely to be re-deployed in the future. The regional authorities in Luhansk have already declared they are not going to remove the red flags at least until June 22 – the day when the “Great Patriotic War” began. They may well extend, in good faith, the presence of these flags indefinitely, or even substitute them for the national flags.

In the longer term, they may have no need for a national president in remote Kyiv.

Does Ukraine Have a Future?

David Marples

Ukraine is currently undergoing a crisis, according to several of its leading intellectuals. It is not an economic quandary, but rather one of self-perception and future path. Six years after the Orange Revolution had appeared to put an end to a neo-Soviet leadership, the country has yet to establish a national identity and a clear direction. One of its leading writers comments that although Ukraine is celebrating its 20th year of independence, it will cease to exist in 20 years’ time.

Are such statements credible? Why is there such a crisis of identity today?

In terms of politics, there is no question that the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych has reversed some of the gains made in 2004-05. Both Western analyst Alexander Motyl and Ukrainian writer Mykola Riabchuk have highlighted the cronyism and corruption of the Yanukovych team.

But it was author and poet Yuri Andrukhovych who expressed the “doomsday scenario” in an interview on the website www.polit.ua (Ukrainian Politics) on April 5. Noting that Ukraine is divided today between “Soviet Russians and Ukrainians,” he maintained that opponents of the country’s independence are as numerous as its supporters. In this situation normal development is impossible. Instead Ukraine is being dragged into what Andrukhovych calls “the Russian world” under the leadership of its East Ukrainian clan.

Writing on March 18 on the website “Current Politics in Ukraine” (http://ukraineanalysis.wordpress.com/), Riabchuk observes that the leading Ukrainian oligarchs are afraid of a pro-Western policy, open competition, and the rule of law and thus abandoned the more moderate and centrist position they had held under the presidency of Leonid Kuchma (1994-2004) and opted instead to back the Russophile group that is currently in power, which relies on tight control and brutal crackdowns against opponents in the best of Soviet traditions.

Regarding the pro-Ukraine policies heralded by the Orange Revolution, Kyrylo Halushko, a sociologist from the Drahomaniv National University in Kyiv, speaking at the University of Alberta on April 7, commented that they were identified closely with the personal fortunes of President Viktor Yushchenko and thus disappeared from view once the latter”s popularity began to drop sharply. Thus national symbols such as Ivan Mazepa, Symon Petlyura, and the Famine-Holodomor of 1933 are barely recognized in contemporary school textbooks.

An additional problem has been the figure responsible for those textbooks, Dmytro Tabachnyk, Ukraine’s Minister of Education and Science, Youth and Sports. In fact Tabachnyk, who has even been chided by Ukraine’s Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov for antagonizing teachers, symbolizes what critics perceive as the fundamentally anti-Ukrainian nature of the Yanukovych Cabinet.

How can Ukraine attain a national identity if its national leaders deny that one exists?

A study conducted several years ago by scholar Yaroslav Hrytsak contrasted popular opinion in two antithetical cities, namely Hrytsak’s native L’viv and Donetsk; one Ukrainian-speaking, Europe-oriented and pressing hard for recognition of nationalist heroes; the other Russian-speaking, Sovietized, and supportive of the Red Army heroes of the “Great Patriotic War.”

The point, however, is not that both identities exist—they surely do—but that they represent the extremities. Most Ukrainians are not interested in going back to the Soviet Union and the younger generation cannot even remember it.

Moreover, even the Yanukovych government wishes to join the Free Trade Area of the European Union. It is not yet confined within what Andrukhovych calls “the Russian space.” It has not even joined the Common Economic Space with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrivesvisited in Kyiv in April 2011, with a mission to coax Yanukovych to integrate the Ukrainian economy more closely with Moscow. Economic pressure is today’s substitute for the more forcible methods of the Soviet era. Already there is talk that the agreement on gas prices might be waived, and Ukraine could pay $US 350 per 1,000 cubic meters rather than its current $260.

Ukraine’s situation admittedly is troubling, but even the Donetsk group currently in control has its own priorities, and these are national by default. They have no wish to be subsumed to the interests of their larger neighbor.

Ultimately then, Ukraine may be defined not for what it is, but what it is not. And the key goal for Ukrainian intellectuals should be to find issues of common consent to identify what is Ukraine without alienating a large portion of the population. The recent past remains too divisive to be used as a basis.

The first task is to build up a strong opposition force that embraces democracy and the centrism of the Kuchma era without the corruption. The removal of Tabachnyk should be the first task. And focus should be on the parliamentary election set for October 28, 2012. Given the growing unpopularity of the government, there is a real opportunity to bring change.

The response to Andrukhovych is encapsulated by the title of Ukraine’s national anthem: Ukraine is not yet dead!

This article first appeared in the Edmonton Journal, 13 April 2011. Copyright David Marples.

WE PROTEST AGAINST THE HARASSMENT OF A HISTORIAN BY THE UKRAINIAN SECRET SERVICE, OR SBU

On 9 September 2010 the SBU detained the historian Ruslan Zabilyi and confiscated his research material. Now the SBU is seeking to launch a criminal case against him.

Whether we share Ruslan Zabilyi’s views or not, we consider it absolutely impermissible for a security service to harass researchers and obstruct intellectual activities.

Many of us are signing this petition in spite of the fact that we seriously disagree with Ruslan Zabily’s politics and his views of Ukrainian history. Even while we abhor the politicization of history that has become so evident in the recent years of Orange versus anti-Orange debates, we believe that the resolution of scholarly disputes depends upon the free flow of ideas, and free access to historical sources no matter how controversial they may be.

We believe that a truly democratic and independent Ukraine needs and facilitates full and free inquiry into its history. Such an enquiry can only take place with the broadest access to Ukrainian archives.

Given the record of denial of access to archives and libraries, suppression of dissenting views, denial of academic freedom, and isolation of Ukraine from the international scholarly community in the past, any Ukrainian government must be especially vigiliant not to revive such practices.

Against this background, the treatment of Ruslan Zabilyi points to a reversion to regrettable and dangerous practices of the totalitarian past. We find this incident extremely worrying, especially in view of earlier illegitimate uses made of the SBU in the realm of academia and civil society under the new Ukrainian government.

Even strong disagreements about Ukraine’s past and its politics of memory and history cannot be solved by methods that amount to harassment and intimidation. Ukraine’s reputation is also bound to suffer very severely from such methods.

We call on the SBU and the Ukrainian government to show responsibility.

We call on Ukraine’s public and its scholarly community not to tolerate the intrusion of blatant police methods where research, scholarly dispute, and public debate should be the means of resolving – or living with – differences. We urge the Ukrainian public and the Ukrainian and international scholarly community to join us in supporting Ruslan Zabilyi and in censuring the use of police methods to try to quash scholarly discussion.

Висловлюємо протест проти переслідування історика з боку Служби безпеки України (СБУ)

9 вересня 2010 року СБУ затримала історика Руслана Забілого і вилучила у нього дослідницькі матеріали. Зараз СБУ шукає способу розпочати проти нього кримінальну справу.

Багато хто з нас підписує цю петицію попри те, що ми ніяк не погоджуємося з тією політичною лінією, прибічником якої є Руслан Забілий, та з його поглядами на українську історію. Рішуче виступаючи проти політизації історії, яка стала особливо помітною в останні роки, під час «помаранчево-біло-блакитних» дебатів, ми, однак, переконані, що успіх наукових дискусій залежить передовсім від вільного обігу ідей і доступу до історичних джерел, хай якими контроверсійними вони є.

Ми переконані, що справді демократична й незалежна Україна повинна знати всю правду про свою історію і сприяти вільному її вивченню. Таке дослідження історії може відбуватися лише за умови широкого доступу до українських архівів.

З огляду на факти, що мали місце у минулому – заборона допуску до архівів та бібліотек, переслідування інших поглядів, заперечення академічної свободи, ізоляція України від міжнародної академічної спільноти, – кожен український уряд повинен бути особливо уважним, щоб не допустити відродження подібної практики.

Саме тому трактування Руслана Забілого сигналізує про повернення до сумної і небезпечної практики тоталітарного минулого. Ми вважаємо цей інцидент особливо тривожним на тлі попередніх незаконних дій СБУ стосовно академічної спільноти та громадянського суспільства, які розпочалися в Україні із приходом нової влади.

Серйозні розходження стосовно українського минулого, політики пам’яті й історії не можна розв’язувати методами, які зводяться до утисків і залякування. Такі дії завдають великої шкоди репутації України.

Ми звертаємося до СБУ та українського уряду із закликом виявити відповідальність у цьому питанні.

Звертаємося до української громадськості та наукової спільноти із закликом не миритися із застосуванням неприпустимих поліційних підходів у сфері, де проблеми повинні розв’язуватися шляхом дослідження, наукової дискусії, громадських обговорень, а також прийняття існування різних поглядів.

Наполегливо закликаємо громадськість України, українську й міжнародну наукову спільноту приєднатися до нас – виявити підтримку Руслану Забілому і засудити використання поліційних методів, що є спробою перешкодити науковій дискусії.

Signatures/Підписи:

Felix Ackermann, European University Viadrina Geschichtswerkstatt Europa
Tarik Cyril Amar, Assistant Professor, Columbia University
Melanie Arndt, Dr., Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung, Potsdam
Jars Balan, Kule Ukrainian Canadian Studies Centre, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta
Omer Bartov John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History, Brandeis University
Jan Behrends, Research Fellow, Social Science Research Center Berlin
Karel Berkhoff, Associate Professor, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam
Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak, Professor Emeritus, Manhattanville College and Johns Hopkins University
Tim Buchen, Center for the Research on Antisemitism, Technische Universität Berlin
Jeffrey Burds, Associate Professor of Russian & Soviet History, Northeastern University
Tetyana Bureychak, Associate Professor, Department of History and Theory of Sociology, I. Franko National University, Lviv
Marco Carynnyk, Writer, Toronto
Istvan Déak, Seth Low Professor Emeritus, Columbia University
Roman Dubasevych, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald
Oles Fedoruk, Research Fellow, Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Rory Finnin, Lecturer in Ukrainian Studies, University of Cambridge
Michael S. Flier, Director,Oleksandr Potebnja Professor of Ukrainian Philology, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
Elena Gapova,Associate Professor, Western Michigan University/European Humanities University
Alexandr Gogun, PhD student, Humboldt University, Berlin
Semion Goldin, The Chais Center for Jewish Studies in Russian, The
Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel
George G. Grabowicz, Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
Sofia Grachova, PhD Candidate in History, Harvard University
Andrea Graziosi, Professor, University of Naples
Borys Gudziak, Rector, Ukrainian Catholic University
Mark von Hagen, Professor, Director, SHPRS, Arizona State University, President of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Lubomyr Hajda, Associate Director, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
Elizabeth V. Haigh,.Professor Emeritus, Saint Mary’s University Halifax, Canada
Karl Hall, Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Programs,
Central European University, Budapest
Patricia Herlihy, Professor Emerita, Brown University; Louise Wyant Professor Emerita, Emmanuel College, Boston; Adjunct Professor, Watson Institute for International Studies,Associate, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
John-Paul Himka, Professor, University of Alberta
Alexandra Hrycak, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology
Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Halyna Hryn, Editor, Harvard Ukrainian Studies
Dr Liudmyla Hrynevych, Institute of History,National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Dr Vladyslav Hrynevych, Professor, Senior Researcher, Institute of Political and Ethno-National Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Yaroslav Hrytsak, Professor, Ukrainian Catholic University, Director, Institute for Historical Research, Lviv University
Maciej Janowski, Professor, Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw/Central European University, Budapest
Oksana Kis, Historian, Senior Reserach Fellow, Institute of Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Bohdan Klid, Assistant Director, Canadian institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta
Zenon E. Kohut, Professor, Department of History and Classics, Director, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies
Boris Kolonitskii, Professor, European University, St. Peterburg; Institute of History, St. Peterburg Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences
Ihor Kosyk, PhD student, Vienna University
Mark Kramer, Director, Cold War Studies Program, Harvard University
Alexander Kratochvil, PhD, Exzellenzcluster “Kulturelle Grundlagen von Integration”, Universität Konstanz, Konstanz
Kravchenko, Volodymyr, Professor, President of the International Association for the Humanities
Sergei Kravtsov, Senior Researcher, Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Serhiy Kudelia, Assistant Professor, National Univeristy “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”
Serhij Kvit, Rector, National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”
Maria Lewicka, Professor, University of Warsaw
André Liebich, Professor, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Torsten Lorenz, Institute of History, Humboldt University, Berlin
Paul Robert Magocsi, Professor, University of Toronto
Еmil Majuk, Stowarzyszenie “Panorama Kultur”, Poland
Liudmyla Males, Associate Professor, Sciology, Taras Shevchenko University, Kyiv
Ihor Markov, Political Scientist, Director of the Department for Ethno-National Studies, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
David R. Marples, Distinguished University Professor, Department of History & Classics, University of Alberta
Terry Martin, George F. Baker III Professor of Russian Studies, Department of History, Harvard University
Igor Martynyuk, Ph.D. Ab Imperio Quarterly
Jarred McBride, PhD Candidate (UCLA)
Askold Melnyczuk, Associate Professor,University of Massachusetts, Boston
Oleksandr Melnyk, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto
Joanna B. Michlic, Ph.D.,Director Project on Families, Children and the Holocaust, Brandeis University
Marina Mogilner, PhD, Editor for Russian and NIS, Ab Imperio, Kazan
Alexander Motyl, Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University-Newark
Iryna Musiienko, Associate Professor, National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnical Institute”
Krzysztof Michalski, Professor, Director of the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna
Eleonora Narvselius, Centre for European Studies, Lund University
Larissa Onyshkevych, Ph.D.,Princeton Research Forum
Vitalii Perkun, Research Fellow, Insitute of History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern,Associate Professor, Director, the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies,Northwestern University
Dieter Pohl , Professor, Institut für Geschichte, University of Klagenfurt, Austria
Antony Polonsky, Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Andriy Portnov, Ukraina Moderna Journal, Kyiv
Anna Procyk, Professor, City University of New York
Roman Procyk, Ukrainian Studies Fund, New York
Wojciech Przybylski, Res Publica Nowa, Chief Editor
Robert Pyrah, CEELBAS Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London
Vasyl Rasevych, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Ukrainian Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Shimon Redlich, Prof. Emeritus of History, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva
Inna Reut, PhD student, Graduate School for Social Research, Warsaw
Bohdan Rubchak, Professor Emeritus, Unversity of Illinois at Chicago
William Risch, Associate Professor, Georgia College and State University
Malte Rolf, Osteuropäische Zeitgeschichte, Leibniz Universität Hanover
Per Anders Rudling, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald
Natalka Rymska, Essayist, Translator, Lviv
Roman Senkus, Director, CIUS Publications Program,Toronto Office, University of Toronto
Ostap Sereda, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Lviv, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Viktoria Sereda, Assistant Professor, Ivan Franko University
Oxana Shevel Assistant Professor Tufts University, Department of Political Science
Christopher Stroop, Ph.D. Candidate,Stanford University
Andrzej Szeptycki, Dr., University of Warsaw
Volodymyr Sklokin, kandydat istorychnykh nauk, International Solomon University, Kharkiv
Iryna Sklokina, Ph.D. student, V.N.Karazyn Kharkiv National University
Ihor Skochylias, Dean, Ukrainian Catholic University
Regina Smyth, Associate Professor of Political Science, Indiana University
Timothy Snyder, Professor, Department of History, Yale University
Mykola Soroka, PhD, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta
Myron Stachiw, Historian, Director, Fulbright Program in Ukraine
Lidia Stefanowska, Assistant Professor, Warsaw University
Jan Surman, MMag., PhD Student, Institute of History, University of Vienna
Frank Sysyn, Director, Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Research,
Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta
Roman Szporluk, Professor emeritus, Harvard University and University of Michigan
Philipp Ther, Professor, European University Institute, Florence
Iryna Vushko PhD, Yale University
Anna Wylegała, PhD student, Graduate School for Social Research, Warsaw
Theodore Weeks, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
Amir Weiner, Associate Professor of Soviet History, Stanford University
Andrew Wilson, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London/European Council for Foreign Relations
Dr. Sergei Zhuk, Associate Professor, Ball State University, Muncie
Arsen Zinchenko, Insitute of History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Additional Signatures
Protest against SBU Harassment of Ruslan Zabilyi (as of 16 September, 14.30)

Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky, Associate Professor, Dept. of German, Russian & East Asian Languages, Director, Film Studies Program, Miami University
Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, Associate Professor, University of Saskatchewan, College of St. Thomas More, Canada, Director of Prairie Centre for the Ukrainian Studies.
Natalya Lazar, Candidate of Political Sciences, Doctoral Student, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University, USA
Olga Linkiewicz, PhD, Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences
Michael Moser, Prof. Dr. habil., Vienna, Munich, Piliscsaba
Serhii Plokhii, Professor of Ukrainian History, Harvard
Professor Natalia Pylypiuk, PhD, Dept. of Modern Languages & Cultural Studies, University of Alberta, Chair of the International Committee of the Canadian Association of Slavists
Dr. Steven Seegel, Assistant Professor of History, University of Northern Colorado
Dmytro Shtohryn, Professor-Emeritus of Slavic Languages & Literatures and Library Administration, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dr. Oleh Turiy, Vice-Rector for Research, Ukrainian Catholic University

Additional signatures, 19 September 2010

Łukasz Adamski, Programme coordinator for Bilateral Relations in Europe,Polish Institute of International Affairs, Warsaw
Jakub Biernat, Journalist, Polish Television TVP, Warsaw
Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky, Associate Professor, Dept. of German, Russian & East Asian Languages, Director, Film Studies Program, Miami University, President of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies.
Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, Michael E. Gellert Professor, Department of Sociology, New School for Social Research
George E. Jaskiw, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland
Igor Hałagida, Professor, Uniwersytet Gdański
Professor A. Kamenskii, Chair, Department of History, Higher School of Economics, Moscow
Prof. Dr. Andreas Kappeler, Institut für Osteuropäische Geschichte der Universität Wien
Mag. Klemens Kaps, Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter, Doktoratskolleg “Das österreichische Galizien und sein multikulturelles Erbe”, Institut für Osteuropäische Geschichte, Universität Wien
Andrzej Leder , Prof., IFiS PAN
Roman Lozynskyi, PhD student, Geography Department, Ivan Franko University, Lviv
Klaus Nellen, Permanent Fellow, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna
Victor Ostapchuk, Associate Professor, Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto
Bohdan Pechenyak MSW/MPH Student, Temple University, Philadelphia

Additional Signatures, 29 September 2010

Łukasz Jasina – historia – “Kultura Liberalna”.
Thomas M. Prymak, PhD, Research Associate, Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto, Book Review Editor, ‘Journal of Ukrainian Studies.’
Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe
Dr Kataryna Wolczuk, Senior Lecturer in East European Politics, Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES), The University of Birmingham
Valerii Zema, Research Fellow, Institute of Ukrainian History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Russian Duma’s Discussion of Second World War Revisionism in the Near Abroad States

By Ilya Khineiko

In Russia as well in other post-Soviet states, history, particularly the history of the Second World War, is not merely a matter of academic debate. Politicians from the highest echelons of power often find it instrumental to dwell on controversial historical issues. Last October, in a letter sent to the Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev weighed in on the proper interpretation of the Ukrainian Famine, the Holodomor. In December 2008, the Russian parliament decided to move in a similar direction, creating a working group to draft a new law against the rehabilitation of Nazism and Nazi collaborators in the post-Soviet states. Chaired by deputy head of the Duma’s Committee for CIS Affairs, Konstantin Zatulin, the group produced a legislative draft proposal with a lengthy title “On the countermeasures against the rehabilitation of Nazi criminals and their facilitators in the new independent states on the territory of the former Soviet Union.” It was published by the pro-government news agency Regnum on 20 April 2009 (full Russian text is available here: http://www.regnum.ru/news/1153517.html).

Probably the most striking feature of the bill is the issue of jurisdiction as it explicitly targets Russia’s neighbors. While the notion of universal jurisdiction has gained ground in the past decade, an attempt to direct domestic legislation against a specific set of countries represents a novel approach to international law. Furthermore, according to a Russian legal expert quoted in the Moscow Times, the proposed legislation would violate the Russian Criminal Code as it “only allows penalties for crimes committed in Russia.”

However, even the stated intention to focus on all former Soviet republics is somewhat misleading. In an interview with Radio Liberty, Konstantin Zatulin singled out Latvia, Estonia, and Ukraine where “the attempts to rehabilitate Nazi criminals and their facilitators… have become a matter of state policy”. He admitted that any similar actions in other, more remote, countries, such as Australia for example, would be of no concern to the bill’s authors. According to Radio Liberty, many Verkhovna Rada deputies are convinced that the bill is directed primarily against Ukraine. This comes as no surprise as Zatulin’s troubled relationship with Ukrainian authorities is well known. In July 2008 he was denied entry into Ukraine. Ukrainian Security Chief Valentyn Nalyvaychenko later explained that Zatulin had violated a Ukrainian law on the status of a foreigner during a previous visit to Ukraine when he made statements regarding the country’s territorial integrity.

The reaction of Ukrainian parliamentarians has been uniformly negative. Yuri Kostenko from Our Ukraine sharply criticized the bill, saying that it would turn Russia into a new “gendarme of Europe.” Even members of the ostensibly pro-Russian Party of Regions were not impressed. According to Valery Konovalyuk, as far as the international law is concerned, such legislative initiative does not represent a sound approach. In the context of Russian-Ukrainian relations, the bill can be considered a response to the draft law against Holodomor denial that President Viktor Yushchenko submitted to the Verkhovna Rada in December 2008. Although the Ukrainian bill does not attempt to prosecute people outside Ukraine, it proposes to imprison those who deny the genocidal character of the Holodomor against the Ukrainian people, an interpretation vigorously contested by Russia’s authorities and most Russian historians.

Perhaps the most ambiguous and controversial aspect of the new legislation is its definition of what constitutes a rehabilitation of Nazism and who should be deemed Nazi facilitators. The draft states that a Nazi facilitator (posobnik) is someone who served in or collaborated with the German occupation administration on the territory of the USSR voluntarily or as a result of mobilization (sic! – I.Kh.). Rehabilitation of Nazism is defined as “any actions aimed at… the reinstatement of rights, glorification, [as well as any attempts] to restore reputation of Nazi criminals and facilitators and their organizations by bestowing them with benefits, state or societal awards and to deny Nazi genocide and crimes against humanity”. This incredibly vague definition leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and obfuscates the true intentions of the bill’s authors, namely to criminalize any opinion that questions the role of the USSR in the Second World War. According to Konstantin Zatulin, “There were no third forces in the Second World War. The logic of war compelled people either to side with Nazi Germany and then start shooting at Soviet soldiers or to choose the side of the anti-Hitler coalition.” Zatulin’s definition does not differ substantially from the old Soviet line that equated anti-Soviet resistance with Nazi collaborationism. That the struggle against alleged ‘rehabilitation of Nazism’ is being used to defend the Soviet past and its remaining symbols is revealed in Zatulin’s statement made in early April. In an interview with the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti, he called the dismantling of the statue of the Soviet Soldier in the city of Stryj in Lviv oblast an outrageous act and promised to accelerate work on the appropriate legislation.

While the draft bill purports to target equally Russian citizens and citizens of other post-Soviet states, it is unlikely that the legislation would be ever applied against the rise of pro-Nazi sentiment in Russia itself. In an ironic twist of events, a few days after the bill’s publication, fans of the Russian soccer club Spartak Moscow unveiled a banner commemorating the anniversary of Hitler’s birthday during a game in the Russian Premier League. Understandably, such an act caused outrage among the Russian public and was roundly condemned. However, a Duma representative, Gennady Gudkov, stated that the perpetrators could only be fined under the current legislation, being seemingly unaware of the proposed bill that seeks to criminalize precisely such actions. Indeed, should this bill be adopted, its main brunt will likely be directed not at individuals but at ‘hostile’ states. As such it will just serve as another weapon in the growing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, in which history is just another battlefield.

Blockading the Verkhovna Rada

Kateryna Malyhina

For nearly a month Ukraine’s legislature has been paralyzed. The Party of Regions (PR) is blocking the work of the Parliament. The cause is the secret letter to NATO about Ukraine’s accession to the Membership Action Plan that was signed by the Head of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine A. Yatsenyuk. The PR claims that such an action was not sanctioned by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and therefore lacks the approval of the Ukrainian people. As a result Yatsenyuk had no right to put his signature to such an important document. Both de facto and de jure, they are right. But what in reality stands behind such an action?

At a first glance, the Party of Regions has dual benefits. On the one hand, it has raised its credibility in the eyes of people, showing that it acts as a true opposition, which seeks to ensure that those who are in power do not violate laws. On the other hand, referring to the “desire of the Ukrainian nation” and demanding a referendum on Ukraine’s accession to NATO, the PR does not explicitly oppose NATO, but at the same time strengthens the position among its traditional voters, who had already begun to doubt the ability of the PR, to defend their interests.

However, the list of the benefits for the PR in this situation does not end here. Having failed to gain power, the PR needs to fulfill its most important current task: that is, to prevent the normal functioning of Tymoshenko’s government, but not to advocate expressly for her resignation. There are two reasons why the PR will not take this latter step. First, by distributing social benefits, she is at the peak of popularity now and direct actions will only enhance her popularity. Second, it will benefit Yanukovych to let Tymoshenko “work” now, make mistakes, and thus show that her government is unable to lead Ukraine into a “bright future.”

By blocking parliament, the PR seized the opportunity to impede Tymoshenko’s plans, while acting within the law. Tymoshenko’s government urgently needs money in order to continue its mega-project named “compensation of lost deposits in the USSR Savings Bank.” The quickest and easiest way to obtain money is through re-privatization of companies, which has already been proven to work. Why put all one’s efforts in developing the economy, when one can quickly “redistribute” everything, referring to the unfair privatization in the 90s. That is why the Prime Minister has already made attempts to dismiss the Head of the State Property Fund Valentyna Semenyuk. Tymoshenko needs her own man for such a responsible position (incidentally, Andrei Portnov from BYUT was thought to be the replacement for Semenyuk). But this turned out to be far from easy. According to Article 85 §12 of the amended Constitution, the right to appoint and dismiss the Head of the State Property Fund has been allocated to the Verkhovna Rada. And the legislature is not functioning at this time.

But as the Ukrainian saying goes, “too much of something can be harmful.” The PR cannot block the parliament indefinitely. It is also highly unlikely that the PR will succeed in forcing through its own terms–to vote on the commencement to the Membership Action Plan only after a referendum–because it cannot at present gain a majority in parliament. To further block the work of the Verkhovna Rada will soon no longer be profitable. First, while the “30 days” before the President has the duty to dissolve the parliament (according to the Art. 90 §3 of Ukraine’s Constitution) are already counting down, Yatsenyuk has already stated that he will not let the Verkhovna Rada work for half a day and be blocked again afterwards. Therefore the only possibility to start the countdown from day one is when the parliament will be fully “unblocked.” Second, if the PR continues blocking the parliament, time will start to work against it in a while. The PR will be blamed for a new political crisis. Moreover, Tymoshenko will declare once again that she has been prevented from working, which will only improve her image.

There is one more risk when prolonging the conflict. The President may start exercising legislative functions directly from his office. Indeed, Article 93 of the Constitution states that the President of Ukraine has the right of legislative initiative; and according to Article 106 the president then issues decrees and orders, which are mandatory for execution, and Article 113 indicates that the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is still accountable to the President of Ukraine. Thus, there is a risk of introducing the “direct” presidential rule: Yushchenko would issue the decrees that Tymoshenko’s government need, bypassing the parliament. There is no question that the Party of Regions recognizes this possibility.

Therefore, it is likely that conflict will be soon resolved and the Verkhovna Rada must resume its work in the nearest future. By permitting this to happen and despite the technical defeat, the Party of Regions will still remain the winner. After all, the problem is not NATO.

First published at ХайВей// HighWay on February 19, 2008

http://h.ua/story/84206/

Ukraine’s Fast Track to NATO Too Quick for Many in Nation

David Marples

Ukraine has been accepted as the latest member of the World Trade Organization after fifteen years of negotiations. WTO membership is expected to accelerate Ukraine’s prospects of joining the European Union. Further, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has requested that Ukraine be permitted to participate in the Membership Action Plan (MAP), and ultimately to be accepted as a full member of NATO. What has been the impact of these events and what are the likely consequences?

WTO membership should bring some benefits to the Ukrainian economy, particularly for the steel industry, which faced prohibitive export tariffs from EU countries hitherto. The resulting free competition and reduction of barriers are expected to boost industrial growth and ensure the production of more high quality products in this nation of 46 million. However, it may also increase foreign competition in a number of sectors, such as banking and machine building. Ukraine’s acceptance preceded that of Russia, which is on the waiting list. Officially Ukraine supports Russian membership, since problematic issues such as Russian gas prices could then be resolved under the WTO umbrella rather than bilaterally.

There should be no problems with the Ukrainian parliament’s ratification of WTO membership. The same cannot be said of the bid to take part in MAP, which has aroused angry responses from the Party of Regions and from Russia. Over the past week, MPs from the large opposition party have blocked the rostrum in the Rada, refusing to allow debate on the issue of NATO membership. Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych has stated that on this issue there can be no compromise, membership is inconceivable without a national referendum, and a majority of Ukraine’s residents are firmly opposed to the country joining the defensive alliance.

For Russia too, the issue is a thorny one. Russian president Vladimir Putin is still smarting from Poland’s agreement to accept a US anti-missile base on its territory which, allied with a radar station in the Czech Republic, would serve as an interception point for missiles aimed at the United States by a rogue state (the inference is Iran). Russia has accepted NATO membership of former Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States. Ukraine is a different matter entirely.

Putin, who is due to step down as president next month, points out that whereas Russia has dismantled military bases in areas like Cuba and Vietnam, the United States has established new sites in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, in addition to the anti-missile site slated for Poland. NATO’s eastward expansion to include Ukraine and Georgia is seen as a bid to surround Russia with hostile bases and to commence a new arms race.

Ukraine is a particularly sensitive case for Russia. Under Putin, Russian-Ukrainian relations were very close prior to the Orange Revolution in 2004, at which time Yanukovych, Russia’s choice for president, was defeated in a third run-off election. Though Putin’s likely successor Dmitry Medvedev has not engaged in anti-Western rhetoric, he is expected to echo Putin’s concerns over new perceived threats to Russian security.

NATO leaders, who meet in Bucharest in April, have welcomed the potential membership of Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer noted that Russia’s protests would not be a factor when making a decision whether to accept Ukraine. The rationale behind further NATO expansion, however, has rarely been outlined. The implication is clearly that new members require protection from a real or potential external enemy, which could only be Russia. The latter country has not helped its case by its belligerence toward its neighbors. Estonian president Toomas Ilves stated recently that in making a decision on the future membership of Ukraine and Georgia, NATO members should not give into Russian threats and blackmail.

The danger for Ukraine lies in the precarious position of the Tymoshenko government. With a majority of just two deputies, it has embarked on a campaign to integrate Ukraine with Euro-Atlantic structures without further delay, including membership of the EU, which ostensibly has been boosted by WTO membership. But it is not in a position to join NATO without alienating a large segment of the population. While most residents of Ukraine welcome WTO and future EU membership, they do not feel the same way about the country joining the alliance. NATO has a poor reputation associated with past actions in Serbia and the Near East.

Others are concerned about the impact on relations with Russia, a country with which trade turnover totaled $30 billion in 2007–the next highest turnover, with Germany, was $5 billion. Ukraine’s plans to ease dependence on Russian resources by building pipelines from Turkmenistan seem based on wishful thinking rather than reality. Ukraine has a number of serious issues to discuss with post-Putin Russia, including the future of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the port of Sevastopol. And Russia has never hesitated to use its greatest state-owned resource–gas– as a means of maintaining its former Soviet-era ties to Ukraine.

In short, whereas the government’s initiatives toward Europe seem logical, there are grounds to question the wisdom of a fast-track Ukrainian entry into NATO, particularly without a sustained internal debate on the issue first.

[This article was first published on 13 February 2008 by the Edmonton Journal, along with the subtitle: "But other initiatives toward Europe seem logical, enjoy wide appeal." Copyright is owned by CanWest and the article may be cited but cannot be reproduced without
permission]

Ukraine Elections 2007 Analysis

By David Marples

The 2007 parliamentary elections in Ukraine saw sweeping gains by the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (YTB), but the Regions Party of Ukraine maintained its standing as the largest and most popular party bloc. Overall, the Party of Regions won just over 8 million votes or 34.37% of the total. The Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko was in second place with 7.16 million votes or 30.71%, and the Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense (NUNS) alliance placed third with 3.3 million votes, or 14.15%. Only two other parties crossed the 3% threshold needed for seats in the assembly: the Communist Party of Ukraine (1.25 million, 5.39%), and the Bloc Volodymyr Lytvyn (924,538, 3.96%).

If broken down by region, the outcome might be interpreted somewhat differently. The Tymoshenko Bloc was the only party to secure significant votes in almost all regions of Ukraine, and was the winning party in 16 out of Ukraine’s 25 regions and 2 cities (Kyiv and Sevastopol). By contrast, the Regions Party was successful in only 10 regions, most notably in Luhansk (73.53%) and Donetsk (72.05%). Regions finished dead last in Ternopil’ with only 20,000 votes (3% of the total) and failed miserably in all areas of Western Ukraine. Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense, backed by President Viktor Yushchenko, won in just one region–Transcarpathia–and even there it held only a very narrow lead over the Tymoshenko Bloc (31.1 and 28.8% respectively).

Left-leaning parties are now on the periphery of the political spectrum as the Regions Party appears to have occupied the ground once held by the Communists and Socialists in the east and south of Ukraine. The Socialists narrowly failed to make it into the new Parliament. The Communists’ best result was in the city of Sevastopol, where they placed second with 10.3% of the popular vote, and in Luhansk, where they obtained 8.48%. Their fifth place finish in the city of Kyiv is reflective of their declining influence. Ukraine now has two large political parties that are unlikely to find common ground: Regions and YTB; and two smaller parties that might traditionally be allied with these two: the Communists with the Regions and Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense with YTB.

The problems are clear enough. The shaky YTB-NUNS coalition has a majority of just two seats in the new Parliament, unless it can persuade members of the Lytvyn Bloc to join forces with them–on the face of things it appears an unlikely ally given Lytvyn’s past close links with the former Kuchma regime There are already several potential defections if, as expected, Tymoshenko is reappointed Prime Minister, the position she held in the first Yushchenko Cabinet. If she does not receive this position–and she has reportedly made several concessions as to whom she would appoint to her Cabinet–then the YTB would once again become the main opposition and Tymoshenko would run for president in 2009 as a strong candidate, more or less forcing Yushchenko to step aside. The president no longer has the mass support to back up a second term in office.

If Tymoshenko is accepted as Prime Minister, the Regions Party can cause a variety of problems for her. Regions has the backing of Ukraine’s most prominent businessmen. The party has already demonstrated its willingness to test both the will of the president and the loyalty of Ukraine’s militias and security forces. Its maneuvers in the former Parliament doubtless impelled Yushchenko to suggest initially the formation of a broader coalition. Such a coalition would also provide the president with a role as a viable political player of influence, a position that would not ensue were Tymoshenko the key figure.

Two parliamentary elections in two years have not brought about a decisive result for Ukraine. The country, certain media reports notwithstanding, is not polarized along a pro-Russian and pro-Western divide, but it has two regions that define the extreme positions on either side: Western Ukraine and particularly Galicia, is Western leaning, pro-EU, and demands exclusive rights for the Ukrainian language. It has a perception of the past that is markedly anti-Soviet and even anti-Russian. The Donbas (Luhansk and Donetsk) regions by contrast are pro-Russian, support equal status for the Russian language (a policy frequently cited by Yanukovych in all three elections since 2004), and have a jaundiced view of what is perceived as Western influence over and intrusions into Ukraine. Some regions of the south–particularly Crimea and the city of Sevastopol–express a similar though somewhat more flexible outlook.

However, elections are not usually about the extreme positions, they are about finding a middle ground, and that is where most residents of Ukraine stand. The decline of the Communists and eclipse of the Socialists removes an element from the Parliament that was divisive in the past. They had very little to offer. The electorate would most likely be satisfied with a government that could ensure current growth rates continue and that standards of living are maintained. Both the YTB and the Regions’ election materials focused on the financial and economic benefits to be derived from their respective victories. Economic concerns were of far more importance than ideology.

On the other hand leaders of both these parties have shown a tendency to focus on personal power rather than build coalitions. Both Yanukovych and Tymoshenko will be thinking ahead to the 2009 presidential elections. The former politician has made an impressive comeback after his catastrophic presidential election campaign of 2004. However, whether his individual leadership will continue to receive sponsorship from such influential backers as Rinat Akhmetov remains to be seen. Likely Ukraine’s most wealthy oligarch will consider other possible candidates over the next few months. As for Tymoshenko, the electorate has shown growing support for her eponymous party. Given her party’s achievement in late September, she deserves a second chance in the Prime Minister’s post. But she also will need to show more flexibility and perhaps adopt a less confrontational style if she is to build on her success in the current elections.

Ukrainian President declares national day to remember victims of communist repressions

On the 70th anniversary of the Great Terror Yushchenko signs a decree to honor the memory of the victims of communist repressions

By Ilya Khineyko

In the midst of his continuing standoff with the Verkhovna Rada, President Viktor Yushchenko took a step that supersedes the current political crisis. In a presidential decree signed on May 21 the president proposed to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Great Terror of 1937-1938 by making the third Sunday of May an annual Day of Remembrance for the victims of political repressions by the Soviet regime. The announcement was made the next day when Yushchenko visited the Bykivnia memorial site on the outskirts of Kyiv where those executed by NKVD were buried between 1936 and 1941. It was during the Perestroika era when the information regarding mass burials of the victims of Stalinist terror such as Kurapaty in Belarus or Levashovo near Leningrad was made public, which ultimately played an important role in the unraveling of the Soviet system.