“Nationalist-Ukrainian Struggle for Liberation”
The Re-evaluation of the Second World War in Ukraine
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
As long as Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union, the symbols and rituals surrounding the myth of the Great Patriotic War determined commemoration of the war. Since independence, Ukrainian memory culture has changed. The Second World War may remain a central theme. But nationalist historians are reinterpreting it from a nationalist-Ukrainian point of view. The underground struggle of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) is moving towards the centre of state history policy and public memory culture. OUN and UPA collaboration with the German occupying authorities and their involvement in the murder of Ukraine’s Jews are largely taboo in public. The foundation of an identity und the consolidation of the nation will only succeed when these blank spots in the history of the nationalist movement have disappeared.
(Osteuropa 6/2008, pp. 167–186)