Kontroversen über den ukrainischen Nationalismus und die Erinnerung an deutsche und sowjetische Massenverbrechen im Kalten Krieg

Inhalt

Die Behauptung, die Ukraine werde von „Nazis“ regiert, mit der Wladimir Putin die Invasion der Ukraine im Februar 2022 rechtfertigte, hat eine Vorgeschichte im sowjetischen Feindbild des ukrainischen Nationalismus. Ansichten über den ukrainischen Nationalismus, die an diese sowjetischen Bilder erinnern, übten in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts auch auf die internationale öffentliche Meinung erheblichen Einfluss aus und tun dies bis heute. In dieser Themenachse werden Diskurse über den ukrainischen Nationalismus in verschiedenen Kontexten untersucht.

Kai Struve: Bilder und Diskurse über den ukrainischen Nationalismus in der westlichen Öffentlichkeit im 20. Jahrhundert

Aufbauend auf vorhergehenden Forschungen zum sowjetischen Feindbild des ukrainischen Nationalismus zielt dieses Projekt darauf ab, öffentliche Diskurse über den ukrainischen Nationalismus in westlichen Ländern während des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts zu untersuchen, vor allem in Nordamerika als Zentrum der ukrainischen Diaspora und in Deutschland. Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf der Zeit des Kalten Kriegs. Das Projekt untersucht, welchen Einfluss sowjetische Propagandabilder hatten oder welche anderen Faktoren die Ansichten über den ukrainischen Nationalismus bestimmten. In der Zeit des Kalten Kriegs gab es drei hauptsächliche Kontexte solcher Debatten. Sie stehen im Zentrum der Forschung: 1) Kontroversen um die Einwanderung nichtjüdischer Displaced Persons (DPs) aus den westlichen Besatzungszonen in Deutschland und Österreich in die USA, Kanada und andere Länder bis in die frühen 1950er Jahre; 2) die Debatte um Theodor Oberländer und das ukrainische Wehrmachtsbataillon „Nachtigall“ in den Jahren 1959-60; 3) kritische Diskussionen in den USA, Kanada und anderen Ländern in den 1970er und 1980er Jahren über Kriegsverbrechern unter den osteuropäischen Einwanderern der Nachkriegszeit. Das allgemeinere Ziel der Studie besteht darin, durch die Analyse der Kontroversen über den ukrainischen Nationalismus ein besseres Verständnis der komplexen Zusammenhänge zwischen der Erinnerung an deutsche und sowjetische Massenverbrechen in westlichen Gesellschaften während des Kalten Krieges zu gewinnen.

Yaroslav Hrytsak: Ivan L.Rudnytsky: Intellectual Biography

Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytskyi was one of the most influential Ukrainian historians. His role is determined primarily by the fact that he radically revised Ukrainian history and placed it in a broader comparative context. His biography is as rich as his scientific work, and his historical texts cannot be fully understood without context. In particular, his intention to expand the framework of Ukrainian identity in accordance with the civic concept of the nation is closely related to his Ukrainian-Jewish origins and his direct participation in the Polish-Ukrainian dialogue. However, his conception of history has an important gap: Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytskyi wrote very little about the Holodomor, the Holocaust, and other acts of mass violence in Ukraine in the ХХ century. This study tries to find out how these gaps can be explained and to what extent they influenced his vision of Ukrainian history.

Tetiana Banakh: Memory and Representations of the 1943 Volhynian Massacres and the Polish-Ukrainian Conflict 1943-47: From the Cold War to the Present

The research is based on the authors doctoral thesis. The study aims to examine the Polish-Ukrainian controversies and attempts at reconciliation in the case of the Volhynian massacres, committed by units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) against the Polish population in Volhynia and Galicia in 1943-44, from the Cold War up to the present day.

The first part of the book will analyse the prehistory of these controversies during the Cold War.
The second part will be devoted to the Polish-Ukrainian debates on the Volhynian massacres in the 1990s and early 2000s, up to the joint commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the massacres in 2003.

The third part will explore the Volhynian discussions in the second half of the 2000s and the controversies, and reconciliation actions on the 70th anniversary of the Volhynian massacres in 2013.

The fourth part will be devoted to the debates on the Volhynian massacres after 2014, namely after the Euromaidan and the start of the war in the East of Ukraine. During this period, despite attempts at reconciliation, Polish-Ukrainian memory conflicts intensified.

The author plans to investigate what influence did the initial discussions during the Cold War have on the shaping of various discourses in Poland and Ukraine about the Volhynian massacres and the Polish-Ukrainian conflict after 1989/91; why did the massacres in Volhynia become a central topic in Polish-Ukrainian historical debates only in the 2000s; why did Western models of reconciliation, particularly the Polish-German “We forgive and ask for forgiveness,” not work in the case of the Volhynian massacres; what impact did memory politics in Poland and Ukraine have on Polish-Ukrainian historical debates; what influence did the Russian factor have on these discussions; what are the achievements of reconciliation in the case of the Volhynian massacres, and what is lacking to overcome the traumatic past; to which extent can transitional justice be implemented in this case.

Ulyana Kyrchiv: Jewish-Ukrainian Relations in the Context of Cold War France: The Case of Piotr Rawicz

In 1961, the Polish/Ukrainian/Jewish writer Piotr Rawicz published his debut novel, “Blood from the Sky”. Written in French (“Le Sang du ciel”) and published by Gallimard, Rawicz’s novel belongs to the ‘first wave’ of fictional works on the Holocaust that appeared in France in the years following World War II. Well reviewed at the time, scholars of Holocaust literature have continued to refer to “Blood from the Sky” in recent works on the subject. But the author himself has received much less attention.

Born in Lviv in 1919 into an acculturated Jewish family, Rawicz survived the final months of the Second World War in two Nazi concentration camps (Auschwitz and Leitmeritz); then emigrated to Paris in 1947, where he established himself as a writer. Studying the biography of Piotr Rawicz offers an opportunity to better understand several broader processes, one of which is the specificity of Jewish-Ukrainian-Polish relations in interwar Galicia. Analyzing his literary and journalistic work enables a reassessment of the transformation of Jewish identities in Eastern Europe under the impact of the Holocaust, as well as the ways in which traumatic experiences of mass violence were processed through literature. Additionally, this study sheds light on the activities of (mostly) East European intellectuals in post-war France.

As part of this project and the completion of my dissertation, I plan to examine Rawicz’s relationships with the Ukrainian intellectual elite of Lviv, particularly the Rudnytsky family, during the interwar period and how this influenced his later life.

One focus will be the set of identities he chose for himself. Another key aspect is his public stance on the Holodomor, most vividly expressed in his preface to the French edition of Vasyl Barka’s The Yellow Prince, which Rawicz himself initiated. Additionally, the researcher explores his position on Soviet repression and socialist movements, culminating in 1968.

Finally, the author will address how Rawicz depicted Ukrainian nationalists collaborating with the German occupation in his novel and his stance on the broader struggle for Ukrainian independence. Regarding the issue of Ukrainian nationalism and collaboration, the author contends that this topic does not occupy a particularly significant position in Rawicz’s oeuvre, contrary to what one might anticipate given his background. Firstly, he perceived it as self-evident that Ukraine could and should possess its own state. Secondly, his profound understanding of Ukrainian political discourse led him to view radical movements and the actions of individual representatives as components of a larger framework rather than as the entirety itself. This viewpoint is shaped by his engagement with specific intellectual circles during the interwar period.

Consequently, Rawicz’s activities in France were predominantly directed toward other themes, particularly writing about the crimes perpetrated by both totalitarian systems — Nazi and Soviet. But above all, he adopted the position of a writer-intellectual who believed that the literary works of authors from Central and Eastern Europe remained largely unknown due to linguistic barriers, and he exerted considerable effort to address and rectify this situation.