“Ukrainians, apologies!” But who? 85% of the Ukrainian land it did not experience Bandera nationalism because it was under Soviet occupation and subject to Bolshevik crimes: great famine (killing millions), deportations to Siberia, collectivization and other kinds of purges.
One could argue that in 85% of the territories of Ukraine there was no structure of Ukrainian nationalism at allonly in five districts of our eastern neighbor did the OUN of the Bandera faction function. But we’re not going to require the governors to apologize, are we?
The genocide against Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland was committed not by the state but by the army of one of the factions of Ukrainian nationalism. The Melnykovs were unwilling to the Banderites, and the Bulbovites were downright hostile. Moreover, Bandera also has an alibi for being imprisoned in a German concentration camp, so many historians whitewash him as innocent, as the one who “didn’t know.” Like Korwinowy Hitler about the Holocaust.
Ukraine is not the legal heir to the fascist organization in the eastern territories of the Second Polish Republic, and the German occupier is legally responsible for the crime (as it was for the crime in Jedwabne).
Flag at war with Putin
Apologizing for “Bandera” is also hard now because Russian propaganda has already accused the entire Ukrainian nation of “banderism”, so in spite of this Ukrainians nationalized themselves more strongly than they should. The leader of the OUN has become a pop culture shell appearing as a heroic fighter against the Soviets, and the year 1943 is completely silenced.
Based on these lies, the historian Volodymyr Viatrovych moved from being the chairman of the president of the Ukrainian poor IPN (50 times smaller than the Polish Institute of National Remembrance) to a member of the Supreme Council of Ukraine in the party of Petro Poroshenko. Anyway, Bandera of memes and songs is part of mobilizing Ukrainians against Russia. It is impossible for a nation defending itself against a Russian invasion to apologize to a figure attacked by Putin’s genocidal propaganda.
The apology trap
Finally, the apology itself is, to put it mildly, a trap. Every year a German politician kneels, bows or prays, sometimes on Westerplatte and sometimes in Warsaw, and the liberal media screams with joy at Berlin’s generosity. These excuses come to nothing, they are a mockery of Polish martyrdom. Also “sorry” for Volhynia is a trap – it will not satisfy anyone, because it will always be too little – the wrong person will apologize, not in this way, with these words, critics, fueled by cynical players who claim their popularity with anti-Ukrainian additions, will always find a reason to rate the “apology” as “insufficient”.
Particularities
So the sin of all Ukraine is something else. I will refer here to the words of the historian, Professor Mirosław Szumiło, who in the program “Ukraine on Fire” rejected my question about the need for an apology from Kiev and formulated a more precise postulate:
Above all, Ukraine should tell the truth and write about the activities of this one party, this particular formation, so as not to condone it and not to mythologize it. That’s what I would expect as a historian. To be the full truth about the OUN. The truth, which of course will be complicated for the Ukrainians, because this story does not end in 1944, but we still have a few post-war years where we have the UPA’s fight against the Soviets, and this is the tradition that they refer to and write about it.
From this perspective, the speeches of Ukrainian diplomats in recent hours, which avoid identifying both the perpetrators and the victims of the Volhynian massacre, are insufficient. They are superficial, cost nothing and do nothing. A genuine apology wouldn’t amount to much, and such apologies are feigned only by waving an empty banner.
“Ukrainians, do not apologize. Allow the excavation, kick out the hypocritical elites and come with us to Europe. That would be a more appropriate appeal than our romantic demands for an apology. Ukraine is not guilty of Volhynia’s crime, but of clouding its memory. But how are the Ukrainians supposed to deal with it, if we can’t deal with our elites alone, let alone over there, more to the east of us…
SEE WHAT THE UKRAINIANS REALLY THINK ABOUT BANDERA:
Source: wPolityce