Memory and Language in Ukraine: some reflections on a recent journey

It is hard to underestimate the usefulness of physically visiting landscapes of memory. This simple act can be just as instructive as hours spent in libraries or trawling the internet. As well as affording the opportunity to learn things that one would otherwise miss, it allows one to connect to the memories that one studies practically, rather than simply theoretically. It can also challenge many of the assumptions we make as we approach our subject, and many of the conclusions we draw as we study from afar.

Symbols of Soviet and Greek-Catholic memory co-exist in L'viv (photo: U. Blacker)

One assumption that falls apart as one walks through Ukraine’s memoryscapes is that of the ‘two Ukraines’. That is, two different territories, two different cultures, two different memories, and of course, two different languages. Observing Ukraine from a distance, through the media, it is easy to concur. East versus West, Russian versus Ukrainian, Stalin versus Bandera, etc. Ukraine’s ‘split personality’ has been sharply underlined by the recent political conflict over the language bill. Russian tries to squeeze out Ukrainian, and Ukrainian tries valiantly to resist linguistic colonization. The two languages fight each other, like deputies in the parliament, like partisans against insurgents.

Yet language is not war. One does not have to choose a side to fight for. In this case, it is quite possible to inhabit two camps at once. Languages are not ideologies, and can be combined, can co-exist. This is the case in Ukraine, as is evident to anyone who visits the country. And just as language is not unitary, neither is that other important constituent of identity, memory. Both language and memory diverge, re-converge, overlap, quarrel and even engage in dialogue. The one thing they do not do is separate out cleanly, simply and irrevocably.

Amended history textbooks for Ukraine's 11 year-olds

According to Ukrains'ka pravda, Ukraine's controversial education minister Dmytro Tabachnyk has begun to 'rewrite' history for the country's 11 year-old pupils. Comparing the 2005 and 2010 editions of the fifth-form textbook Introduction to the History of Ukraine, journalist Katerya Kapliuk has noted a number of amendments and excisions in the new editions pertaining to, inter alia, the 1932-33 Terror-Famine (Holodomor) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). A few of the most prominent deletions, according to Kapliuk:

A passage about the Battle of Kruty (1918), in which hundreds of students held off the entrance of thousands of Bolshevik troops into Kyiv;

A reference to Bolshevik violence against Ukrainian 'patriots';

A reference to Holodomor as man-made or 'artificial' [shtuchnyi];

A photo of UPA commander Roman Shukhevych, as well as an elaboration of UPA's 'two-front struggle' against Nazis and 'Soviet soldiers and partisans';

Passages about and photos of the 2004 Orange Revolution -- which, according to Ukrainian Ministry of Education official Oleksandr Udod, is too difficult for fifth-formers to understand. The full article can be read here.

Image above: Ukrains'ka pravda.

Battle over Bandera (Continued)

Alexander Motyl has published an even-handed assessment of the Bandera controversy in today's Moscow Times. An excerpt:

Bandera became especially popular as the noble ideals of the 2004 Orange Revolution were progressively tarnished by the heroes of that revolution, Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The more unpopular Yushchenko became, the more he promoted Bandera and the nationalists in the hope that some of their idealistic glow would rub off on him. Unfortunately, Yushchenko’s ill-considered conferral of Hero of Ukraine status on Bandera threw a wrench into a more or less even-tempered discussion of the nationalists and their legacy. Yushchenko’s critics — among them Putin and other top Russian officials who have indirectly rehabilitated Stalin — added fuel to the fire with their irresponsible accusations of fascism. At this point, a sensible discussion is almost impossible in the highly politicized atmosphere surrounding Bandera.

The objective, even-handed accounts of Ukrainian historians, who see Bandera in all his complexity, will eventually seep into the public realm, but only after Ukrainian identity is consolidated and Ukrainian fears of a neo-imperial Russia subside. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych could promote this shift by unifying the country around a common identity and history, vigorously protecting Ukrainian interests vis-a-vis Moscow and eschewing Yushchenko’s proclivity for provocation. Europe could help by opening its doors to Ukraine, and Russia can assist by rejecting Stalinism. And we should not forget about Western historians in this equation, who can do their part by refraining from simple-minded analyses.

The full article can be read here.

Recent Sorties in the 'Memory War'

A quick update. On May 19, President Medvedev declared the creation of a special commission “to counteract attempts to falsify history that undermine the interests of Russia” (“по противодействию попыткам фальсификации истории в ущерб интересам России"). He did so days after recording this entry on his video-blog marking Victory Day, in which he states (after 3:06) that “attempts to falsify history” about World War II have become increasingly “angry and aggressive.” More about the ukase establishing the commission can be read in these Russian-language articles by RIA Novosti and Vedomosti and in this 11 June opinion piece by Janusz Bugajski from the Wall Street Journal Europe.

Who is responsible for these so-called “angry and aggressive” attempts to “falsify history,” according to the Kremlin? Medvedev has in mind, of course, Ukraine and Poland, who have recently announced a new development in their increasingly collaborative efforts to come to terms with the past.

On 11 June, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU, Служба безпеки України), which has become a significant actor in the investigation of Soviet crimes in Ukraine, announced that Poland's Institute of National Memory (IPN, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej) has given it a large store of archival documents relating to the activity of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA, Українська повстанська армія) from 1944-47. More about the transfer can be read in this Ukrainian-language article on Korrespondent.net. The SBU noted that this was not the first time it has collaborated with IPN, and these strides in Ukrainian-Polish cooperation on the memory front clearly have the Kremlin feeling defensive.