The Burden of the Past: History, Memory, and Identity in Contemporary Ukraine

by Anna Wylegała (Editor), Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper (Editor)

In a century marked by totalitarian regimes, genocide, mass migrations, and shifting borders, the concept of memory in Eastern Europe is often synonymous with notions of trauma. In Ukraine, memory mechanisms were disrupted by political systems seeking to repress and control the past in order to form new national identities supportive of their own agendas. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, memory in Ukraine was released, creating alternate visions of the past, new national heroes, and new victims. This release of memories led to new conflicts and "memory wars."

How does the past exist in contemporary Ukraine? The works collected in The Burden of the Past focus on commemorative practices, the politics of history, and the way memory influences Ukrainian politics, identity, and culture. The works explore contemporary memory culture in Ukraine and the ways in which it is being researched and understood. Drawing on work from historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and political scientists, the collection represents a truly interdisciplinary approach. Taken together, the groundbreaking scholarship collected in The Burden of the Past provides insight into how memories can be warped and abused, and how this abuse can have lasting effects on a country seeking to create a hopeful future.

Genres: History, Ukraine, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

Published February 11, 2020

Reviews

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book to help understand Ukraine and its relationship with Russia/Soviet Union, because the past is still central to Ukrainian nationalism (as it is to Russians, but completely different), both in terms of how things are remembered and what is not remembered at all, except by the old. Essays on memories of a variety of historical moments together show how complex Ukrainian memory is, as is this nation made up of very different areas with different histories of their own. One chapter focuses on the city where my father’s ancestors lived, a mixed area then (Ukrainian, German, and Romanian were major languages, with a few minor ones), and even still, but with a self-image now of an eastern Austro-Hungarian outpost.

[Dmitry · Rating 4 out of 5]

(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)

Не сказать что книга особо увлекательная, но в ней содержатся интересные сведения, которые в сумме говорят о сложной и неоднозначной истории этой страны. Пускай книга является всего лишь коллекцией статей или эссе, но есть в них что-то одно общее и этим что-то является сложность и разнонаправленность украинской истории. Именно через призму истории XX века и смотрят авторы этой книги на современную Украину. С одной стороны, книга начинается с темы голода на Украине в начале 20-ых годов XX века, но с другой, книга так же исследует еврейскую и польскую трагедии в контексте украинской истории и как эти события смотрятся в современной Украине.

Книга начинается со знакомой всем темы – Голодомора – и того, кого украинские власти пытаются выставить ответственным за это действие. Примечательно, что уже тогда зрели гроздья гнева. Так что тут ничего нового я не обнаружил и скорее был бы удивлён если бы ситуация выглядела бы по-иному.

Barka’s novel The Yellow Prince (1962) also places the agency with the Other. In the foreword, the author names the perpetrators: the army, the security service, the police, and workers from Russia. Those who executed the orders on the ground had nothing humane left in them—they were “devilish thugs”: they shoot children gleaning in the fields and take away the last porridge from a baby. In presenting the famine as a struggle between evil and good, the novel offers a nuanced approach in depicting the perpetrators. Otrokhodin, a party plenipotentiary, combines three types: a careerist, a sadist, and the Other (Russian).
<…>
Participation in grain requisition in the early 1920s contributed to establishing the link between Jews and communists in popular perception in the village. The proportion of Jews within the party and the Cheka and its successors was indeed disproportionate to their proportion in the general population in the 1920s, but the number of Ukrainians in Soviet state machine increased consistently from the late 1920s. Constituting about a third of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine and being involved in less-than-popular enforcement policies might explain the impression that Jews were behind collectivization and the famine.
<…>
The nationalist metanarrative of the war was formed in the Ukrainian diaspora in North America and Western Europe. In the most schematic form, it depicts World War II in Ukraine as a history of two occupations and Ukraine as a victim of two totalitarian regimes, against which the Ukrainian people, led by the nationalists, fought.
<…>
Many veterans of the nationalistic underground became active participants in local politics. For them, the attaining of independence became an ultimate historical justification of their struggle and sacrifices made. The participation in the struggle became a sort of political and social capital.
In the public sphere, the nationalistic narrative of “national liberation struggle” had become a significant part of the discourse about the past. The symbolic environment in western regions was changed in favor of the new dominant narrative. Although Soviet war memorials remained mostly intact, new monuments of new heroes symbolizing the struggle for independence were erected. Educational system, at least on the level of textbook content, adopted a heroic interpretation of the OUN’s and Ukrainian Insurgent Army’s (UPA’s) activities. Tania Robertson and Karina Korostelina’s researches demonstrate that, since the gaining of independence, the content of the teaching of history in Ukraine has depended not so much on the textbooks as on the personal position of teachers. The teachers in western regions mostly adopted the new national narrative.
<…>
While the regions that composed Reichskommissariat Ukraine commemorate the victims of the Nazi occupation and cherish the narratives of the liberation of the territory by the Red Army, for much of western Ukraine, one of the key memories of World War II and the immediate postwar period is connected with the nationalist struggle for independence.
<…>
Thus, since Ukraine became independent, one set of “heroes” has been raised to the official pedestal and another set has been simultaneously elevated by the opposition, in order to cater for the wishes of their potential and existing electorate.
<…>
This uncritical attitude toward nationalism, coupled with the militarization of society, in which traditional masculinity is almost worshipped, have serious repercussions for the perception of gender in Ukraine.

Люди будут ещё долго задаваться вопросами, как бы пошла нынешняя история Украины и в частности напала бы Россия на неё, если бы тема Голодомора, УПА и пр. не были бы поддержаны украинской политической элитой. Напала бы Россия, если бы таких вот видимых аргументов у неё не было бы? Учитывая историю российско-грузинской войны, можно ответить утвердительно. Сегодня именно на это и обращают больше всего внимания те, кто активно критикуют украинскую сторону, утверждая, что антироссийская риторика со стороны украинских политиков и привела к началу войны. И действительно, трудно отрицать, что политически элиты Украины осознанно проводили антироссийскую (антирусскую) политику на территории нынешней Украины.

И всё же я не могу полностью согласиться с тем, что если бы её не было, войны тоже бы не было бы. Грузия не проводила активную антироссийскую политику, но она активно уходила из орбиты влияния Москвы, что возможно и стало причиной, почему Россия напала на Грузию. Поэтому возможно главная причина конфликта между Россией и Украиной вовсе не та, что мы находим в теме героизации УПА в современной Украине и не в том, что русскоязычные школы активно сокращались, а лишь один фактор стал единственной реальной причиной войны – попытка Украины уйти из политического союза с нынешней России (тем самым показав, что «русский царь» слаб и немощен). Всё остальное – риторические приёмы чтобы оправдать военное вторжение, а так же дать аргументы тем гражданам РФ, кто за деньги идёт в Украину воевать. Но даже в таком случаи я считаю большой ошибкой реализацию этой политики, в частности политики в отношении истории Украины XX века, которую проводили украинские власти. Т.е. даже если бы война была неизбежной, даже в этом случаи я считаю, что силы нужно были тратить совсем на другие области, а не на войну с прошлым и выставлением России как главного виновника Голодомора. Борьба с коррупцией и построение сильной экономики, было намного приоритетней, даже если война была неизбежной. По крайне мере в таком случаи сопротивляться России было бы легче (а возможно Россия просто не решилась бы напасть, если бы увидела не коррупционную страну, а страну европейского образца).

Вторая интересная тема, это отношение нынешней Украины к теме Холокоста, вернее, почему эта тема затушёвывается. В данном случаи можно предположить, что два Холокоста просто не могут «ужиться» в одном государстве. Это важная тема, которая так же косвенно может сообщить о многом.

As several authors argue, most of the history textbooks published in the mid-1990s follow a monolithic narrative perspective presenting the Ukrainians as an almost homogeneous nation with special emphasis on its victimization. In most schoolbooks, the fact that Ukraine had become a major killing field during the Holocaust is marginalized.
<…>
While the traumatic memories of World War II constituted a significant share of family-transmitted memories, the Holocaust occupies a marginal place in them. Both the eyewitnesses of war events and their children tended to avoid the topic, or described it as “undesirable”
<…>
Sharp views about Ukrainian guilt seldom appeared in the accounts of respondents. After the recorder was switched off, an interviewee from the area of Zhytomyr told me with bitterness that her grandson considers the UPA to be heroes, when in fact they were bandits responsible for exterminating many Polish villages in the vicinity. The second person who did not attempt to justify Ukrainian actions in any way while describing the conflict was an older woman from a village near Zhovkva. Perhaps she told her story the way she did because the interviewer was Ukrainian; in any case, it is significant that this woman was visibly afraid that what she said might cause trouble for her even today.


-----------------------------------------


It’s not that the book is particularly captivating, but it contains interesting insights that, taken together, shed light on the complex and ambiguous history of this country. Although the book is merely a collection of articles or essays, there is one thing they all have in common: the complexity and multifaceted nature of Ukrainian history. It is precisely through the lens of 20th-century history that the authors of this book view modern Ukraine. On the one hand, the book begins with the topic of the famine in Ukraine in the early 1920s, but on the other hand, it also explores the Jewish and Polish tragedies in the context of Ukrainian history and how these events are viewed in modern Ukraine.

The book begins with a topic familiar to everyone—the Holodomor—and the person whom the Ukrainian authorities are trying to pin the blame on. It is noteworthy that even then, the seeds of anger were already taking root. So I didn’t find anything new here, and I would actually be surprised if the situation looked any different.

Barka’s novel The Yellow Prince (1962) also places the agency with the Other. In the foreword, the author names the perpetrators: the army, the security service, the police, and workers from Russia. Those who executed the orders on the ground had nothing humane left in them—they were “devilish thugs”: they shoot children gleaning in the fields and take away the last porridge from a baby. In presenting the famine as a struggle between evil and good, the novel offers a nuanced approach in depicting the perpetrators. Otrokhodin, a party plenipotentiary, combines three types: a careerist, a sadist, and the Other (Russian).
<…>
Participation in grain requisition in the early 1920s contributed to establishing the link between Jews and communists in popular perception in the village. The proportion of Jews within the party and the Cheka and its successors was indeed disproportionate to their proportion in the general population in the 1920s, but the number of Ukrainians in Soviet state machine increased consistently from the late 1920s. Constituting about a third of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine and being involved in less-than-popular enforcement policies might explain the impression that Jews were behind collectivization and the famine.
<…>
The nationalist metanarrative of the war was formed in the Ukrainian diaspora in North America and Western Europe. In the most schematic form, it depicts World War II in Ukraine as a history of two occupations and Ukraine as a victim of two totalitarian regimes, against which the Ukrainian people, led by the nationalists, fought.
<…>
Many veterans of the nationalistic underground became active participants in local politics. For them, the attaining of independence became an ultimate historical justification of their struggle and sacrifices made. The participation in the struggle became a sort of political and social capital.
In the public sphere, the nationalistic narrative of “national liberation struggle” had become a significant part of the discourse about the past. The symbolic environment in western regions was changed in favor of the new dominant narrative. Although Soviet war memorials remained mostly intact, new monuments of new heroes symbolizing the struggle for independence were erected. Educational system, at least on the level of textbook content, adopted a heroic interpretation of the OUN’s and Ukrainian Insurgent Army’s (UPA’s) activities. Tania Robertson and Karina Korostelina’s researches demonstrate that, since the gaining of independence, the content of the teaching of history in Ukraine has depended not so much on the textbooks as on the personal position of teachers. The teachers in western regions mostly adopted the new national narrative.
<…>
While the regions that composed Reichskommissariat Ukraine commemorate the victims of the Nazi occupation and cherish the narratives of the liberation of the territory by the Red Army, for much of western Ukraine, one of the key memories of World War II and the immediate postwar period is connected with the nationalist struggle for independence.
<…>
Thus, since Ukraine became independent, one set of “heroes” has been raised to the official pedestal and another set has been simultaneously elevated by the opposition, in order to cater for the wishes of their potential and existing electorate.
<…>
This uncritical attitude toward nationalism, coupled with the militarization of society, in which traditional masculinity is almost worshipped, have serious repercussions for the perception of gender in Ukraine.

People will continue to wonder for a long time to come how Ukraine’s current history would have unfolded—and, in particular, whether Russia would have attacked it—if the Ukrainian political elite had not rallied around the issues of the Holodomor, the UPA, and so on. Would Russia have attacked if it hadn’t had such obvious pretexts? Given the history of the Russian-Georgian war, the answer is yes. Today, this is precisely what those who actively criticize the Ukrainian side focus on most, claiming that anti-Russian rhetoric from Ukrainian politicians led to the outbreak of war. And indeed, it is difficult to deny that Ukraine’s political elites deliberately pursued anti-Russian policies on the territory of present-day Ukraine.

And yet I cannot fully agree that if it hadn’t existed, there would have been no war either. Georgia did not pursue an active anti-Russian policy, but it was actively moving out of Moscow’s sphere of influence, which may well have been the reason why Russia attacked Georgia. Therefore, the main cause of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine may not lie in the glorification of the UPA in modern Ukraine, nor in the active reduction of Russian-language schools, but rather in a single factor that became the sole real cause of the war—Ukraine’s attempt to break away from its political alliance with present-day Russia (thereby demonstrating that the “Russian tsar” is weak and powerless). Everything else is merely rhetorical devices to justify the military invasion, as well as to provide arguments for those Russian citizens who go to Ukraine to fight for money. But even in that case, I consider the implementation of this policy—specifically the policy regarding 20th-century Ukrainian history pursued by the Ukrainian authorities—to be a grave mistake. In other words, even if war had been inevitable, I believe that resources should have been directed toward entirely different areas, rather than toward waging war on the past and portraying Russia as the primary culprit behind the Holodomor. Fighting corruption and building a strong economy were far higher priorities, especially if war was inevitable. At the very least, in such a case, it would have been easier to resist Russia (and perhaps Russia simply would not have dared to attack if it had seen a European-style country rather than a corrupt one).

Another interesting topic is Ukraine’s current attitude toward the Holocaust—or, more precisely, why this issue is being swept under the rug. In this case, one might assume that two Holocausts simply cannot “coexist” within a single state. This is an important issue that can also reveal a great deal indirectly.

As several authors argue, most of the history textbooks published in the mid-1990s follow a monolithic narrative perspective presenting the Ukrainians as an almost homogeneous nation with special emphasis on its victimization. In most schoolbooks, the fact that Ukraine had become a major killing field during the Holocaust is marginalized.
<…>
While the traumatic memories of World War II constituted a significant share of family-transmitted memories, the Holocaust occupies a marginal place in them. Both the eyewitnesses of war events and their children tended to avoid the topic, or described it as “undesirable”
<…>
Sharp views about Ukrainian guilt seldom appeared in the accounts of respondents. After the recorder was switched off, an interviewee from the area of Zhytomyr told me with bitterness that her grandson considers the UPA to be heroes, when in fact they were bandits responsible for exterminating many Polish villages in the vicinity. The second person who did not attempt to justify Ukrainian actions in any way while describing the conflict was an older woman from a village near Zhovkva. Perhaps she told her story the way she did because the interviewer was Ukrainian; in any case, it is significant that this woman was visibly afraid that what she said might cause trouble for her even today.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

timely read

For those who still wish to gain some perspective on the conflicts and complexities of Ukraine’s emergence as a nation.