Oleksandr Zaitsev.
De-Mythologizing Bandera: Towards a Scholarly History of the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement
2015, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society
48 Pages
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Issue: 2
Volume: 1
Page Numbers: 411-420
Publication Date: 2015
Publication Name: Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society
De-Mythologizing Bandera: Towards a Scholarly History of the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement
Stepan Bandera (1909–59), the leader of the radical Ukrainian nationalist movement, is, perhaps, the most controversial figure in the history of Ukraine. One has only to compare the titles of some of his biographies, Stepan Bandera—Symbol of Revolutionary Determination ,by Petro Mirchuk; Stepan Bandera—a Life Dedicated to Freedom, by Mykola Posivnych; and, finally, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist: Fascism, Genocide, and Cult by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, published by ibidem in 2014.
In this collection of review essays, we use Rossoliński-Liebe’s recent book as a departure point for a wider discussion on the current state of the historiography on Bandera and on Ukraine’s recent past more broadly. Who was Stepan Bandera: an uncompromising revolutionary, a freedom fighter, or a fascist and an ideologue of “genocidal nationalism”? Not only historians, but also ordinary Ukrainians diverge radically in their answers to this question. As opinion polls demonstrate, of all historical figures about whom respondents are asked, Bandera divides Ukrainians most of all (the figures who most unite Ukrainians in negative attitudes are Vladimir Putin and Joseph Stalin).
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