Stepan Bandera
Stepan Bandera | |
|---|---|
Степан Бандера | |
 Stepan Bandera, c. 1934 | |
| Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists–Banderite faction (OUN-B) | |
| In office 10 February 1940 – 15 October 1959 | |
| Preceded by | Position established (Andriy Melnyk as leader of the OUN) |
| Succeeded by | Stepan Lenkavskyi |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1 January 1909 Staryi Uhryniv, Galicia, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 15 October 1959 (aged 50) Munich, Bavaria, West Germany |
| Cause of death | Assassination by cyanide gas |
| Resting place | Munich Waldfriedhof |
| Citizenship |
|
| Nationality | Ukrainian |
| Spouse(s) | Yaroslava Bandera |
| Relations |
|
| Children | 3 |
| Mother | Myroslava Głodzińska |
| Father | Andriy Bandera |
| Alma mater | Lviv Polytechnic |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Awards | Hero of Ukraine (annulled) |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |
|
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (Ukrainian: Степа́н Андрі́йович Банде́раuk, 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian nationalist and co-founder of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).[1][2]
Background
[change | change source]
Bandera joined the OUN in his twenties when western Ukraine was governed by Poland,[3] while eastern Ukraine was ruled by the Soviet Union and going through the Holodomor,[4] an artificial famine under Joseph Stalin killing as many as 7,000,000 within a year.[5][6][7]
World War II
[change | change source]The 1936 assassination of Poland's Minister of Interior caused Bandera to be sentenced to life imprisonment. He was freed by the Soviets to live in Nazi-occupied Poland after the Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland in October 1939.[8][9] Factional infighting within the OUN caused the formation of the OUN-B led by him. Before the Operation Barbarossa, Bandera raised the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police[10][3] for Hitler.[3] He tried to create a Ukrainian government in Nazi-occupied Soviet Ukraine, but was deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.[3][8][9]
Upon his release in September 1944, he negotiated the founding of the Ukrainian National Army (UNA) and Ukrainian National Committee (UNK) before the fall of Nazi Germany, but it had no impact on the post-war fate of the Ukrainians.[11] Ukraine did not restore independence until 1991.[12]
Postwar
[change | change source]Bandera and his family were resettled in Munich, West Germany. The Soviet Union asked for Bandera and several Ukrainian nationalists to be handed over under the intra-Allied cooperation wartime agreement. However, the Americans refused to hand over him as they deemed him too valuable to give up due to his knowledge of the Soviet Union useful for the emerging Cold War.[13][14] In his final years, he also visited Ukrainian exile communities in the UK, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Spain and Canada.[15]
Death
[change | change source]Due to Bandera's commitment to Ukrainian liberation from Soviet imperialism, the Soviets had made several attempts on his life, which they ultimately succeeded on 15 October 1959, when Bandera died of cyanide gas poisoning on a street in Munich.[16]
Views on race
[change | change source]Poles
[change | change source]Amid Bandera's detention in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the OUN-B was involved in the massacre of Poles in Volhynia and eastern Galicia, which killed as many as 133,000 Poles,[17] but his role is disputed. Such matter continues to be Poland–Ukraine relations' Achilles heel, preventing Ukraine from joining the European Union (EU) and receiving military protection.[18]
Jews
[change | change source]Rossolinski-Liebe and German political scientist Andreas Umland both found Bandera not to have been involved in the Holocaust,
[There is] no evidence that Bandera supported or condemned ethnic cleansing or killing Jews and other minorities. It was [...] people from OUN and UPA [who] identified with him.[19]
Rather, Rossoliński-Liebe believed Bandera's antisemitic views to be a product of his time.[20] The view was echoed by American historian Alexander John Motyl, who did not deem Ukrainian nationalism as antisemitic as Nazism was. Rather, the OUN-B saw the Poles and Russians as its main enemies.[21]
Legacy
[change | change source]Since Bandera's death in 1959, he has been a highly divisive figure in both Europe and America, with his legacy under intense debate,[22] complicated by geopolitics, including the EU–Ukraine relations, Polish WWII history dispute[23] and Ukraino–Russian war,[24] when Putin's dictatorship keeps equating Bandera with ordinary Ukrainians to demonize Ukraine and justify the invasion.[25]
Assessment
[change | change source]Ukrainians
[change | change source]
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Since Ukraine restored independence in 1991, Stepan Bandera monuments have been built across western Ukraine, including the Stepan Bandera monument in Lviv.[17][26] In December 2018, the Ukrainian Parliament declared January 1 as the national day of commemoration for Stepan Bandera.[27]
Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine started, Stepan Bandera has reportedly been rehabilitated in Ukraine as a national hero who sacrificed for the fight against Russian imperialism, with substantial popularity among young Ukrainians.[28] In April 2022, it is found that 74% Ukrainians had a favourable view of Stepan Bandera.[29] On New Year's Day 2023, the Ukrainian Parliament tweeted a photo of Valeri Zaloujny, the then-Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, giving a thumbs-up to a Stepan Bandera portrait, with a caption encouraging Ukrainians to keep up the fight.[30]
Non-Ukrainians
[change | change source]American historian Timothy D. Snyder remarked,
Stepan Bandera was a fascist who aimed to make of Ukraine a one-party fascist dictatorship without national minorities. During World War II, his followers killed many Poles and Jews.[31]
Meanwhile, German-Polish historian Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe claimed,
Bandera's worldview was shaped by [...] fascism, ultranationalism and antisemitism[32] [. ...] he combined extremism with religion [...] to sacralize[33] [...] violence.[34]
However, Czech political scientist Luboš Veselý criticized Rossoliński-Liebe's book on Stepan Bandera as a slander of Bandera and Ukrainian nationalism,
[...] Bandera was against closer cooperation with the Nazis [. ...] assessment of Bandera as a condemnable symbol of Ukrainian fascism [...] is an abusive oversimplification, uprooting events and people from the context of the era or using harsh, unfounded and emotional judgments.[35]
Related pages
[change | change source]- Poland
- Ukraine
- Ukrainians
- Holodomor
- World War II
- Soviet Union
- Nazi Germany
- The Holocaust
- Holocaust victims
- Second Polish Republic
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
References
[change | change source]- ↑ Rossoliński-Liebe 2014, p. 238.
- ↑ Marples 2006, p. 560.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "SHOAH Resource Center" (PDF). Yad Vashem. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- ↑
- Bezo, Brent; Maggi, Stefania (April 15, 2015). "Living in "survival mode:" Intergenerational transmission of trauma from the Holodomor genocide of 1932–1933 in Ukraine". Social Science & Medicine. 134. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.04.009. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- Andriewsky, Olga (2015). "Towards a decentred history: The study of the Holodomor and Ukrainian historiography". East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies. 2 (1). doi:10.21226/T2301N. ISSN 2292-7956. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- Boriak (2008). Hennadii. Vol. 30. Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. pp. 199–215. JSTOR stable/23611473. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- ↑
- "Worldwide Recognition of the Holodomor as Genocide". Holodomor Museum. November 24, 2007. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- "Holodomor | Holocaust and Genocide Studies | College of Liberal Arts". University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- Mills, Claire; Walker, Nigel (March 3, 2023). "Ukrainian Holodomor and the war in Ukraine". House of Commons Library. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- "Holodomor (Ukrainian Genocide)". The Genocide Education Project. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- ↑
- "Common Lies about the Holodomor". Ukraïner. November 1, 2020. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- "Why Did So Many Ukrainians Die in the Soviet Great Famine?". Kellogg Insight. October 1, 2022. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- "Ukraine: This 96-year-old survived Soviet Holodomor famine". DW News. November 24, 2023. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- Applebaum, Anne (September 16, 2024). "Holodomor | Facts, Definition, & Death Toll". Britannica. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
Holodomor, man-made famine that convulsed the Soviet republic of Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, peaking in the late spring of 1933.
- ↑ 81 years on, the Holodomor is still denied by many Western progressives.
- "Call to Action: Holodomor Denial by University of Alberta Lecturer". Ukrainian Canadian Congress. November 27, 2019. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- "Jason Kenney denounces 'useful idiots' amid uproar over university lecturer's Holodomor denial". National Post. November 29, 2019. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
Holodomor refers to the famine in Ukraine that killed millions of people in 1932–33, a genocide recognized by the Canadian Parliament and provinces
- "Calls for U of A lecturer to be fired for denying Holodomor". CBC News. November 29, 2019. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- Labine, Jeff (December 2, 2019). "'We were just hurt': Ukrainian students call for UofA to fire lecturer who denied Holodomor". Edmonton Journal. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- "I guess denying the Holodomor is okay with some Canadian academics". Hill Times. January 20, 2020. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- "Western Influence in the Cover-up of the Holodomor". CUNY Academic Works. 2020. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- Galka-Giaquinto, Michael (December 1, 2022). "The Holodomor, 90 Years Later". Cato Institute. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- "Why Do Some on the Western Left Support Putin?". Europinion. May 23, 2023. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1
- Mirchuk, P. Bandera-symvol revoliutsiinoï bezkompromisovosty (New York–Toronto 1961).
- Anders, K. Mord auf Befehl-der Fall Staschynskij. Eine Dokumentation aus den Akten (Tübingen 1963).
- Chaikovs’kyi, D. (ed). Moskovs’ki vbyvtsi Bandery pered sudom: Zbirka materiialiv (Munich 1965).
- Goi, P.; Stebel’s’kyi, B.; Sanots’ka, R. (eds). Zbirka dokumentiv i materialiv pro vbyvstvo Stepana Bandery (Toronto–New York 1989).
- ↑ 9.0 9.1
- "Bandera, Stepan". Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- Duzhyi, P. Stepan Bandera: Symvol natsiï, 2 vols (Lviv 1996–7).
- Kuk, V. Stepan Bandera (1909–1999 rr.) (Ivano-Frankivsk 1999).
- Hordasevych, H. Stepan Bandera: Liudyna i mif, 2nd edn (Lviv 2000).
- ↑ German: Ukrainische Hilfspolizei; Ukrainian: Українська допоміжна поліція, romanized: Ukrainska dopomizhna politsiia.
- ↑ Kondratyuk, Kostyantin. Новітня історія України 1914–1945 [New History of Ukraine]. — Lviv: Видавничий центр ЛНУ імені Івана Франка, 2007. (in Ukrainian)
- ↑ "Ukraine's Independence Day - 24 August 2024". European Union External Action (EUEA). August 24, 2024. Retrieved November 1, 2024.
- ↑ Boghardt, Thomas (2022). Covert Legions: U.S. Army Intelligence in Germany, 1944-1949. Washington D.C: U.S. Army Center of Military History. pp. 229–234.
- ↑ Rudling 2006, p. 173.
- ↑ Rossoliński-Liebe 2014, p. 336.
- ↑ Roszkowski, Wojciech; Kofman, Jan (2015). Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-317-47594-1.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1
- Snyder, Timothy (1999). "'To Resolve the Ukrainian Problem Once and for All': The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943–1947". Journal of Cold War Studies. 1 (2). The MIT Press: 86–120. doi:10.1162/15203979952559531. ISSN 1520-3972. JSTOR 26925017. S2CID 57564179.
- Grzegorz Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej do akcji "Wisła, Kraków 2011, ISBN 978-83-08-04576-3, s.447, Ewa Siemaszko estimates victims to be 133,000 in Stan badań nad ludobójstwem dokonanym na ludności polskiej przez Organizację Ukraińskich Nacjonalistów i Ukraińską Powstańczą Armię, Bogusław Paź (ed.), Ludobójstwo na Kresach południowo-wschodniej Polski w latach 1939–1946, Wrocław 2011, ISBN 978-83-229-3185-1, s.341.
- Katchanovski, Ivan (April 25, 2018). "Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide or Ukrainian-Polish Conflict? The Mass Murder of Poles by the OUN and the UPA in Volhynia". Social Science Research Network. Ottawa, Canada. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- ↑
- "Zelensky honours Poles killed by Ukrainians in WW2 Volhynia massacre". BBC News. July 10, 2023. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- "Ukraine, Poland mark 80th anniversary of Volhynia massacre". DW News. July 11, 2023. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- Davies, Norman (November 18, 2023). "Volhynia and the forgotten massacre of the Second World War". The Spectator. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- ↑ Goncharenko, Roman (May 22, 2022). "Stepan Bandera: Ukrainian hero or Nazi collaborator?". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
- ↑ Rossoliński-Liebe 2014, p. 107.
- ↑ Batya Ungar-Sargon (7 March 2014). "Who is Stepan Bandera: The Man Whose Political Legacy Looms Over Ukraine Revolution". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved 17 September 2022.
- ↑ Zhurzhenko, Tatiana (2013). "Memory Wars and Reconciliation in the Ukrainian–Polish Borderlands: Geopolitics of Memory from a Local Perspective". History, Memory and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe. pp. 173–192. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- ↑
- "Polish appeals court overturns ruling against Holocaust historians". The Guardian. August 16, 2021. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- Grabowski, Barbara; Engelking (2022). Night without End: The Fate of Jews in German-Occupied Poland. Indiana University Press. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- Apostolou, Andrew (May 3, 2023). "Polish Responsibility for the Holocaust Was Not Minor". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
- ↑
- "Poland says that Ukraine will not be accepted into the EU until a historical dispute is resolved". Spot Media. July 24, 2024. Retrieved November 1, 2024.
- "How Poles perceive historical dispute with Ukraine – a perspective from Warsaw". European Pravda. September 12, 2024. Retrieved November 1, 2024.
- "Poland and Ukraine's bloody past overshadows their anti-Russia alliance". Politico. October 7, 2024. Retrieved November 1, 2024.
- ↑
- Hrytsak, Yaroslav (October 30, 2017). "Ukrainian Memory Culture Post‐1991: The Case of Stepan Bandera". Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- Shevtsova, Maryna (2022). "Looking for Stepan Bandera: The Myth of Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian 'Special Operation'". Central European Journal of International and Security Studies. 16 (3): 132–150. doi:10.51870/GWWS9820. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- "Brand new Ukraine? Cultural icons and national identity in times of war". Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. 19: 223–227. September 30, 2022. Retrieved October 26, 2024.
- ↑
- Leibich, Andre; Myshlovska, Oksana (2014). "Bandera: memorialization and commemoration". Nationalities Papers. 42 (5): 750–770. doi:10.1080/00905992.2014.916666. S2CID 128407114.
- "Ukraine's problematic nationalist heroes". The New Statesman. January 5, 2023. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
Kyiv's lionisation of 20th-century nationalists linked to atrocities is alienating allies and playing into Russian propaganda.
- ↑ "Ukraine designates national holiday for Nazi collaborator". Jewish News. December 30, 2018. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- ↑
- "Stepan Bandera: Ukrainian hero or Nazi collaborator?". Taiwan News. May 22, 2022. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- "Ukraine's worship of Stepan Bandera shows its nationalism". The Times. March 3, 2023. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- "How Ukraine's History Impacts its War with Russia". New Lines Institute. July 18, 2024. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- ↑ "Stepan Bandera: Hero or Nazi collaborator?". DW News. May 22, 2022. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- ↑ "Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian anti-hero glorified following the Russian invasion". Le Monde. January 12, 2023. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- ↑ Timothy Snyder (24 February 2010). "A Fascist Hero in Democratic Kiev". The New York Review of Books. NYR Daily.
- ↑ "Working Definition Of Antisemitism". World Jewish Congress. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism :- Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
- Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
- Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
- Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
- Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
- Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
- Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
- Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
- Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
- Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
- Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
- ↑ Imbue with or treat as having a sacred character. Oxford Languages.
- ↑ Rossoliński-Liebe 2014, p. 115.
- ↑ Veselý, Luboš (2016). "An indictment rather than a biography". New Eastern Europe. 5 (23): 140–146. ISSN 2083-7372.