The Burden of the Past

Description

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.

Introduction / Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper and Anna Wylegała

Part I: The Memory of Holodomor

1. Idle, Drunk and Good-for-Nothing. Cultural Memory of the Rank-and-File Perpetrators of the 1932-1933 Famine in Ukraine / Daria Mattingly

2. The lieux de mémoire of the Holodomor in the Cultural Landscape of Modern Ukraine / Wiktoria Kudela-Świątek

Part II: World War II in the Ukrainian Memory

3. The War of Memory in Times of War: 9th of May Celebrations in Kyiv in 2014–2015 / Tetiana Pastushenko

4. (In)different Memory: The World War II in the Memory of the Last War Generation in Ukraine / Mykola Borovyk

Part III: Heroes or Traitors: Creating Heroic Canon

5. Symon Petliura, the Ukrainian People's Republic, and National Commemoration in Contemporary Ukraine / Matthew D. Pauly

6. Glory to the Heroes? Gender, Nationalism and Memory / Olesya Khromeychuk

Part IV: Traces of the Lost Multiethnicity and Memory of the Ethnic Cleansing

7. Memory, Monuments and the Project of Nationalization in Ukraine. The Case of Chernivtsi / Karolina Koziura

8. Collective Memory of the Holocaust in Post-Soviet Ukraine / Anna Chebotariova

9. Extermination of the Roma in Transnistria during the World War II: Construction of the Roma Collective Memory / Anna Abakunova

10. Poland and Poles in the Collective Memory of Galician Ukrainians / Anna Wylegała

Part V: History and Politics in a Post-Soviet State: Ukraine, Russia and Independence

11. Ukraine between the EU and Russia since 1991: Does it have to be a Battlefield of Memories? / Tomasz Stryjek

12. A Desired but Unexpected State. The 90s in the Memory and Perception of Ukrainians in the Twenty-First Century / Joanna Konieczna-Sałamatin

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Jews
• Gendér
• Post-Soviet states
• Victim
• Modern history
• Cold War
• Ethnography
• Ethnic cleansing
• 20th century
• Social sciences
• History of Europe
• Anthropology
• Eastern
• Commémoration
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• Famine
• Culture
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 11 février 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253046727
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE BURDEN OF THE PAST
THE BURDEN OF THE PAST
History, Memory, and Identity in Contemporary Ukraine
Edited by Anna Wylega a and Ma gorzata G owacka-Grajper
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Editorial work for this book was supported by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, and Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw.
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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2020 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-04670-3 (hdbk.)
ISBN 978-0-253-04671-0 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-253-04673-4 (web PDF)
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CONTENTS
Note on Transliteration
List of Abbreviations
Introduction / Anna Wylega a and Ma gorzata G owacka-Grajper
Part I The Memory of Holodomor
1 Idle, Drunk, and Good for Nothing: Cultural Memory of the Rank-and-File Perpetrators of the 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine / Daria Mattingly
2 The Lieux de M moire of the Holodomor in the Cultural Landscape of Modern Ukraine / Wiktoria Kudela- wi tek
Part II World War II in the Ukrainian Memory
3 The War of Memory in Times of War: May 9 Celebrations in Kyiv in 2014-15 / Tetiana Pastushenko
4 (In)different Memory: World War II in the Memory of the Last War s Generation in Ukraine / Mykola Borovyk
Part III Heroes or Traitors: Creating a Heroic Canon
5 Symon Petliura, the Ukrainian People s Republic, and National Commemoration in Contemporary Ukraine / Matthew D. Pauly
6 Glory to the Heroes? Gender, Nationalism, and Memory / Olesya Khromeychuk
Part IV Traces of the Lost Multiethnicity and Memory of the Ethnic Cleansing
7 Memory, Monuments, and the Project of Nationalization in Ukraine: The Case of Chernivtsi / Karolina Koziura
8 Collective Memory of the Holocaust in Post-Soviet Ukraine / Anna Chebotarova
9 Extermination of the Roma in Transnistria during World War II: Construction of the Roma Collective Memory / Anna Abakunova
10 Poland and Poles in the Collective Memory of Galician Ukrainians / Anna Wylega a
Part V History and Politics in a Post-Soviet State: Ukraine, Russia, and Independence
11 Ukraine between the European Union and Russia since 1991: Does It Have to Be a Battlefield of Memories? / Tomasz Stryjek
12 A Desired but Unexpected State: The 1990s in the Memory and Perception of Ukrainians in the 21st Century / Joanna Konieczna-Sa amatin
Index
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
T HE TRANSLITERATION SYSTEM USED IN THE BOOK FOLLOWS the Library of Congress rules for transliteration from Ukrainian and Russian, but we decided to simplify it (e.g., leaving out ligatures) for ease of reading. Names, including place names, are transliterated according to the source language, which means that the capital of Ukraine is usually transcribed as Kyiv, not Kiev, but when quoted from Russian-language sources becomes Kiev.
ABBREVIATIONS
AK-Armia Krajowa (Home Army)
CC CP(b)U-Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine
GPU-Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie (State Political Directorate)
ITF-Task Force for International Cooperation
KNS-Komitety nezamozhnykh selian (Committees of Nonwealthy Peasants)
KPU-Komunistychna Partiia Ukrainy (Communist Party of Ukraine)
NEP-Novaia Ekonomicheskaia Politika (New Economic Policy)
NKVD-Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (People s Commissariat for Internal Affairs)
OSOAviaKhim-Obshchestvo Sodeistvia Oborone i Aviatsionno-Khimicheskomu Stroitel stvu (Society of Assistance to Defense and Aviation-Chemical Construction)
OUN-Orhanizatsiia Ukrains kykh Natsionalistiv (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists)
RSChA-Robitnycho-Seliansk a Chervona Armiia (Workers and Peasants Red Army)
SVU-Spilka Vyzvolennia Ukrainy (Union for the Liberation of Ukraine)
SZR-Sluzhba Zovnioshnioi Rozvidky (Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine)
TsK KP(b)U-Tsentralnyi Komitet Komunistychnoi Partii (Bolshevykiv) Ukrainy (Central Committee of the Communist Party [Bolshevik] of Ukraine)
TsDAHOU-Tsentralnyi Derzhavnyi Arkhiv Hromads kykh Orhanizatsii Ukrainy (Central State Archive of the Civic Organizations of Ukraine)
UAOC-Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
UIPN-Ukrains kyi Instytut Natsional noi Pam iati (Ukrainian Institute of National Memory)
UNR-Ukrains ka Narodna Respublika (Ukrainian People s Republic)
UPA-Ukrains ka Povstans ka Armiia (Ukrainian Insurgent Army)
USSR-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
WKP(b)-Vsesoiuznaia Komunisticheskaia Partiia (Bol shevikov) (All-Union Communist Party [Bolshevik])
ZUNR-Zakhidnioukrains ka Narodna Respublika (West Ukrainian People s Republic)
THE BURDEN OF THE PAST
INTRODUCTION
Anna Wylega a and Ma gorzata G owacka-Grajper
T HIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN AT AN EXCEPTIONAL MOMENT in Ukrainian geopolitics. The idea to relate in various voices the significance and function of the past in contemporary Ukraine appeared in 2014, during a seminar dedicated to new memory studies. At that time, shortly after the Euromaidan, we came to the conclusion that Ukrainian history, memory, and identity are now intertwined more than ever and they are also strongly connected to domestic and foreign policies. The texts contained in this volume were written in 2015-16, already after Ukraine s loss of Crimea and the country s entanglement in the ongoing devastating conflict with Russia in Donbas, as well as the West s habituation to this state of affairs. In a country engaged in war, it suddenly became clear that history was of tremendous importance. First, because both sides of the conflict have used it to legitimize, explain, and strengthen (in ways that are sometimes fair and sometimes not) their own positions and arguments. On numerous occasions, the Russian media have referred to the participants of the Euromaidan as fascists and banderovtsy (followers of Stepan Bandera, a leader of Ukrainian nationalism from the interwar period). In turn, several battalions of volunteer Ukrainian troops who fight Russian separatist forces in Donbas use symbols and slogans borrowed from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Second, the state of war became a catalyst for internal discussions about history and its influence on contemporary Ukrainian national and state identity, though often these debates indirectly refer to and engage Russia. At the time when our authors were writing their texts, Ukraine was swept by the so-called leninopad (a mass tearing down of Soviet monuments); the head of the Ukrainian National Institute of Remembrance, Volodymyr Viatrovych-a historian with a traditional approach to the role of history in the shaping of national identity-had already been in tenure for over a year; and a Polish film about the Ukrainian genocide of Poles in Volhynia sparked the first truly significant debate on the subject since Ukraine regained independence. History also became the subject of legislation-in April 2015, the Ukrainian parliament voted for a bill defining which historical groups deserved to be called a force fighting for Ukrainian independence. 1 The bill also threatened to pursue those who would insult the organizations and formations mentioned in it. In addition, the parliament voted to desovietize the public space, which led to the renaming of several thousand villages and cities, including the capitals of two oblasts .
Under such conditions, together with the authors of the texts included in this volume, we asked ourselves questions about the mutual ties between history, identity, politics, and memory. We wondered about the degree to which the situation of posttransformational and wartime memory fever was unique to Ukraine and, more generally, to Central and Eastern Europe. Of course, we are not the first to reflect on this subject-the specificity of identity and memory in this area of Europe has fascinated researchers for years, and the apex of this fascination coincided with the political transformation after the fall of communism. One of the elements of the transformation were the changes in collective approaches toward the past. In this context, it seems important to regard Ukraine as a part of a larger whole-Central and Eastern Europe.
History and Memory: Ukraine in Central and Eastern Europe
The communist era, when Europe was divided by an iron curtain, strengthened thinking about the continent as divided into two parts: the Western and Eastern (or Central Eastern) part. The diversified dynamics of postcommunist transformations in particular countries and the vision of the Soviet Union as having a huge impact on societies that were included in its borders led to another division-some began to distinguish between two Eastern Europes: Central Europe and post-Soviet (Eastern) Europe. 2 The past and its impact on the contemporary situation were of fundamental importance. It is a history that has marked various areas of Europe, and hence the question of memory began to play a key role in di