Parading Against Reconciliation

KIEV, Ukraine -- On the surface, the parade on 9 May of World War II veterans down Khreshchatyk, the central street of Ukraine's capital Kyiv, was orderly and festive. As they had each year for many years, groups of veterans from different regions of Ukraine marched past onlookers, who cheered sporadically.

But the calm on what is officially known as Victory Day was preceded by a flurry of discussion in the media about the possibility that veterans from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (known by its Ukrainian acronym UPA), which was based mainly in western Ukraine and fought both the Nazis and the Soviet army, would march in the official parade on Khreshchatyk.



The UPA's participation was mooted after President Viktor Yushchenko in March publicly called for reconciliation between the UPA and Soviet Red Army veterans. Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko proposed a new format for this year's Victory Day celebrations, replacing the veterans' march with military bands and free food and drink for veterans on Khreshchatyk.

These proposals were denounced by the leaders of the principal organization of Red Army veterans. The Communist Party, who in the past has traditionally joined the parade marchers, chimed in, trying to whip up a frenzy of indignation at the government's purported plans - plans never in fact expressed by government officials - to include UPA veterans in the festivities.

In the end, the Soviet veterans won out, the parade was reinstated, UPA veterans were excluded, and - as in previous years - at the tail end of the official procession came several hundred Communist leaders and activists, a good number of them prominently displaying portraits of Stalin.

The uneasy truce that resulted in the 9 May parade masks the long and complex history not only of Ukraine, but of its relations with its neighbors, Russia in particular. And it is a truce that may not survive until Victory Day 2006, for this may prove to have been the last UPA-free parade. Indeed, if Tomenko's plan is revived, it may prove to have been the last parade.

THE WAR THAT PERSISTS

The street the veterans paraded down on 9 May, Khreshchatyk, was so named because Ukrainians believe that here, where the street crosses the Dnipro river, over a thousand years ago the Kyivan Rus prince Volodymyr (Vladimir, as Russians know him) forcibly christened the Ukrainian people in AD 988. Kyiv's Khreshchatyk is thus viewed as the holy of holies not only by Ukrainians but also by Belarusians and Russians as the wellspring of Eastern Slav culture.

Victory Day also ties Ukraine closely to Russia, for it was as citizens of the Soviet Union that Ukrainians fought Nazi Germany's armies and, by official accounts, suffered the loss of millions of lives. The thousands of surviving Red Army veterans from World War II - or the Great Patriotic War as it is usually referred to in Ukraine and Russia - are fiercely proud of their role in driving Germany's armies out of Ukraine.

It is a pride that colors their relationship with independent Ukraine. As these veterans point out, they swore an oath to defend the Soviet Union and their medals of courage and bravery were issued not by Ukraine, but by a state which no longer exists. Small wonder that, at best, their attitude towards Ukraine is ambivalent.

Yet this standard view of Ukraine's role in World War II - as a uniformly loyal supporter of the Soviet Union and the Soviet war effort - is now being challenged. Chief among the challenges to that view is the role of the UPA, whose veterans emphasize that they fought specifically for Ukraine's independence. They reject accusations propagated during the Soviet era that the UPA collaborated with the Germans and proudly recall that some units of the UPA were still fighting Soviet troops in 1952.

Official recognition of the UPA is probably only a matter of time, but Yushchenko's calls this year for reconciliation seem to have been ill-prepared, coming late in the day and failing to directly address the possibility of the UPA taking part in the parade.

It was no surprise, then, that representatives of the two sides, groups that had fought against and killed each other, were largely unresponsive to Yushchenko's calls for reconciliation. Red Army veterans called on the UPA to repent for its role in the war. The UPA, though some veterans speak of their fight for independence - both from the Nazis and from the Soviet Union - as their main achievement, is primarily concerned with gaining state recognition of their role as a combatant army in the war against fascism.

To this day, those who fought under its colors do not enjoy official status as veterans and the benefits that brings. Only one small veterans' association, headed by parliamentarian Ihor Yukhnovsky, accepts veterans from both sides as members and stands firmly on a position of reconciliation.

In a speech to veterans on 9 May, Yushchenko expressed his regret at the continued rift between Ukraine's old soldiers. "In our hearts we have forgiven the Germans, the Japanese, the Poles; we have perhaps forgiven everyone who was on the other side of the trenches," he said. "But we have not succeeded in forgiving ourselves. The veterans of the Great Patriotic War, unfortunately, have so far not extended their hands to the veterans of the UPA."

TROUBLED NEIGHBORS - STALIN'S CRIMES AGAINST UKRAINE

The reconciliation between veterans touches upon relations between Ukraine and Russia. Unlike citizens of the Baltic states, for instance, Ukrainians do not agree that the Soviet Army's victory in World War II replaced one occupation by another, since much of Ukraine, part of the Russian Empire, had swiftly been incorporated into the Soviet Union after the civil war that followed the Russian Revolution.

Ukrainians, however, generally do not share Russians' nostalgic penchant for rehabilitating former Soviet leaders, chief among them Stalin. It was Stalin who presided over the "Holodomor," as Ukrainians refer to the man-made famine of 1932-1933, during which anywhere from seven to 10 million people died of starvation brought about by forced collectivization and the deliberate withholding of food stocks from the population.

During the Soviet era, mention of the Holodomor was suppressed and it was an American, Dr. James Mace, who was chiefly responsible for collecting evidence and eyewitness accounts from survivors.

Writing in a Ukrainian newspaper in 2003, Mace explained to Ukrainians his role in researching the Holodomor with the words, "I was chosen by your dead." He had, in practice, been chosen by the U.S. Congress, which appointed him to head, from 1986 to 1990, a special research project, the U.S. Commission on the Ukrainian Famine. Today Ukrainian historians generally agree with the commission's findings that in Ukraine the famine largely encompassed only areas settled by Ukrainians.

Though parts of Russia, Central Asia, and the North Caucasus were affected by the famine, there is a general acceptance in Ukraine that Ukrainians were singled out for decimation (a view underpinned by, for example, findings that Russian villages on the Ukrainian border did not suffer famine and that Ukrainian-populated areas of the North Caucasus suffered as severely as Ukraine proper). In 2002, Ukraine's parliament recognized the Holodomor as an act of genocide. One year later, so did the parliament of Canada.

The Holodomor's chief perpetrator, Stalin, also oversaw a period of repression when tens of thousands of Ukrainian intellectuals and the nation's leading cultural, civic, and political figures were shot or otherwise murdered by the KGB's predecessor, the NKVD. While there appears to be a creeping rehabilitation of Stalin in Russia, Ukraine's government - and Yushchenko in particular - is showing an interest in greater exposure of Stalin's crimes, including the Holodomor.

Challenging Ukrainian views toward World War II relates directly to Ukraine's attitude towards Russia. In late April, Russia's ambassador to Ukraine, Viktor Chernomyrdin, was asked by a Ukrainian reporter if Russia intended to apologize for the Holodomor. He replied in the negative, suggesting instead that Georgia should apologize, given that Stalin was from there.

The very fact that Russia's ambassador to Ukraine could be asked such a question would have been unthinkable even half a decade ago. Despite, or perhaps even partially because of, their long joint history, Ukraine and Russia appear to be moving ever farther apart. Tension between the two countries has centered on a host of issues: the status of Russia's Black Sea fleet on the Crimean peninsula, border demarcation, trade barriers, oil and gas supplies. Ukraine also wishes to join the European Union and NATO, events Russia's President Vladimir Putin said would "cause problems."

Yushchenko's initial plans not to attend the 9 May celebrations in Moscow stirred up debate as well, with Soviet veterans' organizations insisting that Yushchenko accept Putin's invitation. He acquiesced and used the occasion to announce the formation of a joint committee, charged with reviewing economic cooperation, security issues, and international and humanitarian cooperation. Yushchenko's stated reason for originally declining the invitation to attend Moscow's Victory Day parade was his obligation to attend Ukraine's own celebrations. In the event, he attended both.

HISTORY'S DEAD HAND

The problems in evaluating World War II, the Holodomor and other significant events in Ukraine's history have been brought to the fore by Ukraine's status as an independent state and its cnsequent search for its place in the world. Ukraine's attitudes toward World War II - and ievitably, as a result, towards Russia - have slowly been changing over the past 14 years, but some decades-old stereotypes have barely been affected. However, following Yushchenko's election to the presidency, attitudes may be entering a stage of greater flux. There is now a general expectation that old stereotypes will undergo serious revision.

Some are trying to face the changes in attitudes head-on. Writing recently in the Internet magazine Ukrayinska Pravda, several authors claim that a series of myths are beginning to be advanced following the changes in the Ukrainian political landscape wrought by the Orange Revolution in 2004.

Seemingly anxious to prevent Ukrainians from distancing themselves from the fight against Nazi Germany because of the Soviet dictatorship, the authors declared that 9 May was not a victory by Stalin or the communist regime but by the Ukrainian people, and that Victory Day should not be "given away" to Russia.

Some commentators on this year's Victory Day have suggested that the problem of reconciliation between the veterans will pass away within several generations. But that may prove optimistic, since the problems in evaluating World War II, the Holodomor, and other significant events in Ukraine's history will not go away.

Source: Transitions On Line