Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (Ukrainian: Степа́н Андрі́йович Банде́ра, uk; Polish: Stepan Andrijowycz Bandera;[1] 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian nationalist leader of the militant wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).[2][3]
Stepan Bandera | |
|---|---|
Степан Бандера | |
 Bandera, c. 1934 | |
| Leader of the Banderite faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (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 |
Background
changeBandera joined the OUN in his twenties when western Ukraine was governed by Poland,[4] while eastern Ukraine was ruled by the Soviet Union and going through the Holodomor – an artificial famine under Joseph Stalin killing as many as 7,000,000 Ukrainians within a year – which has been denied by many Western progressives.[5] In the early 1930s, Bandera rose through the ranks to lead a revolt in the hope of restoring Ukrainian independence, which had been lost in 1921 with the Treaty of Riga between Poland and Soviet Russia.[6]
World War II
changeThe 1936 assassination of Poland's Minister of Interior led to Bandera's arrest and sentencing to life imprisonment, which ended with the German-Soviet partition of Poland in October 1939 when the Soviets freed him to live in German-occupied Poland.[7][8] Subsequent schism in the OUN caused the formation of the OUN-B led by him. Prior to the Operation Barbarossa, Bandera raised the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police[9][4] for Hitler in Nazi-occupied Soviet Ukraine owing to his perception of the Russians and the Jews as enemies of the Ukrainian nation.[4] He tried to create a Ukrainian government in Nazi-occupied Soviet Ukraine, but was deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp by the Nazi Germans.[4][7][8]
Upon his release in September 1944, he negotiated the founding of the Ukrainian National Army (UNA) and the Ukrainian National Committee (UNK) in March 1945 before the fall of Nazi Germany.[10]
Postwar
changeBandera and his family were resettled in Munich by West German officials. The Soviet Union asked for Bandera and several Ukrainian nationalists to be extradited under the Yalta-based intra-Allied cooperation wartime agreement. However, the Americans refused to hand over Bandera as they deemed him too valuable to lose given his knowledge of the Soviet Union – vital for the emerging Cold War.[11][12] In the years prior to Bandera's deathC he also visited the Ukrainian exile communities in the UK, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Spain and Canada.[13]
Death
changeThe Soviets had made several attempts on his life, which they ultimately succeeded on 15 October 1959, when Bandera died of cyanide gas poisoning in public.[14]
Views on race
changePoles
changeAmid Bandera's detention in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the OUN he chaired was allegedly complicit in the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and eastern Galicia, which killed as many as 133,000 Poles.[15] The issue continues to be Poland-Ukraine relations' Achilles heel,[16] which has prevented Ukraine from joining the European Union (EU) and receiving military protection.[17]
Jews
changeRossolinski-Liebe and German political scientist Andreas Umland both found Bandera not to have been involved in the Holocaust,[18]
[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.
Rather, Rossoliński-Liebe believed that Bandera held the antisemitic views[19] typical of his generation.[20][21] The sentiment was echoed by American historian Alexander John Motyl, who did not consider antisemitism as a core part of Ukrainian nationalism in the way it was for Nazism. Instead, the Soviet Union and Poland were considered as the primary enemies. Motyl added that Ukrainian nationalists perceived Jews as a problem over suspicions of Jews "helping" the Soviet takeover of Ukraine.[22]
Assessment
changeSince Stepan Bandera's death in 1959, he has been a highly divisive figure in both Europe and America, with his legacy under intense debate, complicated by the geopolitics of the Ukraino-Russian war and EU-Ukrainian relations.[23]
Ukrainians
change
.jpg)
Since Ukraine restored independence in 1991, Stepan Bandera monuments have been built across western Ukraine, including the Stepan Bandera monument in Lviv.[24] Viktor Yushchenko, the former President of Ukraine (2005–2010), granted Stepan Bandera the posthumous article "Hero of Ukraine" in 2007, whose decision was overturned by the courts on technical grounds.[25] In December 2018, the Ukrainian Parliament declared January 1 as the national day of commemoration for Stepan Bandera.[26]
Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine started, Stepan Bandera has been rehabilitated in Ukrainian society as a national hero sacrificing for the fight against Russian imperialism, with substantial popularity among young Ukrainians.[27]
In April 2022, an opinion poll found that 74% Ukrainians viewed Stepan Bandera favourably.[28] 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 the thumbs-up to a Stepan Bandera portrait, with an encouraging war-associated caption.[29]
Non-Ukrainians
changePrestigious American historian Timothy D. Snyder remarked,[30]
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.[15]
Meanwhile, German-Polish historian Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe claimed,[31]
Bandera's worldview was shaped by numerous far-right values and concepts including fascism, ultranationalism and antisemitism[19] [... .] he combined extremism with religion [...] to sacralize[32] [...] violence.
However, Czech political scientist Luboš Veselý criticized Rossoliński-Liebe's book on Stepan Bandera as a slander of Bandera and Ukrainian nationalism,[33]
[...] Bandera was against closer cooperation with the Nazis [... .] Rossoliński-Liebe's 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.
See also
changeReferences
change- ↑ Rossoliński-Liebe 2014, p. 97.
- ↑ Rossoliński-Liebe 2014, p. 238.
- ↑ Marples 2006, p. 560.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "SHOAH Resource Center" (PDF). Yad Vashem. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- ↑
- "Call to Action: Holodomor Denial by University of Alberta Lecturer". Ukrainian Canadian Congress. November 27, 2019. Retrieved October 25, 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.
- ↑
- K. Marek. Identity and Continuity of States in Public International Law. Librairie Droz 1968. pp. 419–420.
- "Treaty of Riga". Britannica. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- "A Century Ago, The Treaty Of Riga Redrew The Map. It Still Reverberates Today". Radio Liberty. March 17, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1
- 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).
- ↑ 8.0 8.1
- "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)
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1
- 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.
- ↑ A weakness or vulnerable point. Oxford Languages.
- ↑
- "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.
[...] to Poles, Wołyń [...] refers less to a geographical area than to a historical event – a massive, genocidal atrocity largely absent from the world's history books. [...] Inspired and organised by UPA, bands of armed Ukrainian peasants carrying knives, pitchforks, scythes and machetes [...] the attackers engaged in extreme forms of gratuitous cruelty – dismembering pregnant women, spearing foetuses, mutilating children, chopping up babies, burning families alive, crucifying priests on church doors
- ↑ Goncharenko, Roman (22 May 2022). "Stepan Bandera: Ukrainian hero or Nazi collaborator?". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 "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.
- ↑ Rossoliński-Liebe 2014, p. 107.
- ↑ Marples 2006, p. 565.
- ↑ 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.
So while Bandera and his men were responsible for killing Jews, their ideology wasn't fundamentally anti-Semitic; rather, it was pro-Ukrainian, and anti-everyone who appeared to be in the way of that, which included the pro-Soviet Jews. 'For the Nazis, anti-Semitism was an unconditional core belief, and Nazi anti-Semitism was an all-or-nothing proposition that was both immutable and immune to circumstances,' explained Alexander John Motyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers [. ...] The primary enemy of the OUN was [...] Poles and Russians. Jews were a 'problem' because they weren't Ukrainian, and because they were implicated, or believed to be implicated, in helping the Soviets take over Ukrainian territory.
- ↑
- 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.
- 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Rossoliński-Liebe 2014, p. 115.
- ↑ Imbue with or treat as having a sacred character. Oxford Languages.
- ↑ Veselý, Luboš (2016). "An indictment rather than a biography". New Eastern Europe. 5 (23): 140–146. ISSN 2083-7372.