In memory of “golden September”
Special classes held in Lviv schools
Maidan-INFORM reported that a class had been held at one of Lviv’s high schools on the subject “The First Soviet Occupation of Western Ukraine (1939-41).” This lecture was organized by the Western Ukrainian Historical Study Center under the aegis of the Lviv City Council’s Department of Culture and the Loncki Prison Memorial Museum, followed by the documentary Zoloty veresen (Golden September), based on Halychyna’s (Galicia’s) ethnic Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish eyewitness accounts. Petro Franko, chairman of the All-Ukraine Society of Political Prisoners and Victims of Purges, addressed the audience. According to Taras Cholii, director of the Loncki Prison Memorial Museum of Victims of Occupation Regimes, said that such classes would be held in every school of Lviv: “Our students are enthusiastically taking part in these classes because they have an opportunity to experience living history, hear eyewitness accounts and communicate with these eyewitnesses.”
COMMENTARY
Leonid ZASHKILNIAK, Ph.D., Ivan Franko University of Lviv:
“I think that these events should, first of all, be reflected in school textbooks, considering that we have many previously engineered stereotypes in Ukraine, particularly with regard to that ‘Golden September,’ the ‘reunification of Ukrainian lands,’ propaganda stuff like that. As for discussing this subject in high schools, I don’t think this calls for any jubilation. I’d rather see this as a matter of the curriculum, considering that there is nothing festive about these events. I further believe that these events should be presented from various points of view, including those of Russia, Poland, Germany — and, of course, the Ukrainian point of view. Needless to say, this period in history must be studied and taught properly, otherwise how can one explain what happened in 1939, before World War II broke out?”
THE DAY'S FACT FILE
The Golden September. Events in Halychyna, 1939-41 documentary, directed by Taras Khymych, was commissioned by the Western Ukraine Historical Study Center. Under the Soviets September 1939 was called the “Golden [Autumn],” referring to the unification of two parts of Ukraine. There is, however, a sharp debate underway about the cost of that unity. The multimillion Soviet army was ordered by Soviet Defense Commissar [Minister] Kliment Voroshilov to launch the so-called liberation campaign on Sept. 17, 1939. Ten days later Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were occupied by Soviet forces, and then it was decided in Lviv to transfer Polish Ukrainian territories to Ukraine. This took place under the Motolov-Ribbentrop Pact, and was carried out at the expense of millions of both military and civilian lives, especially amongst Halychyna’s (Galicia’s) multiethnic populace, which included Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews. Needless to say, their response to the forceful Sovietization campaign was anything but friendly.
The historian, Stanislav Kulchytsky, wrote in Den/The Day that there were two aspects to the Sovietization of Western Ukraine: the festive one, marked by raising the local living standards, eliminating unemployment, and businesses applying for upgraded equipment and receiving it forthwith from the east of Ukraine; with almost half a million landless and impoverished peasants receiving millions of hectares of land, former landlord estates with local peasants receiving 40,000 head of cows from kolkhozes in the east of Ukraine, using central budget loans. All these measures were promoted by the Soviet press, to assert the Golden Autumn legend.
There was, however, the dark aspect to the Sovietization deal. The Kremlin leadership resolved to deport from Ukraine all those “unwanted social strata,” including ethnic groups and dissidents. This resolution was effectively carried out by the well-trained Cheka/NKVD/KGB personnel.
Soviet repression statistics became common knowledge after June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Moscow renewed diplomatic relations with the Polish government in exile [in London] and accorded welcome to the Polish envoy, Stanislaw Kot, who asked to see the lists of deported Poles, nationality notwithstanding, and then proceeded to visit their exile sites. Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vishinsky informed about 338,000 deportees in 1941. Kot’s team then interviewed deportation victims, and later Polish historians established that over a million had been actually deported.
