Ukrainian History: No Foreign Sanctions
Historical justice is a word combination heard by the Ukrainian public on so many occasions that it is very likely to have lost its original meaning, turning into a cliche unable to stir any emotion except irritation. Justice, however, is something needed by the living, not the dead. It is not a whim of the powers that be but an imperative prerequisite without which there can be no future.
This assumption is all the more true when the point at issue is people who took part in World War II, Ukrainians who found themselves on both sides of the front, each defending the independence and freedom of his native land as each though right (which would result in the subsequent tragedy of a civil war when Ukrainians fought Ukrainians in the west of Soviet Ukraine, in 1945-55). The wise humanism inherent in the Ukrainian people is expressed in His words, For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you . This everlasting wisdom shows us the only right way to justice in 2002. Those OUN- UPA men who really fought against alien occupiers have a right to be acknowledged as combatants that defended the freedom and independence of the Ukrainian state; they can be recognized as veterans of the resistance movement against the regimes of the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Historical experience offers eloquent evidence in favor of this approach. Long before the classic example of reconciliation in Spain under Caudillo Franco, President Lincoln declared, after the Civil War of 1861-65, that the Americans had to build a single civil society made up of previously antagonistic elements. Was that not how the United State became a great power?
Bearing all this in mind, the governmental commission investigating the activities of OUN-UPA (headed by Vice Premier Volodymyr Semynozhenko) held a meeting not so long ago to deliberate a bill tentatively called On the Establishment of Historical Justice with Regard to the Champions of the Freedom and Independence of the Ukrainian State. It resolved to revise the document and finally consider it in September 2002. Commenting on the bill (among other things, it provides for extending the law of Ukraine On the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Purges in Ukraine to OUN-UPA members), Mr. Semynozhenko noted, “This is not so much a political as a moral and ethical issue, on whose solution depends not only the political balance of this society, but also the prospect of this nation uniting into a civil society.”
Although the bill is still to be passed by the parliament, it has produced conflicts reaching the international level. The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement reading, in part, that “nationalistic forces in Ukraine” planning to rehabilitate former UPA members cannot help but meet with an extremely negative response in Russia and could well have a negative effect on bilateral relations. Characteristically, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Anatoly Zlenko responded with a clear statement on July 16, noting that the said problem is without doubt an internal Ukrainian affair. In fact, neither the current legislation, nor the bill have anything to do with “persons who during the years of World War II and the postwar period committed crimes against humanity as defined by international law” (the Russian side deliberately “overlooked” this aspect).
Indeed, OUN-UPA men bore arms against the Soviet empire, yet it does not warrant denying Ukraine the right to have its own view on its own history. A people that fails to implement this right can hardly expect to achieve political and cultural sovereignty. We must recognize that OUN-UPA was an extremely complex phenomenon little explored by historians, and far from all pages of its annals ought to be eulogized, yet the main point seems to be that these pages are among the most tragic in Ukrainian history, meaning that this country has every right to solve the problem on its own, without any outside “sanctions.”
There can be no strictly bad and good guys in a fratricidal war, just as there are no victors in the truest sense of the word. If we want to become a civilized nation, we cannot avoid national reconciliation. We will also have to work hard to make the Russians understand that assessing Ukrainian history is Ukraine’s prerogative.
In 1998, Yevhen Marchuk brought forth the pressing issue of national reconciliation among veterans in both antagonistic camps. At the time, neither society nor politicians were prepared to accept the idea. The good thing is that we are moving in that direction, even if not at the desired rate.
