The whole truth about the UPA is in Donetsk

“Ukrainian Resurgent Army: the History of the Unvanquished” is the title of a large-scale exhibition which opened in Donetsk with the support and participation of the Security Service of Ukraine. The exhibits include 22 thematic display stands with photos, newspaper clippings, documents, and letters of the UPA soldiers, which, in the opinion of the organizers, are the best illustration of the insurgents’ activities.

The idea of opening the exhibition in Donetsk oblast was supported by the Donetsk Oblast Administration, the Liberation Movement Study Center, the Donetsk Region Social Initiative for Restoring Historical Memory, and the World Jubilee Committee set up to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Roman Shukhevych’s birth and the 65th anniversary of the UPA.

The organizers’ main goal is to fill a gap in the knowledge of Donetskers by informing them about the activities of the UPA. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” says Viktor Viatrovych, a counselor to the head of the Security Service of Ukraine. “Essentially, we can say that the exhibition is a kind of mobile museum of UPA history. We hope that after seeing all the stands, a visitor will be able to draw his or her own conclusions about what the UPA really was, what it fought for, and, finally, what glory its soldiers, [some of] which can be seen in the photos, deserve.” According to Viatrovych, no one plans to launch OUN-UPA propaganda in the Donbas and convince local citizens by forcing them to “come to love” this movement.

According to historian Viktor Rih, this exhibition demolishes many a stereotype about the activities of the UPA. In particular, it dispels a myth that the OUN-UPA was active exclusively on the territory of Galicia: historians have evidence that its activities were fairly widely represented in Sumy and Poltava oblasts and even in Donetsk oblast. Another refuted myth is that the UPA was convicted by someone and now needs to be exonerated. Rih says that it is not true that the UPA was internationally convicted by the Nurnberg Tribunal: “This does not stand up to any criticism and is a stereotype. Moreover, the World Organization of War Veterans, which includes the OUN-UPA brotherhood as its official member, de facto recognized their struggle.” Finally, the third myth comes from the theory that the OUN and UPA are presently not recognized by anyone, although at the scholarly level the struggle of the OUN-UPA has indeed been acknowledged. This is mentioned in the conclusions of the government-sponsored commission of historians who studied documents and materials pertaining to the activities of the OUN-UPA and concluded that their struggle was aimed exclusively at gaining independence for Ukraine.

“Learn the truth and it will set you free,” appeals Rih to the citizens of Donetsk. “I believe that people from all regions of Ukraine and abroad need to partake of this truth. I think our work is noble,” he said and added that similar work to explain the activities of the UPA is being carried out in the Baltic States, Britain, Canada, the USA, and Belarus. In the words of the exhibition’s organizers, many visitors are simply stunned by what they learn from the documents and photos put on display.

Rih says that the organizers’ mission is not only educational-they are going to collect, study, and publish documents related to the history of national liberation struggle in the regions, including the Donbas, where a major insurgent movement was active. Historians believe that at the present time Donetsk is one of the key cities of Ukraine, and hence its citizens should get acquainted with this page in Ukrainian history, which is little known to all Ukrainians. No matter what people say, it pertains to the inhabitants of Donetsk as well.

However, the press conference held before the exhibition’s opening showed that the Donbas is unlikely to be fully loyal to this event. The press conference turned into a real battle in which Donetsk historians defended “their own” truth contending that the scholars who study the UPA are largely “falsifying history.” Oleksii Ivanov, a historian from Donetsk and a journalist of the Donetskyi kriazh, shared with The Day his view on the problem:

“There are still many dark pages in the history of the OUN-UPA and despite all there were murders and blood there. Now, when some are trying to justify them, it meets with rejection. There was the NKVS- it should not be vindicated, but neither should the OUN-UPA. If we are building civic society, we should forget the ideology of the UPA- Dontsov’s nationalism. There are many people in Donetsk oblast who will never accept this. We need to suppress this topic and search for something that can unite Ukrainians, and I believe that there is abundance of such things.”