Serhiy LYTVYN: “Study Wars to Avert Them”

“MILITARY HISTORY IS THE BEST WEAPON THAT WE STILL UNDERESTIMATE”

“Mr. Lytvyn, society seems to have received sufficient information about the ‘blank spots’ of history in the past few years. Yet, the voice of military history still sounds rather modest in this kaleidoscope of declassified archives, sensational documents, and judicious commentaries. What is the matter? Are there no more secrets left or is it no longer important to study this field? And how would you assess the current state of military historical science in Ukraine?”

“Could I begin with something else? On the initiative of Ukraine’s Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk, the Defense Ministry’s top brass recently took a ‘remedial course in history.’ I mean Professor Stepankov’s lecture, The Military Strategy of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Do you think the minister had no other, more important, things to do than organize and take a most active part in a military history lecture at a time when the army is undergoing an extremely painful reform and our military is performing peacekeeping missions and forging a partnership with NATO? Why did he suddenly pay so much attention to what might seem an old and not so pressing issue in the times of high technologies and sophisticated military hardware? I think wise people know the answer: to instill a sense of importance of importance of national tradition in top, especially military, decision makers — so that they rely on historical memory to avoid going back to square one and making the same old mistakes.

“It is, of course, very commendable that the defense minister himself cares so much about the problems and popularization of history, but are things really so good and smooth in military historical science on the whole?

“Unfortunately, the military historical field still remains almost in the backwater of Ukraine’s academia. For want of a national concept of military history, this field has been mothballed. What further complicates matters is the shortage of experts. The available researchers are scattered over various institutions and departments. After all, as this country has no institutions that research the problems of military history, we must admit, naturally, that our studies and achievements are fragmentary and would have been impossible but for the sheer enthusiasm of the so-called history buffs. The resulting impression is that nobody needs all this and, what is more, somebody is deliberately slowing things down.”

“What is the special significance of military history as a branch of modern historical science?”

“The military historical heritage occupies a special place in the history of the Ukrainian people who waged a centuries-long struggle for the right to have a state of their own. This right has been won with blood. So the main objective of military historical science is to rescue this right from oblivion and make it an asset of the current and coming generations.

“Many myths and stereotypes of the past should be reconsidered and dispelled. Meanwhile, this demythologizing function can only be performed by a military historical science armed with all kinds of serious and irrefutable arguments rather than ideological or any other opportunism. It sometimes seems to us that other people’s military history is more instructive. We very often forget about the particular achievements of the Ukrainian military thought at various historical stages.

“In my opinion, the cult of a people’s heroic past arouses and cultivates martial virtues. By contrast, if a patriot warrior has had his virtues played down for a long time, he may well turn into a national mankurt (Turkic for wolfman, a person who has completely lost memory — Ed.). Is this not an argument in favor of this science? Military history is a mighty force and perhaps the best weapon that we, regrettably, still underestimate.

“Unfortunately, far from all understand that there can be no future unless there is knowledge of the past. What we must do is look for the grains of national military wisdom which would help us today to build a strong and reliable army and a truly independent state.

“I do no think we must be skeptical of and reduce to the fear of punishment the facts from our Soviet past, when a patriotically- educated soldier would commit the ultimate sacrifice for his homeland. If we added such a weapon as knowledge of the past to the technological sophistication of contemporary army, we could achieve very much in many fields, including the patriotic upbringing of the modern citizen as a whole. For some reason, we tend to give fleeting attention to this matter.

“So military history is indispensable, if we are to solve the aforesaid problems. Yet, it would be wrong to think that to know military history always means to get stuck in the past. Important as the goals are, military historical science should work on a priority basis. Just see how the uncertainty of some historical assessments stirs up social unrest from time to time. This was graphically illustrated by the debate on and coverage of the 1943 Volyn tragedy. In this case, Ukrainian historians had to run in the wake of their Polish counterparts. And the point is not only in politics, as some would like to present it. In reality, we are losing out on research, while Polish historians were active enough to impose their vision and historical assessments on the public. The reason is there are four research institutes in Poland which systemically — I emphasize, systemically, — deal with military history issues and publish several professional scholarly journals. What do we have in Ukraine? Nothing of the kind.”

“HISTORY SHOULD BE WRITTEN TRUTHFULLY AND NOT REVAMPED OVER AND OVER AGAIN”

“Mr. Lytvyn, are you thus calling for another rewriting of military history?”

“In fact, we have not yet written it but already have to do some patchwork! Yes, there is a lot of research and something is being published, but the existing studies of this country’s military past are fragmentary: they lack integrity and systemic nature.

“You will agree that whatever period of Ukrainian military history we take, we will always find a host of unstudied blank spots.

“It does not mean, however, that we should be rewriting history. The idea is that military history must be truthful in essence. Indisputably, very much depends on historical circumstances and, oddly enough, on the conscience of historians. It is only when we, scholars, stop putting expediency before justice that historical truth will reign supreme under all circumstances. This means history should be written in such a way that one does not have to revamp it over and over again. In my view, the historian should take a stand similar to that of medieval scientists who stood their ground despite the threat of an Inquisition fire.

“Examples galore. Take, for instance, the coverage of World War II, particularly in connection with the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Ukrainian lands. What the overwhelming majority of the scholarly conferences held on this occasion lacked of scholarliness. They were rather reminiscent of the old-style jingoistic propaganda. There were merely a few instances of rethinking and unbiased assessment. Obviously, society is, on the one hand, looking forward to such rethinking and, on the other, is somewhat inert, while academia is not exactly bursting to offer reasonable and convincing arguments and explanations.

“Yet, historians, especially military historians, will inevitably have to discard the Soviet-time musty stereotypes and offer truthful assessments of Ukrainian involvement in that worldwide carnage. They should speak the language of facts rather than that of ideological cliches of any kind.”

“So you insist there still are, so to speak, undiscovered lands for military historians to explore?”

“There are plenty of them. I sometimes think that honest historians occasionally shudder to realize the extent to which Ukrainian military history has been distorted and misrepresented — from the most ancient times to this day. Thickly strewn with blank spots and still to be properly studied are Early Rus’ naval expeditions; the battles of Ukrainian Cossacks, especially the liberation war led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky — with its many unfairly hushed up victories (the Berestechko debacle is out of place here); the true picture of the role of Ukrainian Cossacks in tsarist Russia; the Russian-Ukrainian wars of 1917-1920; participation of the Ukrainian People’s Republic army in the 1920 Russian-Polish war; the liberation of Western Ukraine by the Red Army in 1939-1940; World War II developments on Ukrainian territory; the struggle of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and so forth. Is this not enough?

“Still to receive in-depth analysis and fair public treatment are the great Ukrainian military figures of all times: above all, the names of Cossack leaders Ivan Vyhovsky, Ivan Mazepa, and Ivan Bohun come to mind; liberation struggle heroes Symon Petliura, Mykola Yanakiv, and Marko Bezruchko; Ukrainian Insurgent Army commanders Taras Bulba- Borovets, Roman Shukhevych, Roman Sushko, and hundreds of others. Just think of it: society knows almost nothing essential about these people. All it has heard about them are malicious hints and insinuations.

“Now, is it really accidental that, for some reason, Ukraine marks the defeat near Berestechko rather than victories near Batih, Zbarazh, or Konotop? If an individual has been brought up on the example of a defeat, it is of little wonder that he and the public at large are infected with a complex of inferiority. Are these things not interconnected?

“Word has it the Crimean War anniversary is also going to be observed in Ukraine. Please don’t get me wrong. Everything should be studied for the sake of knowledge. But to observe it... And what is going to be observed? An imperial and in fact invasive war? A war that has very little to do with Ukrainian military history? Or consider for example: a pliable Rozumovsky and Russia-leaning Skoropadsky are in high esteem, while the uncompromising Vyhovsky and Petliura are being either hushed up or debated upon in a largely negative vein. This raises the question: where is public memory being guided to and how long can historical memory be tampered with?

“We seem to know at least something, albeit with omissions and distortions, about the tragic and, at the same time, heroic battle near Kruty, but all things related to a horrendous shooting of 5000 Kyivans by Bolshevik Muravyov’s troops are still being kept dark. Nor do we hasten to learn about other battles and armed clashes with the Russian Bolshevik troops in the fall of 1917 and winter of 1918 (historians put down their number to over 200). Too embarrassed to speak? Embarrassed before whom? Kowtowing again?

“Let us consider for example a recent workshop on the sixtieth anniversary of the Korsun-Shevchenkivske Battle. The speakers extolled strategy, operational brilliance, glory, courage, and heroism — and deservedly so, for that was a second Stalingrad for the Germans on the Ukrainian land. We must express our deep veneration for and sincerely bow to both the dead and the living; we must not hurt the feelings of war veterans. Yet, it is also time to know the truth about one rifle for three hastily mobilized and untrained Ukrainian boys who had grown up during the Nazi occupation and laid down their lives, by the thousand, near Korsun, about the overrated German and underrated Soviet losses, about a 25% rate of losses resulting from poor health and inadequate food supplies during the offensive, about the number of German captives (50 and not 90 thousand), and about the fact that an estimated 18 to 24 thousand Germans broke loose from the noose. Everything needs truthful coverage. For one must learn from not only victorious reports but also negative facts.”

“TO EUROPE AND THE WORLD VIA UKRAINE”

“Colonel, as Ukraine is doing its utmost to integrate into Europe, are the processes of integration important for military history?”

“Extremely so! And it is not just a current fad. It is what we have already called priority movement. The making of Ukrainian military history calls for debunking a lot of myths and, which is no less important, we must force the world community to revise the myths it created about Ukrainian history.

“It is important to not only get absorbed in Ukrainian military history proper but also embark on the road of integrating it into the European and worldwide military historical science. In other words, national military history should be linked to international military history and vice versa. We must work under the slogan, To Europe and the World via Ukraine.

“We must put the record straight. The Ukrainians have made a notable contribution to the European and worldwide historical science, the history of military thought, and military art. National identity is especially discernible in the military art of Ancient Rus’ which was at war with more than one enemy. The whole world wondered at the strikingly unique military art of Ukrainian Cossacks.

“What we have at the moment is just the history of Ukrainians. What we must do is highlight it numerous aspects in contrast to other civilizations, nations, and states.

“Ukrainian military history had and still has the Russian vector. We have almost never studied our thousand-year-long ties with the Ottoman Empire. Even the Polish theme was not popular. For example, instead of making a thorough analysis of the centuries-old conflicts between Polish landlords and Ukrainian peasants, researchers would only comment on these from the perspective of class struggle.”

“MILITARY HISTORY IS NOT A PRESERVE OF THE MILITARY ALONE”

“Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense is supposed to show departmental interest in the development of military history. For it is the business of, above all, the military.”

“It would be a mistake to consider military history a departmental problem. It would also be wrong to leave it to the defense ministry, let alone the public, to deal with. This is a national issue.

“Two years ago, a non-governmental organization, Ukrainian Institute of Military History, was founded on the initiative and owing to the efforts of enthusiastic academics at Kyiv’s military and civilian institutions.

“Yet, we saw very soon that the institute as a not-for-profit organization was unable to solve problems without government support.

“For this reason, as long ago as June 2003 we initiated a parliamentary request to the Prime Minister of Ukraine about the problem of military history. However, longtime interdepartmental correspondence resulted in the following reply, ‘Given the shortage of funds, it is advisable to carry out further research into the problems of military history within the framework of the existing full-time research institutions and academic divisions of the higher educational establishments of the Armed Forces.’

“However, the existing full- time military establishments are unable to do this on a proper level. It is obvious that only an interdepartmental state-run publicly- funded military historical research institution can fundamentally study the existing overcomplicated problems of military history, making use of up-to-date methods, and coordinate theses studies on a nationwide scale.

“And it would be, if I may say so, irrational to set up new elements in the Armed Forces at a time of reductions and shortage of funds. After all, it is even immoral for government functionaries to recommend this, knowing that research units in the Armed Forces received a mere 8% of the required funds last year.

“The Ministry of Defense is no doubt interested in having high- quality military historical research. For everybody is aware today of a pressing need to study local wars, modern-day armed conflicts and ways of preventing them, and the problems of antiterrorism and peacekeeping. Scholarly achievements in military history can and must be used in the moral and psychological training of the personnel, in imparting a sense of national identity to career officers, and in the military-patriotic schooling of young people.

“And while departments have already shown some interest in addressing the mentioned issues, other problems of a more distant military past will surely not be studied.

“What inspires hope is what I already said: the current defense ministry leadership takes a fair view of the problems of science, including military history.

“I could be wrong, but it sometimes seems to me that the lower echelons turn a blind eye or, maybe, even put up tacit resistance to the new minister’s intentions and guidelines. In all probability, like cavalryman Budionny was reluctant to admit the superiority of tanks over cavalry in a war, some of the present-day servicemen find it hard to understand that we must lead on, not trail behind. Above all, this applies to scientific research.

“As a historian, I would like to see lectures conducted and our history popularized not only by civilian historians but also by a defense ministry-sponsored highly professional school of military historians.”

“And do you know how these problems are being addressed in other countries?”

“The global experience to which we so often refer shows that almost all countries have military historical research institutions. Consider for example Russia. There is an institute of military history; the General Staff of the Russian Federation’s Armed Forces has a military history center; the headquarters of services, the rear, the military districts, fleets and branches have military history groups; the armies, corps, and central command posts have full-time historian officers; large and small units and their staffs employ part-time historian officers who have undergone compulsory training in this subject. There are a total 150 full-time and more than 2500 part-time military historians there.

“In the US, the Department of Defense has a history department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have a history directorate, and there are history sections at the Departments of the Army, Air Force and Navy. Germany has a directorate of historical studies. In France, there are military history services at the army, air force and navy headquarters. Even Greece, with a 70,000-strong army, has a military history committee, manned with 400 full-time experts, at the General Headquarters. They are all aware of the importance of military history.”

“And what Ukrainian institution trains military historians?”

“There is no such specialty as military history in any of the Ukrainian higher educational institutions. We’ve got an army, we’ve got history — but nobody to train military historians? Top-skilled specialists in this field can only be trained in doctoral and post-doctoral courses. The first sprouts of military historical science emerged at the National Academy of Defense thanks to the efforts of two specialized (open and closed) doctorate award committees. There is a hard core of researchers here, who are going to do a string of promising studies. There also is a specialized military history doctoral council at the National Polytechnic University of Lviv.

“However, not a single post-doctoral dissertation on military history has been defended in the past twelve years at the Academy, supposedly the chief research institution of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. There is no specialized higher doctorate award council at the Academy, which slows things down. It is a matter of urgency that such a council should be set up because a series of post-doctoral dissertations are in the pipeline. If a higher doctorate council is set up, at least six or eight military history-related dissertations could be defended at the Academy in the nearest future.

“I know from my own experience that research activity depends on whether or not there is a specialized council. The establishment of a Ph.D. award council provided a strong impulse for the doctoral students who had had no opportunity to defend their dissertations for years on end: in only two years eleven young military history scholars received Ph.D.s at our Academy. What matters is that the doctoral student should clearly see his ultimate goal. In other words, there should be a school, a center, to train aspiring researchers. This will not happen by itself for many decades to come, while at present this does not even require additional funding and will not make a hole in the budget.”

“THE SECRETS OF ZAPOROZHIAN SICH?”

“You have mentioned a closed-access council to award doctorates in history. Does this mean history is a closed science?”

“You see, the military inertia of affixing a seal of secrecy sometimes goes over to historical research. I do not think it is right. While it seems right to classify some modern-day problems, it is odd to classify such topics as World War II, or, say, the artillery of Ukrainian armed formations in 1917-1921, or intelligence service in Zaporozhian Sich. The secrets of Zaporozhian Sich?! What for? To conceal somebody’s true colors? I see no other explanations. All this clearly smacks of Soviet times or, to quote Prof. Yury Shapoval, such decisions are a non-motivated reverse into the past.”

“Does the problem of access to archives still exist?”

“There are more opportunities to get access to archives. Yet, there still remain obstacles for young researchers who want to get to Russian archives which have amassed the largest resources about World War II and other periods of history. The archives of other states are more accessible or, at least, they were several years ago, when I happened to work in the archives of Paris, Warsaw, and Munich.”

“THE ONLY SCHOLARLY MILITARY HISTORY JOURNAL MAY CEASE TO EXIST”

“Mr. Lytvyn, you are editor of the journal Voyenna istoriya [Military history]. Would you tell us about the journal?”

“Our journal’s motto is Study Wars to Avert Them. It is quite logical that the journal should have emerged in Ukraine at a time when the book market, particularly periodicals, is glutted with Russian- language publications that continue to skew Ukrainian military history. A journal like this is good for a wide circle of researchers and academics, the army and police, the Ukrainian public at large, and for all those who are not indifferent to Ukraine’s history in general and military history in particular.

“Our brand-new journal was greeted by the President of Ukraine. The journal is on the list of specialized publications of Ukraine’s Higher Attestation Commission and has about a hundred subscribers (and, hence, is responsible before them).

“Among the journal contributors are the well-known historians Shapoval, Sidak, Korol, Chernenko, Mukovsky, and others. What made quite a ripple was Pyliavets’s publication Hungary. 1956, Sidak’s book on the UNR’s army counterintelligence, and a special issue dedicated to the sixtieth anniversary of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army known as UPA. We do our best to make the journal a national Ukraine-centered publication.”

“It must be difficult and perhaps risky to publish a not-for- profit journal.”

“The plight of the journal mirrors that of the military historical science. The journal was conceived and is published as an exclusively not-for-profit publication and continues owing to our enthusiasm. It is too problematic to secure off-budget funds. Obviously, military history is not a commercial commodity or an applied science. But some things in our life may have no commercial value. Unfortunately, there are few of those ready to offer financial aid. We received financial aid from Obolon Ltd., the Oleh Olzhych Foundation, and some individuals. But this cannot solve the problem. We have published five issues and have several more in the pipeline but lack funds to have them printed.

“Our appeals to the government remained unheard either. The above-mentioned reply to a parliamentary query says, among other things, ‘It seems impossible to grant the status of a budget-supported publication to the journal Voyenna Istoriya under conditions of funding shortfalls.’

“A desperate situation: Ukraine’s only scholarly military historical journal, badly needed by the Ukrainian military historical science and, above all, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, is unable to come out regularly and may cease to exist.

“Now about the risks. Yes, it is risky. For we are always thinking about where we can find funds. We always smart from the feeling of guilt and responsibility before the reader and the subscriber. Yet, this risk is incomparable with the positive results that the journal can yield. We feel somebody must do this job for the sake of the future. So we are determined to do so: it is, if you like, our civil responsibility. For, as a well-known maxim has it, whoever walks will pass the road.”