Suchergebnisse

In the Maelstrom is the first study of the Fourteenth Waffen-SS "Galicia" Division that covers both the military formation's wartime experience and its postwar fate. It explores the lives of the Division's veterans, controversial ongoing debates surrounding the motivation of recruits, and accusations of wartime criminality.

Both celebrated and condemned, Ukrainian nationalism is one of the most controversial and vibrant topics in contemporary discussions of Eastern Europe. Perhaps today there is no more divisive and heatedly argued topic in Eastern European studies than the activities in the 1930s and 1940s of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). This book examines the legacy of the OUN and is the first to consider the movement's literature alongside its politics and ideology. It argues that nationalism's mythmaking, best expressed in its literature, played an important role. In the interwar period seven major writers developed the narrative structures that gave nationalism much of its appeal. For the first time, the remarkable impact of their work is recognized.

This article examines the main narratives that have dominated scholarly and political writings on the "Galicia" Division, the Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division that at the end of the Second World War was renamed the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army. Dominant narratives have focused on accusations of criminality, the hope that the formation would serve as the core of a national army at the war's end, survival as a motivation for signing up, the experience of the soldiers after their surrender to the British, and the decision to transfer former soldiers to the UK and then to give them civilian status. Only the first of these narratives has been explored in depth as a result of the 1986 Deschиnes Commission of Enquiry into War Crimes in Canada and the 1989 Hetherington-Chalmers Report in the UK. Far less attention has been devoted to other narratives, and some lines of enquiry suggested by the rich memoir and creative literature have hardly as yet been touched.

This article examines the main narratives that have dominated scholarly and political writings on the "Galicia" Division, the Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division that at the end of the Second World War was renamed the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army. Dominant narratives have focused on accusations of criminality, the hope that the formation would serve as the core of a national army at the war's end, survival as a motivation for signing up, the experience of the soldiers after their surrender to the British, and the decision to transfer former soldiers to the UK and then to give them civilian status. Only the first of these narratives has been explored in depth as a result of the 1986 Deschиnes Commission of Enquiry into War Crimes in Canada and the 1989 Hetherington-Chalmers Report in the UK. Far less attention has been devoted to other narratives, and some lines of enquiry suggested by the rich memoir and creative literature have hardly as yet been touched.

This article examines the main narratives that have dominated scholarly and political writings on the "Galicia" Division, the Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division that at the end of the Second World War was renamed the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army. Dominant narratives have focused on accusations of criminality, the hope that the formation would serve as the core of a national army at the war's end, survival as a motivation for signing up, the experience of the soldiers after their surrender to the British, and the decision to transfer former soldiers to the UK and then to give them civilian status. Only the first of these narratives has been explored in depth as a result of the 1986 Deschиnes Commission of Enquiry into War Crimes in Canada and the 1989 Hetherington-Chalmers Report in the UK. Far less attention has been devoted to other narratives, and some lines of enquiry suggested by the rich memoir and creative literature have hardly as yet been touched.

<p class="EW-abstract"><strong>Abstract:</strong> When Dokia Humenna's novel depicting the Second World War, <em>Khreshchatyi iar</em> (Khreshchatyk Ravine), was published in New York in 1956, it created a controversy. Readers were particularly interested in the way activists of the OUN were portrayed. This article analyzes readers' comments and Humenna's responses, which are today stored in the archives of the Ukrainian Academy of Science in New York. The novel is based on a diary Humenna kept during the German occupation of Kyiv in the years 1941-1943.</p><strong>Keywords: </strong>Dokia Humenna, <em>Khreshchatyi iar</em>, Second World War, OUN, Émigré Literature, Reader Response

The ideology of Ukrainian nationalism in the 1930s and 1940s was a contested arena in which three dominant currents fought for hegemony: the national democrats grouped around the UNDO party, the authoritarian nationalists who supported the OUN movement, and the more extreme brand of authoritarianism espoused by the publicist Dmytro Dontsov. The three currents can be distinguished by analyzing both ideological writings and the myth-system that underpinned creative literature of this period. Distinguishing between the three currents allows for a better understanding of ideological shifts among those calling themselves nationalists, particularly shifts which occurred during the Second WorldWar and its aftermath. It also helps to explain some of the confusions that surround the term "Ukrainian nationalism" in the present day.