This is your Ukrainian nationalism

[MichaelB_PL]

Originally posted by dobko
Mike....

(...) During the war, Ukrainian and Polish partisans accused each other of carrying out atrocities against each other's communities.

"Accused"? You sound like you disbelieve this accusations.
Say it openly: do you deny that UPA has murdered thousands of Polish civilians?

After World War II, Western Ukraine, including Lviv, was incorporated into Soviet Ukraine and there is still bitterness about the expulsion from the area of hundreds of thousands of Poles and the expulsion from Poland of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.

Bitter people tend to stretch the truth in their favor.

For the Polish side, the bitterness after loss of Lwow/Lviv and other lands was directed at Soviet Union and partially US/UK, not Ukrainians - in the Polish eyes, it was "Soviets" or "Russians" who took these lands, not "Ukrainians".

"Ukrainian" was not linked with Soviet Union at all, "Ukrainian" was linked with UPA and mass murders and it had a much stronger negative impact than "Russian" or "Soviet".

Mike. You call us dishonest because we don't agree with you limited point of view?

Dobko, yes, because the situation is very clear.

1.Ukrainian partisans from UPA have commited mass murder of Polish civilians basing on ethnic criteria.
2. The act described above in #1 was a fascist ethnic hate act.


Could you please tell us how exactly are these two points wrong in your opinion?

Originally posted by Benda
Michael, UPA can't be recognized as a fascist organization

Why not? BTW How many differences between UPA and for example the Croatian Ustashe can you really find?

Originally posted by Dobko
Do you read what you print? So you're saying Ukrainian partizans are liars and the Polish partizans are angels? As a matter of fact Mike, you seem to think all Ukrainians are liars, right?

Dobko, the other Michael might not like Ukrainians much, but I must say that I personally get a strange feeling when I see Ukrainians defending UPA, saying it was't a fascist organisation, etc etc.

BTW I don't know if you have read the article by J.P. Himka (http://www.univie.ac.at/spacesofidentity/_Vol_5_1/_HTML/Himka.html). I'm posting here selected fragments of it.

"Instead, there persists a deafening silence about, as well as reluctance to confront, even well-documented war crimes, such as the mass murder of Poles in Volhynia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)[7] and the cooperation of the Ukrainian auxiliary police in the execution of the Jews

(...)

In the diaspora one frequently encounters a double standard in discussing war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Ukrainians as opposed to those perpetrated against Ukrainians. Memoirs and eyewitness accounts, for example, are considered untrustworthy evidence for the former, but trustworthy for the latter; that is, Jewish or Polish first-hand accounts of Ukrainian war crimes are dismissed as biased, while an important Ukrainian victimization narrative, the famine of 1932-33, has relied primarily on just such eyewitness accounts
(...)
One was the late Ivan L. Rudnytsky, a scholar possessed of great civil courage. He questioned the view commonly accepted in diaspora historiography that the Bandera movement underwent a democratic transformation in the second half of 1943 and in 1944. He specifically criticized the xeonophobia of OUN, in particular its attitude toward the Jews during World War II and its ⌠conscious campaign of ▒cleansing the land▓ of Polish population.■[37] At the 1983 Ukrainian-Jewish conference, in response to Yaroslav Bilinsky▓s call for Jewish scholars to examine Jewish participation in Stalinist crimes, Ivan Rudnytsky said: ⌠Everybody should make some house cleaning first within his own group and it would be improper for Ukrainians to tell Jewish scholars what they have to do with Jewish history. This is their problem, but we should begin now to clean our own house, and we have not been good enough at it.

(...)

Sister Sophia Senyk has criticized the Greek Catholic church in Ukraine for its uncritical attitude towards UPA. In an article published in the journal of the Keston Institute, Religion, State & Society, she wrote: ⌠While some of its members were no doubt idealistic freedom fighters, the UIA [= UPA] also has on its records numerous massacres of civilian population and burnings, just as Nazi and communist military formations do.■

(...)

UPA▓s atrocities against civilians have been documented in riveting archivally based studies by Jeffrey Burds,[47] and he is currently working on a book-length, revisionist study of UPA. Volodymyr Serhiichuk published a volume of documents on the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and UPA that was meant to cast the nationalists in a favorable light. Nonetheless he included a document from an UPA unit in Volhynia that reported on its annihilation of Polish villages in the spring of 1943.[48] As more archival research is conducted, it is probable that more such information will come to light. Of course, the results of scholarly research are in most cases slow to be integrated into collective memory, but this is especially so when they are not easily accommodated into the existing narrative.

(...)

Also, since the 1920s Western Ukrainian nationalism had promoted ruthlessness towards national enemies: enemies were to be destroyed not forgiven, and the strong were to crush the weak.[54] Interwar and wartime Ukrainian nationalism was quite different from Nazism, but it did grow out of some of the same impulses and it led to some murderous actions."


Whad do you think about that article Dobko?


Michael







[Edited by MichaelB_PL on 15th October 2005 at 11:42]

[Zbyszek]

Originally posted by benda
Don't say Poles supported Ukrainian independance - they could only support Ukrainian independance FROM RUSSIA.

Republic of Poland recognized independence of Ukraine in 1991 as a first country in the world. Did not you know it Benda?

UHA was only one of many independence concepts for Ukraine. Petliura tried broader base but he failed. When he entered Kyiv with Pisudski he found indifferent people, tired of war. They had fighting enough.

[benda]

Zbyszek...
I never denied that fact...
But you wrote " 87 YEARS AGO", and I think it isn't 1991.

[MiguelMichael]

Originally posted by dobko

Do you read what you print? So you're saying Ukrainian partizans are liars and the Polish partizans are angels? As a matter of fact Mike, you seem to think all Ukrainians are liars, right? You need to pull your head out of your sedaka.

I'm glad there are so many Polish people around that I can call my friends. If you were the only one I've ever talked with I wouldn't think much of your country or people. [/B]

If Ukrainian partizans could kill innocent why couldn't they lie? Polish were no angels but they were no criminals.just take the proportions.AK had 350,000 members in the apogee while UPA only 40,000 while UPA killed 100,000 to 500,000 Poles and AK 15,000 to 20,000 Ukrainians.this comparison means that AVERAGE UPA member was a criminal and AK-man wasn't.

[benda]

Wrong figures - I've read about 100,000 warriors in UPA.

[benda]

I don't think there could be fewer because NOW 10,000 live in Ukraine - and lots died after war in battles with NKVD, during the war, because of illnesses (don't forget about their age), finally, some of them are in emigration now.

[JanekKowalski]

Czesc wszystkim
Z rzadka bo z rzadka ale czasem wpadam na te forum jak mam czas, a niestety nie za wiele go mam. Przeczytalem tutaj wiele interesujacych tekstow, czesc osob mi naprawde imponuje swoja determinacja i wiedza. Internet otwiera ludzi do bulu, kilka osobistych opowiesci dalo mi wiele do myslenia. Kresy wschodnie to naprawde kociolek narodowosciowy co najlepiej widac na tym forum i chcialem wam tak po prostu powiedziec DZIEKI za to ze piszecie. Domyslam sie ze czesc z was laczy cos z tymi terenami, mnie jakos nie, ale to czesc naszej historii. I tym samym mam do niej moze nie az taki ale jednak emocjonalny stosunek i tym samym rozumiem postawe co niektorych z was. Zreszta mieszkam na zachodzie polski i wielu znajmoych o ile nie wiekszosc pochodzi od rejenow Wilna po Lwow. Przeczytalem kiedys ksiazke chyba jeszcze w LO 'Europa nie prowincjonalna'. Gruba cegla ale polecam wszystkim ktorzy chca sie dowiedziec czegos o tym jak na historie tych terenow patrza inne narody. Poprawka: jak patrzy czesc historykow z tych krajow. Rozne poglady, czasami skrejne ta ksiazka przedstawia.... podobnie jak te forum. Jest tam tez o mordach na wolyniu podczas IIWW popelnonych przez ukraincСw glownie na polakach. Relacje ludzi ktorzy cudem przezyli. W sumie nie chcialem o tym pisac, ale chyba pierwszy raz jakos napisze. Powiem szczerze ...ze sie juz nie dziwie dlaczego w Polsce sie o tym malo mСwi. O tych mordach. Gdyby ludzi o tym czytali, o relacjach swiadkow to po prostu moglo by ich to zepsuc w jakis sposob. Wiem ze plakalem gdy to czytalem i nie moglem uwierzyc w to ze o tym w polsce milczano. Do tamtej pory mialem przeczucie, ktorego wczesniej nie precyzowalem, zabrzmi to dziwnie ale ze istnieja jakies granice bezwzglednej walki o ziemie, terytorium, swoje prawa. Takie w sumie mialem nikle wyobrazenie ze sa jakies granice ktorych czlowiek nie przekroczy. Ale po przeczytaniu w niemal szoku tych relacji .. po prostu nie wierzylem. Nie mam pojecia co moze pchnac ludzi do takich rzeczy. Wiem ze czlowiek, osaczony, walczacy o zycie jest zdolny do wszystkiego, ale to.... Teraz za kazdym razem gdy widze w relacjach z Ukrainy tych starszych ludzi w mundurach swoich bylych formacji... , zastanawiam sie ilu z nich ma krew niewinnych rodzin na rekach, ktory z nich zamiast defilowac powinien gnic w wiezieniu. Chyba sami oprawcy wymazali tamte zdarzenia z pamieci tak mi sie wydaje, ze dzialali w jakim zbiorowym amoku. Zmeczony juz jestem wiec koncze. Ta historia nadaje sie jak dla mnie tylko do zapomniania. Nie chce takiej histori ktora psuje krew. My jej nie potrzebujemy, a skoro bylo to nie jest. Aby im pomoc juz jest za pozno. Kazdy czlowiek ma prawo do bycia dumnym z tego kim jest. Dlatego w pewnym stoponiu rozumiem postawe co niektorych Ukraincow na tym forum, a my powinnismy byc troszke bardziej wyrozumiali co nie znaczy ze chcialbym namawiac do przymykania oka na ewidetne zaklamania etc. Nie nic tych rzeczy. Pozdrawiam.

[Edited by JanekKowalski on 17th October 2005 at 09:03]