WHAT KIND OF HISTORY TEXTBOOKS
DO THE UKRAINIANS STUDY? Part I

Pulled-out-of-the-head "secret orders", clichés and straight lies — that’s the only arsenal at the disposal of the nationalistic pseudo-historians. These people themselves are not dangerous at all — that’d be a piece of cake to expose them. The problem is that this kind of trash has been getting into the heads of Ukrainian schoolchildren for ten years now and — little-by-little — it was becoming the "common public point of view".

Other parts of the cycle

Masterpiece of the "Holodomor specialists"

This article is a beginning of an extensive cycle that is fully and completely dedicated to the review and analysis of the Ukrainian history textbooks. I believe that the theses that have been brought to the kids as the only and undisputable truth for, at least, ten years now will raise quite a complicated gamut of feelings — had anyone told them to an adult man who knows history even at the amateur level.

This year we will celebrate the great memorable date — the 65th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. This victory was a result of tremendous efforts of the nations inhabiting the Soviet territory — they’ve gained it, having paid an incredibly high price. It may seem that while the very participants of these events are alive there’s no place for any speculations on that matter. However, we have to state that in the Ukraine these speculations not only exist but rather have a systematic character at the level of the very Ministry of Education and Science. We will give the extensive excerpts from the origin in the text of the article — in this case they are absolutely necessary.

Here is the textbook — if one may call it so — intended to teach the Ukrainian children. "Genesa" publisher’s house from Kiev printed it in 2001; mind that this is already the 4th edition. F. G. Turchenko, P. P. Panchenko, S. M. Timchenko: "Contemporary history of the Ukraine. 11th grade, part 2. 1939-2001".

Distinctive authors’ team definitely didn’t go through any inspirational frictions in the process of writing this piece of belles-lettres. F. G. Turchenko is famous for such works as "Holodomor of 1932-1933: Zaporozhye dimension". Panchenko, vis-à-vis of his, has congruously distinguished himself with such pieces of writing like "Mowed down by the Holodomor. Commemorating the victims of Holodomors of 1932-1933 and 1946-1947". It stands out a mile that Mr. Panchenko has actually managed to discover several "holodomors", so he’s definitely a decent historian. I was honestly doing my best, trying to find out what are the achievements of their co-author S. M. Timchenko at the history field, but I’ve failed to find anything but a single review titled "Why the agricultural reform in the Ukraine hasn’t been completed yet? Reflections".

Actually, considering the merits of the authors, tone of the textbook and the manner of giving the information are quite predictable even prior to reading. Apprehends gradually begin to confirm since the second page — literally. Here are the quotes from the address to the readers (I beg your pardon for the possible mistranslations from the deliberately "independent" Ukrainian):

"In the beginning of this period our country came through the unprecedented military trials of 1939-1945 but it wasn’t broken or demoralized. Having overcome the third Soviet Holodomor of 1946-1947, in the extremely difficult circumstances of ‘absent statehood’ (new Ukrainian term designating the period when the Ukraine wasn’t independent, though it deserved it, of course) and totalitarian Stalin’s regime, it revived its economy and achieved its further development in the utmost short terms".

In other words, authors imagine rather weird picture. There is an independent Ukraine — the one that fought by itself and, seemingly, just fell from the sky — that restored its agriculture independently from the rest of the Soviet Union, to which it wasn’t connected at all (according to the opinion of the textbook authors). Thus, quite specific paradigm — the one proclaiming that the Ukraine and the USSR (read "Russia") have nothing in common at all — starts to embed into the conscience of the pupils as early as at the stage of the author’s address.

"Since 1953 the ‘de-Stalinization’ started — it was interrupted in 1964, having failed the hopes and expectations of the Ukrainian nation".

Judging by this passage, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev (mind that during the "Stalin’s totalitarian regime" he was the First Secretary of the Ukrainian Central Committee of the Bolshevik’s Communist Party of the Ukraine) should be regarded to be the mouthpiece of the expectancies and aspirations of the "Ukrainian nation". Having held this high post, Nikita Sergeevich showed himself as such enthusiastic "repressionist" that Moscow had to constrain him with the special directions.

The description of the Great Patriotic War may be considered to be the classical example of a strictly ideological product that is merely and indirectly related to the very history — this is more of a statement of the authors’ opinion that is not burdened with the wish to tell pupils actual facts contradicting their "theoretical constructions". Striving to place the real events into the Procrustean bed of the "independence directions", logic of the authors is moving in the incredibly curved trajectories. When it’s not enough — they use straight lie that, of course, cannot stand up any criticism at all. However, later we’d analyze it in detail, while reviewing the section titled "The Ukraine during the Second World War. (1939-1945)."

The Ukraine and the "United Nations"

"In September of 1939 the Ukraine entered the Second World War. Having sustained severe losses, the Ukrainian nation made an honorable contribution into the victory of the United Nations over the aggressor".

Annotation raises lots of questions. "United Nations" — who that might be? Maybe the League of Nations was meant by that? Or is it surmised that the fascist Germany was defeated during the police operation conducted under the aegis of the UNO that didn’t exist at the moment? We should make a special note that we didn’t’ come across the term "Great Patriotic War" in the textbook. The selection of date is rather odd as well — in some inconceivable way the Ukraine is represented as a territorial formation that is somehow out of time and the countdown of the war period starts from the moment when the warfare started in Poland — the latter included the Western territories of today’s Ukraine at the time. Is it tough to understand? You bet. Writing the history according to a predefined plan requires certain victims.

In order for pupil not to forget who is to blame for all the world and Ukrainian troubles, the pre-war period is given in a very abridged and peculiar way. There’s neither "Munich plot" along with the "Anschluss", nor the intensive "pacifying policy" of the Anglo-French politicians who were successively yielding Hitler everything he needed to create the engine of war. Here’s how the prehistory of war looks like in this textbook:

"The beginning of the Second World War was preceded by the conclusion of Soviet-German non-aggression pact on the 23rd of August, 1939 — it was reckoned to last for ten years...The secret agreement between the Germany and the USSR made a graphic display of the imperial essence of both powers and the cynical dropping of the generally used international relations principles by its leadership. Soviet-German pact loosened Adolf Hitler’s hands to start the aggression in Europe. On the 1st of September, 1939 Nazi troops invaded Poland. England and France, having the inter-allied agreements with Poland, declared the war on Germany. These actions gave a start to the Second World War".

That’s not even delirium — it’s got to be something completely off the hinges. If a person had ever looked into the history books he’d be aware of the fact that when England and France surrendered Sudeten to Hitler, the USSR was ready to immediately send the military aid to Czechoslovakia — there are plenty of documents confirming that. Moreover, right until the much talked-about Molotov-Ribbentrop pact the USSR was trying to create the structure capable of becoming the collective security system. This initiative was torpedoed by England and France again. The latter — let us note that — were not formally "imperial", though having extensive colonies all over the world. Anyway, who needs such complications? The USSR gave the "go-ahead" for starting the warfare to Hitler and all the rest is the work of the devil. And don’t forget to mention yet oppression on the page 7.

"Part of the historically Ukrainian Trans-Dniestrian territories were included to Moldavia". We’d reckon that in case you open up the Moldavian history textbooks, there would be rather different opinion concerning this subject.

Regarding the beginning of the Second World War, much greater attention was paid to the terrors of the "Soviet occupation". Read the excerpt until the very end, I beg you.

"Polish officials were replaced with the new-comers. They were the functionaries of the partisan, state and economic bodies who were sent from the Ukraine — majority of them were poorly educated, unqualified executors who often didn’t even spoke Ukrainian and were unaware of the local customs.

Some actions of the new authorities were met with the approval. National intelligence greeted the extension of the Ukrainian schools network, Ukrainization of the higher education. Lvov University of Jan Kazimir was renamed into the University of Ivan Franko; Lvov Opera Theatre was Ukrainized and renamed into the Opera and Ballet Theatre of Ivan Franko. New Ukrainian newspapers were issued. Free medical treatment was imposed. New authorities brought severe political terror to the Western Ukraine".

How does it feel? Outrageous examples of the severe political terror, aren’t they?

Seemingly, the free medical treatment was the main horror of the totalitarianism.

Then there goes the classical description of the NKVD atrocities that beats some sort of a record of using the cliché per the unit of text.

"Without any charges, trial or investigation they were contained at the overcrowded prisons and then — along with their family members — were moved into the Eastern parts of the USSR in the cattle carts. Sometimes the savage reprisal was given semblance of the lawfulness. This was mostly done in order to frighten the local residents."

We’d really like to ask the textbook authors a question — why do they dislike the population of the Western Ukraine so much that they ascribe panic terror of the law to them? As a conclusion of that paragraph, authors gave the recollections of some Banderovite goon Mr. Kutasty, which were published at the "Ukrainian Prometheus" newspaper in Detroit (mind that this is an American city). According to his memories, nobody liked Stalin and the USSR in the Western Ukraine. In order to consolidate the learnt material, pupils are offered to describe the USSR, having grounded on these memories from Detroit.

As long as the military history was a bit off the Holodomor and national-oppression competence borders, the war itself is described rather stingily, and we have a dim impression that author has drawn the information about it from the compositions of the English citizen who writes under the pen name "Viktor Suvorov".

Starting from the 11th page, schoolchildren are offered the minimum program made in accordance with a usual cliché scenario. "Reasons of the Red Army failures" are: "the fact that the military-political leadership of the country headed by Joseph Stalin has brought the USSR on the verge of disaster because of its anti-population domestic and risky foreign policy.

Best cadres of the Red Army were repressed, of which the German command was fully aware. Commander’s initiative wasn’t encouraged in the military at all. Quality of the Soviet war machinery and weapons were inferior to the German ones, though having excelled them in numbers. The rearmament was going in a turtle’s pace. Stalin didn’t believe the facts. The dismantling of the permanent defensive works was a significant miscalculation.

Stalin’s leadership has disoriented both army and the population in fact, convincing them of the fact that in the future war Soviet troops would pursue military actions "at the enemy territory" and "shedding hardly any blood".

We have neither need, nor desire to enter the maze of the detailed examination of these fables — they were disproved quite a number of times. Historians, competent in these matters — such as A. Dyukov and A. Isaev — have published few exhaustive books dedicated to this subject. So I consider sending the keener readers to their papers to be the best way to handle this matter.

Creators of the textbook once again demonstrate the eccentric vision of the situation on the page 12, in the subsection "Martial law regime". "Urging to keep the country under control, Stalin’s leadership imposed the martial law in the several regions of the USSR — in compliance with it, military authorities obtained the emergency powers. Authorities tried to secure the order at the home front using the power means and brutal terror that was characteristic of the totalitarian regime."

Here are the questions without answers once again. So they want to tell that during the war the martial law was imposed exclusively for the sake of "keeping country under control"? There are two mutually exclusive paragraphs on the page 30, where the evacuation matter is studied. Namely they are: "The absence of the preliminarily scheduled evacuation plans brought the disorganization into the evacuation processes" and "About 3.8 million laborers, peasants and employees went to the east. At their new job places they’ve joined the working process at the defense enterprises, agricultural sector and other organizations". The evacuation was very much "disorganized", you see.

Section "Starting up the Resistance movement in the Ukraine" is quite characteristic — it starts on the page 23. "Facts prove that the anti-Hitler resistance movement had two fractions since the very beginning. The first of them was really guided by the Soviet propaganda, while the second one oriented towards the creation of the independent Ukrainian state".

It’s hard to add anything here. Probably, if thanks to some miracle Yuschenko would have managed to stay President for the second term, in 5 or 6 years the opinions of some Soviet partisans’ presence would have become almost improvable and innovative hypotheses.

After that, the European identity of the Ukraine is emphasized in a rather unobtrusive way. "The existence of the fractions with different political orientation inside of the anti-Nazi resistance movement was quite common for the European countries. Thus, the Ukraine wasn’t the exception here".

"Different political orientation" is an exceptionally tolerant definition. But still the question — whether we are to consider the Vichy government in France to be a "Resistance movement" — remains off-screen.

The way OUN suddenly started to pose a "great threat" to the occupants

On the same page the authors reach the main subject, namely — the Organization of the Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Even given the whole patchy background, this fragment is distinctive for the number of cheaty tricks and swindles.

"Organization of the Ukrainian nationalists — especially the part of it that followed Andrii Melnik (who replaced Yevhen Konovalets, ex-leader of the OUN, when the latter was killed in Holland in 1938) — set certain hopes on Germany".

"Certain hopes" — that’s brilliant! General-lieutenant Sudoplatov who — working undercover — literally knew the Ukrainian nationalistic underground from within wrote in his book "Special operations. Lubyanka and Kremlin in 1930s-1950s" that as far back as the middle of 1930s even the Berlin apartment of Konovalets was funded by Abwehr.

"Most people in OUN were dissatisfied with Andrii Melnik’s policy towards the closer with Hitlerites. This fraction was headed by Stepan Bandera."

And here’s the rhetorical question once again: how comes that it was exactly Bandera who took the very enthusiastic part in creation of the "Nahtigal" battalion then? Mind that it was formed in order to act in cooperation with the 1st battalion of the subversive "Brandenburg-800" unit at the territory of the Ukrainian Socialistic Republic.

"The very first days of the war proved that the hopes to achieve at least limited independence with the help of Germany were in vain. On the evening of the 30th of June, right after the retreat of the Soviet troops from Lvov, the Ukrainian National Conventions, summoned by the OUN-B leaders have approved the revival of the Ukrainian state independence".

However, the supreme partisan and state leadership of the Nazi Germany refused to support the proclamation of the Ukrainian state. On the 9th of July Y. Stetsko government was disbanded. And on the 15th of September, 1941 S. Bandera and Y. Stetsko were arrested due to the Hitler’s order.

It’s worth marking out two episodes. One of them is quite funny at that. Ukrainian nationalists were terribly unlucky in the field of creating their own national state. Finally, they’ve managed to reign during a whole week and then the regular Wehrmacht troops have come to Lvov and shown them who was the daddy there. Second episode, however, gives no ground to laugh at all. In a very delicate manner the textbook authors hush up the fact that 4.000 Jews were killed in Lvov during that week. It’s just the number of murdered Jews, though the Poles as well as the representatives of the other nationalities were slaughtered as well. However, how can such trifles be compared to another tragedy of losing the premature statehood? Bandera, though, was arrested not for his political exercises but rather for his complete intractability and even conflicts with his nationalistic brothers-in-arms. Striving to produce any possible proofs of the hypothesis of severe and savage fight of the Ukrainian nationalists against the Germany, authors write the following:

"The independent OUN movement posed great threat to the occupation regime. Comparing the range of the OUN and the Soviet resistance in the Ukraine, German command had to admit in its secret order dated the 31st of December, 1941: ‘There is not a single rebellious organization in the Ukraine that would be capable to threat the German regime, except the OUN-B group’. Despite the heavy losses, OUN members continued to fight until the last days of the occupation".

Actually, apart from the "secret order" that the nameless German command directed to God knows whom — authors have no other proofs to produce. I’d personally present a bottle of a good cognac to the person who would be able to discover this order.

What were the collaborationists "fighting" for?

But still the collaborationist kept fighting. It’s just not specified whom they were fighting against. Marshal Konev recalls the SS-division "Galicia" in his memoirs — it was formed out of the nationalists and it took part in the Lvov-Sandomir operation. However, it didn’t distinguish itself with the peculiar combat characteristics.

General Soviet offensive that took place in autumn of 1943 is represented in the cited textbook in a following way: "During whole October Soviet command was concentrating the troops at the right bank of Dnieper, preparing to continue the wide-front attack. Longing to emphasize the exceptional importance of these operations and inspire the combat spirit of the troops — the latter, having approached the Ukraine, were reinforced mostly by its citizens — on the 20th of October, 1943 the General Headquarters renamed the Voronezh, Steppe, South-Western and Southern fronts into respectively 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Ukrainian fronts".

Do the authors really think that the Voronezh front, situated somewhere in the middle of Carpathians would look properly and wouldn’t mess up the identification? And what about the repeatedly mourned-about Ukrainian victims of the total genocide whom the Red Army sent to GULAG right after occupying the territory? Who reinforced the troops then? However the popularizing historians give their version on the page 36:

"Peculiar tactical tendency of the headmost troops of the breach was caused by the specific conditions. In the eyes of numerous commanders and commissioners the Ukrainians were the potential traitors who were to be ‘given a lesson’ and forced ‘to expiate the forgiveness for the shame of being occupied with their blood’. All this resulted in the urge to place the hastily mobilized citizens of the occupied Ukrainian areas to the special conditions, throwing them into the very thick of the war".

This is also rather difficult to comment on. Who were these commanders? Timoshenko? Rybalko? Moskalenko? "While the offensive operations of the Soviet forces were put on a wide scale at the Ukrainian territory, the weapon of the victory was forged deep at the home front. Ukrainian citizens, evacuated to the Soviet rear front, took the utmost active part in that. After the evacuation people worked without any holidays and vacations, 12-14 hours a day...But even being placed into the conditions like that, Ukrainian workers showed selflessness and labor heroism. Going over the labor quotas was common. Base economy grounded not only on the labor of the evacuated and local residents of the Eastern territories, but also on the millions of GULAG prisoners — the Ukrainians were the most numerous group of them.

There’s an impression that while making up this paragraph, the Soviet textbook was used. The only thing the authors have added, were the "millions of GULAG prisoners".

Actually, it is a truly weird wish to push the Ukrainians to the top positions in every kind of statistics without exceptions. Mentioning GULAG wouldn’t be out-of-place as well — what if the pupils have started to forget about the terrors of life in the USSR, having remembered the heroic war and labor deeds of their ancestors. Then, as if suddenly recollected, the authors give the numbers of the heroic UPA activity:

"In April of 1943 UPA killed 600 Hitlerites. UPA members fought their way to the several towns and territories of the Western Polesia, liberated the prisoners, and destroyed the prisons, military and industrial objects. Since July to November of 1943 UPA conducted 120 fights, having killed — according to the incomplete data — 4.5 thousand enemy soldiers and officers".

What cities were occupied and where did this information come from is unknown. No data about any Wehrmacht losses sustained from the Banderovites — let alone the occupied cities and liberated prisoners — was discovered in the German archives.

Childish perplexity and undisguised lies are clearly seen in the following subsection "Relations of the OUN members with the Soviet and Polish partisans".

"Relations of the UPA members with the Polish armed units of different political intentions were quite tragic. UPA declared the need to eliminate the secondary fronts, with the exceptions of the German and the Bolshevist ones. However they’ve failed to reach mutual understanding with the Polish national powers".

What a sorrow. Probably the reason of the Poles’ dislike for the UPA was not only caused by their wish to have Ukraine as a part of Poland but also by the fact that the dashing Ukrainian nationalists have been slaughtering their fellow compatriots? When it comes to the Soviet partisans, authors use the barefaced lie.

"Simultaneously, top UPA command was trying to communicate with the Soviet partisans. Favorable circumstances for that have emerged during the Carpathian raid of S. Kovpak formation. However, the Moscow command has prohibited any negotiations with the Banderovites in a categorical manner. NKVD-mastered assassination of S. Rudnev — commissioner of the formation, who expressed his position against two different resistance fractions — became the tragic consequence of that". "Rudnev’s assassination" seems to be yet another "invention" of these three outstanding Ukrainian historians — it makes us question ourselves how long ago had these Messrs. visited psychiatrist or narcologist. It is well-known that all progress of Sidor Kovpak unit may be studied by the book "People with clear conscience" authored by P. P. Vershigora. Commissioner Semyon Vasylyevich Rudnev died during the fight near Delyatino village along with his comrades-in-arms and there are absolutely no facts proving the opposite.

That is the kind of war that Messrs. Turchenko, Timchenko and Panchenko described. As you could have made sure — such kind of trash would be difficult to read even treating it as a popular science anecdote. Everything connected with the USSR was given due to the principles of the old saying: either he’s a thief or someone stole something from him — anyway, he’s involved into the theft. Pulled-out-of-the-head "secret orders", clichés and straight lies — that’s the only arsenal at the disposal of the nationalistic pseudo-historians. These people themselves are not dangerous at all — that’d be a piece of cake to expose them. The problem is that this kind of trash has been getting into the heads of Ukrainian school children for ten years now and — little-by-little — it is becoming the "common public point of view".

By Andrey Polevoy

To be continued