ACTA UNIVERSITATIS STOCKHOLMIENSIS Stockholm Studies in History 103 Reordering of Meaningful Worlds Memory of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Post-Soviet Ukraine Yuliya Yurchuk ©Yuliya Yurchuk, Stockholm University 2014 Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations 101 ISSN: 1652-7399 ISBN: 978-91-87843-12-9 Stockholm Studies in History 103 ISSN: 0491-0842 ISBN 978-91-7649-021-1 Cover photo: Barricades of Euromaidan. July 2014. Yuliya Yurchuk. Printed in Sweden by US-AB, Stockholm 2014 Distributor: Department of History In memory of my mother Acknowledgements Each PhD dissertation is the result of a long journey. Mine was not an exception. It has been a long and exciting trip which I am happy to have completed. This journey would not be possible without the help and support of many people and several institutions to which I owe my most sincere gratitude. First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisors, David Gaunt and Barbara Törnquist-Plewa, for their guidance, encouragement, and readiness to share their knowledge with me. It was a privilege to be their student. Thank you, David, for broadening the perspectives of my research and for encouraging me not to be afraid to tackle the most difficult questions and to come up with the most unexpected answers. Thank you, Barbara, for introducing me to the whole field of memory studies, for challenging me to go further in my interpretations, for stimulating me to follow untrodden paths, and for being a source of inspiration for all these years. Your encouragement helped me to complete this book. My PhD trip started at the Baltic and East European Graduate School (BEEGS). I spent about two years there among people who created an environment where free thinking and true enthusiasm are most welcomed. I thank Anu-Mai Kõll, Rebecka Lettevall, Helene Carlbäck, Irina Sandomirskaja, Ann-Cathrine Jungar, Teresa Kulawik, Charlotte Bydler, Ninna Mörner, Lars Kleberg, Kristy Beers Fägersten and Thomas Lunden, for creating this atmosphere and for keeping it. I thank Lena Arvidson, Nina Cajhamre, Karin Lindebrant, and Ewa Rogström for solving all the administrative problems in the most perfect way. Many thanks also to our librarians Michal Bron and Dace Lageborg, who were always ready to help. After about two years at BEEGS I continued my PhD journey at the Department of History and Contemporary Studies which became my second home at Södertörn University. I would like to express my gratitude to Per Bolin, Kekke Stadin, Lars Ekdahl, Martin Wottle, Heiko Droste, Madeleine Hurd, Norbert Götz, Christina Douglas, Beatriz Lindqvist, and Ragnar Björk for creating and keeping the thought-provoking and stimulating environment at our department. I thank Calle Aaro for his devoted care of all the administrative issues which seem so daunting when one has to tackle them on one’s own. Special thanks are due to people who read my whole manuscript when it was only a fresh draft. I thank Per Bolin who was my opponent and came up with insightful suggestions on how I could produce a better text. I thank Irina Sandomirskaja and Ioulia Gradskova who read my draft and gave their valuable comments on it. I am also indebted to my “third reader” Hossein Sheiban who read the final draft and generously shared his thoughts on how to make my arguments more precise. I thank Piotr Wawrzeniuk, Andrej Kotljarchuk, and Per Anders Rudling who shared their knowledge about the wartime period in the Eastern Europe and especially in Ukraine and generously provided relevant literature on it. I would like to thank my fellow doctoral students Jaakko Turunen, Niklas Nilsson, Markus Huss, Iveta Jurkane, Karin Jonsson, Steffen Werther, Martin Andersson, Marco Nase, Katharina Wesolowski, Jenni Rinne, Nadezda Petrusenko, Ekaterina Kalinina, and Liudmila Voronova. My sincere gratitude goes to Florence Fröhlig, Ann-Judith Rabenschlag, Mariam Adjam, and Anna Kharkina who became not only my friends but my Swedish family who supported me in good times and in bad, who listened to endless stories about memory and Ukraine, who were always ready to discuss my texts and eat fika with me. Many thanks to Roman Horbyk, Julia Malitska, and Olena Podolian, my Ukrainian gang, who made me feel home away from home. Thank you all! I am so happy to have you in my life. I thank the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies who financed my work, the Department of History and Contemporary Studies at Södertörn University that granted me a fellowship that allowed me to finish the book, the Research Network “In Search of Transcultural Memory in Europe” who provided me with a COST grant for a visiting period at the European University Institute. For the opportunity to participate in the summer school of the Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies I would like to thank the University of Glasgow and especially David Smith and Stuart Burch who opened up new perspectives on the materiality of memory for me. I would like to express my gratitude to NordForsk who supported the “Nordic Research Network in Memory Studies” in the many activities of which I have had an opportunity to participate. Particularly, I want to thank Barbara Törnquist-Plewa who invited me into this network and brought together many distinguished scholars and young and talented doctoral students who became my friends. I am grateful to Swinburne University for the opportunity to take part in the PhD workshop of the Historical Justice and Memory Research Network and particularly to Klaus Neumann for bringing together us, PhD students, from all around the world, and for creating a platform where we could discuss memory and justice. I am also indebted to people in Ukraine who made my research in the field possible. I thank Tetiana Krutko and Nadia Karas’ for arranging my meeting with students at Rivne Institute of Slavonic Studies and Rivne Cooperative Economics and Law College, respectively. I also thank all the students who participated in my study. I am grateful to Oksana Pechers’ka for establishing my contacts with parties involved in memory work. I am especially indebted to Yurii Sukhodola who became my guide through the local history, who opened his home to me, and let me into his family. I also thank my informants who shared their time and agreed to answer my questions. I thank the talented artist Dariia Anfalova for making the collages that made my book not only “speak” but also “show.” Last but not least, my sincere and warmest thanks go to my family without whom nothing, including this book, would ever begin. I thank my husband’s parents, Halyna and Vasyl’ Yurchuk. Thank you for your unquestionable love and support. Losing you became the greatest loss during these five years. Memories of you became inseparable from the process of writing this book. Thank you for all the beautiful time we spent together! Many thanks go to my own parents, Vira and Mykola Barmak, for being the best parents one can ever dream of. Mom, thank you for being the source of inspiration and empowerment for me in the past and in the present, your belief in life and in human goodwill made me believe in wonders that make everything possible. Dad, thank you for all the support that you patiently and unquestionably give me in all my life decisions however crazy they may seem from the outside! Thank you for teaching me and letting me fly! My warmest thanks go to my husband, Anatoliy. Without your love, persistent support and care, without your readiness to travel with me to the end of this world, and without your most delicious food, I would never have had such a wonderful PhD journey. I thank you for reminding me that dreams are not only my imagination but the very reality I am creating and also thank you for reminding me that I have to eat (at least from time to time)! And last but not least, I thank my little daughter Veronica. Thank you, my sweetest one, for being such an inspiring child who can discipline my unharnessed spirit! Diakuiu! Contents Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... xiii A Note on Language and Transliteration ................................................................. xvi Preface ................................................................................................................... xvii Chapter I. Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Dealing with a Difficult Past ....................................................................................................... 7 Defining Language .................................................................................................................... 17 Cultural Memory ................................................................................................................. 17 Memory and History ........................................................................................................... 20 Myth .................................................................................................................................... 22 Knowledge .......................................................................................................................... 24 Monuments as Symptoms and Catalysts for Memory Work ..................................................... 27 Soviet War Monuments and the OUN and UPA Monuments ................................................... 30 Approach and Method ..............................................................................................................