Construction of Political Communities in Ukraine During the Second World War
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Historical Politics, Legitimacy Contests, and the (Re)- Construction of Political Communities in Ukraine during the Second World War by Oleksandr Melnyk A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Historty University of Toronto © Copyright by Oleksandr Melnyk 2016 i ii Historical Politics, Legitimacy Contests, and the (Re)- Construction of Political Communities in Ukraine during the Second World War Oleksandr Melnyk Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto 2016 Abstract This doctoral dissertation is a study of historical politics and legitimacy contests in Ukraine during the Second World War. By situating the operations of the Soviet state and its wartime antagonists within a broader strategic, military and political context, the study elucidates the role of historical politics in the violent processes of the building and breaking of political communities. Through a series of case studies the dissertation untangles activities of various participants in the process of information gathering and the production of knowledge about the past for the purposes of legitimation, fashioning of collective values, nation-building, and state security. It sheds light on the relationships between various actors and organizational networks within the system of Soviet historical politics; exposes structures of complicity in the Stalinist dictatorship and simultaneously maps the outer limits of its power. ii iii The dissertation also shows how the daily exercise of power by agents of the Soviet state— through public pronouncements, commemorations, state surveillance, and repression of bearers of alternative political identities-- had a tangible impact on behavior and everyday ideological iterations by thousands of historical subjects in the formerly occupied territories, be it former Ukrainian nationalist activists, local collaborators, Soviet partisans, members of intelligentsia or children that experienced the Axis occupation. At the same time, these people were anything but passive recipients of the official narratives. Many of them actively pursued their distinct agendas within the historically conditioned environment fraught with power inequalities that structured their choices and furnished them with tools of interpretation and languages of expression of their experiences. In the process, they often displayed ability to influence, manipulate, and occasionally even thwart the officially sanctioned narratives, prompting Soviet officials, ever preoccupied with issues of legitimacy, to continually adapt to the reality on the ground. iii iv Acknowledgments In preparing the text of this dissertation over the years, I received assistance and support from numerous individuals and organizations. While conducting archival research I was helped in ways big and small by Hetaher Coleman, Faith Hillis, Mikhail Tyaglyī, Iuriī Shapoval, Oleksandr Lysenko, Tatiana Ievstafieva, Volodymyr Hovorun ,Volodymyr Bezliudnyī, Liudmyla Zhelezniak, Vira Baraniuk, Olena Stukalova, Zoria Orlova, Nataliia Makiienko, Valeriī Vasyl’iev, Vadim Al’tskan, Ksenya Kiebuzinski, and Vera Fonseca. Amir Weiner, Hiroaki Kuromiya, Jeffrey Burds, Karel Berkhoff, and Arch Getty generously responded to enquiries and shared their expertise on the topic. Dominique Arel, Wilson Bell, Max Bergholz, Auri Berg, Michael David-Fox, Svitlana Frunchak, Geoff Hamm, Peter Holquist, Vladyslav Hrynevych, Ivan Katchanovski, Michael Kogan, Steven Maddox, David Marples, Olena Petrenko, Jennifer Polk, Joseph Rochon, Alti Rodal, Per Rudling, Timothy Snyder, Sarah Tracy, Andrii Usach, and Michael Westren read and commented on different chapters of the manuscript. The text also benefited from the graduate courses and conversations I have held over the years wth John-Paul Himka, David Marples, Dennis Sweeney, Guy Thompson, Modris Eksteins, Piotr Wróbel, Paul Robert Magocsi, Rebecca Witmann, Jennifer Jenkins, Robert, Johnson, Thomas Lahusen, Malavika Kasturi, Derek Williams, Peter Acsay, Jared MacBride, and Andriī Portnov. For financial support of this project I am grateful to the University of Toronto, Center of Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies (University of Toronto), Petro Yacyk Program in Ukrainian Studies (University of Toronto), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (University of Alberta), government of Ontario, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Last but not least, I express my thanks to the members of my dissertation committee (Robert Johnson and Doris Bergen), internal-external and external readers (Anna Shternshis, Alison Smith, and Serhy Yekelchyk) and especially to my supervisor Lynne Viola, without whose iv v unwavering support and encouragement in difficult times, this dissertation would have never been completed. Needless to say, I alone bear responsibility for the interpretations and all the remaining flaws. v vi !! Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Scope of the Study…………………………………………………………………….7 Historical Politics in the USSR during the 1920s and 1930s………………..………11 Historiography and Methodology…...……………………………………………….22 Chapter 1. World War and the (Un-)Making of Political Communities…………..30 Operation “Barbarossa”…………………...…………………………………………38 The End of Soviet Rule………………………...………………………...………….41 The Occupation Apparatus and the Problem of Local Collaboration.………………45 The Holocaust and Other Cases of Mass Murder………………………....................51 Soviet Partisan Movement…..…………………………….…………………….…...58 Insurgency Movements and Ethnic Conflict in the Borderlands…..………………...62 ! Chapter 2. The Nationalist Challenge and Legitimacy Contests….………………67 The Protagonists ….………………….……………………………………………...69 The Advance Groups.………………………………………………………………..73 The Place….………….……………………………………………………………...85 The Network………………………………………….……………………………..90 OUN-B and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church……..…………………………...98 Historical Politics and Legitimacy Contests.……………………………………….100 Conclusions…..…………………………………………………………………….106 ! Chapter 3. Archives, Surveillance, and the Politics of Historical Knowledge………………………………………….…………….…..107 Archives in the Soviet System of Political Control…………………..……….……112 Task Forces of the NKVD………..…………………………………………...……114 Visions and Realities………………………………………………………….……117 Operational Usages of the Archives……...…………………………………...……122 UGA NKVD in the System of Soviet Historical Politics…...………………...……126 Conclusions………...………………………………………………………………134! ! Chapter 4. Stalinist Justice as a Site Memory…...………………………….……136 Antecedents……….……………………….…………………………….…………138 Milieux de Mémoire……..……………………………………………….…………140 Tangled Webs……...…………………………………………………….…………146 The Crime….……………………………………………………………….………152 Narrating the Murder……………………………………………………………….155 Conclusions…………….…………………………………………………………..163 vi vii ! Chapter 5. Partisans, “False Partisans,” and the Negotiation of Political Identities …...…………………………………………………………168 The Origins of Soviet Partisan Movement………………………………………...171 The Soviet State and the Problem of “False Partisans”………...……………….…174 Bureaucracies……..……………………………………………………….……….183 The Structure of the Verification Process.…......…………………………………..187 The Role of Local Communities..…..………………………………………..…….194 Conclusions…...……………………………………………………………………199 ! Chapter 6. World War II as an Identity Project……………………………….....202 The Background….…………………………………………………………..…….203 Narratives…....…………………………………………………………….……….210 Forces Labour in the Memory of Children…..…………………………………….216 Making of the Soviet Body Politics.…….………………………..………………..220 Nazi Crimes in Children’s Stories……..…………………………...………………224 Conclusions………..………………………………………...……………………..228 ! Conclusion...……………………………………………………………………..229 ! References………………………………………………………………….….....237 Archives…………………………………………………………….………...…….237 Microfilm Collections….…………………………………...……………….……..238 Digital Resources.….…………………………………………………………...….238 Collections of Published Primary Sources….…………….…………………....…..239 Memoirs…...……………………………………………………..…………….…...242 Films……..………….……………………………………………………………...244 Secondary Sources….…………………………..……………………………..……244 Unpublished Manuscripts……………………………………………………......…277 !!!!!!!!! ! !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!!! vii viii Glossary of Abbreviations and Foreign Terms Agitprop (from Agitatsiia i propaganda)—Department of the Agitation and Propaganda of the Communist Party AK (from Armija Krajowa)—Polish Home Army ChGK (from Chrezvychaīnaia gosudarstvennaia komissiia)—Extraordinary State Commission for the Documentation and Investigation of Atrocities of German Fascists and their Henchmen and for the Establishment of Damage to the Property of Citizens, Collective Farms, Civic Associations, State Enterprises and Institutions FUR (from Front Ukrains’koï revoliutsiï)—Front of the Ukrainian Revolution Gestapo (from Geheime Staatspolizei)—Secret State Police Glavlit (from Glavnoe upravlenie po delam literatury i izdatel’stv)—Main Directorate in the Affairs of Literature and Publishing Houses GPU (from Glavnoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie)—Main Political Directorate (Soviet Security Service in Ukraine between 1922 and 1934) Komsomol (from Kommunisticheskiī soiuz molodezhi)—Communist Youth League KPZU (from Komunistychna partiia Zakhidnoï Ukraïny)—Communist Party of Western Ukraine Kripo (from Kriminalpolizei)—German Criminal Police NEP (from