De-Mythologizing Bandera: Towards a Scholarly History of the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement Stepan Bandera (1909–59), the leader of the radical Ukrainian na- tionalist movement, is, perhaps, the most controversial figure in the history of Ukraine. One has only to compare the titles of some of his biographies, Stepan Bandera—Symbol of Revolutionary Determina- tion, by Petro Mirchuk;1 Stepan Bandera—a Life Dedicated to Free- dom, by Mykola Posivnych;2 and, finally, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist: Fascism, Genocide, and Cult by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, published by ibidem in 2014.3 In this collection of review essays, we use Rossoliński-Liebe’s recent book as a departure point for a wider discussion on the current state of the historiography on Bandera and on Ukraine’s recent past more broadly. Who was Stepan Bandera: an uncompromising revolutionary, a freedom fighter, or a fascist and an ideologue of “genocidal nation- alism”? Not only historians, but also ordinary Ukrainians diverge radically in their answers to this question. As opinion polls demon- strate, of all historical figures about whom respondents are asked, Bandera divides Ukrainians most of all (the figures who most unite Ukrainians in negative attitudes are Vladimir Putin and Joseph Sta- lin).4 The style and the content of the Ukrainian debates on Ban- dera resemble the Russian polemics of the 1860s about the hero of 1 Petro Mirchuk, Stepan Bandera—symvol revoliutsiinoii bezkompromisovosty, 2nd ed. (New York and Toronto: Orhanizatsiia Oborony Chotyriokh Svobid Ukrainy, 1992). 2 Mykola Posivnych, Stepan Bandera—zhyttia, prysviachene svobodi (Toronto and L’viv: Litopys UPA, 2008). 3 Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrain- ian Nationalist: Fascism, Genocide, and Cult (Stuttgart: ibidem, 2014). 4 “Nostalgia for the Soviet Union and the Attitude to Particular Personalities”, Rating Group Ukraine, 5 May 2014, http://ratinggroup.ua/en/research/ukr aine/nostalgiya_po_sssr_i_otnoshenie_k_otdelnym_lichnostyam.html (ac- cessed 30 November 2015). 411 412 REVIEW ESSAYS: DE-MYTHOLOGIZING BANDERA Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, the essence of which one critic summaries as follows: “Is Mr Turgenev’s Bazarov a caricature that should be ridiculed, or is he an ideal that should be emulated?”5 In the same way, contemporary debates about Bandera and his associ- ates are mostly confined to the question whether they were fascist criminals who should be branded with shame, or national heroes to whom monuments should be erected and whose example should serve for the education of today’s youth. In other words, a war of two historical myths is being waged (or a war between myth and anti-myth) with the characteristic bi- nary opposition of light and darkness, with no gray in between. In the mythologized historical consciousness, Stepan Bandera, his Or- ganization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian In- surgent Army (UPA) are either placed on the totally light or the completely dark side; there is no middle ground. The book by Rossoliński-Liebe that is the subject of discus- sion in the current issue takes the debate on Bandera to a new and more academic level. As noted by one of the reviewers, Yuri Rad- chenko, this book is the first academic biography of Bandera, and that is the greatest achievement of its author. At the same time, it continues and develops the tradition of historiography of the OUN that aims at “exposing” its darker side. Over several hundred pages the author argues that Bandera and his OUN were not actors in the national liberation movement, but rather fascists, racists, and or- ganizers of mass killings of civilians. However, unlike previous jour- nalistic attacks on Bandera, his followers and activities, Rossoliński- Liebe’s book has a solid foundation in theory and archival sources, meaning that the apologists of the leader of the OUN will no longer be able to simply dismiss it as a piece of “anti-Ukrainian propa- ganda”. In this introduction I will not analyze in detail the contents of the book, as this has been done meticulously elsewhere in this issue 5 Dmitrii Ivanovich Pisarev, “Posmotrim!” (1865), available at http://az.lib.ru/p/pisarew_d/text_1865_posmotrim.shtml (accessed 30 Novem- ber 2015). -- JSPPS 1:2 (2015) -- REVIEW ESSAYS: DE-MYTHOLOGIZING BANDERA 413 by André Härtel and Yuri Radchenko. I shall focus on just one fun- damental question that forms the main point of my differences with both the author and the reviewers. Both Rossoliński-Liebe and the two reviewers agree on the characterization of the OUN as a fascist movement and, subse- quently, of Bandera as a fascist leader. Indeed, in the late 1930s and early 1940s the OUN had much in common with the fascist move- ments. Certainly, the concept of “Ukrainian fascism” has a right to exist as one possible explanatory scheme, since it undoubtedly offers plausible explanations for certain facts. A certain methodological reservation must be made here. When we claim that this or that political movement was fascist, we do not reveal its “true” nature, but simply use a chosen typological scheme in order to place the movement under investigation in a comparative context. Thus, those who consider the OUN to be a fas- cist organization therefore suggest that a) we will understand the ideology and practices of the OUN better if we compare it with the Italian National Fascist Party, the National Socialist German Work- ers’ Party, the Romanian Legion of the Archangel Michael, etc., than with the political movements of any other type; b) we will under- stand the phenomenon of fascism better, if, in addition to the above organizations, we also include in our analysis the OUN. In my view, both of these assumptions are misleading. The OUN’s ideology and practices do correspond to some interpreta- tions within the framework of the theory of “generic fascism”, yet these are all based on the study of ultra-nationalist movements in nation-states. Serving as it does to elide the fundamental differences between the nationalist movements of nations with and without states, the concept of “Ukrainian fascism” ultimately generates more theoretical and practical problems than it helps to solve. According to this logic, using the framework of fascism, one would have to con- struct a subcategory of “national liberationist fascism”, which would seem to be a contradiction in terms. Rossoliński-Liebe apparently senses this logical contradic- tion, as he consistently uses scare quotes for phrases such as “liber- ation movement” and “liberation struggle” in relation to the OUN and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Thus, for example, he writes that -- JSPPS 1:2 (2015) -- 414 REVIEW ESSAYS: DE-MYTHOLOGIZING BANDERA the “‘liberation struggle’ or ‘liberation war’ practiced by the OUN and UPA could not have been liberation because it was not neces- sary to kill several thousand civilians to liberate Ukraine” (p. 541). Yet in fact there is no reason why atrocities against civilians should necessarily preclude the recognition of the OUN as a national liber- ation movement. Such practices were more often the rule than the exception in the history of twentieth-century national liberation movements, and in this respect the OUN was fairly typical. Historian John-Paul Himka’s approach is more consistent, as he does not consider the national liberationist nature of the move- ment to be an obstacle to recognizing it as fascist. He asks a rhetor- ical question: “Does the fact that OUN was also a national liberation movement make it not fascist? The Ustashe was also a national lib- eration movement—was it too not fascist? The Viet Cong was a na- tional liberation movement—was it therefore not communist?”6 In other words, according to Himka, a national liberation struggle can be combined with any ideology, including fascism. In- deed, certain well-known historical national liberation movements adopted liberal, conservative, socialist, communist, and other doc- trines. Does this mean that the national liberation struggle is in- nately un-ideological? Such a claim would suggest that nationalism is not an ideology. However, nationalism is an ideology, albeit of a kind different to liberalism, communism, and so on. Unlike the lat- ter, nationalism in itself does not contain a vision of the future socio- economic and political system. It focuses on achieving and main- taining the “autonomy, unity, and identity” of the population that is considered to be a “nation”.7 Therefore, in order to be a fully-fledged ideology, able to mobilize the masses, nationalism must borrow el- ements from other social and political doctrines. Through this pro- cess combinations are formed such as liberal, conservative, or so- cialist nationalism, national-communism, etc. 6 John-Paul Himka, “The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrain- ian Insurgent Army: Unwelcome Elements of an Identity Project”, Ab Imperio, no. 4 (2010): 87. 7 Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity, 2010), 9. -- JSPPS 1:2 (2015) -- REVIEW ESSAYS: DE-MYTHOLOGIZING BANDERA 415 However, unlike liberalism or communism, fascism itself is an extreme form of nationalism (Rossoliński-Liebe partially agrees with this, although his explanation of the relationship between these concepts (pp. 33–34) is not distinguished by clarity or consistency). Therefore, when considering the relationship between fascism and national liberation movements, an internal typology of nationalism should be taken into account, in particular the division of national- isms into those of stateless nations and nations with a state. The former group considers the national revival as, first of all, the over- coming of oppression, and the creation of one’s own state; for the latter group, the national revival means the strengthening of the state, filling it with “real” national content, and sometimes also the cleansing of the national community of “hostile” elements, external expansion, imperialism, and national messianism.