Ukrainian Insurgent Army Controversies Addressed

By Bohdan Klid

This year marks two anniversary dates of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrains’ka Povstans’ka Armia - UPA).  October 2007 marks 65 years since its founding while September 2007 marks 60 years since UPA soldiers began to break through to areas controlled by the Western Allies, completing their raids from Ukraine through Soviet-occupied areas of post World War II Eastern and Central Europe. This year also marks the 100^th Anniversary of the birth of the Commander in Chief of UPA, Roman Shukhevych-Taras Chuprynka.

Although much time has passed from its founding and ceased activities, and even though there is a considerable amount of  literature on UPA, much controversy continues to exist about the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and its activities. To this day, UPA has not been recognized as a combatant force during the Second World War by Ukraine’s post-Soviet government, while some Western academics and Ukrainian migr circles hold negative views of its character and activities. In view of the anniversaries and the controversies that exist related to UPA, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) and the Ukrainian Professional and Business Club of Edmonton (UPBCE) invited Professor Peter J. Potichnyj, a leading authority on UPA, to deliver the 41^st Annual Shevchenko Lecture on March 30 on the topic “The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA): What Have We Learned 65 Years After Its Founding?”

Following introductory remarks, the first issue addressed by Dr. Potichnyj concerned the conflating of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), especially of the organization led by Stepan Bandera (OUN-b) with UPA, by commonly referring to the two entities in academic and popular literature as OUN-UPA.

Professor Potichnyj pointed out that the first to use the hyphenated designation for the two bodies were the security organs, other entities and individuals from the Soviet Union. As the OUN, whose ideology was integral nationalist, had dealings with the Germans, getting people to believe that the two entities were virtually identical would serve to discredit UPA. The hyphenated term has also been used by some migr circles affiliated with the OUN-b, and it has become fashionable again since Ukraine’s independence, which Dr. Potichnyj attributed in part to the political ambitions of some politicians in contemporary Ukraine. While acknowledging the important role played by OUN members in UPA, Dr. Potichnyj stressed that the UPA was subordinated to the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (Ukrains’ka Holovna Vyzvol’na Rada - UHVR)–an underground governing body more broadly-based than the OUN-b–and that UHVR was itself created upon the insistence of UPA. Dr. Potichnyj pointed out that some academics constitute the third group which uses the conflated term, thereby ignoring the subordination of UPA to the UHVR.

The second controversy addressed by Professor Potichnyj concerned the number of people involved in UPA and in underground activities overall. He first spoke about the problem of the reliability of estimates. Based on Soviet statistics, about 538,727 people in the western oblasts of Ukraine were killed, jailed or exiled from 1944-1956, which is about 10% of the population of the period. Dr. Potichnyj concluded that some Soviet statistics were exaggerated, as some of those killed or repressed had nothing to do with the underground resistance. He contended that Soviet losses were also made smaller.

The third controversy dealt with the organization of the UPA. Soviet propaganda aimed to portray UPA as undisciplined bands of gangsters. Professor Potichnyj first outlined the organizational structure of UPA to show its similarities to that of a regular army. He then noted the Soviet efforts made to create armed groups that looked like and imitated UPA units, who were engaged in atrocities with the intent of discrediting UPA. He noted that already in 1945 there were 156 such mirror-image groups in existence.

Professor Potichnyj next discussed controversies related to ideology. He began by mentioning that various works portrayed UPA members as steeped in integral nationalist ideology based on Dmytro Dontsov’s writings and Nazi and fascist ideologies. While OUN members of the 1930’s were exposed to Dontsov’s political views, the same cannot be said for UPA members in wartime Ukraine. The ideological underpinnings of UPA and the Ukrainian World War II and post World War II underground were based largely on the writings of O. Hornovyi (Diakiv), P. Poltava (Fedun), and others, who stressed democratic values in their writings. These ideas were buttressed by those contained in earlier writings of Ukraine’s literary giants--Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko and Lesia Ukrainka. Dr. Potichnyj continued that the UPA slogans “Freedom for Nations” and “Freedom for Individuals” were not empty words. During his talk, Professor Potichnyj pointed out the multinational aspects of UPA, which contained national units of Uzbeks, Georgians, Tatars and others, while Jews primarily provided medical services.

Professor Potichnyj also treated the Polish-Ukrainian conflict, which he called a great tragedy for both nations. He dismissed the assumption held by some academics that integral nationalist ideology was a primary factor motivating Ukrainians. Pointing to the recently published book Zahybel’ Arkadii, by Bohdan Hud’, Dr. Potichnyj noted that the Polish-Ukrainian conflict had a long history and that land hunger explains in part the ferocity of the struggle and of the involvement of the peasants in the Volynian tragedy of 1943. There were other factors as well, including Polish plans to incorporate Volyn’ into Poland, German and Soviet meddling, and the inability of the Polish and Ukrainian underground leadership to reach an understanding.

In respect to the Jews, Dr. Potichnyj noted that the populace was aware of the mass killings of Jews in Ukraine. However, he knew of no documentary evidence that would support the assumption or accusation that the UPA welcomed or supported the Holocaust. Implications that the UPA was thirsty for blood of Poles after most Jews had been killed in the Holocaust were also without foundation. The biggest failure of the Ukrainian underground leadership with respect to the Jews was that they were basically silent about the mass killings. No condemnations or proclamations of concern were issued. Dr. Potichnyj also said that he knew of no instance of the Jewish leadership attempting to contact the Ukrainian underground leadership. Dr. Potichnyj ended his overview of some of the controversies surrounding UPA by stating that resorting to sensational statements was no substitute for genuine scholarship, and that much serious work remained to be done on the question of Jews and UPA and on other controversial issues.

During the lively question and answer period, perhaps the most poignant, effective and revealing statements concerned the guest speaker’s personal experiences. Dr. Potichnyj, who comes from the village of Pawlokoma (Pavlokoma), now in Poland near Przemyl (Peremyshl’), became a soldier in UPA at 14, following a brutal mass killing by Polish Home Army (Armija Krajowa) soldiers in March 1945. Dr. Potichnyj stated empowerment armed with a rifle, with which he “felt equal to our enemies. I no longer had to wait to be threatened, beaten or even killed. This feeling of liberation and some control over one’s destiny however illusive had a profound impact on uneducated village boys, who made up the majority of UPA.” It was very sobering to hear Dr. Potichnyj as a UPA soldier helped him to mature quickly and to lose a hatred welling up inside him for Poles, Germans, and for the Russians who killed his father.

Dr. Potichnyj’s description of his personal experiences brought into sharp relief images of the brutalities of war, unspeakable horrors cast upon a village far removed from political decisions by world leaders. It also brought into focus what may be described as a failure of some academics and students who write on UPA and WWII to understand the context and terrible realities of the war, especially in Ukraine.

Dr. Bohdan Klid is Research Scholar and Assistant Director, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta