Perceptions Shaped by Communism: Myth Making in the Second World War

By Marichka Galadza

As the old saying goes, history is written by the victors. This said, one can imagine what information textbooks would contain and what war monuments in Europe would look like if the Axis powers had won the Second World War. Thankfully, The Third Reich was defeated, and Hitler has been represented as the perpetrator of crimes against humanity in educational material and the media. However, in former Soviet bloc countries, like Ukraine, figures equally as heinous have not received the same historical scrutiny.  To a large extent, the historiography of the Second World War in Ukraine has been tainted by Soviet propagandist ideologies and imagery that boldly asserted “the Great Patriotic War” (the Second World War) as a unifying symbol of the USSR’s military power under Stalin’s victorious leadership.

To discuss the topic of war-time myth-making, Vladyslav Hrynevych, a Petro Jacyk Visiting Scholar from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, delivered a lecture on November 13 entitled: “Historiography of WWII as a Factor in Contemporary Ukrainian Politics.” The lecture, held at the Munk Centre for International Relations at the University of Toronto, examined some of the patriotic symbols derived from the war.

The symbols Hrynevych discussed were intended to bolster unity between different ethnic groups within the Soviet Union. Symbols, such as monuments and holidays that commemorated the war “legitimized” the tyrannical Stalinist regime by instilling the citizens of the Soviet Union with national pride and patriotism. However, Hrynevych argued that the Bolshevik forces failed to sustain a “homogeneous society with a single Soviet identity” in Ukraine.

Starting in 1941, after the breach of the Molotov-Ribbentroff Non-Agression pact, the Soviet leadership began to censor publications that confirmed Stalin’s collaboration with Nazi Germany in the initial years of the Second World War. Poets Konstantyn Simon and Evhen Dolmatovksy were forbidden to produce a film about the events surrounding the breach of the Non-Agression pact. Other censorship of the press was mandated by a Committee for the Protection of Military Secrets. For example, this committee terminated the distribution of a social literary journal titled “Ukrainska Literatura” in 1945 on the grounds that it undermined a Soviet-friendly paradigm.  

Hrynevych also discussed how a lack of Stalinist loyalty in the Ukrainian peasant population was perceived as a threat to the Communist regime. With the fear of divided loyalties and with the ever-present attempt to form a solid, Soviet ethos, Soviet authorities whitewashed records of ethnic distinctions within the partisan movement and the republic as a whole, denying the cultural and political heterogeneity that existed in the region.

Historical manipulation and censorship also extended to the portrayal of the Jewish Holocaust. Kyivan author Victor Kuznetsov’s novel, Babiy Yar, which described one of the largest slaughters of Jews during the Second World War, was withdrawn from public access soon after its publication in 1966.  Any recognition of Jewish suffering was thought to detract from the glory of the Red Army. When atrocities such as Babyn Yar where finally recognized, they were portrayed as injustices against Soviet civilians, not against civilians of predominantly Jewish origin. To further conceal the Jewish Holocaust, mass graves were not prominently displayed as historical sights.

Hrynevych also spoke about the Ukrainian nationalist movements OUN and UPA, whose burial sites were often re-appropriated as monuments to Soviet soldiers. Their crosses were replaced with Soviet insignia bearing headstones in the hopes of erasing the memory of this large-scale movement from the public consciousness. Additionally, the OUN and UPA insurgent armies were portrayed as Fascist collaborators, from the Khruschev government onwards.

What was perhaps most fascinating about Hrynevych’s lecture, was his analysis of how Soviet ideologies and myths have continued to shape public perception in the Ukrainian post-sovereignty era. Hrynevych illustrated how each president of independent Ukraine, from Kravchuk to Yushchenko, has responded to these myths of WWII patriotism. On the one hand, President Leonid Kravchuk, a staunch supporter of the nationalist liberation movement, emphasized his own involvement in the OUN, UPA movement as a young child bringing the troops food. Conversely, under Kuchma’s government in 2000, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law on the Commemoration of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. The Law instituted the Soviet May 9th Victory Day celebration as a national holiday in Ukraine.

After the Orange Revolution and Yushchenko’s election as president, many distinctions between the myths and realities of the Second World War have been clarified. In his inaugural speech, Yushchenko compared Auschwitz and the Gulag, as well as Hitler and Stalin, showing that some Ukrainian politicians today denounce Bolshevik revisionist history and reject Soviet apologist propaganda which defends the regimes tyranny. Schoolbooks in Ukraine now recognize and commemorate figures such as UPA commander Roman Shukhevych and OUN leader Stepan Bandera. Also, images of Stalin as a heroic commander in chief are no longer upheld.

Hrynevych’s lecture presented an optimistic view of independent Ukraine, struggling, but succeeding, to rid itself of a deceptive and mythologizing Soviet war legacy.

Marichka Galadza is a fourth-year University of Toronto student who is studying Ethics; Society and Law and Environmental Studies.