UKRAINIANS AND THE HERITAGE OF WORLD WAR II

Warriors of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army

Only the one, who is dressed in a uniform of his Fatherland has the right to blame someone in treason! 

 Serhiy Chapligin, a Ukrainian nationalist thinker

Undoubtedly, after objective study of the history of Ukraine you would see that the society in Ukraine (as well as in any other country of the former Socialist Camp) can be conditionally divided on pro-Ukrainian and anti-Ukrainian according to their interpretation of events of the World War 2 and relation to the 9th of May.

Unfortunately, there is a certain percentage of people with Ukrainian citizenship, but who still believe, that the WW2 was started in 1941 and ended in May 9, 1945. Should understand, that due to total ignorance and unwillingness to study national history most part of these people have clearly pro-Moscow (or better say pro-USSR) position, they refuse Ukrainian history, culture, they have no clue about a heroic pages of the national history and they actually belive, that the Red Army was not an occupier of Ukraine, but a liberator.  

At the same time there is people, who consider the World War 2 as a conflict between there cosmopolitan ideologies - socialist-communist, liberal-capitalist and social-nationalist. This part of the society understands that each of three sides of the conflict had been considering the Ukrainian lands only as a colony.

However, history knows cases, when a war gave possibilities for some nations to start their own liberation war. And here we cannot forget about the Organisation of UKrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (the UPA), which have been truly unique in the history of the Second World War. That was a torch, that had been burning with fire of the Ukrainian will; a force, that understand, that the Ukrainian National Independent state could be build only on the ruins of cosmopolitan neo-empires. 

Indisputably, the Second World War is one of the most tragic pages in the history of mankind. Discarding all ideological concepts we will see, that for the Ukrainian nation this conflict sometimes had expressive features of the fratricidal war.

Suffice it to mention the battle at Brody on July 17-22. 1944, when Ukrainian soldiers found themselves on opposite sides of the front line. It so happened, that Ukrainians were fighting in the ranks of the Red Army (By perforce or under threat of expelling their families to concentration camps in Kolyma many Ukrainian man were forced to wear the uniform with a red star; minds of others had been poisoned for more then 20 years of the Soviet occupation.) against their brothers by blood, same Ukrainians, who had proudly wore the shield with golden lion among crowns and were seeking to restrain the red horde on the way to their villages and towns.

We have to cherish the memory of every Ukrainian soldier, who fought in the battlefield of the Second World War, but, undoubtedly, the warriors of the UPA should take the central place in the national heroic epic of this period. First of all beacuse of their uncompromising relation to every side of the conflict, to every enemy of the Ukrainian national state they had been fighting for.  

We have our cherish the memory about the heroes of the Carpathian Sich, warriors of Carpatho-Ukraine. A brave men, who first experienced the burden of the the upcoming war, by entered into unequal battle with the Hungarian invaders. Exactly the day of 15th of March 1939, when Carpatho-Ukraine was occupied, was a date, when the Ukrainian nation entered the war. This was the beginning of the story of more than 30 years of fierce struggle. 

Based on the above, we seen serious historical grounds to remove all memorials of the Soviet times, dedicated to an "unknown soldier," "eternal fires," etc. In turn we have to continue work on replacing them by our traditional Christian symbols of honouring of the fallen soldiers. Great work has been done to perpetuate the memory of the fighters for Ukrainian national independent state - the UPA soldiers in every Ukrainian city, town of village, when they were acting. And, of course, we have not forget about Ukrainians, who fought in other sides of the conflict.

Hungarian occupiers are executing the soldier Carpathian Sich

Source: Правий Сектор