From the Great Patriotic War to the Second World War - Decommunisation of Ukraine’s memory politics
From the Great Patriotic War to the Second World War - Decommunisation of Ukraine’s memory politics
Author(s): Serhiy Riabenko, Taras KuzioSubject(s): Military history, Political history, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Present Times (2010 - today), History of Communism, Fascism, Nazism and WW II, Politics of History/Memory, Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: Kolegium Europy Wschodniej im. Jana Nowaka-Jeziorańskiego we Wrocławiu
Keywords: Ukraine; Memory politics; Decommunisation; Great Patriotic War; Second World War;
Summary/Abstract: Until 2014, all Ukrainian presidents except Viktor Yushchenko participated in the celebration of the Soviet and Russian myth of the Great Patriotic War (GPW). Presidents Leonid Kuchma (1994 – 2004) and Viktor Yanukovych (2010 – 2014) participated in official commemorations in Moscow attended by other former Soviet republics. President Yushchenko (2005 – 2010) did not attend the celebration but neither did he seek to remove the GPW from Ukrainian memory politics. Only during Petro Poroshenko’s presidency (2014 – 2019) was the Soviet triumphalist and militaristic narrative of the GPW (1941 – 1945) replaced by commemoration of Ukraine’s participation in Europe’s victory over Nazism and the human suffering of Ukrainians during the Second World War (1939 – 1945) integrated into an overall European tragedy of the loss of millions of lives.
Journal: New Eastern Europe
- Issue Year: 2020
- Issue No: 04 (42)
- Page Range: 167-179
- Page Count: 13
- Language: English
- Content File-PDF