Understanding the price of freedom

On May 27, 2008, an exhibit entitled “The Ukrainian Insurgent Army: The History of the Unvanquished” opened at the Security Service of Ukraine. This large exhibit, which includes over 500 photographs, documents from Soviet and German archives, and internal documents of the OUN and the UPA, is a joint project of the Security Service of Ukraine and the Center for the Study of the Liberation Movement with support from the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. What is unique about this exhibit is that it rests on an extensive research and source base, which yielded rare and previously unknown photos as well as illustrative, informational, and reference materials. The result is that Ukrainians can now see a complete and scholarly picture of the national liberation movement in the mid-20th century.

If the idea that freedom is a gift from God or Fate and achievable without a struggle-and an inner struggle of ideas within a nation, and very often a political and military confrontation are crucial-is becoming engrained in the public consciousness, then for such a nation freedom is beyond reach. It becomes a rosy dream, a castle in the air rather than a goal to be reached through the victory of the unvanquished. Only the unvanquished achieve freedom.

The history of Ukraine in the 20th century is the history of its heroic struggle for an independent state and national and social liberation. The title of “unvanquished” is deservedly conferred on the soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, who were fully aware of their goal and laid down their lives for the sake of a free and sovereign Ukraine.

It is very important for our contemporaries, especially young people, to learn the truth about the goals of the UPA, its programmatic statements and goals, and its allies and enemies. Without this historical truth a truly independent Ukrainian state cannot exist.

In his opening speech, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine, said that “all the declassified documents on the history of the Ukrainian liberation movement and its opposition to the totalitarian communist regime bear witness to the fact that the former had an anti-Soviet thrust and universal European significance. It will suffice to cite the following figures: the liberation movement spanned a territory of over 150,000 square kilometers (the size of a fairly large European country) and directly involved at least 500,000 Ukrainians. For many decades the topic of the OUN, UPA, and the Ukrainian liberation movement in general was the subject of political speculation and ideological myth-making on the part of the communist regime. The ideological cliches that were forged over so many years have retained their force to this day, in some of our citizens’ biased perceptions and assessments of the OUN and the UPA. That is why the Security Service of Ukraine gives high priority to archival and research work as well as to the study, declassification, and publication of archival documents from the NKVD-KGB archives on the Ukrainian liberation movement of the 1920s-1950s,” Nalyvaichenko said.

The exhibit is designed in the form of 25 large thematically organized stands containing documented materials that systematically present the entire history of the Ukrainian liberation struggle spearheaded by the OUN and the UPA. Some of the themes are: “The Origins of the Armed Insurgent Movement,” “The Development of the Insurgency,” “The Structure of the UPA,” “The Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council,” “The Ukrainian Red Cross,” “The Formation of Officer Personnel,” “Roman Shukhevych” (two stands), “Insurgent Life” (three stands), “Insurgent Holidays,” “Women in the Liberation Struggle,” “The Publishing Activities of the Ukrainian Underground,” “UPA Raids Abroad,” and “Hideouts” (three stands). Considerable attention is also paid to the anti-insurgent activities of the Soviet punitive bodies (NKVD, MGB, and KGB) and the resistance of the unvanquished UPA soldiers in the Soviet labor camps. The concluding chapter of the exhibit on the history of the UPA, called “The Epilogue,” is devoted to Ukraine’s successful struggle for independence and current attitudes to the UPA.

The famous UPA veteran Stepan Semeniuk, who, like other legendary heroes of the national liberation movement, including Yurii Shukhevych and Myroslav Symchych, was awarded the “Honorary Star of the Security Service of Ukraine.” He admitted frankly that in 1953 he never dreamed that one day he would be standing and talking about independent Ukraine in this very building, where the heroes of the Ukrainian national liberation movement were executed or from where they were deported to Siberia.

Semeniuk stressed that the UPA cannot be viewed only as an army, although this is a very important aspect. The UPA also embodied Ukrainian national state structures and began creating a Ukrainian administration. National sections composed of representatives of other enslaved nations (the subject of an UPA-initiated conference in 1943) were also formed in the UPA, a topic that still has not been researched.

More research is required on the UPA-organized resistance of GULAG prisoners in Norilsk, Magadan, and Karlag. This was something Russian history had never before seen: with a zero chance of success, the doomed prisoners rose up and the GULAG was shaken to its very foundations. Semeniuk concluded with these words: “We would like you, dear visitors, to take a close look at these people whose faces you see in these unique photos and feel their energy for the struggle. One of our fellow countrymen once said: ‘The first condition of liberation is to dare to be free.’ This is an exact description of the UPA soldiers.”

Volodymyr Viatrovych, a historian and adviser to the acting head of the Security Service, offered a detailed and fascinating overview of the exhibit. Each of the 500 photographs on display tells a long story. But here I would like to focus on “The “Epilogue,” the concluding section of the exhibit. “The August 24, 1991, Act was the result of not only the required number of votes in parliament. Above all, it was the outcome of many years of struggle by numerous generations of Ukrainians, including hundreds of thousands of UPA soldiers and OUN members. Despite this, the Ukrainian state still has not acknowledged the UPA. Even now the powerful imperialistic umbilical cord prevents the ruling elite from calling the occupiers by their rightful name and the champions of freedom-national heroes.”

General Yevhen Marchuk, the first head of the post-independence Security Service of Ukraine, was among those who attended the opening ceremony. He is the man who declassified the secret archives. During the 1999 presidential campaign he spoke clearly in favor of acknowledging the OUN and UPA as WWII combatants and granting benefits to their veterans. For that reason such distinguished activists of the liberation movement as Levko Lukianenko and Yurii Shukhevych, who also attended the exhibit, offered their support to Marchuk at the time.

Starting on June 2, 2008, “The Ukrainian Insurgent Army: the History of the Unvanquished” will be on display at the Culture and Arts Center of Ukraine’s Security Service (6 Irynynska Street, Kyiv). It will then travel to every oblast center of Ukraine.

The Day asked some prominent visitors at the opening of the exhibit to share their impressions

Levko LUKIANENKO, former political prisoner, fighter for Ukraine’s independence, and member of the Verkhovna Rada of several convocations:

“I believe that this exhibit is extremely useful and necessary. I would be happy if at least 800 copies were made and distributed to every raion in Ukraine. We need to draw a clear distinction and realize that during the period of our colonial dependence Ukrainians became divided. Some supported the occupiers, while others rose up to fight them. Galicia, for example, produced an extraordinarily large, 500,000-strong army. Only a nationalistic nation, which the people of western Ukraine were at the time, could provide so many soldiers.”

Myroslav SYMCHYCH, legendary UPA fighter:

“I am captivated by this exhibit, which reflects the entire glorious history of the OUN and the UPA. The people who created it have God in their hearts and Ukraine in their souls. Let’s stop and reflect for a minute: we have had our own country for over 17 years, but do we understand on what foundation it came into being? Hundreds of thousands of UPA soldiers fought for Ukraine and shed their blood, laying down their lives for the sake of its freedom. Let us remember this! This exhibit gave me plenty of food for thought.”