In a spotless uniform, with a military air, a group of pensioners are proudly singing the Ukrainian anthem. Since the independence of Ukraine, veterans of the Ukrainian Insurrectional Army can freely gather...
In a spotless uniform, with a military air, a group of pensioners are proudly singing the Ukrainian anthem. Since the independence of Ukraine, veterans of the Ukrainian Insurrectional Army : the UPA (1), can freely gather on the occasion of traditional commemorations in the West of the country. In a region tossed between the powerful occupiers throughout its history, these former soldiers are heroes, streets are named after their famous military leader Roman Shukhevych.
Yet, they have never enjoyed on a bigger scale the honours granted to the former war soldiers, despite their numerous deeds. Their resistance movement born in 1942 in this traditionally nationally conscious part of Ukraine, was going to grow into a real military force against the two most murderous totalitarian regimes of the 20-th century. Defending the independence of the country and their freedom, Ukrainian rebels defied Nazi occupiers as well as Soviet occupiers, when troupes of the Red Army invaded Western Ukraine since 1944.
The attacks of the UPA rested mostly on sabotages, ambushes, intelligence activities and assassination of officials. They dealt significant losses to the enemy, hidden under the cover of forests and mountains of the Carpathians. In this theater of operations, Ukrainian guerilla fighters benefited from the great support of the population as well as from an effective clandestine network. Deprived of any foreign assistance and heavy weaponry, they got their military supplies including uniforms from the enemy.
The UPA struggle for freedom attracted to their ranks fighters from other oppressed peoples, such as Azeris, Uzbeks, Georgians, Tartars and some Jewish doctors. This “modest” Army would number 100 000 men and women in 1944. While Moscow was doing away with resistance spots in Poland, Rumania, Hungary and the Baltic countries, the UPA, refusing to be engulfed in the Soviet zone became one of the most important opposition force to the Soviet regime after World War II.
The Ukrainian resistance movement found itself in Cold War and got some support from the British and American secret services. But, on the other side of the Iron Curtain the Ukrainian cause remains in shadow, while NKVD (2) units tracked down UPA partisans as far as Central Europe. Captured soldiers and thousands of civil Ukrainians were tortured, deported or executed. In order to undermine and exterminate its “bête noire”, the NKVD sent its men dressed as UPA soldiers to commit massacres in Ukrainian villages.
The Soviet secret police also relied on its spies infiltrated in the rebel army, amongst whom the famous British double agent Kim Philby. Soviet persecutions bore fruit in 1950, when the skilled strategist of the UPA Roman Shukhevych died in an ambush. The last military units lay down their arms in the mid-1950-ies.
However, hushed up in the tumult of history, the fight of the UPA was never officially recognized, quite the opposite… While the Soviet myth about the “Great Patriotic War” glorifiying heroes of the Red Army, communist propaganda was pouring its venom on Ukrainian “bourgeois nationalists”. Incompatible with the official line of the Party, the UPA phenomenon was dwindled down to a gang of “traitors” and “enraged nazi criminals” in Soviet historiography.
A true epopee, tainted as a matter of fact by exactions against the Polish occupier. In 1943, certain Ukrainian military units destroyed communities of Polish settlers in Volyn (North-Western Ukraine) as a retaliation against anti-Ukrainian repressions led by Warsaw in between the two-wars period. Unfortunately, the time was notoriously fertile in different ethnic cleansings, as two years later, the Polish and the Check unleashed their hatred in the massacres of Germans expulsed from the Sudetens with the Soviet assistance. But the fierce slandering campaign led by Moscow against the UPA gave rise to peculiarly persevering pernicious myths.
Since the independence of Ukraine in 1991, Ukrainian history books and folklore openly honour the courage of this national liberation army and its heroes. Yet, the role of the Ukrainian Insurrectional Army remains controversial in a divided society. The symbol of independence in the West of the country, the UPA is the embodiment of evil in the East, a region turned to Moscow and populated by a large Russian minority.
In such a context, the project of their official rehabilitation has unleashed many a passion at the highest level when President Yushchenko brought forward in October 2006 the proposition of granting UPA veterans the status of “fighters for freedom” and the same social benefits as enjoyed by veterans of the Red Army. Moscow has interfered in this Ukrainian issue, denouncing an “anti-Russian campaign”.
In Kyiv streets the UPA commemorations regularly leads to clashes between the supporters of the two sides. The pro-Russian forces in Ukraine, and especially the Communist Party, fiercely oppose Ukrainian “nationalists” and the ideological gap between the two forces brings the chances for reconciliation almost down to zero.
In this overheated climate UPA veterans must content themselves with a 40 US $ pension per month. Actually, they do not run after medals, despite thousands of broken lives. After long years of Stalinist persecutions and the Gulag concentration camp, the last survivors of this unusual Army cherished but one dream – that of a free Ukraine. Since 1991, some feel betrayed in a young Ukrainian state, the latter still unsure of its History.
(1) Ukraïnska Povstanska Armiia
(2) Predecessor of the KGB
© Cyril Horiszny
The web site presents a section of the photos serie "The UPA soldiers - These controversial heroes."
