Since the beginning of the conflict, the Russian government has used this controversial nationalist figure in Ukrainian history to discredit kyiv and justify its “denazification” rhetoric.
The character, very controversial, is the scarecrow agitated by Russia to justify the need for a “denazification” from Ukraine. Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist leader guilty of collaboration with Nazi Germany during the 1940s, was mentioned about twenty times by the account Telegram of the Russian Foreign Ministry since the beginning of the war. Sergei Lavrov, the head of Russian diplomacy, hammered it again during a propaganda speech delivered (in English) on February 10, claiming that the Kyiv authorities are the “successors of Stepan Bandera”.
According to a communication from ministry dated May (in Russian), “Bandera’s Cult” do “an integral part of the educational system of modern Ukraine”. In September, Maria Zakharova (in Russian)spokesperson for Russian diplomacy, also recalled that the nationalist leader was “accomplice in the Holocaust” during World War II. For Sergei Lavrov, the glorification (in Russian) of Bandera is therefore a proof that the Ukrainian government encourages the “neo-Nazism”.
What was Stepan Bandera’s role in Ukrainian history? Why is this highly controversial historical figure actually commemorated today by Ukrainians? Should we see this as a demonstration of fascism by the kyiv government, as the Russian government claims? Franceinfo returns in four questions to the special place that the nationalist leader occupies in contemporary Ukraine, based on the expertise of several historians and an eminent representative of the Jewish community in Ukraine.
Who is Stepan Bandera?
Stepan Bandera was born in 1909 in Galicia, a region located in present-day western Ukraine. After a short-lived period of independence, the Ukrainian territory was shared after 1919 between Poland and the Soviet Union. A convinced nationalist, Stepan Bandera joined the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) at the end of the 1920s, a militant radical movement for the liberation of Ukraine against the Polish and Russian occupiers. The independence organization draws its ideology from fascism. “The OUN was inspired by the theses of Dmytro Dontsov, the translator of Mein Kampf in Ukrainian”, reveals Eric Aunoble, historian specializing in Ukraine at the University of Geneva.
In Poland, the OUN commits a series of attacks against the authorities. Bandera was sentenced to death for the 1934 assassination of the Polish Minister of the Interior, a sentence commuted to life imprisonment. In 1939, following the joint invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the USSR, he was released. The OUN split into two parts and the nationalist leader took over the leadership of one of them, the OUN-B, then described as a “banderist faction”.
Stepan Bandera then makes his most decried political decision, that of collaborating with Nazi Germany, which he perceives as a potential ally. “In the countries occupied by the USSR, before it committed the terrible abuses that we know, many believed that Hitler could be a liberator” cagainst the Soviet occupier, explains Galia Ackerman, a historian specializing in Russia. But “when the Second World War broke out, Ukrainian nationalists quickly became disillusioned”.
In June 1941, the OUN-B proclaimed in Lviv the creation of an independent Ukrainian state. “But the Nazis don’t want this independence.”, emphasizes Eric Aunoble. Stepan Bandera was then arrested to be sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, a few kilometers north of Berlin. If the leader is interned in the “VIP” section of the camp, two of his brothers perish in Auschwitz, specifies the historian. “Many Ukrainian nationalists are also shot by the Nazis”adds Galia Ackerman.
In reaction to Nazi repression, the OUN-B founded the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1942, which fought both the German occupiers and the Soviets. In September 1944, Stepan Bandera was liberated by the Germans, who sought to use him against the advancing Red Army in Ukraine. The leader still collaborates briefly with the Nazi regime.
After the victory of the Soviets, Stepan Bandera must go into exile in Germany, where he resides after the war. “In Ukraine, partisans continue to fight against the Soviets. Thousands of Communist Party dignitaries are killed”, recalls Galia Ackerman. “This will contribute more to the black legend of Bandera in the Soviet Union than the participation of his followers in Nazi atrocities”. The last maquis ended up being crushed and Stepan Bandera was himself assassinated by the KGB in Munich in 1959.
What was his responsibility in the extermination of the Jewish people in Ukraine?
“Bandera was very anti-Semitic”assures Galia Ackerman. “He was influenced by German propaganda and the myth of Judeo-Bolshevism that the Jews are the henchmen of communism”. In 1941, following Germany’s invasion of Ukraine, members of the OUN organized pogroms. In the Lviv region, “the population massacred thousands of Jewish civilians, believing that they were complicit in the executions of Ukrainian nationalists committed by the NKVD [la police politique soviétique] before the withdrawal of Russian troops. It is Bandera supporters who are at work in this massacre of the Jews.” says Eric Aunoble.
“But from his arrest by the Germans in mid-July 1941, one cannot say that Bandera was personally responsible for the massacres against the Jews during the rest of the conflict”he says. “Even though they did not act as Ukrainian nationalists, Bandera supporters were heavily engaged in Auxiliary Police units, which took Jews to their places of execution by the Nazis,” recalls, however, the historian. According to the Shoah Memorial, from 1941 to 1944, nearly one and a half million Jews in Ukraine were murdered, “under the bullets of Einsatzgruppen [les unités mobiles d’extermination du Reich qui perpétraient des massacres dans les pays de l’Est], units of the Waffen SS, of the German police” but also “local collaborators”.
The UPA, armed branch of the OUN of Bandera, is also guilty, from 1942, of numerous massacres. This time, it is the Polish minority in the Volhynia region, in the north-west of Ukraine, which is targeted. “About 60,000 Poles were then executed in appalling conditions”relates Eric Aunoble.
Why do some Ukrainians celebrate his memory?
Originally confined to the extreme right, the figure of Stepan Bandera gained importance in 2014, during the demonstrations in Maidan Square. “Groups like Right Sector [un parti ultranationaliste ukrainien] were very active from a militant point of view during these demonstrations. This gave Bandera visibility well beyond the actual political influence of these movements.” explains Eric Aunoble.
Stepan Bandera previously received more formal recognition, in 2010, when then Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko awarded the nationalist leader the title “Hero of Ukraine”.
“There is a phenomenon of selective memory about Stepan Bandera. In Ukraine, the character is celebrated above all as a fighter for national liberation”, Galia Ackerman analysis. “Many Ukrainians don’t know that his troops committed crimes against Jews and Poles, or that he was a fascist”abounds Delphine Bechtel, lecturer at the Sorbonne. “As the character is presented primarily as anti-Polish and anti-Russian, it gave him the aura of a ‘freedom fighter'”.
However, there is no censorship about Bandera in Ukraine. “The archives on the subject are perfectly free to access and some Ukrainian historians criticize the leader”wishes to clarify Galia Ackerman. “Ukraine is a country under the stress of a war, Bandera was chosen because he was the most intransigent and divisive figure against Russia”believes Eric Aunoble. “But this poses a political problem, including abroad, especially with Poland, which is nevertheless one of the countries which supports Ukraine the most in this war”.
The commemoration of the nationalist leader is not unanimous in Ukraine. “President Zelensky distanced himself from the heroization of Stepan Bandera. For example, he fired Volodymyr Viatrovych, the former director of the Institute of National Remembrance, responsible for spreading Bandera’s cult”notes Delphine Bechtel.
Is the cult of Bandera the sign of a fascisation of Ukraine?
“The commemoration of Stepan Bandera is not enough to diagnose any fascism of Ukrainian society, decides the historian Eric Aunoble. In the elections, the scores of the far right are weak, around 2%”he recalls.
“Anti-Semitism is at a very low level in Ukraine, and has been for the past 33 years” and the fall of communism, confirms the chief rabbi of kyiv, Yaakov Dov Bleich. “President Zelensky is of Jewish obedience”also recalls Galia Ackerman. “Every year, for the New Year, several thousand Jews gather without problem in Uman”in central Ukraine, because the country is “a shrine of Hasidic Judaism”. “And of course there are obviously no racial laws against Jews in Ukraine.”
Whether “many Jews are indeed unhappy” cult around Bandera, concedes Yaakov Dov Bleich, the memory of the Holocaust is however preserved in Ukraine. “Before the war, a program to rename streets with the names of Ukrainian heroes and righteous people who saved Jews during the Holocaust was started by the Jewish community in Ukraine. It was a great success,” assures the chief rabbi. The Babi Yar massacre, the biggest massacre of the Ukrainian Holocaust, is also commemorated “every year” by the government, he insists.
Yaakov Dov Bleich is adamant: “Putin is lying” when he asserts that it is necessary to “denazify” Ukraine. “The Russian president is trying to rewrite history to fit his mass murderous ideology. He uses propaganda and lies that other murderous dictators have used before him.”