AW: Re: Umberto Eco - Ur Fascism

[Martin Dietze]

Now this is moving quite a bit away from Pynchon, but I cannot resist
replying anyway (dear moderators, if any, feel free to stop this if
necessary)….

On 3. January 2022 at 10:20:11, Hübschräuber via Pynchon-l (
pynchon-l at waste.org) wrote:

I have no sympathy for the Kaczyński twins but still find Ukrainian
Neo-Nazis far more interesting. After a march of Banderites on New Year's
Day, torchlights and all, the Israelian embassy twittered (translated by
DeepL):


"Israel condemns the nationalist march in honor of Bandera. The
glorification of those who supported Nazi ideology desecrates the memory of
Holocaust victims in Ukraine. We demand that the anti-Semitic
manifestations that took place during the march be investigated according
to the law adopted in 2021."

Israel’s condemnation of the Bandera cult is quite understandable given his
organisation’s members’ participation in the German-organised pogroms in
Western Ukraine in Summer 1941. While historians today tend to assess
Bandera's responsibility as mostly indirect (as he as leader was to be held
accountable regardless whether he ordered his regional groups to
participate or not), his name has become a symbol for quite a number of
historic events in different ways.

And this is where the trouble begins. By both, the Soviet Union and
Ukrainian nationalists, Bandera was made a myth not more real than Santa
Claus (and in some way comparable to the respective myths created around
other historic personalities, like Lenin, Mao, Che Guevara etc.). What both
contradicting myths have in common is them vastly overestimating Bandera's
importance (see this article by Marek Voynar [1] for more details,
translates well with google’s help). But let’s get to the differences:

According to the Soviet version, Bandera’s name was made a synonym for
pretty much everything done by Ukrainian nationalists during WW2 and
shortly after (which, of course, cannot be correct, because he spent most
of the war in German prison). This was particularly relevant, because this
narrative was used for linking the - by 1943/1944 quite popular and
widespread - anti Soviet resistance mostly in Eastern Galicia to “fascism”,
thus delegitimising it. After the war, whoever in Soviet Union was
suspicious of being in favour of an independent Ukraine would be called
“Bandera”.

In Western Ukraine people commemorate the above mentioned anti Soviet
resistance while widely ignoring (sometimes being unaware of) the link it
had to radical nationalist leaders and war crimes they had committed. As
the Soviet often called Western Ukrainians “Banderites”, they used the same
term for themselves in a kind-of self ironic tone. Until about 2010 however
people usually did not know much about who in particular this Bandera was.
The Bandera cult as we see it today evolved mostly during the Yanukovych
years, fuelled mostly by 3 factors:

   1. Former OUN activists were able to gain some influence in Ukrainian
   diaspora after WW2 and actively promoted a picture of their organisation as
   “patriotic but democratic” - which of course it had not been (see Per
   Anders Rudling, The Return of the Ukrainian Far Right : The Case of VO
   Svoboda [2]). President Yushchenko’s wife was from a (US) diaspora
   background which probably contributed to him declaring Bandera “hero of the
   Ukraine” just before his presidency’s end.
   2. Yushchenko’s successor, Victor Yanukoych  (who, which probably was
   the only thing we should thank him for, declared the award illegal)
   secretly financed the then pretty negligible Svoboda party. Why should he?
   This was typical of what is known as “political technology” in post Soviet
   countries: manipulate the political landscape to your own favour. In this
   case the strategy was to promote a far-right political force, ideally
   making it the leading opposition party, which would (a) be unelectable for
   the majority of voters who would have to turn to his Party of Regions, and
   (b) help disqualifing opposition to his regime as “fascist”. Svoboda did
   indeed attract lots of votes from the political center (which immediately
   vanished after he had lost power in 2014), and they actively used this for
   propagating the myth of Bandera as a people-loving, democratic and
   patriotic martyr).
   3. After the Euro Maidan (where Svoboda activists had been loud and
   visible, but not many), with the Crime annexation and Russia’s war against
   Ukraine in its Eastern provinces Donetsk and Luhansk, patriotism was seen
   as a necessary means for mobilisation allowing the Bandera cult to partly
   sneak into the political center.

Conclusion: “historic” Bandera (i.e. the person who has actually lived) has
no place in Soviet (now: Russian) and Ukrainian mythology.

So how comes that in Ukraine even some people from a bourgeoise and by no
means radical nationalist background are unable to see Bandera as the
person he really was? Apart from the mobilisation aspect (see above, also
the analysis “Agree to disagree” by Oleksand Sushko [3] which also
discusses the “Polish-Ukrainian” aspect, should auto-translate well), they
tend to suspect the less flattering historic truth to be part of Russia’s
information warfare. In a triangle of heroic Ukrainian-nationalist
narrative, its Soviet/Russian counterpart and - often lengthy, not even
available in Ukrainian or Russian language - historian’s books and articles
they tend to choose the first option, because it is perceived as “theirs”.
So apart from some people worshipping the wrong hero (on which we, I guess,
can all agree), one should avoid the “shortcut” of equalling this with
actual radical nationalist world views. The last 2 parliamentary elections
tell us otherwise: none of the radical right parties even made it into
parliament.

End of off-topic for now. Since I have friends and relatives in Ukraine,
have been to this country dozens of times during the last 25 years and
knowing a bit about its history, society and politics I felt a need to add
some details to this. Maybe it’s useful for some, apologies if otherwise.

References:

   1.
   https://zaxid.net/bandera__nevdaha_z_yakogo_zrobili_geroya_i_vbivtsyu_n1475616
   2.
   http://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/PA-Rudling-on-Return-of-Ukrainian-Far-Right-2013.pdf

   3. https://zn.ua/ukr/internal/pogoditisya-na-nezgodu-261014_.html