World War II as an Identity Project Historicism, Legitimacy Contests, and the (Re-)Construction of Political Communities in Ukraine, 1939–1946 Oleksandr Melnyk, Andreas Umland, David R. Marples

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Melnyk, Oleksandr, Author.

Contributor:

Umland, Andreas, Editor.

Marples, David R., Author of introduction, etc.

Series:

Ukrainian voices (Stuttgart, Germany) ; Volume 28.

Ukrainian Voices

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

World War II.

Zweiter Weltkrieg.

Ukraine.

Geschichte.

History.

Politics.

Politik.

Local Subjects:

World War II.

Zweiter Weltkrieg.

Ukraine.

Geschichte.

History.

Politics.

Politik.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (439 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Hannover ibidem 2022

Biography/History:

Dr. David Marples is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

Dr. Oleksandr Melnyk studied History at the University of Alberta and the University of Toronto. He held post-doctoral fellowships at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His papers have been published in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, Ukraina Moderna, and The War in Ukraine's Donbas (Central European University Press 2021).

Summary:

This book explores the relationship between history, legitimacy, and violence in the building and breaking of nations and states on the territory of contemporary Ukraine during the Second World War and in its aftermath. At its center are various institutions of the Soviet state. Other states and rival political movements also enter the picture insofar as their acitivities influenced Soviet policies. Methodologically, the study shifts attention from a limited body of normative texts and their creators within the Soviet political and cultural elite to a wider array of practices, organizations, and players engaged in power struggles and production of knowledge about the past in different social domains. Specifically, it brings into focus groups not normally thought of as participants in the production of Soviet memory discourse, notably NKVD officers, Soviet archivists, Ukrainian nationalists, Nazi collaborators, and former partisans in the German-occupied territories. The book not only demonstrates the complexity of nation-shaping processes, but also restores agency to some seemingly powerless actors.

Contents:

Intro

Letter to Petro Vershyhora

Table of Figures

Note on Transliteration

Foreword by David R. Marples

Introduction

Soviet Historicism and Historical Cultures

Historiographical Contexts

Historicism and Modernity

Soviet Historicism during the 1920s

Stalinism and Securitization of Culture

The Second World War and Legitimacy Contests

1 The Second World War and the (Un-)Making of Political Communities

Operation Barbarossa and the End of Soviet Rule

The Occupation Apparatus and the Problem of Collaboration

The Holocaust and Other Cases of Mass Murder

Soviet Resistance Movement

Nationalist Insurgencies and the Ethnic Conflict in the Borderlands

2 The Nationalist Challenge

The Protagonists

The Expeditionary Groups

The Place

The Network

Historicism and Political Mobilization

The Postscript

3 Reckoning with War Criminality

War, Societal Mobilization, and State Security

Soviet Intelligence Networks

Soviet Political Warfare

In the Spaces of Contested Sovereignty

The "Return" of the Soviet State

4 Archives, Surveillance, and Historical Politics

Archives in the Soviet System of Political Control

Task Forces of the NKVD

Visions and Realities

Operational Uses of the Archives

Special Services, Archives, and the Politics of History

5 Stalinist Justice as a Site of Memory

Antecedents

Milieux de Mémoire

Tangled Webs

The Crime

Narrating the Murder

6 Partisans, "False Partisans," and the Negotiation of Political Identities

The Origins of the Soviet Partisan Movement

The Soviet State and the Problem of "False Partisans"

Bureaucracies

The Structure of the Verification Process

The Role of Local Communities

Epilogue - History, Memory, and Legitimacy after 1945

War, Memory, and the Postwar Social Order.

Towards the Creation of the Political Community

Украïна Радянська

Sources

Archives

Electronic Resources:

Newspapers

Films

Literature

Acknowledgements.

Notes:

[Auflage]

Includes bibliographical references.

Other Format:

Print version: Melnyk, Oleksandr World War II as an Identity Project

ISBN:

9783838277042

383827704X

OCLC:

1378389539

Publisher Number:

9783838277042