Let’s start with Volodymyr Viatrovych, a historian appointed by President Poroshenko and put in charge of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory to “implement the state policy in the field of restoration and preservation of national memory of the Ukrainian people”.
What Volodymyr did instead is erase Ukraine’s racist and bloody history and stripped any mention of the pogroms and ethnic cleansing from the official archives, he whitewashed Ukrainian nationalist groups’ involvement in the Holocaust and mass ethnic cleansing of Poles during World War II and rebranded Nazi collaborators as national heroes worthy of idealization.
He was instrumental in bringing forth a new law which promised that people who “publicly exhibit a disrespectful attitude” towards the OUN and the UPA or deny the legitimacy” of Ukraine’s 20th century struggle for independence will be prosecuted.
He was also involved in influencing the issuance of a directive by the Ministry of Education to teachers regarding the “necessity to accentuate the patriotism and morality of the activists of the liberation movement,” including depicting the UPA as a “symbol of patriotism and sacrificial spirit in the struggle for an independent Ukraine” and Bandera as an “outstanding representative” of the Ukrainian people.”
Sadly, Viatrovych is responsible for an exhumation ban in Ukraine which is a painful injustice for the Polish people.
Viatrovych’s integrity as a historian has been widely attacked within Western countries as well as by a number of respected historians in Ukraine. Western historians accused him of ignoring, and even going as far as falsifying historical documents to fit his narrative.
Not at all surprisingly and very much on brand, Viatrovych has dismissed any criticisms and questions about the fabrication or erasure of historical events not comporting with this narrative as “Soviet propaganda.”
