Talk:Volodymyr Kubiyovych

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[edit] Controversial issues

This below is a partial quote from the message left at my talk by Mike Stoyik. I copy it here and reply below to keep the discussion closer to the article. I hope Mike won't object. --Irpen

Dear Irpen:

It is some time since I began contributing to the Wikipedia and we collaborated together on our Kostomarov piece (before I registered), and I was somewhat surprised to meet you again in Volodymyr Kubiyovych. But here we are. I appreciate your additions to the article. However, I think that you underestimate the limited tactical nature of Kubiyovych's collaboration with the Germans and are in too much of a hurry to write him off as a Nazi, or something like one. Now, I admit that am not an expert on Kubiyovych, or even on the Second World War, but from what I have read of his writings and about him, he seems to have been no fascist. Certainly, his memoirs read very well and he comes across in them as a civilized man. In these memoirs, he compares himself to the Soviet Ukrainian academics who were evacuated to Ufa during the war and, of course, collaborated with Stalin's regime. He implies by this, I think, that they both did what little they could for the Ukrainian people in those terrible days "when evil was most free."

As to the citations on K's moderate position on Ukrainian-Polish relations during the war, and his saving Jews during the war, these come from I. Pidkova and R. Shust, Dovidnyk z istorii Ukrainy, 2nd ed. (K, 2002), article on Kubiyovych, which is available on line and could be linked to this article. But I do not know how to do this and it would be good if someone could do it for me.

Finally, I have again smoothed out the English in the article and tried to "encyclopedize" the language, to use an expression that you once taught me with regard to Kostomarov, and of which, I think, Kubiyovych would approve..

Best wishes... Mike Stoyik 16:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Mike, I both agree and disagree with you. To start with, perhaps we come from different backgrounds. Viewing those events from as far as Canada certain things look differently, but I assure you that as this is seen in Ukraine, and pretty much throughout Europe, the issue of collaboration with Nazis to an extent as taking a leading role in the organizing the SS-unit is a big deal. IMO this does not turn Kubiyovych into just another Nazi and my edit does not imply as such. But that makes him certainly a controversial figure.

He might have done that thinking that these actions might help Ukraine, as he saw it. But the comparison with the academics of Soviet Ukraine who kept their dissent to themselves working under the Stalin regime simply does not fly. One thing is to keep oneself silent when a more courageous men speak out. Quite another thing is to organize military units that would cooperate with the Genocidal regime that has plundered Ukraine and Ukrainians for 4 years. This is more like the Ukrainian academics' would be envolvement in organizing of expropriating NKVD units that plundered the Ukrainian villages in early-30s confiscating crop. There is a difference between not being courageous to voice the dissent loudly and actually collaborating with the regime by organizing the military units for it and helping to recruit. Also, comparison of Hitler atrocities in Ukraine with those of Stalin is inapropriate IMO, even taking into account the Holodomor tragedy. Hitler' policies were racial at its core targeted at extermination of Jews and to a significant extent the Ukrainians. Stalin's policies were anti-human in general, in early 30s anti-peasant too but he never set a goal to exterminate Ukrainians as a nation, like Hitler did. His policies were pretty much uniform and equally cruel to all Soviet ethnicities. For instance, even a larger share of Kazakhs perished in the early-30 famine that the Ukrainians and even now, when the archives are open, there is no evidence that his policies were directed at the elimination of the Ukrainians as a nation, rather at suppressing the peasantry, seen unreliable to the Bolshevik policies, and extract as much grain as possible to finance his economic programs. More of it is disccused in "Was Holodomor a Genocide" section of the Holodomor article.

So, I strongly think that the collaboration with Nazis should not be minimized. It does not make Kubiyovych just the Nazi-end of story, he was a complicated person, but it is a big issue that would remain forever associated with Kubiyovych, along with his superb stance as an academic.

Also, you removed my correction that UofUA is largely written from Ukrainophile POV. You and I know that it is correct. Just check its articles, for instance the UPA article there minimized its role in the interethnic violence and terror of the civillian population committed by this group concentrating only on its being a resistance force to Nazis, which is true but only a part of the story.

As such, I will restore some of the points I raised earlier. I also added the citations you the Dovidnyk that you gave me, Thanks, --Irpen 20:29, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Was the stamp referred to in the last paragraph a postage stamp issued by the Ukrainian post office or was it a commemorative issued by some private organization? From the image as it now stands in the article, it does not seem to bear any official sign. Mike Stoyik 16:11, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I figured what the problem was. It was a postal stationary, an envelope ready to mailed as Postage is included in its price. Corrected. Thanks for noticing. --Irpen 06:00, 16 September 2006 (UTC)