Moscow hosted the press conference devoted to the 71st anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. During the event the book of documents “Ukrainian Nationalistic Organizations in the Years of the Second World War. 1939-1945” was presented. It is the first scientific publication on this topic in Russia.
Andrei Artizov, head of the Federal Archive Agency, PhD (history): "A serious work on searching for documents in Russian and foreign archives preceded the publication of the book, including the Federal and Military Archives of Germany, the Political Archive of the German Foreign Ministry and the State Archives of Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland. The book includes more than 500 documents, 80% of which have been published for the first time. Many Russian documents were declassified especially for the book. As for the documents in the Russian language, as all are published as translated from German, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish, more than 90% of them haven’t been published in Russian before."
"The original sources make us think over such difficult questions as a connection between a nationalist movement and collaborationism. Where does one end and where does another start? What measures are possible and justified in achieving an understandable target – the establishment of a national state. I must be honest – there are no simple answers to these questions. And it is a great field for serious research work. Launching a great number of sources into the scientific field is a serious step in this direction. The main thing – as we see it – is not to give any political or juridical judgments, moreover, not to adopt any legal acts with such judgments, retaining the problem for a scientific analysis by experts, for a discussion which will help to develop a point of view close to the truth."
"Having no reasons for talks about a political order, we, the authors, didn’t let ourselves to do so where we wrote the text – and the text was written by the participants of the press conference, I mean the historical and archeographic introduction and commenting – we didn’t allow ourselves to use any juridical or historical label toward the participants of past events, notwithstanding which side they fought for. Moreover, as we have prepared an academic edition, where only original sources were published, and strived for maximum truthfulness, we apply a strict approach to the photos. Usually, even documentary editions publish photos as illustrations without an archival code and date. And often a photo of famine in the Volga region in 1922, for example, is published in material devoted to the famine of 1932-1933. The internet is full of historical fakes. Photoshop enables you to dress any person in a German uniform and say that he collaborated with Germany. Of course, we couldn’t do this. That is clear. That is why the book contains only documents attributed and stored in archives or stop-frames from documentaries, including films from the trophy fund."
“On the 8th of May 2012, on the eve of the Victory Day, the Ukrainian newspaper “Day” published an article by Alexander Pali – I don’t know him personally, but I have read many his articles. He is focused on historic essays. The article tries to present new conceptual grounds of the history of the Second of World War and the Great Patriotic War relating to modern Ukraine. The article is headlined “The Victory would be impossible without Ukraine.” I won’t judge the content of the article - such articles are not rare in the current Ukrainian media - but I will quote several lines from it: “Even after Holodomor and Ukraine’s losses in the Second World War the USSR authorities still felt a threat from Ukraine. The Soviet authorities decided to evict all Ukrainians from Ukraine. This idea was implemented in the order by the People’s Commissar on Foreign Affairs of the USSR Beria and the deputy People’s Commissar of Defense of the USSAR Zhukov on June 22, 1944, On Eviction of all Ukrainians to Siberia.” Without any doubt, Pali refers to an obvious fake – a German propaganda fly-sheet of 1944, which was intended to be spread among the Ukrainian population. Honest Ukrainian scientists and historians have many times written about this fake. Activists of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists – the Ukrainian Insurgent Army were keen at creating fake orders of the USSR authorities. Here is an example of such productions – the photo-document, which we presented to you so that you can see how all these pseudo-historic documents were spread among the population.”
“Of course we do understand that publishing the two-volume book won’t prevent people who write false or cite fake sources. But for those who want and can listen and think, who strive for understanding where the truth is, I think the book is very useful. We have no other way to realize of the past – only through the declassifying of documents and discovering new sources available for scientists and citizens. That is why after the edition will be sold or given away, we will do our best to make the electronic version of the book available to download at the web-site of the Archive of Russia.”
The head of RSUH, the RAS member, Efim Pivovar: “It is a magnificent edition, as the archeographic introduction says that only 7 documents from these two volumes have been published in our country, and only 99 out of 506 have been published earlier. And even the published documents haven’t been published in Russian. All of them were translated in Russian from the Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, German languages. It is an unprecedented event as it is one of not completely studied themes of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War, one of not completely studied or differently understood themes in the history of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Germany.”
“On the other hand, it is paradoxical and very important that the authors of the book showed the example, I should say, not only effective and significant, but very important for the future process of the integration of efforts of archivists and historians of many countries. Of course historiographies of our countries have different points of view on these events, especially in journalism. But it is a scientific approach from the point of view of modern rules of historiography. I emphasize that the book was composed at a high scientific level. The authors managed to avoid the mistakes which appeared in previous editions. They found a lot of facts which were understood incorrectly in other editions in other languages. It is very important that this systemic scientific approach is demonstrated by our archive society. The fact that the book was written by archivists of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Germany confirms that cooperation has its fruits and results.”
“There is a series of documents which are not very important for specialists, but interesting for a wide range of readers. My colleagues have already mentioned photo-documents. These are not only photos, but also illustrative materials – real fly-sheets or falsifications of addresses, schemes of settlement of some groups or protocols, schemes of caches in those or these places. Thus, it is a very rich illustrative material. The documents – any of them – present a very many-sided and diversified picture and situations. The authors didn’t intrude into the documents, as that is not their position. These are real originals saved in various countries, in various archives – federal or departmental – documents on the epoch. It is notable that all biographic certificates which are also numerous – and it is a great work too, because representatives of various countries, groups, sides, cooperation blocs are depicted – they all are presented objectively. Only true facts without any judgments, both political and personal. Real fact and certain characteristics are objective documental evidence.”
“It was done on purpose, because of course we all have a certain civic position on the events happened in our country, the former big country, the USSR, and now we study history of separate countries, nevertheless, it is our common history. We have our own position. And authors from many countries who participated in this work can have their own position as well. But in this case a pure scientific approach was applied to the material and its understanding for researches, either young or experiences, have an opportunity to get the material, while understanding of it, I hope, will be objective. It is a very important documental material which will serve the education of the next generation and the study of the historic past. And we should go on this research, as the less white, or black, spots remain in the history of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War, the better results the next generation will achieve.”
