«DON’T LET THEM STEP ON OUR HOLY GROUND»: KGB UKRAINIAN SSR AND THE POLITICS OF MEMORY ON LOCAL COLLABORATION, 1960–1980’s

  • Andrii Usach

Abstract

In 1960–1980s, the Soviet Ukraine adopted a practice of public court proceedings that became an essential part of the so-called «second wave» of ex-collaborators persecution in the Ukrainian SSR. Initiated by Commettee for State Security (KGB). These proceedings represented an important part of a larger campaign on the instrumentalization of the events of World War II, Nazi occupation and the Holocaust. KGB’s active involvement in the creation and distribution of propaganda products among both domestic and foreign consumers is indisputable. Usually this activity would touch on a sore point in order to solve relevant political issues.

A major external factor affecting the KGB’s activity in those years was «the cold war», the aggravation of which began in early 1960s. In this regard, KGB Ukrainian SSR focused attention on the Ukrainian diaspora, as they saw a threat in the fact that the Western intelligence services were using it for anti-Soviet purposes, including private contacts with relatives living in Ukraine. That is why, since early 1960s, there was a trend to accumulate and disclose information about the members of diaspora communities, who cooperated with Nazi Germany during World War II. The main goal thereupon was to label all these communities as total collaborators and Western countries as those that deliberately provide them with a shelter.

An important role in contextulazing the KDB’s activity in the stated period belongs to internal factors, particularly, to the struggle with national movements – Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar, Jewish, – dissident groups and religious denominations. It was even more important in terms of a simultaneous shaping of the «common Soviet identity» and a myth of the Great Patriotic War as a part and center of this identity.

This article explores the role KGB Ukrainian SSR played in instrumentalizing local collaboration in 1960–1980s. The author seeks to trace the way Ukrainian population responded to this activity in short- and long-term perspectives. The author leans on the archives of Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which have recently become accessible.

Key words: collaboration, KGB of the Ukrainian SSR, trials, instrumentalization, participation in the Holocaust.

Author Biography

Andrii Usach

Master of History, Ph.D. student of the Ukrainian Catholic University, is working on a dissertation research «Local Collaboration and the Holocaust in Occupied Ukraine: Barsky District, 1941–1944», researcher of the Terror Territory Memorial Museum

Published
2018-12-15