The Soviet regime had a serious image problem in the 1970s and ‘80s. While the communist propaganda apparatus was trying to present Soviet Russia as a normal peaceful state, in the United States and other free countries, people of Ukrainian, Jewish and Baltic origin were working together to expose the repressive and imperialist nature of the communist dictatorship. They picketed Soviet embassies, provided the press with names of prisoners in the Soviet Gulag and demanded freedom for the peoples of the Soviet empire. The Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party assigned the KGB to solve this problem. The Soviet secret police and intelligence service had a long history of using disinformation to discredit political opponents...

Ukrainian democracy is now, allegedly, back to square one after Viktor Yanukovych's election victory. Yet though reform will not take place as long as political infighting continues, Yanukovych is equally unlikely to drop the European rhetoric and place the country in Moscow's sphere of influence, writes Mykola Riabchuk. Ukraine's leadership will continue to "muddle through" – for the time being. A great many of the international reports on Ukraine's recent presidential elections read like obituaries of the 2004 Orange Revolution. The return of Viktor Yanukovych after winning a tight and tough electoral contest is portrayed not only as the personal defeat of the "Orange" leaders but...

The word “hero” so often conjures up images of the brash and the bold. We may think of Audie Murphy’s WWII exploits, the Spartans at Thermopylae, or the doomed holdouts at the Alamo. But then there are the quiet heroes, people such as Oskar Schindler. Ever since Schindler’s List hit the silver screen in 1993, his clandestine efforts resulting in the rescue of almost 1,200 Jews from Nazi death camps have been well known. Yet that dark time birthed another quiet hero, one who saved as many as 860,000 Jewish lives. Today, however, few know of his accomplishments, few sing his praises. And Steven Spielberg will undoubtedly never make a movie lauding him. On the contrary...

During the debates that have emerged in connection with the recent resolution passed by the European Parliament, I directed a fellow discussant’s attention to the fact that all the cries of indignation about the awarding of the title of Hero of Ukraine to Stepan Bandera are coming from Russia and Poland, as well from individual representatives of the Jewish community. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has an equable attitude to the issue of the “heroization of Bandera.” I think there are serious historical reasons for this. The most critical stage in the Jewish people’s struggle for independence falls within the period of the 1930s and 1940s. There is nothing surprising about the fact that their strivings resembled the liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people. Both processes took place roughly at the same time and were formed on the exact same territory...

Ms. Rogatchi in trying to defend her position introduces the recent passage by the European Parliament of a general resolution on Ukraine’s relationship with the EU. The resolution contains twenty “having regard” clauses, seventeen “whereas” clauses and twenty-two conclusions. There is no reference in any of the “having regard” or “whereas” clauses to Bandera and the OUN. Entirely out of the blue, the EP offers conclusion #20 in which it criticizes Ukraine for honoring “Stepan Bandera, a leader of the Organisation (sic) of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) which collaborated with Nazi Germany.” To set the record straight, I wrote to...

The Soviet Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, Roman Rudenko, in his accusatory instruments against Nazi collaborators, did not mention Stepan Bandera or the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists despite, one can be certain, a definite agenda drafted in the Kremlin itself. The pre-eminent Jewish historian on the Holocaust, Raul Hilberg, in his seminal work “The Destruction of the European Jews” does not mention Bandera or the OUN either. It’s true that Yad Vashem was not pleased with Raul Hilberg, not because he was not accurate, but because he failed to embellish upon Jewish heroism. Prosecutor Rudenko certainly had access to Soviet archives. Professor Hilberg based his work primarily on German archives...

Viktor Yanukovych, seen five years ago as the vote-stealing villain of the Orange Revolution, was elected president of Ukraine on February 7. The incumbent president, Viktor Yushchenko, the hero of the mass protests demanding fair elections in 2004, had already been eliminated in the first round three weeks earlier. This left Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to represent those who had won the right to a working democracy. Despite a strenuous campaign for the presidency, she received only 45.5 percent to Yanukovych's 49 percent, with 4.5 percent voting against both candidates.[1] How to account for this dramatic reversal of heroes and villains, and for the democratic return of a man who himself rejected democracy? Ukrainian politics is full of the courageous and the grotesque, and it is no easy task to tell the difference...

The continent that spawned Hitler has no business telling Ukraine who should and shouldn't be its heroes. Ukraine is short of heroes. Many have been murdered, while others have had their memories blackened in other peoples’ histories. This is what is now happening with World War II-era freedom fighter Stepan Bandera, who led a difficult struggle during a violent period to sow the seeds of his nation’s present, yet painfully fragile independence. Bandera symbolized the plight of millions of Ukrainians who suffered under various foreign occupiers for most of their history...

Regional councils in Western Ukraine have dismissed European criticism of a decision to bestow hero status on a controversial World War II-era nationalist leader, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports. The European Parliament last week adopted a resolution in which it criticized former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's decision to grant Stepan Bandera the title Hero of Ukraine. Bandera fought against both German troops and Soviet forces in World War II. While he is lauded as a hero in the western part of Ukraine, he is considered a traitor by many in the eastern, largely pro-Russian part of the country...

In today’s Speech from the Throne the Government of Canada stated its support for the memorial to victims of Communism to be built on federal land in Ottawa. In her delivery of the speech, Governor General Michaelle Jean said the Government “supports the establishment of a National Monument to the Victims of Communism.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed his support for the memorial at a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in Ottawa last November. During his speech...