ukrainian nationalismby john a. armstrong

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Ukrainian Nationalism by John A. Armstrong Review by: David Saunders The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 69, No. 2 (Apr., 1991), p. 387 Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4210649 . Accessed: 11/06/2014 05:07 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Slavonic and East European Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 188.72.96.19 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 05:07:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: Ukrainian Nationalismby John A. Armstrong

Ukrainian Nationalism by John A. ArmstrongReview by: David SaundersThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 69, No. 2 (Apr., 1991), p. 387Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4210649 .

Accessed: 11/06/2014 05:07

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and EastEuropean Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Slavonic andEast European Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.19 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 05:07:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Ukrainian Nationalismby John A. Armstrong

REVIEWS 387

Armstrong, John A. Ukrainian Nationalism. Third Edition. Ukrainian Academic Press, Englewood, Colorado, I990. XViii + 271 pp. Maps. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $23.00.

THE first two editions of this book came out in I 955 and I 963 and were reviewed here by Hugh Seton-Watson and F. L. Carsten (SEER, 35, I956-57, PP. 3I3- 14, and 43, I964-65, P. 492). '[S] ubstantive changes are fewer than new source citations' (p. xiii). Armstrong now gives full references to the German docu- ments which were declassified in the I96os, but he has not had to re-work his entire text because he had seen much of the German material before it became widely available. The concluding chapter of the first edition is reprinted unchanged. The original title of the work, Ukrainian Nationalism, I939-I945, ought to have been reinstated. The dates were dropped from the second edition, but calling a book Ukrainian Nationalism when it is almost entirely about Ukrainian nationalism during the Second World War is misleading. Nearly forty years on, Armstrong might have been able to refer by name rather than number to the many interviewees from whom he acquired information. His explanation of the non-use of material in Polish (pp. I I I, 13 ) is unsatisfying. He is still uncertain when Kiev became part of the Russian Empire (pp. I95,

I 97). These are minorfailings, however, by comparison with the strengths ofthe study. Although Ukrainian Nationalism is no longer the only book on Ukraine in the Second World War (compare, for example, Wolodymyr Kosyk, L'Allemagne national-socialiste et l'Ukraine, Paris, I 986, and Yury Boshyk [ed.], Ukraine during World War II: History and its Aftermath, Edmonton, I986), it remains the most stimulating. Armstrong holds no brief for the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. He does not shrink from saying that although its radical wing revealed an unexpected degree of doctrinal flexibility in the course of the war, it never looked likely to embrace the idea of political democracy. He claims that the Ukrainian Insurrectionary Army was 'very probably... the most important example of forceful resistance to an established Communist regime prior to the decade of fierce Afghan resistance beginning in I979' (p. 223), but he does not also claim that it was the most admirable. Ukrainian political activists come badly out of the book. So do Ukraine's German occupiers, but Armstrong points out that during the war 'the official language [of Ukraine] always remained Ukrainian' (p. I64). However reluctantly, therefore, and despite retaining the collective farms, reducing Ukrainians' educational opportunities, and remov- ing I.5 million Ukrainians to Germany, the Nazis managed to satisfy a key Ukrainian aspiration. Or did they? The most interesting passages of Arm- strong's book are those which reflect on Ukrainian society in general rather than the militant nationalist conspirators. Armstrong suggests that few inhabitants of Ukraine took much interest in language. Most of them, in his view, tended 'to reject any ethnic national creed in favor of some ideology based on territorial identity' (p. 205). This thought may have been the germ of the author's remarkable Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill, I 982). If it was, Ukraine can be said to have been an inspiration to all modern students of national identity, however unhappy it has usually been for Ukrainians. Department of History DAVID SAUNDERS University ofNewcastle upon Tyne

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.19 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 05:07:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions