The 20th-Century History Behind Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

此片中文翻译版见我的博客：https://blog.wenxuecity.com/myblog/11613/202203/6127.html

During WWII, Ukrainian nationalists saw the Nazis as liberators from Soviet oppression. Now, Russia is using that chapter to paint Ukraine as a Nazi nation

The debate over how to remember Ukraine's World War II history, as well as its implications for Ukrainian nationalism and independence, is key to understanding the current conflict.

Katya Cengel

Before Russian forces fired rockets at the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv; seized Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident; and attacked Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, Russian President Vladimir Putin shared some choice words.

In an essay published on the Kremlin’s website in Russian, Ukrainian and English last July, Putin credited Soviet leaders with inventing a Ukrainian republic within the Soviet Union in 1922, forging a fictitious state unworthy of sovereignty out of historically Russian territory. After Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, the president argued, Ukrainian leaders “began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united [Russia and Ukraine], and refer to the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation.”

The “historical reality” of modern-day Ukraine is more complex than Putin’s version of events, encompassing “a thousand-year history of changing religions, borders and peoples,” according to the New York Times. “[M]any conquests by warring factions and Ukraine’s diverse geography ... created a complex fabric of multiethnic states.”

Residents of Kyiv leave the city following pre-offensive missile strikes by Russian armed forces on February 24, 2022.

Over the centuries, the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, Poland, and Lithuania have all wielded jurisdiction over Ukraine, which first asserted its modern independence in 1917, with the formation of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Russia soon wrested back control of Ukraine, making it part of the newly established Soviet Union and retaining power in the region until World War II, when Germany invaded. The debate over how to remember this wartime history, as well as its implications for Ukrainian nationalism and independence, is key to understanding the current conflict.

In Putin’s telling, the modern Ukrainian independence movement began not in 1917 but during World War II. Under the German occupation of Ukraine, between 1941 and 1944, some Ukrainian independence fighters aligned themselves with the Nazis, whom they viewed as saviors from Soviet oppression. Putin has drawn on this period in history to portray any Ukrainian push for sovereignty as a Nazi endeavor, says Markian Dobczansky, a historian at Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute. “It’s really just a stunningly cynical attempt to fight an information war and influence people's opinions,” he adds.

Dobczansky is among a group of scholars who have publicly challenged Putin’s version of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine and the years of Soviet rule it’s sandwiched between. Almost all of these experts begin their accounts with the fall of the Russian Empire, when tens of thousands of Ukrainians fought against the Bolshevik Red Army to establish the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Ukrainians continued to fight for independence until 1922, when they were defeated by the Soviets and became the Ukrainian Soviet Republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). By leaving out Ukraine’s short-lived but hard-fought period of independence in the early 20th century, Putin overlooks the country’s sovereignty, says Dobczansky.

A nationalist rally in Kyiv in January 1917

Also omitted from this version of events are the genocide and suppression that took place under Soviet rule—most famously the Great Famine. Holodomor, which fuses the Ukrainian words for starvation and inflicting death, claimed the lives of around 3.9 million people, or approximately 13 percent of the Ukrainian population, in the early 1930s. A human-made famine, it was the direct result of Soviet policies aimed at punishing Ukrainian farmers who fought Soviet mandates to collectivize. The Soviets also waged an intense “Russification” campaign, persecuting Ukraine’s cultural elite and elevating Russian language and culture above all others.

When Germany invaded in 1941, some Ukrainians, especially those in western Ukraine, saw them as liberators, says Oxana Shevel, a political scientist at Tufts University. The Ukrainians didn’t particularly want to live under the Germans so much as escape the Soviets, adds Shevel, who is the president of the nonprofit educational organization American Association for Ukrainian Studies.

“The broader objective was to establish an independent state, but in the process, [Ukrainians] also engaged in participation in the Holocaust,” she says.

The question for Shevel is how to treat this history. From the Soviet point of view that Putin still embraces, it’s simple, she says: The Holocaust aside, Ukrainian nationalists were “bad guys” because “they fought the Soviet state.” Putin and other critics often draw on Ukrainians’ wartime collaboration with the Nazis to baselessly characterize the modern country as a Nazi nation; in a February 24 speech, the Russian president deemed the “demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine” key goals of the invasion.

 

Locals erect huge anti-tank traps during the Nazi invasion of Ukraine in 1941.

From the Ukrainian side of the debate, the country’s wartime history is more complex. Are the nationalists “bad guys” because they participated in the Holocaust, Shevel asks, or “good guys” because they fought for independence?

For Putin, even raising this question is inflammatory. “Any kind of reevaluation of the Soviet treatment of history is what Putin would consider [a] Nazi approach or Nazification,” says Shevel.

To deny the claim that Ukraine is a Nazi state isn’t to downplay the Nazis’ wartime actions in Ukraine. Natalie Belsky, a historian at the University of Minnesota Duluth, points out that one of the biggest massacres of the Holocaust took place just outside of Kyiv. Between 1941 and 1943, the Nazis—aided by local collaborators—shot around 70,000 to 100,000 people, many of them Jews, at Babyn Yar, a ravine on the outskirts of Kyiv. According to the National WWII Museum, one in every four Jewish victims of the Holocaust was murdered in Ukraine.

While Germans often think of World War II as a fight against the Russians, the majority of the fighting actually took place in modern-day Ukraine and Belarus, as well as large parts of western Russia, says Dobczansky. Under the German occupation, several million Ukrainians were sent to Germany to work on farms and in factories. Still, because the Nazi racial hierarchy placed Ukrainians above Russians, the Nazis made a limited attempt to promote Ukrainian national culture in occupied territories—a move that, in turn, helped bring some of the Ukrainian nationalist movement to the German side.

“Those [nationalist] groups certainly had anti-Semitic elements,” says Belsky. “But [they] essentially felt that, or judged that, they were more likely to get Ukrainian independence under Nazi occupation than under Soviet occupation.”

Motorized infantry of the German armed forces advance into Ukraine during World War II.

The Nazis, she says, promised Ukrainian nationalists as much—at least after the war. But even before their defeat by the Allies in 1945, the Germans turned on some of their Ukrainian allies, including one of the country’s most famous independence fighters, Stepan Bandera. In his fight against the Soviets, Bandera aligned himself with the Germans, only to end up in a concentration camp after he refused to rescind a proclamation of Ukrainian statehood in 1941. Released in 1944 to help the Nazis battle the Soviets again, Bandera survived the war, only to be poisoned by the KGB in 1959. In 2010, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the title of “Hero of Ukraine,” but the honor was annulled a year later.

“This [reexamination of Ukrainian participation in wartime atrocities] has prompted a relatively difficult dialogue in Ukraine about the issue of complicity,” says Belsky.

Putin has referenced Ukrainian nationalists in service of his own political agenda of portraying modern Ukrainians as Nazis. Prior to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, many Ukrainians viewed Bandera and other freedom fighters in a less favorable light, says Shevel. After, however, she noticed a shift, with these individuals, some of whom fought alongside the Nazis, being called heroes. The Soviets, once held up as liberators from the Nazis, were now the bad guys again.

Bandera may no longer be an official hero of Ukraine, but his memory and that of other 20th-century independence fighters endure. In 2015, Ukraine passed a series of decommunization laws calling for the removal of communist monuments and the renaming of public spaces in honor of Ukrainian nationalists and nationalist organizations, including those known to have participated in the Holocaust. The legislation has received pushback from scholars who see it as whitewashing, or ignoring the dark sides of these movements and their activities.

hevel agrees that a complete reversal in framing is “probably not the best outcome.” Although the previous Soviet narrative was very one-sided, she cautions against replacing it with an equally one-sided narrative that labels Ukrainian nationalists unconditional good guys. Either way, Shevel says, the issue is one that should be debated internally, not by a foreign invader: “It’s problematic, but it’s a domestic debate.”

Dobczansky, for his part, believes Ukraine is entitled to its own version of history and that Ukrainians should be allowed to choose how to present their own experiences. He praises local researchers’ efforts to study the Holocaust and open their archives and notes that Ukraine’s current president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish.

“Ukraine has begun the process of confronting the darkest pages of its past,” he says.

In today’s charged atmosphere, saying anything critical about Ukrainian nationalism or calling attention to Ukrainian nationalists’ involvement with the Nazis can be seen as supporting Russia’s depiction of Ukraine as a Nazi nation, Belsky notes.

This Russian narrative is nothing new. Instead, says Dobczansky, it’s part of a long-term Russian information war on Ukraine. Putin’s ahistorical justifications of the invasion doesn’t surprise the scholar. What does surprise him is the outpouring of support he’s seen for Ukraine, with even “Saturday Night Live” paying tribute to the beleaguered nation.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-20th-century-history-behind-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-180979672/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

更早一些的乌克兰历史，以及乌克兰的欧盟进程以及原因见下面我的简要总结：

乌克兰历史上就是比较悲催的地方, 与俄罗斯一样同属东斯拉夫人种, 在这一地区散居,后因内部纷争,请来维京海盗来解决自己内部问题, 维京人就顺便统治他们不走了, 建立基辅罗斯文化,也是乌克兰文化的基础,早于沙俄. 这个地区一直没有真正独立建国, 领主都是所谓大公, 即别的王朝的大臣. 曾被波兰公国, 立陶宛公国,奥斯曼土耳其帝国,沙俄,以及苏联统治. 但后来乌克兰人因不堪沙俄以及苏联的暴政,开始谋求民族独立建国.

在被波兰公国统治期间,因乌克兰领主被波兰贵族欺压,起义造反,战争陆陆续续打了100多年, 输输赢赢, 最终因势衰,此时的克里米亚半岛已经被奥斯曼土耳其帝国占领, 无力夺回, 其时为了谋求新出路对抗波兰, 他们觉得选则新的主人去投靠, 因奥斯曼土耳其是伊斯兰教, 乌克兰人决定投靠,文化,宗教相近的俄罗斯帝国. 当时的沙皇是叶卡捷琳娜二世. 沙皇答应了乌克兰的要求, 去攻打波兰,并从奥斯曼土耳其帝国手里夺回克里米亚. 没想到的是俄罗斯给乌克兰带来了比波兰人更深重的灾难, 波兰人统治乌克兰,还在经营这个地方,给乌克兰领主发钱, 出钱养乌克兰军队, 俄罗斯人只有掠夺.

俄罗斯帝国崛起后, 乌克兰还属于散居状态,很多崇尚自由的人都跑来这里定居,没人管辖, 他们管自己叫哥萨克, 意思是崇尚自由, 与我们理解的哥萨克不同, 被沙俄接管后, 叶卡捷琳娜二世强征哥萨克人为其打仗, 组建哥萨克骑兵,这是我们知道的哥萨克, 雍正乾隆年间的与沙俄的两场战争都有大量哥萨克骑兵参战.

然后叶女皇一边打波兰人,赶走土耳其人一边把俄罗斯人移民到乌克兰, 从东部一路到克里米亚半岛. 这就是乌东亲俄的基础, 大多数都是俄罗斯族.

苏联十月革命后,乌克兰人又造反,此时要独立, 后被苏联打败, 斯大林命名此时的乌克兰,叫乌克兰苏联民主共和国. 附属国或殖民地吧. 30年代, 苏共采取实现共产主义,农业合作化. 就像中国的大跃进, 造成农民积极性下降, 赶上天灾, 乌克兰粮食大减产, 斯大林则认为是农民反对合作化,把粮食藏起来, 最后强行搜走乌克兰农民的所有粮食包括种子. 致使3百90万乌克兰人饿死大饥荒,占乌克兰总人口的13%, 很多乌克兰人认为这是俄罗斯人的故意种族灭绝而不是失败的经济政策. 这是30年代乌克兰大饥荒的史实.

然后二战爆发, 乌克兰民族主义者想趁机谋求民族独立建国,于是加入了纳粹,参与了对犹太人的屠杀, 希特勒也答应了乌克兰民族主义者,战后允许乌克兰独立, 后来又不允许,征用乌克兰人去德国劳作,地位高于俄罗斯人, 二战末期又重新启用的乌克兰民族主义者给希特勒当炮灰.

战后,赫鲁晓夫期间清算了斯大林, 赫鲁晓夫主动把已经属于俄罗斯的克里米亚划归乌克兰, 克里米亚地理位置非常重要,是俄罗斯的黑海出海口, 如果还是一个国家并无所谓, 但两个国家属于敌对. 所以普京在2014年,突然出兵占领克里米亚,号称兵不血刃.

乌克兰是欧洲第二大国, 是欧洲最大的农业国, 号称欧洲的粮仓, 指的是乌克兰西部, 东部是苏联时期建立的工业区. 随着乌克兰与欧洲走的越来越近, 矛盾就出现了, 东部是完全苏联的工业体系与欧洲不兼容, 加入欧洲就要推倒重来,没有任何好处. 东部就不愿加入欧盟, 况且俄罗斯人多, 所以就发生了反叛, 两个地区要求独立建国并被俄罗斯支持. 而西部加入欧盟, 其农业收入可以得到欧盟的支持, 每亩地可以补偿大600-700欧元, 是实实在在的实惠, 所以乌克兰特别想加入欧盟.

因为乌克兰政府腐败, 腐败程度超过俄罗斯, 是欧洲第二最腐败的国家, 入欧盟资格一直没有被通过. 如今北约更不敢直接接收它, 因为加入北约的条件是与其它国家没有边界纠纷.

所以你看,战争的原因不是什么文化,宗教,主义, 完全就是为了利益. 东乌反叛是为利益, 乌克兰加入欧盟也是为利益, 老百姓只要安居乐业, 有利益可得就行.

谢谢花教授普及历史军事知识：）乌克兰有1000年的历史啊。北约和欧盟都不接受乌克兰，那离停战是不是不远了？

Not just in WWII, antisemitism has a long history in Ukraine

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谢谢分享。赞。

谢谢分享。赞。

深度好文！先赞一个！

thank you for sharing this

谢谢花帅分享！读了：）