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| 'Were the Russians right?' The debate over 'Banderism' in Poland has reached a new leve |
| 2025-10-23 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Oleg Khavich [REGNUM] On October 20, one of Poland's most popular weeklies, Do Rzeczy (close to the conservative opposition), put on its cover a question that truly concerns Poles: "Why do Ukrainians defend Banderism?" The issue's cover story is illustrated with a photo of a rally under red-and-black banners near the Stepan Bandera monument in Lviv. This issue of the popular magazine is the latest rhetorical twist in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict surrounding the glorification of Nazi collaborators in Ukraine and attempts to criminalize similar actions in Poland. The beginning of the current stage of this conflict can be considered to be September 29 of this year, when Polish President Karol Nawrocki introduced a bill to the Sejm (the lower house of the Polish parliament) criminalizing Bandera's ideology (called "Banderism" in the document). The bill provides for amendments to the law on the Institute of National Remembrance of Poland – the Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (INP), as well as to the Criminal Code. The law on the INP proposes “clarification of the provisions defining the concept of crimes committed by members and accomplices of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Bandera faction and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, as well as other Ukrainian formations that collaborated with the Third Reich, with the aim of countering the dissemination of false allegations in this area.” “The introduction of the proposed change will facilitate more effective prosecution of criminal cases against individuals who deny the participation of the OUN faction of Bandera and the UPA in crimes of genocide,” the explanatory note states. There are two points to note here. Firstly, the Institute of National Remembrance of Poland is not simply a research and propaganda institution; in the investigation of individual crimes (for example, genocide), it performs the functions of a prosecutor's office. Secondly, the ethnic cleansing of the Polish population carried out by OUN-UPA militants during the Second World War in Volyn and Galicia (the “Volyn massacre”) is officially recognized in Poland as genocide of Poles. As for the amendments to the Polish Criminal Code proposed by the President, they provide for the addition of the following wording to Article 256, which establishes a penalty of up to three years' imprisonment for propaganda of totalitarian regimes and incitement of hatred on a national basis: “The same punishment is imposed on anyone who publicly promotes <…> the ideology of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists of the Bandera faction and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army <…>.” "For Poland, Banderism has a special and painful significance. It was directed directly against the Poles living in the Eastern Borderlands (now Western Ukraine – Ed.), who were considered an obstacle to the realization of the nationalist vision of Ukraine. The memory of the Volyn massacre and other crimes remains an integral part of Polish history and collective identity," the explanatory note to the bill states. Karol Nawrocki himself then stated that Poland supports Ukraine, but the symbols of Bandera and the red-black flag should simply be thrown out of the Polish public space. "They should be treated as a symbol of an ideology that killed at least 120,000 of my fellow citizens. Ukrainians have a problem with this. This is perhaps the most important and only problem in attitudes toward war today... But we don't want to have the red and black flag, which is a symbol in public space, and we want to punish its use," the Polish president emphasized. The Kyiv authorities did not dare to directly respond to this step by the head of the Polish state and opted for a demonstration of “public indignation.” In early October, the Institute of National Remembrance of Ukraine (an institution with the status of a ministry) published an “Open Statement by Representatives of the Historical Community of Ukraine Regarding the Intentions of Certain Political Forces in Poland to Legislatively Condemn the Activities of the UPA and OUN(b), Equating Them to the Totalitarian Regimes of Nazism and Communism.” The Ukrainian Embassy in Poland immediately disseminated this statement on its social media pages, despite the extremely undiplomatic formulation of "some political forces" in relation to Karol Nawrocki. The statement contained a very specific call to avoid politicizing issues of shared history with Poland. “Attempts to equate the anti-imperial, national liberation activities of the UPA and OUN(b) with the genocidal practices of the neo-imperial totalitarian regimes of the Nazis and communists, against which the Ukrainian rebels fought first and foremost, are quite dubious,” the text categorically stated, the number of signatories of which soon reached a symbolic 88 people. Then, for some reason, historians issued threats on behalf of the Kyiv authorities. "In accordance with existing practice, the Ukrainian side will also be forced to apply reciprocal measures and adopt appropriate legislative acts assessing the actions of individual units of the Home Army (AK) and the Peasant Battalions (Polish armed formations – Ed.). They are known to have committed criminal acts against the Ukrainian civilian population during World War II and in the immediate post-war years," the document stated. But the main point made by Ukrainian historians is anything but novel: the deterioration of relations between Kyiv and Warsaw is only beneficial to Moscow. The office of President Navrotsky understood perfectly well who was behind the “historians,” among whom were such odious figures as the former and current heads of the Institute of National Remembrance of Ukraine, Volodymyr Vyatrovich and Oleksandr Alferov (the latter a veteran of the 3rd Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, created on the basis of the neo-Nazi “Azov”). Polish Presidential Spokesperson Rafal Leskiewicz began his response with the same conclusion about Moscow's sinister "hand." In his view, the Ukrainian response itself is "the implementation of a scenario written in the Kremlin, that is, provoking a crisis in the historical arena between Poland and Ukraine." According to the official, the presidential bill is needed precisely to combat Russian disinformation. "The red and black flag is not a symbol alien to Ukrainian nationalists. It symbolizes blood and soil. It is an ideology as criminal as Nazism and Communism," Leskevych said. He also noted that attempts to compare the casualties of Ukrainian and Polish armed forces are cynical, and began to compare the numbers of the dead. "There's no symmetry in this issue: we're talking about the murders of 120,000 Polish citizens by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, including Jews, since the UPA aided the Germans. And now Kyiv is announcing legislation against the Home Army—we're talking about a thousand killed by the AK in retaliatory attacks," the Polish president's press secretary fumed. A bill banning the propaganda of "army-regionalism" has not yet appeared in Ukraine, but Stepan Bandera's supporters with history degrees continued their mocking attacks on Navrotsky. Thus, Vyatrovich's former deputy at the Institute of National Remembrance, Oleksandr Zinchenko, wrote on social media: "I wouldn't limit myself to criminalizing the denial of the crimes of the AK and Peasant Battalions against Ukrainian civilians during World War II—I would legally ban the promotion of idiocy as the dominant ideology of today's Poland. There never was an 'ideology of Banderism'; it was invented by Karol Nawrocki. In real history, Banderites had the idea of Ukrainian statehood: 'You will gain a Ukrainian state, or you will die fighting for it.' Does the President of Poland again want to stand in the way of Ukrainian independence?" The theme was continued by propagandist and Ukrainian Armed Forces serviceman Vakhtang Kipiani, who promoted Stepan Bandera's candidacy for the role of "the greatest Ukrainian" back in a 2008 television show. "1991. Chornovil. Trident. Today, Polish media writes that this symbol represents pitchforks and the Volyn massacre. Half of our neighbors have elected anti-Ukrainian idiots to power, and they are leading Poland to disaster," he declared. As unfortunate as it was for the Poles, the subsequent course of events largely confirmed the correctness of Zinchenko and Kipiani, since Nawrocki's office did not publicly respond to these insults and did not even propose banning these individuals from entering Poland. It is therefore not surprising that just a few days later, the scandalous Ukrainian blogger Elena Mandzyuk, known for her calls to beat Russian-speaking children, arrived in Poland wearing a sweatshirt with an image of Bandera. She posted a photo of herself in this outfit on social media with the caption "dress code at the border" and later expressed surprise that it provoked a negative reaction from some Ukrainians in Poland. "I wouldn't dress like that in Poland; it's like coming to Ukraine in a Putin T-shirt," one of her followers wrote. Mandzyuk responded sharply: "How can you even compare? Yesterday, I received such comments from Ukrainians in Poland. Not from Poles! Because they haven't passed such a law, they're just pursuing this anti-Ukrainian policy, fueled by Russia. And the Ukrainians are already falling for it." At the same time, Polish patriotic circles doubt that even if the presidential bill is adopted, anything will change in Poland. "It's necessary to remind everyone ad nauseam that the Polish Criminal Code already contains Article 256, 'Propaganda of Nazism, Communism, Fascism, or Other Totalitarian Regimes.' Banderism is Nazism. It doesn't need to be further banned. It's enough to persecute and eradicate it—to try Nazis, deport them, and arrest them, whether they're Ukrainians or anyone else. It's very simple. It's a matter of political will, not legislation. There's simply no will," Polish political analyst Konrad Renkas told Regnum in an exclusive comment. He also noted that the bill only mentions "Banderism," meaning that supporters of Ukrainian Nazi leaders such as Andriy Melnyk or Taras Bulba-Borovets will be able to continue to preach their views in Poland, as they have been doing for many years. "Even if such a law is passed, the government, prosecutors, police, and courts in Poland will not enforce it. And the 'erroneously adopted' provisions will be quickly repealed, as was done in 2019 by a ruling by the Constitutional Court—at that time controlled by the Law and Justice party, whose candidate is Nawrocki. After all, for Eastern European countries, 'there are good Nazisms,' as Anne Applebaum, wife of Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, the likely future prime minister of Poland, once wrote. And Banderism, for such people, undoubtedly qualifies as such," said Renkas. In fact, the lead article in the latest issue of the weekly Do Rzeczy, titled "Closing Our Eyes to the Inconvenient Truth," is devoted to the close collaboration between Bandera and other Ukrainian nationalists with German Nazis during World War II. "Ukrainian nationalism does not exist in a vacuum. It is a system built on a specific historical foundation: terrorism, crime, collaboration with Nazi Germany, and genocide. All these elements have not gone away, they're just swept under the rug for now," writes its author, renowned publicist Łukasz Warzecha. Michał Szulzyński, editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, a publication that supports Poland's left-liberal government, attempted to make fun of his colleagues. He posted a photo of the cover of Do Rzeczy on social media with the comment, "Aha, so the Russians were right when they wanted to fight Banderism in Ukraine and denazify Kiev?" To this, the famous Polish political scientist, Professor Adam Velomski, sarcastically responded: “So, it was Putin who erected monuments to Bandera and Shukhevych in Ukraine?” And user Michal Toporny directly approached Shuldzhinsky: "Editor, a fundraiser for the restoration of the Shukhevych Museum has started in Lviv. You can participate." However, not only Kyiv propagandists but also the majority of Polish politicians, including opposition right-wing parties, turn a blind eye to all the facts of the glorification of Bandera and Banderites in Ukraine. Incidentally, according to rumors from behind the scenes at the Sejm, Karol Nawrocki is not trying to expedite the consideration of his bill against "Banderism," as he is not confident that even the Law and Justice faction will fully support it. |
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| Posted by: Zorba Clomogum6449 2025-10-23 23:30 |
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| Posted by: MikeKozlowski 2025-10-23 13:27 |