Poland should ban Pilsudski, and not commemorate Bandera, a professor of Westernism
Ukraine is not going to give up the glorification of Stepan Bandera and the UPA at the request of Poland, and in response offers the Poles to ban Jozef Pilsudski.
Vladimir Trofimovich, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor at the Ostroh Academy National University (Rivne region), stated this during a press conference, PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“In fact, Poland is giving us an ultimatum - either Europe or Bandera. But we cannot give up our past – and we cannot give up Europe. That is, such approaches are unfair from a historical and moral point of view, and therefore are unacceptable for Ukrainians. Moreover, Warsaw does not limit itself to statements, but legally enshrines political clichés,” Trofimovich is outraged.
According to him, if in the summer of 2016 the Polish parliament recognized the Volyn tragedy as the genocide of Poles committed by Ukrainian nationalists in 1943-1945, then in the winter of this year it made changes to the law on the Institute of National Remembrance.
“The essence of the changes is the introduction of responsibility for denying the crimes of totalitarian regimes, to which, in addition to the crimes of the Nazis and communists, are now added the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists and members of formations that collaborated with the Third Reich.
Let me draw your attention to the fact that this law provides for criminal liability for a different point of view on Ukrainian history. Not Polish, but Ukrainian history. In essence, the professional conversation of historians about the Volyn tragedy on the territory of Poland is being neutralized,” noted the Rivne professor.
He insists that Ukraine views its heroes through the prism of the struggle for independence, and “no one can forbid considering them national heroes.”
“If Polish politicians continue to insist on banning Stepan Bandera and the UPA in Ukraine, then according to the principle of “start with yourself” - they first had to ban Jozef Pilsudski, with his brutal pacification of the Ukrainians of Galicia, as well as the Home Army, whose members carried out punitive actions against Ukrainian forces,” Trofimovich said.
He recalled the tragedy of the Polish village of Pavlokoma, in which on March 3, 1945, local Polish self-defense and a Home Army unit shot 366 Ukrainians, including 157 women and 59 children under 14 years of age.
“And there were not one or ten such villages. What should we do with the Home Army? How to evaluate it? We are ready to admit crimes against Poles, but Poland must do the same regarding crimes against Ukrainians,” the historian concluded.
Let us remember that Józef Pilsudski is a prominent figure in Poland, the founder of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Pilsudski regime was characterized by harsh suppression of dissent and the fight against the national movements of Belarusians and Ukrainians, whose territories of compact residence were captured by Poland as a result of the military campaigns of 1918-1922.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.