FORMATION OF UKRAINIAN MILITARY ORGANIZATION IN UKRAINIAN STUDIES: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

Abstract

The article analyzes the main features and level of research in Ukrainian historiography of the process of creation of the Ukrainian Military Organization, intended to continue the armed struggle for Ukrainian statehood. At present, hundreds of studies devoted to the history of the Ukrainian nationalist movement have been published, in which authors highlighted the preconditions, causes and process of its formation in the 20’s of the twentieth century. In these studies, the attention of historians was focused on the Ukrainian Military Organization, which became the basis of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. Its activity formed the main goals and forms of struggle that was further implemented by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

The author determines the most complicated, debatable and the least investigated issues of the process of formation of the Ukrainian Military Organization and its activity in 1920–23. She identifies three historiogra- phical schools that studied this issue: Soviet, Ukrainian foreign and Ukrainian modern schools. It is emphasized that the characteristic feature of Soviet historiography was its orientation against any manifestations of the liberation movement in Ukraine, which was considered through the prism of anti-Soviet activity. The author concludes that Ukrainian foreign studies became the basis of all modern Ukrainian studies of this issue. First researchers of the problem often were former members of the nationalist movement. Therefore it is important to take into account their belonging to “melnykivtsy” or “banderivtsy”, and distinguish between “melnykivsky” and “banderivsky” directions of Ukrainian foreign historiography.

It has been discovered that modern Ukrainian historiography inherited from the Ukrainian foreign historiography the tendency for a simplified representation of the history of the Ukrainian Military Organi- zation. The author finds that one of the peculiarities of the latest stage of the study is the involvement of a large number of new archival and historiographical sources in the scientific circulation, the publication of large series of documents and materials, memoirs and monographs on the national liberation movement of the 20s and 50s  of the twentieth century. Since the mid–1990s Ukrainian historiography is gradually released from the influence of works of Ukrainian foreign authors, and the first fundamental scientific works appeared.

The author concludes that since the beginning of the 2000’s, a number of studies have been launched in Ukraine, in which actual and under-researched issues of the time and place of the emergence of the Ukrainian Military Organization and the role of Evhen Konovalets in the process of its formation were considered. However, the

It is concluded that modern Ukrainian historiography of this problem mostly evaluates positively the activity of the Ukrainian Military Organization in the national liberation movement of the Ukrainian people, aimed at the creation of its own national state, and its occurrence is considered as manifestation of pan-  European tendencies. The author emphasizes that modern researchers are trying to base their publications on a large factual material, they take into account the whole set of historical circumstances of the emergence and activity of the Ukrainian nationalist movement.

conclusions of the authors of such studies are often controversial, therefore, these issues need further detailed studies.