Publications: John-Paul Himka, "Challenging the Myths of Twentieth-Century Ukrainian History"

John-Paul Himka, Professor of history at the University of Alberta (Department of History and Classics), published his "Interventions: Challenging the Myths of Twentieth-Century Ukrainian History". This article is based on an address he delivered at the 2nd annual Celebration of Research and Creative Work, Faculty of Arts, 28 March 2011.

Annotation of the article:

Recently I was asked by the historian Alexei Miller to reflect on my experiences in the capacity of public intellectual as well as academic, namely as a challenger of nationalist historical myths. He was putting together a volume on Geschichtspolitik and thought that a first-hand account of resistance to dominant national narratives would be an interesting piece to include in the book. I have abridged this account and thought it would make a good talk for an occasion like this, for a talk about research and its implications.

What I have been challenging is Ukrainian myths about traumatic aspects of the twentieth-century.1 By myths here I mean unexamined components of an ideologized version of history, articles of faith more than of reason. In this talk, I will first try to explain my motivations for challenging such myths, even though I realized it would cause considerable discomfort both to my targeted audience and to me personally. Then I will describe and evaluate the strategies I chose for my interventions.

It adresses the most influential myths concering the history of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), the famine of 1933 and WWII. You can donwload the article by clicking on this link.

Recently, John-Paul Himka also publsihed a short article "Falsifying World War II history in Ukraine" in Kyiv Post. According to his records on Facebook, this piece of writing reflects his "continuing polemic with Ukrainian nationalists who celebrate Holocaust perpetrators. Anyone doubting the fascist leanings and antisemitic mindset of my opponents should read the comments that they so lovingly address to me".