Svoboda’s year has been an eventful one so far. Emboldened by the
close relationship they have formed with Batkivshchyna’s gutless
stand-in while Tymoshenko awaits release, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Ukrainian fascists have stepped up rhetoric against abortion, Russian speaking and the eternal favourite – the Black Sea Fleet, along with several trouble-making marches,
all adding to the ongoing canon of attacks also including race, Jews,
homosexuality and more. Batkivshchyna’s near 1/4 hold of Ukraine’s
parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, and Yatsenyuk’s thrall to the
persuasive Tyahnybok put Svoboda firmly as a power on the way up.
After near six months of showing their colours in parliament and
public, there’s little question that Svoboda’s politics lead to the same
place as the Nazi party’s did. But then, that shouldn’t really surprise
given Svoboda’s choice of hero, Stepan Bandera. On the 1st January of
2013, I attended the Svoboda march in Kiev to honour Ukrainian ‘national
hero’ Stepan Bandera. And attending it was a disturbing experience –
the march was poorly planned, just bulldozing through street
entertainers and milling crowds on Kiev’s main street, Khreshatik, and
it was attended by hundreds of far-right extremists linked to attacks on
homosexuals, Jews and neo-Nazism. At the behest of the march was a
young girl bearing a framed photo of the man whose 104th birthday it
would have been, had he not been killed in 1959, Stepan Bandera.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stepan Bandera – History’s Biggest Loser
Today is Stepan Bandera‘s birthday, and across Ukraine, mostly in Kiev
of course, marches will be coordinated to ‘honour’ the Ukrainian ‘icon’,
born 105 years ago. Of course, there will be calls this year to mount
Bandera on the plinth in central Kiev Lenin no longer occupies, to the
left we can see his name in a banner on that plinth.
Even in the
context of the Ukrainian cupboards being rather bare when it comes to
finding national heroes, well-represented Taras, aside, this is
surprising. Because Stepan Bandera is arguably the biggest loser in
Stepan Bandera4history. We are talking about a man who makes Edward II
look like a triumphant titan, Nicholas II like Tsar the Terrific. Simply
put, every single thing Bandera attempted in his life, failed -
-
After becoming head of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, OUN,
in 1933, Bandera set after both Poles and Soviets in the at the time
disputed territory of Galicia, now subsumed as west Ukraine. This
hostile policy failed to have any effect in obtaining the autonomy
Bandera sought for the region.
- Bandera then turned to an
attempt at assassination, plotting to do away with Polish minister of
internal affairs, Bronisław Pieracki, he failed, and was caught.
EuroMaidan Nazis- Death sentence commuted to life, then released after
five years, after agreeing unconditionally to cooperate with Nazi
Germany, in 1939, Bandera headed straight to occupied Krakow, capital of
Nazi Germany’s General Government. However, there he failed to regain
control of his former organisation, the OUN (colours the fascist red and
black, seen at Euromaidan – right), falling out with current leader,
Andriy Melnyk.
- Breaking away from the more conservative Melnyk,
Bandera formed the OUN-B (to Melnyk’s OUN-M), and set about full
integration with Nazi German forces, immediately sending around 800 into
training at Abwehr‘s military camps. He then twice tried to arrange for
Lviv to enlist en masse with the Nazis, and fight against the Soviet
Red Army. He failed to even get his message to the city.
Lviv-
Then, on 30 June 1941, with Nazi troops arriving in Ukraine, Bandera
declared an independent Ukrainian state to “work closely” with the
Nazis. It lasted less than a week, with Bandera arrested on 5 July by
the Nazis, who had duped the gullible 32-year-old at the time, into
believing they supported an independent Ukrainian state. Of course, they
simply wanted to ease their passage into occupying Ukraine.
-
The Germans treated Bandera well, but he was a prisoner, not allowed to
leave Berlin for the remainder of 1941, then in January 1942,
transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp‘s special barrack for
high profile political prisoners, Zellenbau. Bandera made no attempts to
escape from here, watching on in comfort as hundreds of thousands of
his countrymen perished in conflict.
He had access to a radio
here, and certain communication with the outside world, so by 1944, he
knew the Nazis were losing. Actually, the military branch of his own
OUN, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, UPA, had even changed sides to start
fight against the Germans in early 1943. Yet, when Bandera was
approached in April 1944, he enthusiastically agreed to throw himself
into the Nazi effort, released in September of 1944 to attempt to enlist
Ukrainians once more to fight for the Nazis. It failed.
Yaroslava Bandera- Rather than return to Ukraine, Bandera remained in
Germany, where he eked out a living for the remainder of the 40s and
early 50s, giving freelance spy training for infiltration into the
Soviet Union. Bandera had met his future wife, Yaroslava (pictured
left), in Krakow in 1940, with her at 22 already a seasoned activist for
the Ukrainian cause. The two married in June of that year and had three
children, Natalia, born 1941, Andrei (year of birth given as 1944 or
1946), Lesya 1947. Bandera was never able to take adequate care of his
family, with Natalia having spoken of a childhood of assumed names,
hiding, living in cabins in forests, going for long periods of time
without seeing her father, subsisting on inadequate food.
- In
1954, Yaroslava and the children joined Stepan in Munich. Yet, life for
the family was still tough here. Post war, the Germans were willing to
leave Bandera alone, the western forces to occasionally use him for
Stepan Bandera2espionage assistance. But the Soviets had not forgotten
Bandera, with repeated attempts made on his life over the years. In
1959, these reached an apotheosis, with German police arresting a man
seen taking a suspicious interest in Bandera’s children. Bandera was
given extra security, but strongly advised to leave Munich, which he
declined to do.
On October 15th, Bandera was killed in his own
apartment, by Soviet agent Bogdan Stashinsky, who had been watching him
since January, but intensely for several days. Despite this, Bandera
(living under the named Stepan Popel) had let his bodyguards off that
day. As Stashinsky produced his cyanide gun inside a rolled-up
newspaper, Bandera’s last words were the rather redundant “What are you
doing here?” Bandera didn’t even produce his own gun, on him at all
times, with him a proficient marksman (he had taken an active part in
the massacre of Jews in Lviv, with over 4,000 killed in a few days at
the time of the 1941 declaration). Shot in the face, the 50-year-old
Bandera died on October 15th, 1959.
- Bandera’s wife and
children, upon his death, quickly moved to Canada, Toronto, to start a
new life. Bandera had politicized his children from infanthood, yet it
was only after his death they learned they were Banderas, not Popels.
Natalia took some part in Ukrainian movements, yet unable to recover
from the health problems of her childhood, she died in 1985 at 44,
having had two children, Sophia, born 1972 and Oresta, 1975. Andrei,
Andrew, took an active role in the Ukrainian diaspora, forming several
organisations, a newspaper ‘Ukrainian Stepan Bandera3Echo’, and
arranging mass demonstrations. With his wife Mary, he had three
children, Stepan (Stephen, Steve), 1970, Bogdana, 1974, and Elena, or
Helen, in 1977.
Stephen, Steve, (below right), who has tried to
forge a career as a journalist, has been the most vocal defender of his
grandfather, accusing some of a career assassination, launching several
attacks on Russian propaganda etc. However, his actions on behalf of him
seem to have waned in recent years. Steve previously did extensive
‘historical’ work to exonerate his grandfather, though his fallback
position Steven Banderawas always that no one really knows the truth:
‘an accurate account of Ukraine’s 20th century history remains largely
unwritten.’ Sadly for Steve, countless, verified, articles of history
exist from that time.
Suffering health problems, Andrei died in
1984 at either 38 or 40, depending on sources. Lesya, who worked as an
interpreter for Ukrainian organisations and had no children, lived on to
the age of 64, dying in 2011. Yaroslava had died in 1977 at the age of
59. Despite his wish to be returned to Ukraine in death, Stepan Bandera
himself was buried in Munich, where he remains to this day.
-
Even in death, Bandera’s fortunes have been little better than life. In
2009, to mark 100 years of his birth, he was put on a stamp, which many
outlets refused to stock. Then, on January 22nd, Ukraine’s Day of Unity,
in Stepan Bandera12010, Viktor Yushchenko, in his final weeks as
President, attemtped to use the controversial figure (in Ukraine as a
whole, only 6% have a strongly positive opinion of him), as a last
stand, and two-fingered farewell. Bandera was made a Hero of Ukraine,
with grandson ‘Steve’ accepting the award on his behalf.
The
award was internationally condemned, not to mention widely ridiculed
(right) with other Hero of Ukraine holders speaking out of their wish to
renounce the award, even criticised by the European Parliament. Bandera
held it for less than a year, it was annulled on January 12th 2011, by
President Yanukovych. There had been talk of huge uprisings across the
country if the award was voided, but this, pre days of far-right Svoboda
popularity, never materialised.
Stepan Bandera statue- Statues
of Bandera, many exist in the West of Ukraine where he holds Honorary
Citizen status in several towns, have enjoyed mixed fortunes. One near
Lviv was destroyed in 2013, the Lviv statue itself, unveiled in 2012,
cost double the projected amount, $1.2 million, with sources indicating
substandard materials used in the finished article to cut costs.
This list of failures is by no means exhaustive, either, making it
surprising that Bandera’s commemoration will be marked by mass marches
today. And that Euromaidan has hitched its star to the wagon of a man
who failed at everything he attempted, in life and death.
There have already, over the last month and more, been marches held in his honour -
I went along to the march last year, and it truly was a sorry
get-together of neo-Nazi supporters. Nor was that march really for
Bandera, once again, the hapless Nazi-collaborator found himself used –
this time for Ukrainian fascist party, Svoboda.
This year sees
numerous marches planned, with Svoboda calling for them to be the
‘biggest ever’. As the neo-Nazi party has already reduced much of Kiev
to a waste site, one can only wish that their far-right intentions for
Ukraine are as unsuccessful as everything attempted by their ‘hero’,
Stepan Bandera
https://www.facebook.com/polmediapl/posts/263370557197781 
