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[email protected] | 22Jan2018 | Will Zuzak
[Delivery failed]

22 January 2018 -- 100th Anniversary of the Ukrainian Independence Movement

Dear Infoukes:

On 22Jan2018, before an august body of Ukrainian citizens, President Petro Poroshenko proclaimed the 100th anniversary of Ukraine’s struggle for independence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atg5kUAr1Fs  [20:29]

Ever since I was a small child, my parents always celebrated January 22 as Ukrainian Independence Day to commemorate this proclamation in Western Ukraine on 22Jan1918 and its unification with Eastern Ukraine on 22Jan1919. Although these efforts to establish an independent Ukrainian state failed, the struggle of the Ukrainian Independence Movement has continued ...

-- through the Bolshevik victory of the 1920s, the Polish pacification and Holodomor of the 1930s, the OUN/UPA resistance to German and Russian occupation during and following WW2, the 1960s dissident movement, the Scherbitsky crackdown in 1972 followed by the Brezhnev stagnation and repression until the demise of the Soviet Union and Ukrainian (so-called) independence in 1991, the 2004 Orange Revolution, the 2014 Revolution of Dignity and the occupation of Crimea and Donbas by Russian military forces --

... to the present day.

In reality, vicious fighting involving the Ukrainians, Poles and Russians commenced well before the end of WW1. The late Pavlo Humeniuk, on page 9 of his 38-page book of memoirs, describes how Haller’s Polish Army torture-murdered over 300 boys from his native village, Vishnivchyk, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine, and surrounding villages comprising the fledgling Ukrainian army called the “Sichovi Striltsi” during the summer/fall of 1917. Mr. Humeniuk contributed to the construction of an appropriate “memorial” in Vishnivchyk to commemorate this tragedy.

Slava Ukraini! Heroyam Slava!
Will Zuzak; 2018.01.22
[Originally sent but undelivered at 1:02 AM MST Tue. 23Jan2018.]
[Next sent but undelivered at 2:50 PM MST Wed. 24Jan2018.]


Addendum added 29Jan2018:
(1) It is not clear why my two attempts to post this message on Infoukes failed. Gremlins on my computer or my Telusplanet server?

(2) Should anyone have more information about the Vishnivchyk Massacre of the Sichovi Striltsi by Haller's Polish Army in 1917, please send it to me and/or post it to the Infoukes Politics mailing list. Any photographs of the "memorial" in Vishnivchyk would be appreciated.

(3) As described in a recent article in Kyiv Post (appended below), on 26Jan2018 Poland passed the so-called "Bandera ideology" law:

Kyiv Post | 27Jan2018 | Interfax-Ukraine
https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/viatrovych-law-bandera-ideology-dangerous-not-ukraine-poland.html

Viatrovych: Law on ‘Bandera ideology’ dangerous not for Ukraine, but for Poland itself

The bill on banning the propaganda of “Bandera ideology”, supported by Polish MPs, is dangerous not for Ukraine, but for Poland itself, Head of the Ukrainian National Remembrance Institute Volodymyr Viatrovych has said.

“This is a serious step towards the curtailment of freedom of speech and the introduction of party censorship. Not only Ukrainian authors, but also Polish writers, who wrote about Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN-UPA), except its activities are criminal, will fall under the law. The works of Tozhetsky, Kuron, Giedraitis will be censored,” he wrote on Facebook on Friday night.

In view of this Viatrovych noted that democracy is impossible without freedom of speech.

“The experience of our eastern neighbor proved this. I do not want to repeat this lesson,” added the head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory.

According to Polish media, on Friday, January 26, 2018, the third reading of the package of bills passed by the Polish Sejm, which provides for changes to the law on the National Memory Institute, took place. There was a bill banning “Bandera ideology” in Poland among them. The majority of parliamentarians voted in affirmative -- 279 out of 414. All the deputies of PiS, Kukiz’15 i PSL voted for the draft. The document was supported by several opposition members of parliament.

The adopted law concerns the definition of crimes of Ukrainian nationalists and Ukrainian organizations cooperating with the Third Reich, as well as the possibility of launching, in accordance with Article 55 of the Law on the Institute of National Remembrance, criminal proceedings against persons who deny these crimes.

There is a fine or imprisonment for up to three years for the denial of “Bandera supporters’ crimes.”