Talk:Volodymyr Viatrovych

Opinions of experts about V.Viatrovych
Read this before blanking section "Critique": "The review examines the source base and methodology of Volodymyr Viatrovych’s book on the attitude of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists to the Jews. It shows that Viatrovych manages to exonerate the OUN of charges of antisemitism and complicity in the Holocaust only by employing a series of dubious procedures: rejecting sources that compromise the OUN, accepting uncritically censored sources emanating from émigré OUN circles, failing to recognize antisemitism in OUN texts, limiting the source base to official OUN proclamations and decisions, excluding Jewish memoirs, refusing to consider contextual and comparative factors, failing to consult German document collections, and ignoring the mass of historical monographs on his subject written in English and German. (Taras Kurylo and John-Paul Himka, "Iak OUN stavylasia do ievreiv? Rozdumy nad knyzhkoiu Volodymyra V’’iatrovycha Stavlennia OUN do ievreiv: formuvannia pozytii na tli katastrofy", Ukraina Moderna 13 (2008), p.265)"

"Viatrovych told an interviewer that UPA should not be condemned for killing civilians because it is hard to tell civilians apart from partisans. Such argumentation only continues the crimes. (John-Paul Himka, "Unwelcome Elements of an Identity Project", Ab Imperio 4/2010, p. 93)"

"Czołowymi falsyfikatorami tego nurtu są: Wołodymyr Serhijczuk, (…) Jarosław Caruk, (…) Wołodymyr Wiatrowycz i inni ze Lwowa, Tarnopola i Iwanofrankowska. [Translation: Main forgers of this stream are: Volodymyr Serhiichuk,… Iaroslav Tsaruk,… Volodymyr Viatrovych and others from Lviv, Tarnopil and Ivanofrankivsk] (Czesław Partacz, "Przemilczane w ukraińskiej historiografii przyczyny ludobójstwa popełnionego przez OUN-UPA na ludności polskiej" [in:] Prawda historyczna a prawda polityczna w badaniach naukowych. Ludobójstwo na Kresach południowo-wschodniej Polski w latach 1939-1946, Bogusław Paź (red.), Wrocław 2011, p. 154)"

"Wiatrowycz pisze pod z góry założoną tezę, odrzucając lub pomijając wszelkie argumenty i fakty, które do niej nie pasują…. „Drugą polsko-ukraińską wojnę” należy uznać za książkę zdecydowanie nieudaną: napisaną poniżej zdolności jej autora. Co gorsza, jest ona szkodliwa dla dialogu polsko-ukraińskiego… Zamiast… uprawiać solidną historiografię, postanowił napisać książkę z tezą… [Translation: Viatrovych writes under the presupposed thesis, rejecting or omitting all arguments and facts that don’t fit to it…. “Second Polish-Ukrainian War” should be considered as far abortive book: written below the capacities of the author. What is worse, it is harmful to the Polish-Ukrainian dialogue... Instead of practicing a reliable historiography, he decided to write a book with [presupposed] thesis…] (Ґжеґож МОТИКА (Grzegorz Motyka), НЕВДАЛА КНИЖКА, Polish version: )"

"Перед нами работа: 1) невосприимчивая к достижениям других историографий; 2) выборочно использующая источники не для исторического познания, а с целью политической по¬лемики; 3) пресыщенная ОУНовской риторикой вместо аргументации по сути; 4) вторичная по концепции, поскольку она поверхностно прикры¬вает до боли известные схемы ОУНовской пропаганды; 5) обремененная враждебностью и историческими комплексами. [Translation: The work [“Second Polish-Ukrainian War”] in front of us is: 1) resistant for achievements of other historiographies; 2) using the sources selectively, not to broaden the knowledge of history, but for the political polemic; 3) saturated with OUN’s rhetoric instead of essential arguments ; 4) secondary when it comes to the concept because it masks superficially painfully known patterns of OUN’s propaganda; 5) burdened with hostility and historical complexes.] (Анджей Земба, Мифологизированная “война”, Ab Imperio, 1/2012, p.404)"

"As an account on the OUN–UPA murder of the eastern Poles, this reviewer would not recommend Druha pol’s’ko-ukrains’ka viina [“Second Polish-Ukrainian War”] either to scientists, lecturers, or students. However, with a critical introduction Druha pol’s’ko-ukrains’ka viina could perhaps be used as an object of inquiry in a higher seminar on comparative far-right revisionism and obfuscation. Like Stavlennia OUN do ievreiv [“Attitude of OUN to the Jews”], it illustrates a culture of historical denial that, in combination with self-victimization, fuels the rise of the extreme right. Against the backdrop of current developments in Ukraine, it is disturbing reading. This reviewer strongly recommends this book to the TsDVR’s North American partners, particularly to the administrators at Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, which funded V’iatrovych’s research in the Lebed archives and helped make this book possible. They have good reason to ponder the implication of associating Harvard University with this sort of activism. Ukrainian studies have long struggled to draw the line between scholarship and ultranationalist activism. This book raises serious questions, not only of academic integrity but also of fundamental human rights. (Per Anders Rudling, Warfare or War Criminality? Volodymyr V’iatrovych, Druha pol’s’ko-ukains’ka viina, 1942–1947 (Kyiv: Vydavnychyi dim “Kyevo-Mohylians’ka akademiia,” 2011). 228 pp. ISBN 978-966-518-567, Ab Imperio, 1/2012, p. 379-380)"

"Individuals [i.a. Mr. Viatrovych] who position themselves outside a system of universal values and openly demonstrate this through their actions should be denied a platform in academic and other circumscribed forums where minimal standards prevail and are agreed to be requisite. (Franziska Bruder, Strasti za Banderoiu)" GlaubePL (talk) 18:27, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

More on Mr. Viatrovych: "V’iatrovych has produced a number of monographs and articles about the heroic and patriotic nature of the Ukrainian nationalists. In his publications V’iatrovych portrays the OUN and UPA as a “national liberation” movement and claims that they did not collaborate with Nazi Germany but only opposed German and Soviet imperialism. Also like Mirchuk and other OUN, UPA and Waffen-SS Galizien veterans, V’iatrovych has denied the majority of war crimes and atrocities committed by the OUN and UPA (...) V’iatrovych, the director of the [TsDVR] institute, is perhaps the most prominent Holocaust obfuscator in the post-Soviet space. [in:] Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Debating, obfuscating and disciplining the Holocaust: post-Soviet historical discourses on the OUN–UPA and other nationalist movements, East European Jewish Affairs, 42:3, 199-241" GlaubePL (talk) 08:42, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

And more: "“Вторая польско-украинская война” Владимира Вятровича – как и изданная им в 2006 г. работа “Отношение ОУН к евреям” – имеет целью реабилитировать теорию и практики украинского радикального национализма, защитить его от обвинений в преступлениях, которые могут быть квалифицированы как геноцид. Если в предыдущей книжке Вятрович обобщил аргументы, позволяющие изобразить Организацию украинских националистов свободной от антисемитизма и ксенофобии, то в новой публикации он суммировал аргументы в защиту ОУН и УПА в контексте наиболее темной страницы истории этих организаций – массовых убийств польского населения Волыни в 1943 г. [Translation: >>"The Second Polish-Ukrainian War" of Volodymyr Viatrovych - as much as published in 2006 work "The attitude of the OUN to the Jews" - has an aim to rehabilitate the theory and practice of radical Ukrainian nationalism, to protect him from criminal charges, which can be qualified as genocide. If in the former Viatrovych summarized the arguments allowing to portray Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists free from anti-Semitism and xenophobia, in the new publication he summarized the arguments for the protection of the OUN and UPA in the context of the darkest pages in the history of these organizations - the mass murder of the Polish population in Volhynia 1943.<<] [in:]А. Портнов, "Истории для домашнего употребления", Ab Imperio 3/12, p.324-325"

Tarik Cyril Amar on Mr. Viatrovych: "...during Yushchenko’s presidency, several key national actors in the area of historical memory, prominently including that of the Second World War, came from Lviv, for instance, the head of the security service (SBU) archives Volodymyr Viatrovych, who is also one of the, in Wilfried Jilge’s apt terminology, leading «national-historians»... (p.381) Currently, apologists of the Ukrainian nationalists are turning the falsifications of Soviet propaganda into a rhetorical strategy. Finding it easy to refute generalising Soviet-type accusations of Nachtigall or of Shukhevych personally and having been in a position to document the process of falsification on the Soviet side, historian-activists such as Volodymyr Viatrovych stress Soviet lies to imply closure of the issue, while simply failing to ask more detailed questions or acknowledge international research, which shows that the refutation of specific Soviet claims does not mean that no crimes were committed at all.(p.384-385) [in:] Tarik Cyril Amar, "Different but the Same or the Same but Different? Public Memory of the Second World War in Post-Soviet Lviv", Journal of Modern European History. Vol. 9 (2011)"

GlaubePL (talk) 09:31, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Per Anders Rudling: "Occupying double positions as director of both the Archives of the SBU and the Center for the Study of the National Liberation Movement, Volodymyr V’’iatrovych (b. 1977) was perhaps the most prominent of Yushchenko’s legitimizing historians. V’’iatrovych dedicated particular attention to the topic of the OUN and the Jews. V’’iatrovych has made no effort to consult memories of Holocaust survivors who recall the OUN and UPA with terror and fear and describe the organization as deeply anti-Semitic. He avoids the topic of how UPA leaders were trained by Nazi Germany and collaborated in the Holocaust and ignores evidence of UPA mass murders of Jews found in Ukrainian and German archives. Omitting a significant body of literature, which testifies to the opposite, V’’iatrovych concludes that “all-in-all, from the publications of the leading ideologues of the movement, their programmatic statements, [one can only conclude that] the ideology of the Ukrainian nationalists did not take positions that justify accusations that the OUN was anti-Semitic.” Instead, he paints a picture of OUN neutrality to the Jews. (...) V’’iatrovych highly selective accounts followed the [Ukrainian] diaspora tradition in their denial and downplaying of the OUN’s anti-Semitism, and have rightly been harshly criticized as very one-sided, legitimizingm and revisionist, failing to meet even the basic scholarly requirements. (...) High-profile anti-Semites and Holocaust revisionists, among them Levko Luk’’ianenko and Iurii Shukhevych, were regular guests at the events at V’’iatrovych’s propaganda institutes. - Per Anders Rudling, The OUN, the UPA and the Holocaust: A Study in the Manufacturing of Historical Myths, The Carl Beck Papers in Russian & East European Studies, No. 2107, November 2011, ISSN 0889-275X, pages 28-31)" GlaubePL (talk) 15:31, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Andrzej Leon Sowa: "Literatura wykorzystana w pracy Wiatrowycza ma charakter niekompletny, ale selektywny, a to musi zdumiewać w książce, której autor rości sobie pretensje do przedstawienia nowego spojrzenia na opisywane wydarzenia. [page 454] (...) Innym mankamentem pracy jest wskazana przeze mnie manipulacja faktografią, polegająca na pomijaniu przez autora faktów dla jego koncepcji niewygodnych, takich jak napady UPA, dokonane na polskich mieszkańców Janowej Doliny czy Baligrodu. Podsumowując, pracę dr Wiatrowycza uważam za obciążoną poważnymi błędami warsztatowymi i chociażby z tego powodu nie stanowi ona dla mnie żadnej podstawy do dyskusji na temat genezy i przebiegu konfliktu polsko-ukraińskiego w latach 1939–1947. [page 460] [Translation: "Literature used in Viatrovych's work [Second Polish-Ukrainian War] is incomplete, but selective, and it has to astound in the book, which author is laying claim to present a new perspective on the events described. (...) Another drawback of the study is indicated by me the manipulation of factual material, which consists in ignoring facts inconvenient for the author's ideas, such as attacks of UPA on ​​the Polish residents of Janowa Dolina and Baligród. In conclusion, I find the work of Dr. Viatrovych as burdened by serious workshop errors and for this reason alone it does not constitute any basis for me to discuss the origins and course of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict in the years 1939-1947." - Andrzej Leon Sowa, recenzja książek: Polśko-ukrajinśki stosunki w 1942-1947 rokach u dokumentach OUN ta UPA, red. Wołodymyr Wiatrowycz oraz Wołodymyr Wiatrowycz, Druha polśko-ukrajinśka wijna 1942-1947, [in:] „Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość”, nr 21" GlaubePL (talk) 16:09, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Grzegorz Hryciuk: "Praca Wołodymyra Wiatrowycza ma służyć – jak wynika z deklaracji Autora w ostatnim akapicie książki – uniknięciu polityzacji i tworzenia dalszych mitów „o drugiej polsko-ukraińskiej wojnie”. No cóż – słowa te padły w na wskroś upolitycznionej książce, bardzo, bardzo odległej od standardów przyzwoitej tradycyjnej (a nawet postmodernistycznej) historiografii i jej metodologii. Książce, w której nie tylko powiela się starą – rodem z 1943 r. – kłamliwą wersję wydarzeń, ale też stawia tezę, budzącą już nie tylko intelektualny, ale wręcz etyczny sprzeciw. [Translation: >>The work of Volodymyr Viatrovych has to serve - as it comes from the declaration of the author in the last paragraph of the book - to avoid politicization and creation of new myths on the "second Polish-Ukrainian war". Well - these words have been written in the thoroughly politicized book, very, very distant from the standards of decent traditional (and even post-modern) historiography and its methodology. The book in which he not only reproduces the old - born in 1943 - mendacious version of events, but also puts the thesis which raises not only intellectual, but also an ethical objection.<< Grzegorz Hryciuk, recenzja książki: Wołodymyr Wiatrowycz, Druha polśko-ukrajinśka wijna 1942-1947, [in:] „Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość” nr 21, p.471" GlaubePL (talk) 16:33, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:NPOV
The current article fails to meet WP:NPOV because the bulk of the article is a criticism section which is well-sourced but entirely negative. I will be removing it shortly. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:58, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Is this a joke? Viatrovych is a nationalist ideologist, financed by the far right OUN-B. Why in such a case should the critique be shorter than say his biography? Have a look at the academic "Ab Imperio" journal 1/2012. You will find four reviews on Viatrovych. All are negative. You hardly will find scholars that will write something positive on him. Could you please advise what to do in such a case? One could say "He has a beautiful tie" or he speaks good English (he doesn't). Would that do? Good night!
 * Sieben Zwerge (talk) 21:32, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * This is not a joke. Check the biographies of high-profile war criminals for examples of how to get the balance right. If you want to write an article on Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-funded propaganda, I suggest that you write an article on it, rather than writing an attack article on a person. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:48, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * War criminals are a bad example, because one usually won't criticise their writings. I'm not an expert on Ukrainian history, but those quoted by user:GlaubePL are. Their criticism is well based because they know the methods and sources used by Viatrovych. This is scholarly criticism, not "disparage or threaten" (as the definition of attack page says). I can't see a reason to deleted this from a WP lemma. Such things are part of the work of an encyclopaedia.
 * Sieben Zwerge (talk) 22:16, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * You're welcome to agree or disagree, but wikipedia is based on consensus, and the consensus is for balance in biographies. You may notice that this material has been removed many times from the article. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:40, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

The fact that these parts were removed several times does not tell us anything. I would call this vandalism. Many years ago I was active on WP with an other account, then it was quite usual that articles would get the chance to grow. I wrote a part, s.o. else added what I left out, so the stuff developed and had the chance to develop. Obviously things changed, if I get it right, now one has to write a whole article otherwise it will be deleted. If the Polish guy doesn't know positive things about Viatrovych (so don't I) he must not write about him? Strange. But the most tricky point is indeed, that no serious academic publication would publish a positive review on his works. Still, in the Ukraine he is very influential - this tells a lot about the situation in that country. My question is serious: If a person is relevant for WP (Viatrovych certainly is) but his works do not meet academic standards and there is hardly anything a scholar could praise him for - how to write than? Sorry for insisting, but I'm really puzzled and I'm sure GlaubePL would be interested, too. Sieben Zwerge (talk) 09:12, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I am very interested. For example FreeRangeFrog wanted me to add positive information on Viatrovych. But as positive opinions on him hardly exist in the reliable sources, how can I do that? Does FreeRangeFrogg wants me to misrepresent the sources? Or should I add positive information on Viatrovych from unreliable sources? Yes, he is praised by his nationalists admirers, but their opinions cannot be a source for Wikipedia.GlaubePL (talk) 15:53, 12 August 2013 (UTC) Anyway, a new proposed version of critique section is in my sandbox: .GlaubePL (talk) 16:04, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not about misrepresenting sources, it's about summarising them sufficiently briefly that they don't over-whelm the rest of the article. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:39, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Expanding the entry
Yesterday and today I have expanded and sorted the material in this entry.

The outline of Viatrovykh's biography is still very skimpy. The details of his academic career are now much fuller. There is a lack of sources, but I am assuming that the dates given for a variety of activities in the Russian Wikipedia are generally accurate. (I can read Russian but have difficulty with Ukrainian.)

There is no escaping the controversy that Mr V has aroused over the past 14 years. The entry now describes this in terms that are more measured and should be easier to understand for those who can only read about him in English.

John Crowfoot (talk) 15:49, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

I have just consulted the Ukrainian page about Viatrovykh and can see that the same biographical data (activities, months and years) are available there - and also lack any supporting references.

John Crowfoot (talk) 16:04, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Is there an established name in English for the international project, “Ukraine Remembers, the World Acknowledges” (Украина помнит, мир признает)? It is the one missing item on my list of corrections, additions, etc.

John Crowfoot (talk) 19:34, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Visit to Yad Vashem.
This fragment:

"Viatrovych's next book OUN attitudes towards the Jews: Formulating a position against the backdrop of catastrophe (2006) aroused much controversy, extending beyond historians to Yad Vashem and back. Viatrovych and some of his colleagues went to look for certain documents held at the Holocaust History Museum in Israel."

is a misinterpretation of what the source says. Himka says that Viatrovich did work in the Yad Vashem archives regarding the alleged involvement of Nachtigal battalion in Lvov pogrom, and he demonstrated this fact has no dicumental support. However, that has no relation to the book. I remove this sentence and replace it what Khimka says about the Viatrovich's book.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:16, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Article's modification
I edited the article by re-grouping the material and removal of numerous repetitions (it looks like different users added pretty much the same stuff to different sections). I also got rid of the "Criticism" section, and moved this material to the relevant section,because (i) almost all sources this article cite criticise Viatrovich's writings, (ii) the "Criticism" section essentially repeated what other sections say, and (iii) per WP:NPOV, Segregation of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself, may result in an unencyclopedic structure, such as a back-and-forth dialogue between proponents and opponents. It may also create an apparent hierarchy of fact where details in the main passage appear "true" and "undisputed", whereas other, segregated material is deemed "controversial", and therefore more likely to be false. --Paul Siebert (talk) 21:21, 13 September 2018 (UTC)