Courses

Why was authoritarian ideology attractive to many young people in Western Ukraine in the 1930s and 1940s? And why does nationalist mythology continue exert a potent influence in contemporary Eastern Europe? This course answers these questions by examining the politics, ideology and literature of Ukrainian nationalism from interwar until postwar years. The focus is on the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which in these decades played an important role in Western Ukraine (Galicia, Bukovyna and Transcarpathia) and in émigré communities. The views of different researchers are analyzed and prominence it given to the myth-making that still exerts an influence today.