American Library Association admitted book “Enemy Archives. Soviet Counterinsurgency Operations and the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement – Selections from the Secret Police Archives” one of the best historical matherials, published in 2022 and 2023.
23th, January, 2024
“Enemy Archives. Soviet Counterinsurgency Operations and the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement – Selections from the Secret Police Archives” is a collection of translated archival documents dedicated to less known sides of Ukrainian-Russian relations, edited by university publishing house McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Work was prepared by Dr. Volodymyr Viatrovych, Ukrainian historian, former Head of Institute of National Remembrance, researcher of the Second world war and Ukrainian liberation movement and Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, who searches Ukrainian question in foreign politics of USA and Great Britain and problems of Ukrainian emigree after the Second world war. Book was translated by journalist, editor and researcher Marta Daria Olijnyk.
American Library Association recommends this book for academic libraries. “With most of the letters translated into English for the first time, this volume is a valuable resource for researchers looking into the history of the relationship between the Soviet Union and Ukraine.” – is written on Association’s site.
Authors were informed about award by Committee of the Reference and User Services Association, an affiliate of the American Library Association.
Committee co-chair, librarian for (U.S.) History and African American Studies at Princeton University Steven A. Knowlton wrote in a letter to book’s authors: “I am writing to inform you that your publication, Enemy Archives: Soviet Counterinsurgency Operations and the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement – Selections from the Secret Police Archives, has been selected as one of the Best Historical Materials published in 2022 and 2023.”, – one of the co-authors, Canadian professor Lubomyr Luciuk, shared on Facebook.
“Enemy archives” book’s co-author, Dr. Viatrovych explains: “It’s the greatest collection, what gives an opportunity to understand Ukrainian insurgent movement’s history during 1940-1950ies. When I worked at Harvard University in USA, I saw, so small primary sources for UPA and OUN history are available for Western resarchers and so rarely they are used. But they are the most important documents of underground structures and, from the other hand, the mainest documents of Soviet punishment system about fight against insurgency”.
This book “provides invaluable information about Ukrainian nationalist movenent from the Second world war to 1955. The hefty volume contains documents collected by Soviet counterinsurgency groups that were produced by the Ukrainian nationalist underground including propaganda materials and resources that elaborate on the activities and tactics of the underground. Alongside these documents are reports and other records written by the Soviet police in response to the information found in the materials created by the underground. They cover topics such as the Soviet claim that the Ukrainian underground promoted fascism and collaborated with the Nazis.
The documents included in this volume were found in the files of the Soviet police. In addition to the underground documents and reports by the various branches of the Soviet police, there are photographs that were found with the Ukrainian nationalist movement papers. These photographs show some of the people involved in the movement, giving a face to the people creating the documents.
With most of the letters translated into English for the first time, this volume is a valuable resource for researchers looking into the history of the relationship between the Soviet Union and Ukraine. An introduction in the front of the volume provides information about the Soviet police archives and the development of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. Footnotes are found throughout the book to provide context for the documents. This resource is recommended for academic libraries.” – Jennifer Brennock, Professor and curator of the department of rare books at The University of Southern Mississippi.
Oksana Zabuzhko has commented news also: “This edition will be included into obligatory list for professionals, because these documents were unavailable for Western researchers and it was an easy task for Kremlin to sell long bow about OUN, UPA and “Ukrainian fascists” so easy as during Stalin’s or Khruschew’s times. And now, after “Enemy Archives” publication and admiration, Kreml seriously failed on information field”.
The book contains 161 documents from the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine: documents of the UPA and OUN confiscated by the Soviet special services, and documents of the NKVD-KGB itself, which deal with the fight against Ukrainian insurgents. The photos in the book also come from the archives of the SBU and the Centre for research on the Liberation Movement. Some of them are already available online on the website of the Electronic Archive of the Ukrainian Liberation Movement.
Publishing house: Book is available on McGill-Queen’s University Press and Amazon.
The Centre for research on the Liberation Movement – an independent scientific NGO, that studies different aspects of the Ukrainian liberation movement during the 20th century, the politics of national memory, and the processes of overcoming the consequences of the totalitarian past in the countries of the former USSR, Central and Eastern Europe.
