It is a common trope for the legacy of historical progressive revolutionary figures to be distorted and exploited by political reactionaries. Reactionaries and fascists will discard the progressive messages and will use the remaining husk as a symbol for national chauvinism or even other forms of bigotry. We have seen American fascists use George Washington’s image.[1] We have seen how Mussolini and his Italian Fascists distort the great Guiseppe Garibaldi for their propaganda.[2] Revolutionary icon Taras Shevchenko, who is best known for his poetry, is not spared from historical revisionism by the Ukrainian nationalists, fascists, and reactionaries. It is the task of Slavic American progressives to reclaim and restore Taras Shevchenko’s legacy. It is important to know that Taras Shevchenko was always a progressive hero in Soviet Ukraine.
During the interwar period and ensuing WWII, Nazi collaborator and leader of the fascist, ultranationalist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists – Bandera faction (OUN-B), Stepan Bandera popularized the slogan “Slava Ukraini, Heroiam slava!” This slogan translates to, “Glory to Ukraine, glory to its heroes.” This slogan, which is echoed by the Banderite government of Ukraine today and its sympathizers in Ukraine and abroad, originated in Taras Shevchenko’s poem, To Osnovianenko, with the lines “Our epic and our ancient song, For ever shall remain, And that is where our glory lies, The glory of Ukraine.”
Anyone who honestly studies the life of Taras Shevchenko would understand immediately and clearly that Taras Shevchenko’s legacy is in diametric opposition to that of Stepan Bandera.
Stepan Bandera and his fascist gang murdered over 100,000 Jews, Poles, Roma, Ukrainian Communists, and progressives as well as allying themselves with Nazi Germany to take down democracy.
Taras Shevchenko, on the other hand, was fostering an international solidarity with other Slavic peoples in the struggle for national identity for the Ukrainian people and freedom for serfs and the working class from the oppressive regime of Russia’s Tsar Nicholas I and later Tsar Alexander II. Shevchenko championed the struggle for a pan-Slavic unity on a democratic basis.
Today, while the Kiev Regime annually celebrates the birth of fascist Stepan Bandera and encourages its citizens to be terrorized by neo-Nazis such as the Right Sector, Svoboda, C14, and Azov Brigade[3]. It should be noted that any “homage” paid to Shevchenko is lip service at best and nationalist demagogy in reality.
It is important for progressives of all nationalities to stand up to barbarism and to reclaim our national heroes. We cannot allow a cultural figure like Shevchenko, who is representative of the Ukrainian nation, to be taken from us by thuggish Nazis. The rise to power of such reactionaries becomes difficult when it is allowed to commandeer and distort history by stealing historical figures that do not belong to them.
1 https://www.nytimes.com/1939/02/21/archives/22000-nazis-hold-rally-in-garden-police-check-foes-scenes-as.html
2 https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_224792_smxx.pdf
3 https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/14/ukraine-investigate-punish-hate-crime
Retrieved from the American Slav Congress – American Slav Congress
