This paper considers the measures undertaken by the Nazi occupation administration to dismantle Communist monuments in Ukraine during World War II. The research methodology integrates general scientific and special historical methods and the basic principles of historical research, namely: historicism, scientificity, objectivity, and systematicity. The principles of historicism and scientificity have contributed to complex representation of the processes of dismantling the Bolshevik monuments in interconnection and interrelation with the events of that period. The principle of objectivity has facilitated the analysis of the outlined issues taking into account the objective historical regularities, based on a critical analysis of the specialized literature and sources. The principle of systematicity has been used togain a holistic picture of Communist monuments dismantling in Ukraine during World War II. This paper is the first research considering the measures to dismantle Communist monuments in Ukraine under the Nazi occupation on the basis of a comprehensive range of historical sources. The authors come to the conclusion that dismantling of Communist monuments in Ukraine was initiated at the beginning of the Nazi occupation. Bolshevik monuments were often demolished, whereas monuments without any ideological charge were preserved. The policy was supported by the local population, who associated ideological monuments with the Bolshevik anti-Ukrainian policy of the interwar period. To sustain anti-Soviet sentiments, the occupation administration promoted the local initiatives to erect monuments with anti-Bolshevik content (mostly monuments in memory of the Ukrainians executed by the NKVD). The evidence from this study indicates that Bolshevik ideological monuments were completely demolished on the territory of Ukraine during World War II.
This article aims to examine the newspaper «Ovruchski Visti», published in Ovruch between August and October 1943, as part of the Nazi information space during World War II. The research methodology is based on general scientific and special historical methods, integrating the fundamental principles of historical knowledge: historicism, scientificity, objectivity, and systematicity. The principles of historicism and scientificity have been used to recreate the history of the newspaper «Ovruchski Visti» in all its complexity and diversity in connection to the events of the time. The principle of objectivity has assisted in considering the outlined issues, taking into account objective historical regularities with a critical analysis of the available literature and source base. The principle of systematicity has enabled the reconstruction of a holistic picture of the history of the newspaper «Ovruchski Visti» as part of the Nazi information space in the occupied territory of Ukraine. The scientific novelty of the research consists in its comprehensive account of the history of the newspaper «Ovruchski Visti» in the context of the Nazi information space from August to October 1943, which was first carried out on a broad source base. The authors have come to the following conclusions. The occupation authorities initiated the publication of the newspaper «Ovruchski Visti» to strengthen anti-Soviet propaganda and influence the communist resistance movement and its supporters. The newspaper «Ovruchski Visti» mostly included German materials, with minimal publications on issues of all-Ukrainian and local life. The approach used to the thematic content of the newspaper met the general requirements for Ukrainian-language newspapers set forth by the Reichskommissariat «Ukraine». This also applied to the main propaganda topics in Ukrainian-language periodicals. The newspaper «Ovruchski Visti» disseminated anti-Soviet propaganda; anti-Jewish propaganda; and propaganda aimed at supporting the occupation policy and directives from the occupation administration.
Right-bank Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire after the second partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1792. The integration of these territories into the new administrative, economic and cultural space caused certain difficulties. In the first half of the 19th century, the region had the highest percentage of peasant serfs and the elements and institutions of the non-existent state (including the courts) still existed and kept functioning. The defeat in the Crimean War of 1853–1856 imposed on the Russian Empire the need for radical reforms in all spheres of life. The wave-like periods of cooperation-confrontation between the Russian authorities and the local nobility brought about regional provisions in virtually all the reforms, launched by the peasant reform of 1861. The judicial reform and the emergence of new institutions and practices had to resolve existing problems, disputes, and punish criminals legally. The social estate (stanovy) character of the society was reflected in the establishment and activities of the volost courts, as the lower courts. The district courts were a completely novel phenomenon in the legal culture; their functioning was ensured by professional lawyers on the basis of new judicial statutes. The purpose of this article is to consider the court practices and functioning of penitentiary establishments in Right-Bank Ukraine (on the example of Volyn province) under implementation of the judicial reform through the prism of social and estate factors, based on the cases of the Zhytomyr District Court and the reports of the heads of local prisons. The methodology of the research includes the tools of social history and the so-called "new imperial history" that have helped to trace the adaptation of new legal practices to the socio-ethnic peculiarities of Right Bank Ukraine. The methods of history of everyday life and history of reading have been employed to consider the under-researched component of the penitentiary system of the Russian Empire, namely the libraries and their funds. This component should be attributed to the novelty of the suggested research findings. Conclusions. Estate privileges were maintained in the Russian Empire throughout the "long 19th century". Belonging to a higher social status practically made the Polish nobles equal in the rights with the imperial officials, endowed with power. During court decisions and sentencing, an ethnic criterion was not taken into consideration or had secondary significance. Many years of placing the peasants outside the legal field developed a steady arrogant attitude of the power-holders towards the representatives of this social estate. Though the peasants dominated in the social structure of the Empire population, they remained the most prevalent class. Since the early 20th century, some shifts in perception and attitudes towards peasantry were observed.
The aim of this paper is to examine the mechanisms of action of individual and collective memory on the features of remembering/ forgetting / interpreting complex pages of history. The use of oral historical memories has allowed to trace the level of influence of stereotypes and dominant (official) historical narratives that were formed both in the Soviet period and in the independence era. The methodological basis of the study is the tools of oral, social history and the history of everyday life. Scientific novelty. The article is written on the basis of oral historical evidence. The article focuses on the issues that break stereotypes about Jews formed during the Soviet period. The collected evidence constitutes an important source of information that explains the peculiarities of the formation of social memory and political factors that determine the agenda of historical policy in a given period. Conclusions. The article considers several blocks of problems that reflect the most typical stereotypes, fixed at the level of consciousness, behavioral attitudes, partially presented (or omitted) facts from history, which to some extent destroy them. The memoirs used in the article, which were collected in the framework of the project "Voices" in 2020 in Zhytomyr region (in which the author has participated), reflect the similarity of general ideas, assessments, tone, and memory stereotypes about anti-Semitism, the legitimacy of the Holodomor’s status of the genocide directed exclusively against ethnic Ukrainians, the role and place of Jews in the victory over Nazism, the peculiarities of evacuation, and the issues of preserving and honoring the memory of those killed during the Holocaust. At the same time, those memoirs demonstrate the differences between collective and individual memory, which preserves plots that to some extent destroy stereotypical attitudes that have long been ingrained in the mind and, accordingly, influenced the formation of social memory. The analysis of the interviews shows that oral history has significant source potential for studying various issues and sections of Soviet and modern history that await their researchers.
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