Thread by @rynkrynk

Alright, I already know damn well I’m going to get an ungodly amount of insane replies from teenage edgelords with Stalin in their userpics for even daring to mention this topic, but screw it. Let’s talk about Ukraine, nationalism, and Ukrainian nationalism. *takes deep breath*

You might have noticed that some Ukrainians (especially if we’re talking about the older generations) proudly refer to themselves as “Ukrainian nationalists”. You might have also noticed a large number of experts, journalists and just ordinary Ukrainians such as myself claim that

Ukrainian society doesn’t really have much far-right sentiment, and that most of our people don’t support far-right ideologies. Meanwhile, the Kremlin and its Greek chorus of twitter tankies, TV hosts and even politicians claim that all Ukrainians (yes, all 40 million of us) are

outright Nazis. So what’s the deal with Ukrainians and nationalism? The truth is that it’s a complicated issue, and most of the complications stem from a lack of context, and also the fact that all three sides in this debate internet the terms “nationalism” and “Nazism” in wildly

different ways. When westerners hear Ukrainians say that someone’s a nationalist, the first thing that comes to their mind is the far-right with its Proud Boys, Trump’s rallies, ideas of racial superiority and all that other disgusting stuff. So when they think of Ukrainian

nationalists, they usually envision xenophobic assholes who blabber on about how great white people are. However, most Ukrainians who mention Ukrainian nationalism are actually talking about something different — namely, Ukraine’s fight against imperialism and oppression. Because

unlike most of the societies which are now criticising Ukrainians for “being too nationalist”, Ukraine was never a conquerer on an oppressor — we were always the ones being oppressed by a more powerful neighbour, and for us the term “nationalism” usually meant just fighting for

our own survival. The popularity of this term among the older generations of Ukrainians stems of the fact that the Soviet authorities would accuse every single Ukrainian who cared about his or her heritage/language/culture of being a nationalist, and probably even send them off

to the Gulag for being one. So, for the Ukrainians who tried to preserve their own history and identity under Soviet oppression, the term became a badge of honour, a symbol of being willing to be persecuted for what you believe is right. And a lot of Ukrainians still use this

term in precisely this context — they see Ukrainian nationalism as the willingness to fight against oppression, not the desire to oppress others. Of course, we obviously do have idiots who call themselves nationalists or whatever and blabber on about hating foreigners or gay

people, but those are the weird yet vocal minority and not an influential or respected part of our society. So a large number of Ukrainians proclaiming themselves “Ukrainian nationalists” may very well be non-white, non-straight, and generally leftist in their political views.

And yet they still call themselves “nationalists”… simply because that’s what people who dared believe that Ukraine has a right to exist as a sovereign state have long been labelled as, and the term sort of stuck. Do I think it’s a precise term? No. Do I think it leads to an

obscene amount of misunderstanding? Obviously. But do I also think that people should try and research the context or a certain term’s use before they start making assumptions? Definitely. Anyway, now you might be thinking something along the lines of “yeah, that’s all well and

good, but what about people like Bandera? Don’t Ukrainians also call him a nationalist and see him as a national hero?”. Some do. And largely (because, as I’ve said before, we do still have nutjobs) it’s not because they approve of antisemitism or violent uprisings or terrorism.

It’s because the Soviet attempts to erase all mentions of Ukraine’s fight for independence and drown all of our dissent in blood led to the fact that each and every person who at least tried to fight for Ukraine’s independence is seen as a hero, regardless of his or her means of

trying to achieve it. This is the thing about societies that have been oppressed for far too long — the people who dare rise against that oppression are automatically seen as “good”, regardless of how violent their methods are. And they’re not hailed as heroes because of those

methods, but rather despite them. So yeah, some (definitely not all) Ukrainians get defensive whenever our downright controversial historical figures get brought up, and I do think our society needs to take a long, critical look at our own past and the way we see it. But, sadly,

that’s definitely not going to happen while an imperialist superpower is YET AGAIN trying to erase our identity. But, since we’re on the topic of imperialist superpowers, let’s talk about what the Kremlin means when they talk about Ukrainians being “Nazis”. Some of you might

have wondered how Russian TV hosts manage to accuse Ukrainians of being Nazis AND say something incredibly antisemitic about our Jewish president all in one breath. Don’t they see a contradiction? Well, not really. The thing is that, similar to the Soviet authorities, the Kremlin

uses the term “Nazism” to mean anything anti-Soviet or anti-Russian. If you glance through an old Soviet history textbook (or, I suspect, even a new Russian one) and get to the part about WW2, you might notice something odd: there isn’t all that much about the Holocaust. This

isn’t accidental — the main issue the Soviets had with Nazi Germany wasn’t the fact that Hitler tried to erase Jewish people from existence, but rather the fact that Nazi Germany dared attack the Soviet Union. Yes, that’s seen as the larger evil here. Therefore, the term “Nazi”

doesn’t really mean “authoritarian and anti-Semitic”, not when the Kremlin uses it. After all, modern Russia is pretty damn authoritarian and antisemitic! No, the Kremlin uses the term “Nazi” to mean “unfriendly to Russia”. Yeah, it’s a pretty radical case of “everyone I don’t

like is Hitler”, only blown up into a whole state’s ideology. So that’s why certain pro-Kremlin mouthpieces have no problem describing Zelenskyy as a Nazi, or even spreading conspiracy theories about how Hitler himself was actually Jewish.

Anyway, that’s the way I see it. Keep in mind that I’m not a historian, and this is solely my interpretation (although I do think it’s pretty close to what’s happening here), and I’m sure people like the brilliant @mariamposts could give you a better opinion on all of this.