Interview with Ivan Mukovskyi, Doctor of Historical Sciences
— Dear Ivan Tymofiiovych, at one time you did a titanic job, researching the unknown pages of the Second World War, in particular, the Great Patriotic War, studying and analyzing combat operations on the territory of the former USSR, including Ukraine. You dedicated your book “Victory and Sacrifice. Ukrainians on the Fronts of the Second World War”, which specifically refers to the numerous losses of the Ukrainian population, which, by the way, is now openly denied by the so-called leadership of our sinister neighbor. In your opinion, should we accept these “denials”? After all, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of fallen compatriots.
— You see, the fact is that people refer to past historical events in two cases: either when they want to change them, that is, manipulate them, or, on the contrary, to learn the truth. During the time of Ukraine’s independence, a great deal of research work was done on the Second World War to find out the real human losses of our Ukrainian society, which are presented on the pages of “Ukraine’s Book of Memory”. And it is sad to hear from the Russians that they could single-handedly defeat the German-fascist attacker in that war.
— You were the First Deputy Chairman of the Main Editorial Board, which prepared the publication of the Book of Memory, therefore you are well-versed in the processes of historical research, about which, by the way, you tell in your recently published biographical work “In Search of My Destiny”. What inspired you to do such work in our difficult times?
— Having considerable experience in military service and scientific work, I could not help reacting to the current events in our country, when we once again have to defend ourselves from the Kremlin invaders. I hope that the reader will find answers there to many questions that our society faces today. I refer not only to the events of the Second World War, but also to what happened in the 15th and 16th centuries to our Cossacks, because the Russians for some reason are trying to change or even humiliate the events of that time. I consider it appropriate to mention Rzeczpospolita, whose descendants today help us fight the attacker, although once we could, as they say, be on opposite sides of the front. By the way, there is an interesting fact about this: when I was studying the historiography of the Cossacks at the Kyiv State University, we were lectured about those wars and military art by a historian, not Ukrainian by origin, a Pole — Professor Vasyl Yehorovych Spytskyi, who once had a military rank of Colonel of the Polish Army. As a teacher, he presented tense topics, combining them with our time, and was almost the only Professor who, despite the Soviet times, openly, without hiding anything, explained the political situation of Ukraine at that time, which was caused by the extremely sad realities of national, economic, cultural, and religious oppression by Russia against Ukraine for centuries.
For example, he explained to us in detail the role that the national elite should play, stated that at that time almost all top positions were held by Russians, so Ukraine actually did not have true bearers of statehood.
— In such a case, it makes sense to turn again to your work as a historian — the monograph “Victory and Sacrifice. Ukrainians on the Fronts of the Second World War”. The Russians know about it, but today, as you say, they are trying to manipulate historical facts, in particular, they commonly call us “Nazis”. What is behind it: envy, their feelings of inferiority, or something else?
— While working on the monograph at that time, I tried to comprehensively investigate into the struggle of Ukrainian soldiers and natives of our country against German-fascist and Japanese invaders. In my writing, I used exclusively archival materials that appeared for the first time in scientific circulation. As I have already said, the pages of the monograph reveal the role and place of the main “front labour” — an ordinary Ukrainian soldier. This is both the military heroic deeds of Ukrainians on the fronts, and the struggle of the national underground, and the Ukrainians in the armies of the USA, Canada, and France. I am proud that my work was referred to during solid scientific conferences, which testifies to its resonance, moreover, it became the basis of the aforementioned 250-volume historical-memorial series “Ukraine’s Book of Memory”, as well as the summary volume “Immortality. Ukraine’s Book of Memory. 1941–1945”. I think that thanks to this work, in 2008 I became one of the representatives of the All-Ukrainian public organization “Ukrainian Registered Cossacks”.
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— It sounds like, in addition to military service, you thoroughly studied history. And you can, come the need, be a serious opponent of all sorts of modern “historians” not only here in Ukraine, but also far beyond its borders. Tell us about the subject of your studies in historical science.
— It so happened in my life that in parallel with military service, I seriously studied historical events that were mainly connected with Ukraine. The topic of my university diploma work was “Courage and Heroism of Border Guards in Western Ukraine (June 22 – July 20, 1941)”. Entering the post-graduate education, I submitted an essay “Combat Actions of the Troops of the Southern Front at the Beginning of the Great Patriotic War (June 22 – October 10, 1941)”. By the way, my father fought in the 9th Army of that front… After the candidate’s work, there was a doctoral dissertation “Formation of Moral, Political and Combat Qualities in Soldiers During the Great Patriotic War (June 1941–1945)”. Therefore, I, like all Ukrainians, do not need to be imposed on opinions on who fought for what during the Second World War and, in particular, whether the Russians would have been able to defeat the fascist attacker on their own, especially without the help of allies, first of all the USA.
My father, a frontline soldier, Tymofii Lukianovych, played a certain role in my research. After the war, he repeatedly mentioned the defensive battles of the troops of the Southern Front at the end of September 1941 in the Melitopol area, where, as we see, something similar is happening today, but this time it is the result of the Russians’ attack on us. At that time, units and formations of the 9th and 18th Armies were concentrated there, which stubbornly tried to hold back the advance of the enemy’s 1st Tank Group. But it was not possible to stop it, so part of our troops was surrounded near Melitopol. My father told how he and his comrades managed to break out of the encirclement, but he forever remembered those terrible pictures of the retreat… In October, the enemy captured Mariupol and rushed to Taganrog and Rostov, where it planned to surround parts of the 9th and 18th Armies and where my father again found himself under siege.
— Does this not remind you, as a historian and former military, of today’s battles there with Russian attackers?
— Undoubtedly, it does, especially when our military brigades are currently fighting with Russian units and forces on those territories. Today, I see our prisoners of war on the TV screen, for example, and I remember my father’s stories and understand what the Kremlin’s threat: “we can repeat it” is about. Yes, they are already “repeating”… What exactly is meant? Merciless treatment of prisoners of war whom the Nazis staged in a column in the direction of Rostov? They were not fed, they were not given water, the escorts shot the exhausted. My father experienced all this and remembered what he later told about. At that time, he was 30 years old. Somehow, he managed to take advantage of a misunderstanding between the escorts and safely run away from the column of prisoners and catch up with the retreating units of our troops. After being checked by the security authorities, he got to serve in the unit of bridge layers, then he was a sapper. He told how he spent his sleepless nights in trenches, sometimes in snow tents and, on rare occasions, in dugouts. In the war, he explained, the main plowman, executor of the commander’s orders was and remains an ordinary soldier, and therefore he should be protected and taken care of. Then there will be success. I remembered and obeyed my father’s order, holding various positions throughout my military service. Nowadays, I hope that our commanders are well aware of this.
— Today’s war with the Russians, their insidious attack on our country, is covered in various media, books are published, the authors of which directly fought or are participating in the battles. Researchers of our Geopolitical Center have already published the first collection dedicated to our military, who have been awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. The work continues. That is, our history is written by our defenders so that descendants do not forget about fallen Heroes.
— Frankly speaking, I would like such editions not to be multi-volume… So that our boys and girls do not die in battles, but return home alive… As for the research work, let me remind you that the historical-memorial series “Book of Memory of Ukraine” consists of 250 volumes, and we’ve been working on it for over ten years. It was not easy, because my colleagues and I were the first to pave the way to the scientific and social life of Ukraine, to the development of national historical science. I, as the First Deputy Chairman of the Main Editorial Board of this historical-memorial series, faced an extremely difficult task, on the one hand, to reproduce a scientifically based sorrowful martyrology of combat losses of Ukrainian soldiers and natives of Ukraine during the Second World War, and to lay the foundations for further study and understanding of the human tragedy caused by the war. And on the other hand — to satisfy the corresponding demands of the Red partisans and UPA soldiers. After all, during Soviet times, memories about the “Ukrainian Independent United State” were outlawed, as were those who fought for it, especially with weapons in their arms. Today, we have become convinced of the fallacy of such an approach, and therefore, when writing this book, the demands of the UPA soldiers were realized. At this, it was important not to cross out everything that had already stood the test of time and was duly approved by domestic and foreign scientists.
— As for the number of Ukrainians killed during that war, the Soviet and today’s figures differ. This was mentioned more than once by our researchers…
— In my latest book, I talk about it in sufficient details. And now I will just mention a few facts. In the majority of such Books of Memory, which were once published in the CIS countries, the number of irreversible military losses of the Ukrainian soldiers in the Red Army in 1941–1945 was given as 1 million 376.5 thousand people. But according to our calculations and conclusions, which were the result of research during the work on the Book of Memory, the number of losses was much higher. We created an archival data file for 6 million 34 thousand 768 people who died in that war. By the way, this is not the above-mentioned 1 million 376.5 thousand, as noted in the Summary Volume of the Russian publication “In Memory of the Fallen. Great Patriotic War 1941–1945”, but more than 6 million! And those were someone’s sons, brothers, sisters, parents, wives, husbands, and together, citizens of Ukraine who gave their lives for the independence of the Motherland.
— And if we compare those losses with the losses of other nations, which are no longer mentioned today…
— We have prepared a comparative analysis of the irreversible military losses of Ukraine with the military losses of Western states with which the Soviet Union fought. For example, Germany lost 6 million 923 thousand 700 people, Hungary — 863 thousand 700 people, Italy — 92 thousand 900, Romania — 680 thousand 800, Finland — 86 thousand 400. Austrians and Sudeten Germans also fought as part of the Wehrmacht, Luxembourgers, representatives of Alsace and Lorraine, whose losses amounted to 462 thousand people.
— Did you find out the number of losses of other countries participating in that war?
— Yes, the following figures are given in the book: USA — 405 thousand people, Great Britain — 375 thousand, and Japan — 2.5 million people. Compare them with the losses of Ukraine!
There are other facts testifying to Ukrainians’ tragic participation in those battles. I will give an illustrative case. Thus, we were able to respond to an appeal to us (and there were thousands of them) of a citizen from Lviv region for help in finding the place of burial of her father, who went missing in 1944, with the help of archival materials: he died and was buried not far from his native home, from where he was mobilized two weeks before that tragedy. Or another fact: a letter was received from the Kharkiv regional branch of the Search and Publishing Agency “Ukraine’s Book of Memory” to the Main Editorial Board, in which the employees made a mournful generalization: if to place the graves of all Kharkiv soldiers who died in the Second World War in one row (and this is 667 thousand 189 people), it would stretch for 450 kilometers — from Kharkiv to Kyiv. Here’s the cynicism about “we can repeat it”… In fact, the war was fought between two totalitarian regimes. Today, when Ukraine again is defending its independence, everyone should understand this. In my new work, I pointed out that during the war, the Stalinist government skillfully, cleverly and speculatively managed to use the fundamental interests of the people and the policy of the German aggressor for its own purposes, and today we observe the same thing when the so-called neighbors are trying to conceal the true goals of the war waged against us.
— But not everyone wants to agree with such obvious facts, looking for other explanations of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Take at least Russian publications, in which the authors persistently impose their “patriotic archaism”! It has come to the point that their school textbooks talk about something that cannot help surprising and just blowing one’s mind!
— You see, ideologized historiography never could and never will be able to satisfy the demands of society in general, let alone — of the new democratic society that is so difficult to form in modern Ukraine. Conceptual corrections are the requirements of the time, they should ensure not forgetting, but work to preserve the memory of the Ukrainian people, including about the Second World War, which some call the Patriotic War. At this, historical phenomena and facts should not be crossed out or distorted, as is done in some textbooks for Russian schools or universities, which is what you are talking about. Such carelessness with regard to history distorts the coverage of the social process. Therefore, “uncomfortable” historical facts must be truthfully and persistently explained, which will help our society to know itself more deeply.
Attention should be paid to the historical reality in order to avoid the negativity that divided the nation for a long time (to which the Kremlin leaders are now trying to return). Just to be fair, I should point out that in recent years of relative publicity and with publishing of the summary volume of “Immortality”, a number of distortions of “uncomfortable” questions from the history of the Second World War have been eliminated. But the debate on this issue continues to be, if not constant, at least an integral factor in political debates. And it is not so much about political ambitions, as about acute problems of the times of that war, which have not yet been resolved at the state level to this day, which can additionally disturb the public peace. Take for one the large-scale scientific research work on the history of the Second World War in Western countries that were members of the anti-Hitler coalition. Such work is completed there, public interest in its most tangible problems is quenched, which can serve as an example for us.
— How can we not mention ideological points here, especially since the Russians connect them with our interests — even current ones. Moreover, Russian propaganda is actively spreading its ideology in the world, equating Ukrainians with Nazis. Unfortunately, such efforts of the Russians are quite effective, as publications that are, let’s say, unfavorable for us, constantly appear in foreign media.
— Probably, the Russians succeed in this, because they carefully follow the events taking place in our country and quickly pick up narratives that are convenient for them. In turn, we must abandon the ideologizing and politicization of historical events, the absolutizing rigid axioms, and the artificial straightening of the historical process. That is, into what Russian so-called specialists have plunged into. This is the only way to overcome such ailments instilled in historical science as opportunism and glorification, apologia and tendentiousness, that is, defects that led to a decrease in its authority among the people and force a part of readers disappointed by official historiography to look for answers to numerous questions in the works of non-professional historians and journalists. After all, I believe that the practice of silence and half-truths, falsifications, manipulation with events and facts had a negative impact on the historical role of Ukraine and its people during the Second World War. There were even outright intimidations… I remember how at the end of August 1991, when I was already working as the First Deputy Chairman of the Main Editorial Board of the Book of Memory of Ukraine, I went to the Institute of the History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in the morning and was met by two healthy men at the entrance to the premises, forcibly dragged to a passenger car where their superior was sitting, who addressed me in Russian, telling me everything about me from “a” to “z”. About my place of birth, education, year of conscription for military service… He mentioned my scientific works, the position of First Deputy Chairman of the Main Editorial Board of the Book of Memory of Ukraine. And then began to angrily demand that I refuse to develop the concept and structure of the Immortality volumes. I cannot say who he was, because I have never met him either before or after. But the fact that it was practically a powerful influence and that it was without appeal, does not need to be explained. As well as how important is the scientific activity, connected with historical events about military actions to defend our statehood.
— Let’s return to the completed work on establishing the names of Ukrainian citizens killed and missing in the war. With the publication of the multi-volume “Ukraine’s Book of Memory”, can we consider the work as a whole complete?
— Yes, but not entirely… In a relatively short period of time, we were able to identify, systematize and process archival data of all levels. In addition to the direct survey, we corresponded with military commissariats, created personal cards for each deceased person, and tried to avoid repetitions.
The greatest problem was the complete non-existence of archives of military commissariats until October 1943 and reliable documents of the first years of the war in the central archives, as well as information about the places of burials and those who were buried. Searching for tens of thousands of missing people was a difficult task. When I hear information about those who died in today’s war, I subconsciously remember such problems and hope that the attitude to heroism of our soldiers is especially responsible. Because those who leave us forever for eternity will no longer need anything. Not the dead, but the living, need the undying memory about those who heroically defend Ukraine. Not the dead — the living need obelisks to be erected and temples to be built in their honor, so that there are always flowers on their graves.
— In such activity, a parallel can be traced between the battles during the Second World War and the current Russian-Ukrainian war. Am I right?
— What can I say… Not only the Donbas became the arena of fierce battles today. In particular, there is a war again in the eastern part of Ukraine, where many settlements have simply been completely destroyed. Can we imagine the conditions for local residents who found themselves in such a situation, to put it mildly? And what happens to those who lose their husbands and brothers in this war! I know about this not from stories, because my niece’s husband died a brave death at the Svitlodar arc. He was a professional in his military field, possessed unique knowledge and skills in modern warfare, and most importantly, he loved his land, his Avdiivka. His memory is already engraved on memorial plaques with the names of fallen ATO soldiers in Kyiv, the district center of Novomykolaivka and in the village of Rizdvianka, where his family remained.
As a historian who had the chance to study our historical past related to the security of our Motherland, I should point out (as I repeatedly told the audience during lectures) that at all times, Ukrainians first of all defended their lives, their families, homes, culture, in a word — their Motherland from foreign enslavement. Therefore, all these wars were just, as is the current war, when Ukrainians with weapons in their hands had to remind the attackers about this!
Recorded by Oleh Makhno
The full interview you can read in the “BINTEL” Geopolitical Analytics Journal
