Ukraine: ambitious de-Communisation laws

On 9 April 2015, the Parliament of Ukraine adopted four bills on the policy of national memory, which inter alia provide for the extensive de-Communisation of the public space, including by changing all the names of places associated with the Communist regime. They also include opening up access to the archives of the KGB and other Soviet-era departments, the recognition of the honourable nature of participation in the struggle for Ukraine’s independence, including by members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)/ Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) (although without granting them combatant status or any other rights), and to stop using the Soviet term ‘Great Patriotic War’ and replace it with the term ‘World War II’.

The adoption of the de-Communisation laws confirms that the current Ukrainian authorities attach great importance to the development of a new policy of national memory, centred on the tradition of fighting for the independence of Ukraine, primarily against Russia.

This is part of a programme to create a new, civic national identity, an important part of which is emphasising the separateness of Ukraine’s tradition also during its periods of dependence on Russia, and presenting these periods as enslavement or even occupation. In this tradition, as promoted in this programme, there is space for the OUN and the UPA, which are primarily to be treated as anti-Soviet organisations.