Key Historical Narratives for the Formation of National Identity of Ukranians in Propaganda Discourse of Administrations of German Occupation Zones of Ukraine (1941–1944)
Authors:   Hryhorii Skovoroda University in Pereiaslav, Honcharenko Оleksij 
Published: May 2022

The purpose of the study: to identify information arrays, that reconstructed and interpreted the historical past of Ukrainians, based on the source analysis of the content of German occupation periodicals, thus forming an appropriate model of historical memory, in fact, turning the Ukrainian people into a historical process. The methodology and methodology of research involves a combination of the principles of historicism, objectivity and consistency, as well as historical criticism of the selected basic reconstructions of the past of Ukrainians widely promoted in the occupation period. The study systematizes various publications in the occupation periodicals, highlighting their thematic blocks, specific content, forms of presentation of the standard information materials, which, contrary to the strategic visions of the Third Reich leadership, were directed at the formation of the historical memory of Ukrainians. The author, on a systemic and comprehensive level, investigated the information potential of the main periodicals that were published in all occupation zones of Ukraine, namely: the District «Galicia», the Reichskommissariat «Ukraine» and the Military Zone of Occupation. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the first in modern domestic historiography complex selection of the model of historical memory of Ukrainians, which was formed during the establishment of the German occupation regime. A detailed analysis of the information potential of the content of occupation periodicals indicates that the historical past of Ukrainians was interpreted in terms of the gravity of state tradition and the constant struggle against external enemies. The basic information and thematic blocks that were used in all the occupation zones of Ukraine were the reproduction of the history of Kievan Rus’, Khmelnytsky region and liberation movements of the Cossack era. At the same time, an exclusively negative image of neighboring Moscow and Poland was formed. The internal enemy of Ukraine was declared to be the Jews, against whom the Ukrainians fought in the same way as they fought the Poles and Russians. The events of 1917–1920, when the Ukrainian state perished and was torn apart by neighboring Poland and Bolshevik Russia, were voiced in the context of betrayal by the democratic countries of Europe. The construction of a new national identity for Ukrainians in the context of their spiritual, psychological, historical, cultural, economic, and territorial unity, as well as the reinterpretation of the historical past, consolidated society at that time. This important process for Ukrainians was carried out in unison with the history of the people’s unceasing struggle for their own statehood and their desire to achieve synodality. By successfully manipulating historical facts, German propagandists actually reformatted the historical memory of Ukrainians, programming for the future, constructing and correcting national identity markers that even the following Soviet occupation of the country was unable to erase. However, the historical narrative widely promoted in periodicals downplayed regional differences and social contradictions of Ukrainian society, represented its internal national unity, and was presented equally in all German occupation zones of Ukraine.