乐鱼 体育

BY GEORGIY KASIANOV

This article was first published on . It has been translated and edited lightly for length and style.

The first projects to commemorate the murder of 34,000 Jews at the Babyn Yar ravine in Kyiv in September 1941 appeared as far back as the mid-1940s. They were discarded in the midst of Stalin鈥檚 campaigns against cosmopolitanism and Ukrainian nationalism.

The next try occurred in the 1970s. It was then that the Soviet authorities erected a monument at Babyn Yar with an inscription dedicating the site to the 鈥淜yiv residents and prisoners of war鈥� murdered by the 鈥淕erman fascist invaders.鈥� Soviet ideology rejected the idea that official Nazi policy stressed Jews as a primary target for systematic extermination, and so the monument made no mention of the Jews. Instead, it incorporated all the victims of the Nazi occupation regime in Ukraine, which viewed mass murder of the Jews as a prologue to create a 鈥渓iving space鈥� for the German 鈥渕aster race鈥�, under the umbrella term 鈥淪oviet citizens.鈥�

Official Soviet discourse started to change in the early 1990s. Marking the 50th anniversary of the tragedy in 1991, then chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR Leonid Kravchuk not only officially acknowledged that Jews had been the primary targets and victims of the Nazis but also apologized on behalf of all Ukrainians for the 鈥渋njustices inflicted on the Jewish people in our history.鈥� Later, in independent Ukraine, it became an unwritten rule for official speeches to enumerate all groups murdered at Babyn Yar along with the Jews, typically including Roma, prisoners of war, members of the Soviet and Ukrainian nationalist underground, hostages, and psychiatric hospital patients. The term 鈥淗olocaust鈥� remained unpopular in Ukraine until the mid-2000s, in both public and academic discourses.

The 2000s saw the first systematic attempts to build a comprehensive memorial center at Babyn Yar. These efforts immediately sparked contention between the 鈥渓ocals鈥� and 鈥渙utsiders.鈥� 鈥淟ocals鈥� were mostly members of the 鈥淏abyn Yar Committee鈥濃�攁 nongovernmental organization and group of researchers and memory activists who had over the years conducted complex and extensive research into the tragedy in partnership with other NGOs. 鈥淥utsiders鈥濃�攖he American Jewish organization Joint鈥攍argely ignored the work of the locals as it pursued its own objectives.

The two groups鈥� perspectives on commemoration never met, and neither project moved forward. At the end of his term, President Viktor Yushchenko blessed the establishment of the Babyn Yar National Historical-Memorial Preserve, but mostly on paper. Attempts to secure funding for a physical memorial failed as funds were channeled instead into Yushchenko鈥檚 preferred memory projects, those commemorating the Holodomor and Ukraine鈥檚 Cossack past. The subsequent 2008 financial crisis and President Viktor Yanukovych鈥檚 neo-Soviet memory policies spelled the end of plans to finance the preserve adequately.

In 2016, as Ukraine marked the 75th anniversary of the massacre, a new actor emerged on the scene: the . It immediately drew public attention. The project envisaged the creation of a large memorial complex, to include a museum, a research and archive center, a library, and educational and outreach facilities, in theory surpassing Yad Vashem鈥攖he archetypal Holocaust museum benchmark鈥攊n terms of size and diversity of programming. The BYHMC positioned itself as an international project, recruiting prominent, internationally known public, political, and religious figures to its supervisory bodies and top Western and Ukrainian scholars, specialists in the Holocaust and World War II, for its academic council and research team. The budget was also impressive: a cool $100 million. The project received immediate support at the highest political levels in Kyiv, including that of President Poroshenko and Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko.

The BYHMC became a powerful catalyst for change. It highlighted the state鈥檚 neglect of the site, as over the years competing monuments had filled the preserve鈥檚 territory adjacent to an unkempt recreation area. An opportunity to build a memorial complex worthy of the tragedy seemed finally to be at hand. But at this very point old conflicts reared their heads. The same local activists and historians who had been working on the site felt pushed aside by the BYHMC and formed a core group of critics.

Initially, the critique was substantive. While occasionally crossing the boundaries of good taste and balanced discussion, it helped improve the basic historical narrative prepared by the BYHMC鈥檚 international team of historians and broaden the concept of the use of the memorial space. Then substantive arguments ran out鈥攁ll the more so as the BYHMC team was open to compromise鈥攁nd politics took over.

Two projects are now competing at the Babyn Yar site. One is the BYHMC, which is referred to in public discussions in Ukraine as 鈥減rivate鈥� and, increasingly, (or worse, 鈥淧utin鈥檚鈥�) because of some of the funders鈥� citizenship. The other, proposed by the Institute of the History of Ukraine and some of the BYHMC鈥檚 critics, is called a 鈥渟tate鈥� project, presumably to emphasize its Ukrainian origin. But the labels are misleading. The 鈥渟tate鈥� project receives meager state support and has barely moved forward. The 鈥減rivate, Russian鈥� BYHMC, in contrast, enjoys high political support, including on the part of the Kyiv mayor鈥檚 and Ukrainian president鈥檚 office, not to mention Ukrainian public figures and scholars.

Over the past two years, the BYHMC has made impressive strides in improving the memorial site and creating commemorative installations. Its opponents, however, express several objections. They insist that a Babyn Yar memorial complex must be a state-sponsored project and that citizens of the aggressor state鈥擱ussia鈥攏ot be involved in funding it. They claim that the BYHMC鈥檚 memorialization concept is inadequate in form and substance (insert curses against the BYHMC鈥檚 Ilya Khrzhanovsky, and, as might be expected, the filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, whose documentary raised many a hackle in Ukraine even before broad screening). Finally, they demand that construction at the site be prohibited to avoid desecrating the mass graves.

A counterargument can easily be made to each of these points. As mentioned, the 鈥凌耻蝉蝉颈补苍鈥� project actually enjoys the Ukrainian government鈥檚 support at the highest level. The funding is split 51-49 between 鈥淯krainian鈥� and 鈥凌耻蝉蝉颈补苍鈥� money. Funders who are citizens of the 鈥渁ggressor state鈥� also happen to be Israeli citizens and were born in Ukraine. Some of the BYHMC鈥檚 cultural and artistic ideas may be shocking, but they are still under discussion. The demand to avoid building on top of the mass graves has been satisfied, and a rabbi has approved the construction of a recently built synagogue on site.  

But rational arguments no longer seem to interest the BYHMC鈥檚 opponents, who are guided by a mix of personal ambitions and grievances, political and financial interests, ideological and aesthetic preferences, ethical motivations, differences in worldviews, and academic quarrels. Amid the avalanche of objections, accusations, and complaints, substantive aspects of the project have fallen by the wayside.

A familiar pattern has emerged: critics posing as 鈥減atriots鈥� and their academic allies generate a multitude of protest letters and appeals to the authorities and the public, denouncing various actions by the BYHMC. The BYHMC, in turn, evades open conflict while steadily and with growing confidence implementing its plans. The basic historical narrative has been finalized. The team is painstakingly investigating the area, identifying execution sites, compiling a list of victims, and erecting installations and memorial signs. For the first time in the history of independent Ukraine, public opinion polls have been conducted on Holocaust memorialization. Authorities, for their part, have been ignoring the critics鈥� protests, with success.

In the meantime, it is hard not to notice that the two concepts have grown closer and closer. The 鈥渟tate鈥� memorialization project has steadily improved: whereas its earlier draft proposed that the memorial cover some nine centuries鈥� worth of history, the latest version focuses on the twentieth century and has three components: a general reorganization of the memorial space at the site, the building of a Babyn Yar museum that would cover other tragedies that took place there and the subsequent memory wars, and the creation of a Holocaust museum.

The BYHMC鈥檚 concept, too, has undergone considerable change. Some provocative artistic solutions that had antagonized even the organization鈥檚 own team members have been removed. The latest version of the project envisions the construction of a Babyn Yar museum, a Holocaust museum, a local history museum, a museum dedicated to the 1961 , and commemorative sites for members of different religions. Archival research is already under way, and public opinion polls on Babyn Yar memorialization are being conducted. The research component includes some of the elements that were started by the project鈥檚 most ardent opponents and are near and dear to their hearts: compiling a list of victims, identifying execution sites, performing geodesic surveys, and mapping the area.

The two projects increasingly look like twins. However, disagreements persist鈥攎ost notably around whether or not to commemorate Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with the Nazis and supported their policy of exterminating the Jews, yet ended up on the Babyn Yar victim list. Some of the remaining disagreements look like a tempest in a teapot, yet they pull in more and more individuals, from respected historians to activists, public intellectuals, and random bystanders who stopped by to take a look at the fracas and got drawn in.

There is a very real and distressing possibility that the lot of them will throw the baby out with the bathwater, sacrificing the very thing they claim to be so passionate about鈥攏amely, an appropriate commemoration of the victims of Babyn Yar. To avoid that, the two projects have to find a way to work together for the sake of a bigger whole. After seventy years of neglect and forgetting, the history and tragedy of Babyn Yar must finally become a part of Ukrainian history and historical memory that can actually teach us, citizens of independent Ukraine, something important.

The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute.