INTRODUCTION TO THE FORUM

Sofia Grachova, in a foreword to the review forum on The Second PolishUkrainian War, 1942-1947 by Volodymyr V'iatrovych, describes the role of the anti-Polish ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists in 1943-44, in contemporary Ukrainian politics of history. She briefly reflects on the historiographical debates from ten years ago, when Polish and Ukrainian politicians commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of the Volhynian massacre, much to a surprise of broad Ukrainian audience, and discusses the centrality of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the official historical narrative during Viktor Yushchenko's tenure as President of Ukraine (2005-2010). She then compares Yushchenko's heroization of the UPA to subsequent right-wing nationalist political endeavors and concludes that the instrumentalization of history in Ukraine did not stop with Yushchenko's demise. The new book by Volodymyr V'iatrovych, in her opinion, deserves historians' attention precisely because it epitomizes these continuities and the on-going political importance of such instrumentalization.