Commemorative Practices of Ukrainians in Halychyna as an Element of the Formation and Preservation of National Memory (1920s-1950s)

Abstract

The purpose is to reveal the commemorative practices of Ukrainians in Halychyna in the formation and preservation of national memory.

The research methodology is based on general theoretical principles and specifically historical methods of cognition, the use of which is aimed at objective coverage of the events, facts, and phenomena under study in the context of the current socio-political processes in dynamic development. The problematic and chronological method used in the preparation of the article made it possible to identify thematic plots in their dialectical relationship, to achieve a theoretical generalisation of the whole and parts, and to interact with organisational and structural elements.

The scientific novelty is marked by the author’s interpretation of the role of historical symbols in the formation and preservation of the national memory of Ukrainians in Halychyna, formed on the basis of the study of historical sources of various origins.

Conclusions. Having been defeated in the struggle for the restoration of the Ukrainian state in the early 1920s, Ukrainians in Halychyna faced a choice: either to dissolve into Polish society or to fi nd markers that would help preserve their national identity. One of the elements of preserving national identity was the tradition of honouring those who died for state and national independence. In the early 1920s, in Halychyna, the commemoration of fallen heroes took place in the form of public memorial services at the graves of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. At the end of the 1920s, the Society for the Protection of War Graves was founded on a public initiative that partially took over the care of military graves. At the same time, the Polish authorities tried, in various ways, to prevent the formation of new commemorative practices by Ukrainians, resorting to radical measures such as the physical destruction of the memorial symbols erected. In September 1939, an administration was established in Halychyna, which attempted to destroy all memorial signs and symbols that would remind Ukrainians of the struggle to restore an independent state. Despite the ideological context of the struggle with the graves of those who fought for the freedom of Ukraine, a characteristic feature of the newly arrived admi nistration is very clearly visible: a dismissive attitude towards its own dead. The study of commemorative practices of social groups allows scientists to see the ideas about the past of the members of those communities and to outline the factors that influence the construction of certain social ideas about the past in accordance with their worldview orientations. The way contemporaries see the past, what they notice and highlight in it, often vividly illustrates the current social mood. That is why the further progressive development of our community in the future will depend on how modern Ukrainians form collective ideas about the past.