The experience of Ukrainians of Galicia in Gulag camps and its representation in expositions of Lviv museums
Students Name: Bosak Vasyl Vasylovych
Qualification Level: magister
Speciality: Museum and Monument Studies
Institute: Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Mode of Study: full
Academic Year: 2021-2022 н.р.
Language of Defence: ukrainian
Abstract: Bosak V.V., Ph.D. N. Bolyanovsky A.V. (supervisor). Master’s thesis - National University "Lviv Polytechnic", Lviv 2021. The experience of Ukrainians in Galicia in Gulag camps and its representation in expositions of Lviv museums. Extended annotatinon For the past 10 years, accusations of collaboration with the German occupation regime during World War II have been leveled at Ukraine and Ukrainians in the face of hostile Russian propaganda (in a hybrid war) and the European media. The foundations for the formation of anti-Ukrainian myths were formed in the postwar USSR. The lion’s share of them concerned the largest military unit with the Ukrainian military on the side of German troops - the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division (Waffen-SS) Galicia, from April 1945 - 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army (the 1st UD UNA). In addition, the role of the division in the Ukrainian history of the twentieth century. remains a topic for political speculation. One of the many insufficiently researched issues is the experience of divisional officers in the Gulag camps and its presentation in the expositions of Lviv museums. The object of research is Galician Ukrainians in the Gulag camps (on the example of former soldiers of the Waffen-SS division Galicia as a separate category of Ukrainians). The subject of research is the experience of Ukrainians staying in Soviet camps and its representation in the expositions of Lviv museums. The purpose of the study is to study and analyze the experience of former soldiers of Galicia Division in Soviet camps and its presentation in the expositions in Lviv museums. To achieve this goal it is planned to solve the following tasks: • study the source base and historiography of the topic; • to find out the circumstances of the soldiers of Galicia Division falling into Soviet captivity and Gulag camps; • to cover the course of the investigation, court proceedings and sentencing of former divisional soldiers; indicate the classification of camps and their place in the Gulag system; • to study the everyday life of Ukrainians in Soviet camps: work, life, relations with other social and ethnic groups of prisoners, etc .; • to characterize representation of experience of staying in the Soviet camps former soldiers on the basis of the expositions of the Lviv museums; • to offer own proposals on supplementing the stands and expositions of Lviv museums with information about the presence of divisors in Soviet camps. The scientific novelty of study is that it is the first time that the problem of the presence of soldiers of the Galicia Division in Soviet captivity and Gulag camps has been comprehensively studied and revealed. The study, based on source material, highlights the individual experience of former soldiers of the Waffen-SS Halychyna division in the Bolshevik camps. The peculiarities of life, everyday life, interethnic relations in the Gulag system were analyzed. Information additions to the exposition stands of the Museum of the Liberation Struggle of Ukraine (structural subsection of the Lviv Historical Museum) were also proposed. The presence of former soldiers of the Galicia Division in Soviet captivity divided their lives into "before" and "after". In contrast to the collective memory of veterans of the diaspora, their life experiences were traumatic. Most former divisional soldiers were used as labor for the needs of the "labor front" in the filtration camps. Several soldiers of the Galicia Division managed to impersonate German prisoners of war. According to the Soviet repatriation program, prisoners of war for 10 postwar years had to work to rebuild the so-called national economy of the USSR. During 1947-1955, Ukrainian divisional soldiers who pretended to be Germans were lucky enough to be repatriated to East Germany and Austria. The main goal of the Soviet government was to eliminate the Ukrainian armed underground. The victims of repression after the reoccupation of Galicia in 1944 were UIA soldiers and their families, divisional soldiers, priests, and members of the intelligentsia. Most often, formal trials were handed down by military tribunals. Through a system of stages and concentration camps, convicts were sent to places of execution. There, former divisional and insurgents were used to work in mines and on the construction of industrial facilities. Most Ukrainian political prisoners were released during the amnesty wave of 1954-1956. For the past decades, museums have been a space for discussion and reconciliation with the past. After the fall of totalitarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, history was "democratized" and the memory of minorities (ethnic, group) began to emerge, including veterans of Galicia Division and political prisoners who had to hide their past in Soviet life. The battlefield of the Halychyna division and the fate of its soldiers in Soviet camps is covered in the expositions of Museum of the Liberation Struggle of Ukraine and Museum of History of the 1st UD UNA, located in the school № 34 them. M. Shashkevich. Among the complex of materials of expositions documents, photos and material monuments prevail. Key words: Galicia Division, prisoners of war, filtration camps, Soviet repressions, Gulag, museums.