Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist: Fascism, Genocide, and Cult

Yes, a very well-researched and informative book. The author correctly did clarify the fact that OUN-M worked directly with the National Socialists while Bandera was imprisoned by the National Socialists. The argument of whether Bandera was a "nazi" or not is meaningless since EVERY country in Europe in the 20's through the 40's had some type of fascist/nationalist movement. At the time, especially during the Great Depression, fascism was considered the governance of the future for many countries. Even FDR copied many of the successful initiatives created by Mussolini and Hitler. Also, these movements were a direct response to the Bolshevik revolution in mongol russia.If any country can justify a "fascist" movement, it was Ukraine. Being occupied and terrorized by at least 4 different countries in the 20th Century, and, during WWII, Ukraine suffered almost as much loss of life as Poland & russia COMBINED. Imprisoned by the National Socialists and then murdered by the KGB only reinvigorated his justifiable cult following. The bottom line is Bandera fought and died for Ukraine's freedom regardless if it was against Poles, Germans, Hungarians, Austrians, muscovites, etc. He leveraged and utilized the National Socialists as they did him. He understood the true enemy of Ukraine was moscow., which has come to fruition today. I highly recommend this book to gain better understanding of today's propaganda, lies, and truths.

This the first scientific biography of Ukrainian national lider Stepan Bandera. The is deeply demonize Bandera and by this hurt the story. The truth is that another sides of struggle - the Soviets and Polish - are no less bloodly, than Ukrainian Nacionalists lidered by Bandera

Now I understand Ne-nazification.

A very balanced and well-researched monograph elucidating the inner nature and fascist outlook of the Ukrainian national movement. This book is essential for understanding the underpinnings of genocidal war waged by the Ukrainian nazis against the Russian people of Donbass.

This is nothing but an anti-Bandera propaganda book which unsurprisingly came out as Putin is waging war against Ukraine and blaming Ukraine for his invasion.

Extremely well researched and supported dissertation on an essential character to understanding modern Ukrainian identity and apologists. Bandera is the victim of mass collective nostalgia, and any attempt to critically study the man himself (including the indisputable Nazi collaborations, anti semitism, and deification) is immediately cried as an attack on Ukranian identity.It is telling you see no rebuttal to the authors research or theses, and only broad statements.

"the archival research leaves no doubt: from the 1930s, the OUN imitated the Italian Fascists and the German National Socialists and cooperated with them. It prepared a „national revolution” of a fascist type like in Tiso’s Slovakia or Pavelić’s Croatia. It propagated an exclusive nationalism which aimed at suppressing other ethnic groups, such as Poles, Jews, and Russians. The movement was totalitarian, anti-Communist, anti-liberal, anti-democratic and envisioned a dictatorial regime based on a one-party system lead by a Führer-type charismatic leader, Bandera himself. The book makes clear that it was Bandera who radicalized the OUN and introduced the use of political terror in the 1930s. Under his guidance, the OUN specialized in criminal activities such as arson, destruction of property, bank attacks and political assassinations, aimed at representatives of the Polish state such as the Interior Minister Pieracki, and murdered also Ukrainians seen as traitors to the cause"

A scholarly work with meticulous reference of sources. Very chilling insight into the mentality of a nation that glorifies leaders who sought to achieve national independence by exterminating their ethnic minorities.

An well documents study on Ukrainian history and a fascinating research on the making of memory and national myths

Interesting book

Stepan Bandera is a key figure of XX century Ukrainian history, one being recently re-evaluated by many Ukrainian political movements for, mostly, very opportunistic reasons, and presented as a kind of a father of the Ukrainian nation. The reality of this complex figure is clearly described in this extremely well researched book that enters into details of the social, cultural, scholastic and political background of Bandera's childhood and of his life as a young adult. But who was Stepan Bandera? To make short a long story, he was a man of extreme nationalistic convinctions, a firmly believer in the one-man dicatorship on the pattern of Italian fascism and, even more akin to him, German National Socialism and the related Fuehrerprinzip. He was also violently anti-semitic, anti-polish, anti-russian and, of course, anti-communist, actually merging in his mind jewishood and communism as two faces of the same medal, in much the same way nazis thought. He directly commissioned several murders of political opponents, also inside his own organization, the infamous OUN and, later, OUN-B, and directly instructed his fellowers to organize large scale pogroms of Jews and Polish as soon as they had a chance to do it. You find all of this detailed in the book, with plenty of references, documents and sources, the only (minor) point that suggested to me to appoint four stars instead of five is that the text is a bit too much repetitive, the same concepts and sentences told more than once. At the end of the day, fully reccomanded to everybody that has an interest in the fascist movements of XX century and in the Ukrainian nationalism that is still playing a role in nowadays life of millions of people.

An extremely well researched book on a dark chapter in European history.