The rehabilitation of fascist collaborators in Ukraine reached another disturbing milestone last week, as the remains of Yevhen Konovalets, founder and first leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), were returned from the Netherlands and received in Kyiv with state and military honours.
Konovalets’ remains, exhumed from Rotterdam’s Crooswijk Cemetery 88 years after his assassination, arrived in Ukraine on August 13.
Konovalets’ remains, exhumed from Rotterdam’s Crooswijk Cemetery 88 years after his assassination, arrived in Ukraine on August 13.
The following day, the Ukrainian army’s Third Army Corps organised an elaborate ceremony at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv. Soldiers formed a torch-lit guard of honour as the coffin was transported in a restored First World War-era Austin armoured vehicle.
This was no marginal gathering of far-right activists. The ceremony was organised by a formation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces commanded by Andriy Biletskyi, founder and former commander of the Azov movement. Standing before Konovalets’ remains, Biletskyi described his return as a “great celebration” and pledged to continue his cause, presenting today's Ukrainian soldiers as a new generation carrying forward the nationalist struggle represented by the OUN founder.
The historical significance cannot be concealed behind references to “national liberation.” Konovalets founded the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) and subsequently became the first leader of the OUN, established in 1929 as an ultranationalist, violently anti-communist organization. As *Junge Welt* stresses, Konovalets maintained cooperation with Nazi Germany before his assassination in Rotterdam in 1938, while the UVO and later the OUN developed relations with German military intelligence structures.
The ceremony therefore represents considerably more than the reburial of a controversial historical figure. It is another manifestation of the systematic incorporation of the traditions, personalities and symbols of radical Ukrainian nationalism into the official historical narrative of the contemporary Ukrainian state.
Nor is Konovalets an isolated case. In May, the remains of another OUN leader, Andriy Melnyk, were brought back from Luxembourg and reburied at Ukraine’s National Military Memorial Cemetery. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has meanwhile submitted legislation for the establishment of a Ukrainian National Pantheon in Kyiv. In 2023, a Ukrainian reconnaissance battalion was already officially named after Konovalets.
The political message is unmistakable. While communist symbols, organisations and historical memory have been subjected to years of bans and repression in Ukraine, figures belonging to the tradition of militant nationalism and anti-communism are elevated as national heroes and incorporated into the ideological lineage of the armed forces.
The torch-lit spectacle in Kyiv exposes once again the glaring contradiction in the narrative promoted for years by NATO governments and much of the western corporate media. The rehabilitation of the OUN tradition is not simply an invention of "Russian propaganda", nor can it be dismissed as the activity of an insignificant extremist fringe. When an army corps publicly honours the founder of the OUN and its commander vows before his remains to carry forward his historical cause, historical revisionism has moved from the margins into official military ceremony.
The honouring of Konovalets follows another revealing episode only weeks earlier. On the 119th anniversary of Roman Shukhevych’s birth, Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade publicly paid tribute to the former commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), who had previously served in the Nazi-sponsored Nachtigall Battalion and Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201. As *In Defense of Communism* pointed out at the time, such acts show that the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators is no longer confined to fringe nationalist circles but has become embedded in state institutions, official commemorations and military formations. Konovalets’ ceremonial “homecoming” now provides yet another confirmation of that same systematic policy of historical revisionism and militant anti-communism.
This was no marginal gathering of far-right activists. The ceremony was organised by a formation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces commanded by Andriy Biletskyi, founder and former commander of the Azov movement. Standing before Konovalets’ remains, Biletskyi described his return as a “great celebration” and pledged to continue his cause, presenting today's Ukrainian soldiers as a new generation carrying forward the nationalist struggle represented by the OUN founder.
The historical significance cannot be concealed behind references to “national liberation.” Konovalets founded the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) and subsequently became the first leader of the OUN, established in 1929 as an ultranationalist, violently anti-communist organization. As *Junge Welt* stresses, Konovalets maintained cooperation with Nazi Germany before his assassination in Rotterdam in 1938, while the UVO and later the OUN developed relations with German military intelligence structures.
The ceremony therefore represents considerably more than the reburial of a controversial historical figure. It is another manifestation of the systematic incorporation of the traditions, personalities and symbols of radical Ukrainian nationalism into the official historical narrative of the contemporary Ukrainian state.
Nor is Konovalets an isolated case. In May, the remains of another OUN leader, Andriy Melnyk, were brought back from Luxembourg and reburied at Ukraine’s National Military Memorial Cemetery. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has meanwhile submitted legislation for the establishment of a Ukrainian National Pantheon in Kyiv. In 2023, a Ukrainian reconnaissance battalion was already officially named after Konovalets.
The political message is unmistakable. While communist symbols, organisations and historical memory have been subjected to years of bans and repression in Ukraine, figures belonging to the tradition of militant nationalism and anti-communism are elevated as national heroes and incorporated into the ideological lineage of the armed forces.
The torch-lit spectacle in Kyiv exposes once again the glaring contradiction in the narrative promoted for years by NATO governments and much of the western corporate media. The rehabilitation of the OUN tradition is not simply an invention of "Russian propaganda", nor can it be dismissed as the activity of an insignificant extremist fringe. When an army corps publicly honours the founder of the OUN and its commander vows before his remains to carry forward his historical cause, historical revisionism has moved from the margins into official military ceremony.
The honouring of Konovalets follows another revealing episode only weeks earlier. On the 119th anniversary of Roman Shukhevych’s birth, Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade publicly paid tribute to the former commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), who had previously served in the Nazi-sponsored Nachtigall Battalion and Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201. As *In Defense of Communism* pointed out at the time, such acts show that the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators is no longer confined to fringe nationalist circles but has become embedded in state institutions, official commemorations and military formations. Konovalets’ ceremonial “homecoming” now provides yet another confirmation of that same systematic policy of historical revisionism and militant anti-communism.