buzina

What If Nazi Germany Won in Ukraine

/ Nina Byzantina / 1 Comment


«Those who are now destroying the cemeteries of the Soviet soldiers will still pay for doing so. Nature will take revenge on them and their children although they may not believe this now. No one can cancel the law of historical karma. This law always catches up to the grave robbers.»

-Oles Buzina

Notes on Context, Editing, and Translation

This article was originally called “Stories from Oles Buzina: Under the Greatcoat of Victory” from the popular Ukrainian author’s “Stories from Oles Buzina” series. It was published in May 2009. As mentioned with all the other Buzina translations, their author was assassinated in 2015 likely for his political views, including those against the 2014 regime change in Ukraine. You can find the other Buzina translations below by using the appropriate “Buzina” hashtag.

Ukrainian journalist Oles Buzina. Source: Lenta.ua.

Even though the original was written in 2009, it remains ever more relevant. Echoes of World War II permeate the ongoing conflict in Ukraine that began in 2014 as the war in Donbass. For example, Buzina disparages the 21st-century supporters of the Third Reich collaborators in 1940s Ukraine. These present-day supporters have been receiving international media attention since 2022. Parallels between then and now are also evident when it comes to Nazi Germany’s plans for Crimea as a resort exclusively for Germans and what some alleged to be NATO’s failed plans to turn Crimea into a naval base in 2014.

The article is written in Buzina’s signature style combining his caustic sense of humor with historical deep dives. This style is particularly evident in his description of the Munich Agreement (1938) highlighting it as a precedent that subsequently forced the Soviet Union into a neutrality agreement, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939), with Nazi Germany. However, it is important to note that Buzina then refers to the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as “allies”—for a short time. This classification is inaccurate because a non-aggression, or a neutrality, agreement, is not a military alliance. Furthermore, prior to Molotov-Ribbentrop came other similar agreements with Nazi Germany, including the German-Polish declaration of non-aggression in 1934. Thus, the Soviet-German neutrality agreement was not unique.

Note that when the author refers to the “war,” he means the Great Patriotic War, the accepted term for the period between 1941 and 1945 in World War II historically used by the USSR and today—by Russia and parts of the former Soviet Union. Buzina also repeatedly mentions the period of 1941-1944: these are the dates for Nazi German occupation of the Ukrainian territory called Reichskommissariat Ukraine prior to the Soviet liberation. “May 9” refers to the official Victory Day in Russia and the post-Soviet states.

Editorial clarifications are labeled “Ed.” in parentheses.

The translation appears as is. Minor edits include using a person’s first name in the first instance or other types of minor clarifications. The names and toponyms are transliterated from the Russian original.

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From Ukraine to The Ruin

/ Nina Byzantina / 2 Comments

Editor’s and Translator’s Notes:

I continue to bring you my translations of the witty and brilliant slain Ukrainian author, Oles Buzina (1969-2015). His was one of the first prominent political assassinations after the 2014 regime change in that country. This article comes from the author’s series, “Stories from Oles Buzina,” in which he mainly covers different aspects of Ukrainian history. Here, the author establishes what, in his view, is a cyclical nature of Ukrainian history, in which the territory went through periods of chaos and collapse. In some cases, the geographic division occurred along the Dnieper River and the inhabitants of its Right and Left Banks, respectively.

“The Ruin” is an accepted historical term used to describe the period of social and political unrest in the latter part of the 17th century. In the Russian and Ukrainian languages, “ruina,” ruin, rhymes with “Ukraina,” Ukraine. The author warns against returning to such a chaotic state of affairs when he discusses the rule of the pro-Western President Victor Yushchenko who was brought into power in the wake of the so-called Orange Revolution, an early 21st-century proto-Maidan. Leaving power in 2010, he was replaced by Victor Yanukovich, an imperfect, but democratically elected leader who was ousted by the violent 2014 coup d’etat. Thus, the reader may appreciate Buzina’s prescience, writing this text in 2007, in light of the current events. In particular, the geopolitical and cultural split along the Dnieper River is especially noteworthy.

Oles Buzina’s mother at his grave following her son’s 2015 assassination. Source: Rossiia TV.

The text is generally presented as is with the exception of minor contextual and/or clarifying edits or e.g. inserting the first names for clarity. The transliteration of the names comes from the Russian language, in which most of the original text was written.

«The Eyewitness wrote his chronicle in the 17th century, so there is no reason not to believe him. Starting with the brutal massacre in Poltava, Cossacks of different affiliations killed each other for another twenty years asking for help from either the Poles, the Muscovites, or even the Turks. For and against Europe.»

Oles Buzina, 2007

From Ukraine to The Ruin

by Oles Buzina

2007

If God willing, our state will overcome the current ruin in the minds and does not fall apart into two halves, then next year we will be able to celebrate 350 years since its first “half-collapse” with a clear conscience.

In 1658, for the first time, our society was divided on the following question: where will we go? Ivan Vygovsky, like today’s Victor Yushchenko, summoned everyone to Europe. That is, under Poland’s jurisdiction. But the east of Ukraine did not listen to him. And, the said hetman, having grabbed a completely non-European Tatar horde, moved to punish the pro-Moscow Left Bank from the Right Bank of the Dnieper River: from Chigirin, his capital. He introduced, so to speak, direct presidential rule. And, as a result, he marked the beginning of a period that went down in history under the eloquent name The Ruin.

The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks [to the Turkish Sultan in 1676], Ilya Repin, 1880-91.
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Stories from Oles Buzina: Unheroic “bandera”

/ Nina Byzantina / 6 Comments

Much like his caustic historic text on SS Galicia, Ukrainian author Oles Buzina was not very fond of Stepan Bandera—another one of official Kiev’s current ‘heroes’. This following prophetic text, written in 2011, also demonstrates why Buzina became a political dissident in his own home and possible reasons for his assassination in the spring of 2015.

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STORIES FROM OLES BUZINA: UNHEROIC “BANDERA” (2011)

(“Stories from Oles Buzina” was a regular column for Segodnya newspaper, covering historic subjects. In the Russian language, “story” and “history” (istoriia) are the same word, which plays an important role in this context.)

Demoted! On January 12th, 2011, the website of the president of Ukraine reported that Stepan Bandera lost his official title of Hero.

The views of the original author do not necessarily reflect those of the translator.

It is not by accident that I wrote the word “bandera” in the feminine and in lower-case letters, despite the fact that this article will discuss that very same Bandera, who was a man and whose proper name, according to grammar, naturally began with a title-case letter.

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Stories from Oles Buzina: SS Galicia Division against Ukraine

/ Nina Byzantina / 3 Comments

Foreword to the Translation

With the onset of the Ukrainian crisis, I realized that I often looked forward to the work of certain journalists, who were both eloquent and informative. Oles Buzina was one of them. In addition to reading his columns, I, like millions of other Russians, watched his frequent appearances on political talk shows. I often found myself in disagreement, but had to admit that his points were well-argued and factually justified—a true sign of a charismatic erudite.

Thus, the news of his brazen murder on April 16 of this year, in broad daylight and outside his home, was particularly distressing. Later, I found out that Oles—a well-known author and historian, in addition to his journalistic career—had been receiving threats for quite some time. Yet he consistently turned down offers to relocate to Russia. Like a true patriot of a country in peril, he continued to love Ukraine. But Ukraine—today’s Ukraine—did not return that sentiment.

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