“Особые папки” Сталіна і Молотова про національно-визвольну боротьбу в Західній Україні у 1944-1948 рр.

Description

Published by the NANU Institute of Ukrainian Archeography and Source Studies in Lviv, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, and the Lviv Institute of National Memory, the book “Особые папки” Сталіна і Молотова про національно-визвольну боротьбу в Західній Україні у 1944-1948 рр. [The “Personal Files” of Stalin and Molotov on the National-Liberation Struggle in Western Ukraine (1944-1948)] is a collection of 131 Soviet documents preserved in the State Archives of the Russian Federation in Moscow and dealing with various aspects of the Ukrainian national-liberation struggle in Western Ukraine in the years 1944-1948. These formerly unpublished secret documents, collected and prepared personally for Joseph Stalin by the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs Lavrentii Beria, were meant to provide the Soviet dictator with a systematic source of information concerning the struggle of the Ukrainian anti-Soviet armed resistance, in particular the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and the repressive measures of the Soviet government, army, and secret police (NKVD) against the Ukrainian insurgents and population.

In its essence, this collection of documents represents and “extract” summary of the major events of the understudied and, in fact, practically unknown war between the Soviet forces and anti-Soviet insurgents, that took place on the Ukrainian territory after the retreat of the Nazis. These documents also contain the extensive statistical data that reveals the staggering proportions and scope of this war. They illuminate both the major operations and tactics used by the insurgents in their military, terrorist, and sabotage activities as well as the scope and methods of the Soviet campaign of terror against the fighters of the UPA and the Ukrainian civilian population. As such, the book represents an invaluable resource of factual information for historians and readers interested in World War II and the Ukrainian national-liberation movement.

The documents in the book are published in their original Russian-language versions. The introduction and commentaries are in Ukrainian.