Word: sovietization
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Moscow is particularly irked by Yushchenko's recognition of leaders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, which fought against Soviet - as well as Nazi and Polish - forces in World War II. Members of the group are frequently denounced as "fascists" and "Nazi collaborators" in the Russian media, but Kulchytsky says the reality is more complex and that they "never had an agreement with Hitler...
...Yushchenko's moves to bring attention to the crimes of the past have been well received by many in Ukraine, whose citizens suffered widespread political repression under the Soviet regime. "People need to know the history of their own country, not the distorted Soviet view," says Roman Krutsyk, president of the Kiev-based NGO Memorial, which documents Soviet political repressions. "Yushchenko's biggest achievement is that he brought up the question of our history...
...Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression, Yushchenko gave a speech at the Bykivnya forest, a mass grave near Kiev where the bodies of an estimated 100,000 victims of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, were dumped between 1937 and 1941. In the speech, he equated the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany: "They are comparable in their hatred towards human beings. They are identical in the unprecedented scale of their mass killings...
...history from being revised or re-evaluated in any way that tarnishes Russia's image. "More and more frequently, we are coming across historical falsifications," he said in a video blog on May 7, two days before Victory Day, which celebrates the WW II defeat of Nazi Germany by Soviet forces. "Such attempts are becoming more vicious, evil and aggressive. We will not allow anyone to cast doubt on the heroic feat of our people." (See pictures of Victory Day in Russia...
...Kremlin United Russia party, led by Prime Minister and former President Vladimir Putin, has also submitted a bill to parliament that would make it a criminal offense to belittle the Soviet victory. Critics say these moves are aimed at stopping people from talking about the more unpleasant parts of the country's past and that they are a response to the revision of Soviet history in Russia's "near abroad," where many see the Soviet advance during the war not as a liberation but as the start of an occupation...