Ukrainian Nationalism: Politics, Ideology, and Literature, 1920–1956

Myroslav Shkandrii's book is one of the most thorough studies of Ukrainian nationalism of the 1920s–1950s. Drawing on archives from Ukraine, Poland, Canada, and the United States, memoirs, and contemporary literature, and using modern scientific tools, the author shows us how Ukrainian nationalism went from an integral movement to a democratic transformation in the post-war emigration. The author consistently examines three dimensions of this phenomenon: politics through relations with Poland, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union; ideology through the figures of key theorists and internal divisions; and literature, which became an important factor in the formation of the myth of the nationalist generation. Having analyzed the works of Yevhen Malaniuk, Olena Teliha, Leonid Mosendz, Oleh Olzhych, Yurii Lypa, Ulas Samchuk, Yurii Klen, and Dokiia Humenna, the researcher demonstrates how the artistic word contributed to national design, modeling the image of the new political community and its possible visions.

Myroslav Shkandrii does not shy away from even very controversial topics and offers a multidimensional analysis of the movement, which combined the liberation impulse, modernization aspirations, radicalism, ambivalence, and internal contradictions. In the time of new wars of memory, when Russian aggression is once again trying to discredit the Ukrainian past, this work acquires special importance. It gives the Ukrainian reader tools for a sober and balanced understanding of history, separates facts from propaganda, and opens the way to a mature dialogue about nationalism without idealization and without demonization.