Marketing Historical Myths
Monday, January 16, 2012 at 12:32PM Cool brands for idiots...
A recent article addressing the proliferation of Bandera veneration in Ukraine notes that Bandera, and with him OUN/UPA (Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists/Ukrainian Insurgent Army), have become a successful brand in some parts of Ukraine. Bandera has become something like a Che Guevara, idiots know nothing about him but he is everywhere. Bandera merchandise is sold in local souvenir shops, and OUN/UPA themed clubs and restaurants are now apparently not limited to Lvov, there is one now in Kiev too. And back in Lvov, there is apparently one kryivka (shelter of OUN/UPA fighters after which the aforementioned clubs are named and themed) in a school too:
(hat tip: Michael Averko) - According to the report, the people behind school kryivka plan to engage more schools in their project. And they also have cool OUN/UPA themed hoodies, I do not know whether these are for sale.
Meanwhile in the diaspora, they decided to put Holdomor on credit cards:
I don't know what to write as a commentary, because I do not want to sound too cynical.
Reader Comments (3)
Since the Jews have made the Holocaust a virtual religion and prominent figures like Weasel making a career out of it, it seems every other group wants promote their own genocides real or imagined as part of their national identity Poles in Katyn, Ukrainians with the Holomodor, Circassians during the Caucasus war, Bosnians with Srebrenica who also want a special Bosniak representation at the UN, blacks in the US with slavery, Chechens with Stalin deportation and the current wars, Kurds with Saddam’s chemical attack and Palestinians with the aftermath of the Israel-Palestine civil war.
@ hack
Some call it 'competitive suffering.' Everyone wants to be victim, only Charlie Sheen is winning...
'Bandera has become something like a Che Guevara, idiots know nothing about him but he is everywhere.'
I can't speak to what 'idiots' know or do not know about Bandera everywhere in Ukraine, but I do know that a lot of scholarlay literature has been coming out about him in recent years. Some assessing his achievements as 'good' and some other as 'bad', and a lot somewhere in the middle offering a more balanced treatment of the man. It's too bad that some members of Ukrainian society feel no other way to espouse their Ukrainian patriotic feelings, and feel compelled to regress to forms that were more appropriate perhaps in the 1930 - 1940's. I guess Leos' maxim about Russia, 'things are just different here' is unfortunately true about Ukraine too.