From Babyn Yar to Bohdanivka: Holocaust Topographies and Memoryscapes in Ukraine
Author(s)
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Publication Date
Abstract
The terrain of the past remains a battleground in Ukraine, where policymakers, interest groups, and individuals continue to use and abuse history for contemporary gains. The recent escalation of Russian violence has only exacerbated these processes. Apart from discussions of Ukraine and Russia’s historical relations and the Holodomor, nothing looms larger than the Holocaust in Ukraine’s ongoing memory wars, whether in discussions and denials of local collaboration and complicity in anti-Jewish violence or exercises in comparative and/or competitive suffering. This article examines the Holocaust as it played out in Ukraine and the evolving memoryscapes that emerged in its wake, homing in on two major massacres, Babyn Yar and Bohdanivka, and their memorial afterlives in Soviet Ukraine (ca. 1945–91) and independent Ukraine (1991–today). While this project briefly engages the well-trod topics of local collaboration and competitive suffering, as evidenced in competing monuments on the site of Babyn Yar itself and the larger commemorative landscape of Kyiv, it draws attention to understudied sites like Bohdanivka, which fell within the Romanian occupation zone during the war.
Topics
Holocaust Commemoration Holocaust Memorials Holocaust: Collaboration Ukraine-Russia war (since 2014) Memory Memorial Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Genre
Geographic Coverage
Original Language
Volume/Issue
152
Page Number / Article Number
129–154
DOI
Link
Link to article (paywalled), From Babyn Yar to Bohdanivka: Holocaust Topographies and Memoryscapes in Ukraine
PDF (via academia.edu), From Babyn Yar to Bohdanivka: Holocaust Topographies and Memoryscapes in Ukraine
PDF (via academia.edu), From Babyn Yar to Bohdanivka: Holocaust Topographies and Memoryscapes in Ukraine
Bibliographic Information
From Babyn Yar to Bohdanivka: Holocaust Topographies and Memoryscapes in Ukraine. 2025: 129–154. https://archive.jpr.org.uk/10.1215/01636545-11609961
