Ukrainian immigrants in post-war Western Germany

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Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University, Kyiv, Ukraine

Modern and Contemporary History of Foreign Countries Department

Ukrainian immigrants in post-war Western Germany

Review on the monograph: Olena Podobied. Ukrainian planet DP: Culture and Everyday Life. Zhytomyr: Publ. O.O. Yevenok, 2018. 396 p.

Oleh Mashevskyi

PhD hab. (History), Professor,

Head of the Department

Olga Sukhobokova

PhD (History), Professor, Associate Professor

Українські мігранти у повоєнній Західній Німеччині

Рецензія на монографію: Олена Подобєд. Українська планета ДіПі: культура та повсякдення. Житомир: Вид. О.О. Євенок, 2018. 396 с.

Олег Машевський

доктор історичних наук, професор, завідувач кафедри нової та новітньої історії зарубіжних країн Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка, м. Київ, Україна

Ольга Сухобокова

кандидатка історичних наук, доцентка кафедри нової та новітньої історії зарубіжних країн Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка, м. Київ, Україна

In 2018, a monograp, written by Olena Podobied, Doctor of Historical Sciences, “Ukrainian Planet DP: Culture and Everyday Life” was published, is dedicated to current issues of a cultural and everyday life of displaced persons and refugees from Ukraine in Western Germany during the postwar years.

During and after the end of World War II, many Ukrainians found themselves in Germany, Austria, Italy and some other European countries. However, most of them (almost 3 million people) were in Germany. The UN granted them, like immigrants of other nationalities, the legal status of displaced persons and refugees. Temporarily living in a part of Germany, controlled by the United States, Great Britain, and France, they not only managed to arrange their lives in camps for displaced persons under extremely difficult material and moral and psychological conditions, but also developed a social and cultural activity, which impresses greatly.

Despite the increasingly frequent studies of the topic of DP by Ukrainian researchers, before the publication of O. Podobied's monograph in the domestic historiography there was no comprehensive study of a cultural life and everyday life of this social group. Until now, this theme has been presented in separate publications on its individual aspects or figures, who found themselves in DP camps. They formed a diverse canvas of information, but did not form a generalized view of this page of the Ukrainian history. Thus, the publication of O. Podobied's research was on time. At the same time, the growing interest in the history of an everyday life in general adds topicality to the reviewed monograph. Having studied the historiographical legacy of the predecessors over the past half century, the author came to a reasonable conclusion, formulated in the preface that the problem of the Ukrainian community in postwar West Germany begins to be studied by the Ukrainian historians. At the same time, the analysis of the source base illustrates the following: there is a sufficient amount of materials and documents on the topic. In general, the researcher analyzed the materials of the funds of 10 domestic archives, in which, in fact, there is a concentrated documentary on this problem in Ukraine. Also during the writing of the monograph, a set of published documents and materials was involved into the analysis: the legislative acts that determined the social and legal status of the displaced persons and refugees in post-war West Germany; the works of the staff of the State Security Committee of the USSR, published during the 1960-ies and 1970-ies under the titles “Confidential” and “Top Secret”. A special attention should be paid to the art albums, the catalogs of exhibitions and works of the Ukrainian artists - DP; the memoirs and epistolary sources rich in exclusive evidence, the periodicals of that time, which could become the basis of a number of separate art and historical researches. A wide source base allowed the author of the reviewed monograph to introduce into a scientific circulation the materials, which had not been considered or used without a proper contextual support.

Conceptually, O. Podobied tried to create a thorough generalized study and at the same time to reveal, in detail, various aspects of the situation, the life and activities of the Ukrainian DP in West Germany. Thus, in this monograph the foundation is made for a systematic understanding of the stated topic by other researchers.

The structure of the monograph looks quite logical and is determined by the main thematic blocks, which allow to reveal the topic completely, ranging from the causes of migration to the smallest nuances of the displaced persons' life. In the functional dimension, each section covers a specific problem-thematic segment of the topic and is a complete structural unit. The presentation of the material is a combination of narrative and focusing on certain points. In our opinion, the division of sections into small thematic chapters is successful.

Chapter I of the monograph “Displaced Persons and Refugees from Ukraine in West Germany as a Socio-Psychological Phenomenon” is of a key importance for understanding the topic of the research. Chapter I reveals the reasons for the migration of the Ukrainians during World War II, their political and legal status; presents the social characteristics of the migrants.

Based on statistics on the age, gender, education and employment of the Ukrainian migrants, the researcher was able to create a generalized image of the Ukrainian displaced persons and refugees in the western occupation zones of Germany. The vast majority of them were young and middle-aged people, men were predominant, and according to the professional composition - former peasants and workers. At the same time, a significant percentage of DPs were people with a higher education - according to the author of the monograph, it was higher than that of the displaced persons and refugees of other national groups. It is the very feature of the third wave of the Ukrainian emigration, formed mainly by the DP, that led to the completion of the Ukrainian diaspora formation in most countries of the settlement. This fact was illustrated mostly in the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain and other countries, where the largest flow of the Ukrainians from the camps in West Germany was directed.

The researcher analyzed the economic situation in which the western occupation zones of Germany found themselves in the second half of the 1940-ies. A deep economic crisis caused the rapid devaluation of the Reichsmark, the introduction of a card system of food distribution, the functioning of “gray” and “black” markets, natural trade circulation, the cases of stealing food. This made the author draw a logical conclusion about the low level and quality of life of most Ukrainians in DP camps (pp. 55-56).

In this context, the attempt to determine the socio-psychological attitudes of the Ukrainian migrants in post-war West Germany deserves a special attention. O. Podobied states that the difficult process of adaptation to the peculiarities of life in West Germany, as well as the threat of a forced repatriation to the USSR led to the predominance of pessimistic and even suicidal attitudes. At the same time, we consider it debatable to conclude that the DP era changed both the individual consciousness and the social psychology of the Ukrainians (p. 68). After all, the significant changes in the situation, and hence - the consciousness of the Ukrainians, at that time were due to a complex set of problems caused by World War II, i.e., have deeper origins.

Chapter II of the monograph “Ukrainian Education and Science in Post-war West Germany” is profound, in which the author tries to generalize a rather large array of information about the development of education and science in post-war West Germany. Although this topic is not poorly studied, O. Podobied offers her point of view on it through the prism of the needs of the Ukrainian DPs and provides a systematic and comprehensive overview of the educational and research institutions work.

There was analyzed process of educational structures formation on the basis of camps, where children, youth, adults received or continued education; there were characterized the types of educational institutions, kindergartens, public (primary) schools, graduation courses, the humanities and real gymnasiums, teachers' seminaries, universities, institutes, seminaries), which started their functioning during this period. It is important that the author did not limit herself to generalizing the information, but she points at specific educators and scientists, who provided the organization and implementation of the educational process, among them - well-known figures in Ukraine: Leonid Biletsky, Yuri Boyko, Dmytro Doroshenko, Natalia Polonska-Vasylenko, Dmytro Chyzhevsky, Yuri Sherekh and the others.

O. Podobied's explanation seems to be quite reasonable that the creation of a significant number of educational institutions by the Ukrainian emigrants was conditioned by a large percentage of children and young people in their environment, the need to acquire education for further employment in Western countries, where they wanted to go. At the same time, it is noteworthy that the priority of preserving the Ukrainian identity and cultivating patriotism prompted parents to send their children to study in Ukrainian educational institutions.

A special place in the monograph belongs to the activities of the leading Ukrainian scientific institutions of West Germany - T. Shevchenko Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences and the Scientific Society, which united most Ukrainian scientists. The development of the Ukrainian humanities studies among DPs was marked, primarily, by the flourishing of the researches in the field of the Ukrainian studies. We share O. Podobed's opinion completely that the ascetic activity of the Ukrainian educators and scientists was aimed at the formation, preservation and development of the national identity of the Ukrainians. The researcher emphasizes an interesting point: the Ukrainian educators and scientists from different regions of Ukraine, who practically did not communicate at home, in West Germany were able to get acquainted with each other's professional achievements and establish cooperation.

Chapter III of the monograph “Cultural, Artistic and Religious Life of Displaced Persons and Refugees from Ukraine” is a logical continuation of the previous block. In it there are collected and summarized the rich materials, primarily narrative documents, about the transformations of the Ukrainian language that took place in the speech of the displaced persons and refugees from Ukraine as a result of contacts between people from different regions and in connection with external communication needs. Based on the works of linguists, the researcher found out that the language of the displaced persons and refugees from Ukraine had virtually no independent neologisms, except for the lexemes “privateers” and “campers”. At the same time, the language of migrants was characterized by an interlingual lexical interference; most borrowings penetrated into Ukrainian from German, less from English, and very few from French (p. 124). The mixing of Western and Central- Eastern dialects by the Ukrainians was another feature of the Ukrainian language functioning among the Ukrainian DPs.

A positive feature of Olena Podobied's research, which can be traced throughout the text, is its anthropocentrism, the attention to the individual achievements, worldview and destinies of the Ukrainian artists, educators, and scientists during the DP era. This was fully reflected in the author's consideration of the Ukrainian artists activities in the field of music, theater, fine arts, sculpture and architecture. Once in the western occupation zones of Germany, the Ukrainians continued their creative work, overcoming financial difficulties and overcoming their depressed state. This gave them the opportunity not only to self-realize, but also to “escape” from the difficult post-war everyday life and uncertainty of their future. During this period, the Ukrainian refugee artists also had the opportunity to get acquainted with the work of European colleagues, which inspired them with new ideas. An important result of the Ukrainian artists' activity, including theater performances, music concerts and art exhibitions, was the positive feedback not only of the displaced persons and refugees (as the main target audience), but also of the occupation administrations and the German population. Thus, their creative self-expression had a positive effect on the formation of a positive image of the Ukrainian community and Ukrainian culture in general.

The author's attention to the efforts of the Ukrainian intelligentsia to form a national memory of displaced persons and refugees from Ukraine by getting acquainted with the history and culture of their country deserves approval. According to O. Podobied, these efforts were effective in both the short and long term and ensured the consolidation of the Ukrainian community and hindered a cultural assimilation in a non-ethnic environment.

An significant role in this aspect belonged to the Church - the Ukrainian Greek Catholic, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox and Evangelical Baptist, - which was always the center of the Ukrainian national, cultural and social life in the diaspora. The Church not only supported the spirit of the faithful, but also cared about their financial situation, defended against forced repatriation to the USSR. The monograph focuses on the analysis of the activities of individual hierarchs - Mykola Voyakovsky, Ivan Buchko, Bishop Mstyslav and Metropolitan Policarp. It is important that the part of some young Ukrainians, who grew up in an atheistic environment in the USSR, was given the opportunity to get acquainted with the faith of their parents and grandparents during the camp period. The importance of the Church in the life of the Ukrainian community is evidenced by the fact that in each camp there was a chapel, a wooden church or a temple in some building.

Thematically related are the last two chapters of the monograph “Everyday Life of Ukrainians in West Germany” and “Family, Holidays and Leisure of Displaced Persons and Refugees”, in which the aspects of the history of DPs are revealed. These aspects have not been sufficiently studied in Ukrainian historiography. Based on the analysis of a huge number of documents of a personal origin (diaries, memoirs, epistolary, etc.), the author reproduces the daily life of the displaced persons from the peculiarities of the diet to the celebration of weddings. Among other things, the problem of covering the medical support in DP is interesting. The network of medical institutions (clinics, hospitals, sanatoriums), a large number of medical professionals among DPs, who were able to work due to their specialty (some of them had private practices), but the above-mentioned network did not guarantee the absence of health problems of the Ukrainian refugees. According to the main indicators, the health state of the Ukrainian refugees was defined as unsatisfactory, mainly due to financial difficulties, a banal malnutrition and peculiarities of a psycho-emotional state.

The seemingly simple question of the specifics of communication and information spread among DPs raises a very serious problem of the influence of the Soviet secret services on the Ukrainians by agents, recruited among the Ukrainian community in the western occupation zones of Germany. Using specific examples, O. Podobied demonstrated how disinformation was spread in DP camps to prevent the Ukrainians from leaving the western occupation zones of Germany for Western democracies, to discredit “the Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists” before the occupation administrations, and to prevent the consolidation of the Ukrainian community. Topical from modern point of view is the author's thesis that many Ukrainian intellectuals of the time understood that the “merit” of the Soviet secret services, not displaced persons and refugees from Ukraine, was the division of the latter into “the Easterners” and “the Westerners”, “the Catholics” and “the Orthodox”, and “the Orthodox”, in turn - into the “autocephalous” and “cathedrals” (pp. 250-262).

The section about the life and social adaptation of the Ukrainian family as a separate social organism in West Germany draws attention. The author analyzed in detail the religious, national and family traditions and holidays celebrated by the Ukrainians; highlighted the features of festive and leisure everyday life of DP. The attention is focused on the fact that the Ukrainian family outside the homeland became the main center and means of forming children's ethnic identity. And the main Ukrainian religious and national holidays (Christmas and Easter, Reunification Day and Shevchenko's Days) became widespread and of a special national consolidating significance.

An important and significant component of the monograph is “Appendices” -diagrams, sociological, prayer, humorous, educational materials and texts, colorful photos and cartoons, which the author compiled carefully. The attention is drawn to the design of the scientific apparatus of the study. The inscriptions to each photo contain a link to the archival source, and a professionally compiled name index makes it much easier to work with the text.

In conclusion, Olena Podobied's monograph reveals an important scientific problem and is of value to historical science as a comprehensive study of the culture and everyday life of the Ukrainian immigrants in postwar West Germany. Due to the use of a large array of sources and coverage of a wide range of problems of the situation and life and activities of the Ukrainians in DP camps, the reviewed monograph can be a good incentive for experts in various fields of knowledge of various activities of DPs and refugees from Ukraine in West Germany. At the same time, the materials of the monograph “Ukrainian Planet DP: Culture and Everyday Life” may be of interest not only to scientists and educators, but also to writers, theater and film artists, as well as journalists and publicists to recreate the cultural and everyday life of DP.

immigrant history displaced person

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