Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T20:16:59.731Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political Affinities and Maneuvering of Soviet Political Elites: Heorhii Shevel and Ukraine’s Ministry of Strange Affairs in the 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2019

Olga Bertelsen
Olga Bertelsen*
Affiliation:
European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Florence, Italy
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: ob72202@alumni.bloomu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the goals and practices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ukraine in the 1970s, a Soviet institution that functioned as an ideological organ fighting against Ukrainian nationalists domestically and abroad. The central figure of this article is Heorhii Shevel who governed the Ministry from 1970 to 1980 and whose tactics, strategies, and practices reveal the existence of a distinct phenomenon in the Soviet Union—the nationally conscious political elite with double loyalties who, by action or inaction, expanded the space of nationalism in Ukraine. This research illuminates a paradox of pervasive Soviet power, which produced an institution that supported and reinforced Soviet “anti-nationalist” ideology, simultaneously creating an environment where heterodox views or sentiments were stimulated and nurtured.

Keywords

UkraineMinistry of Foreign AffairsHeorhii ShevelSoviet nationalities policy
Type
Special Issue on Ukrainian Statehood
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , May 2019 , pp. 394 - 411
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Bilinsky, Yaroslav. 1964. The Second Soviet Republic: The Ukraine since World War II. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Bilinsky, Yaroslav. 1975. “The Communist Party of Ukraine after 1966.” In Ukraine in the Seventieth, edited by Peter J. Potichnyj, 239–266. Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Bilocerkowycz, Jaroslaw. 1988. Soviet Ukrainian Dissent: A Study of Political Alienation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Bilodid, Rostyslav. 2005. “Obraz tsiiei vydatnoi liudyny nazavzhdy zalyshet’sia v moiemu sertsi.” In Heorhii Shevel’—ministr, patriot, liudyna: Ochyma suchasnykiv (hereinafter Heorhii Shevel’), edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 34–39. Kyiv: Parlaments’ke vydavnytstvo (hereinafter PV).Google Scholar
Bilyk, Larysa. 2005. “Pro moho bat’ka.” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 104–110. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Bobkov, Filipp. 1995. KGB i vlast’. Moskva: Veteran MP.Google Scholar
Danylenko, Oleksandr. 2015. “Vheshnepoliticheskoie predstavitel’stvo Ukrainskoi SSR v mezhdunarodnykh otnosheniiakh (nachalo 1920-kh gg.).” European Researcher 100 (11): 702–710.Google Scholar
Dobson, Miriam. 2009. Khrushchev’s Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime, and the Fate of Reforms after Stalin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Doroshko, Mykola. 2008. Nomenklatura: Kerivna verkhivka Radians’koi Ukrainy (1917–1938 rr.). Kyiv: Nika-Tsentr.Google Scholar
Farmer, Kenneth C. 1980. Ukrainian Nationalism in the Post-Stalin Era: Myth, Symbols and Ideology in Soviet Nationalities Policy. London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. 2005. Tear off the Masks!: Identity and Imposture in Twentieth-Century Russia . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Freeden, Michael. 2003. Ideology: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Gill, Graeme. 2000. “The Soviet Mechanism of Power and the Fall of the Soviet Union.” In Mechanisms of Power in the Soviet Union , edited by Niels Erik Rosenfeldt, Bent Jensen, and Erik Kulavig, 3–22. New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 2000.Google Scholar
Gooderham, Peter. 1982. “The Komsomol and Worker Youth: The Inculcation of ‘Communist Values’ in Leningrad during NEP.” Soviet Studies 34 (4): 506–528.Google Scholar
Halfin, Igal. 2003. Terror in My Soul: Communist Autobiographies on Trial. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hellbeck, Jochen. 2006. Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Holub, Vsevolod. 1953. Ukraina v Ob’iednanykh natsiiakh. Munich: Suchasna Ukraina.Google Scholar
Hornsby, Robert. 2016. “The Post-Stalin Komsomol and the Soviet Fight for Third World Youth.” Cold War History 16 (1): 83–100.Google Scholar
Iel’chenko, Iurii. 2005. “Slovo pro H.H. Shevelia.” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 18–22. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Kas’ianov, Heorhii. 1995. Nezhodni: Ukrains’ka intelihentsiia v rusi oporu 1960-80-kh rokiv. Kyiv: Lybid’.Google Scholar
Kaznacheev, Aleksandr. 1962. Inside a Soviet Embassy: Experiences of a Russian Diplomat in Burma, 1st ed., edited by Simon Wolin. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott Company.Google Scholar
Kharkhordin, Oleg. 1999. The Collective and the Individual in Russia: A Study of Practices. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Khomenko, O. 1990. “Imperiia vzhe konala.” Initsiatyva, no. 9-10 (October). Reprinted in Shapoval 2011, 1021–1028.Google Scholar
Kocho-Williams, Alastair. 2008. “The Soviet Diplomatic Corps and Stalin’s Purges.” The Slavonic and East European Review 86 (1): 90–110.Google Scholar
Korniienko, Borys. 2005. “Liudyna z velykoi litery.” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 72–74. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Korotych, Vitalii (interview). “Shelest imel amplua provintsial’nogo Khrushcheva.” In Shapoval 2011, 1029–1036.Google Scholar
Koval’, Vitalii. 1989. “Sobor” i navkolo soboru. Kyiv: Molod’.Google Scholar
Kravchenko, Ievhen. 2005. “Nash Hor Horych.” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 55–60. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Kuchyns’kyi, Valerii. 2005. “Na p’edestali i bez nioho.” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 36–39. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Kuzio, Taras. 2000. Ukraine: Perestroika to Independence, 2nd ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Liber, George O. 2016. Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914–1954. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Maistrenko, Ivan. 1978. Natsional’naia politika KPSS v ieio istoricheskom razvitii. Munich: Suchasnist.Google Scholar
Matiash, I. B. 2016. Ukrains’ka konsul’s’ka sluzhba 1917-1923 rr. iak derzhavnyi instytut: stanovlennia, funktsionuvannia, personalii. Kyiv: NANU.Google Scholar
Motyl, Alexander J. 1982. “The Foreign Relations of the Ukrainian SSR.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 6 (1): 62–78.Google Scholar
Motyl, Alexander J. 1987. Will the Non-Russians Rebel?: State, Ethnicity, and Stability in the USSR, 1st ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Morozov, Kostiantyn. 2014. Moia ukrainizatsiia. Kyiv: “Osnovy.” Google Scholar
Mushketyk, Iurii. 2005. “Slid na zemli.” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 102–103. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Oliinyk, Borys. 2005. “Suvora dobrota.” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 83–84. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Panov, A. N. et al., eds. 2009. Diplomaticheskaia Akademiia MID Rossii. Moskva: Nauchnaia kniga.Google Scholar
Plokhy, Serhii. 2017. Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation. From 1470 to the Present. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Plokhy, Serhii. 2015. The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Plokhy, Serhii. 2014. The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Plokhy, Serhii. 2010. Yalta: The Price of Peace. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Portnov, Andrii, and Portnova, Tetiana. 2017. “Soviet Ukrainian Historiography in Brezhnev’s Closed City: Mykola/Nikolai Kovalsky and His ‘School’ at the Dnipropetrovsk University.” Ab Imperio, 4: 265–291.Google Scholar
Rudnytsky, Ivan L. 1972. “The Soviet Ukraine in Historical Perspective.” Canadian Slavonic Papers XIV (2): 235–250.Google Scholar
Shankowsky, Lew. 1966. “Russia, the Jews and the Ukrainian Liberation Movement.” In Ukrainians and Jews: A Symposium, 65–96. New York: UCCA, Inc.Google Scholar
Shapoval, Iurii, ed. 2011. Petro Shelest: “Spravshnii sud istorii shche poperedu”: Spohady. Shchodennyky. Dokumenty. Materialy. Kyiv: ADEF-Ukraina.Google Scholar
Skochii, Pavlo. 2005. “‘My ne odnoho vriatuvaly’…” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 76–82. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Swain, Geoffrey. 2012. “Before National Communism: Joining the Latvian Komsomol under Stalin.” Europe-Asia Studies 64 (7): 1239–1270.Google Scholar
Snyder, Timothy. 2010. Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Snyder, Timothy. 2005. Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist’s Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Solov’iova, V. V. 1996. Dyplomatychni predstavnytstva Ukrains’koi Narodnoi Respubliky v krainakh Tsentral’noi Ievropy za doby Dyrektorii (1918–1920 rr.). Kyiv: NANU.Google Scholar
Sorokin, Pitirim A. 1947. Society, Culture, and Personality: Their Structure and Dynamics. NY: Harper & Brothers Publishers.Google Scholar
Sullivant, Robert S. 1962. Soviet Politics and the Ukraine, 1917–1957. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Trembitsky, Volodymyr. 1980. Ukrains’ka konsul’s’ka sluzhba 1918–1924 rr. Munich: Ukrainian Free University.Google Scholar
Trembicky, Walter. 1966. “National Coat-of-Arms and Flag of Ukraine.” The Ukrainian Quarterly 22 (4): 343–50.Google Scholar
Tsipursky, Gleb. 2013. “Conformism and Agency: Model Young Communists and the Komsomol Press in the Later Khrushchev Years, 1961–1964.” Europe-Asia Studies 65 (7): 1396–1416.Google Scholar
Udovenko, Hennadii. 2005. “Vydatnyi vnesok dyplomata i liudyny.” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 15–17. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Vasil’iev, V. I. et al., eds. 2006. Politicheskoie rukovodstvo Ukrainy: 1938–1989. Moskva: Rosspen.Google Scholar
Vedeneiev, D. V. 1994. Zovnishnia polityka Dyrektorii UNR. Kyiv: NANU.Google Scholar
V’iatrovych, Volodymyr. 2011. Istoriia z hryfom “Sekretno.” Lviv/Kyiv: Tsentr doslidzhen’ vyzvol’noho rukhu.Google Scholar
Viola, Lynne. 2017. Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Voinovich, Vladimir. 1989. The Fur Coat. Translated by Susan Brownsberger. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers.Google Scholar
Von Hagen, Mark. 2003. “States, Nations, and Identities: The Ukrainian-Russian Encounter in the First Half of the Twentieth Century.” In Culture, Nation, and Identity: The Ukrainian-Russian Encounter (1600–1945), edited by Andreas Kappeler, Zenon E. Kohut, Frank E. Sysyn, and Mark von Hagen, 360–374. Edmonton: CIUS Press.Google Scholar
Vozianov, Vitalii. 2005. “Pravdoiu zasvatanyi.” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 40–51. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Vrublevs’kyi, Vitalii. 2005. “Pokhmura liudyna z niznoiu dusheiu.” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 23–33. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Walker, Barbara. 2014. “Accomplices of Violence: Guilt and Purification through Altruism among the Moscow Human Rights Activists of the 1960s and 1970s.” In Mass Dictatorship and Memory as Ever Present Past, edited by Jie-Hyun Lim, Barbara Walker, and Peter Lambert, 189–191. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Wanner, Catherine. 1998. Burden of Dreams: History and Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Weiner, Amir. 2002. Making Sense of War: The Second World War and the Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Yekelchyk, Serhy. 2004. Stalin’s Empire of Memory: Russian-Ukrainian Relations in the Soviet Historical Imagination. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Yekelchyk, Serhy. 2014. Stalin’s Citizens: Everyday Politics in the Wake of Total War. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zhuk, Sergei I. 2010. Rock and Roll in the Rocket City: The West, Identity, and Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 1960–1985. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Zhuk, Sergei I.. 2018. Soviet Americana: The Cultural History of Russian and Ukrainian Americanists. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Zhuk, Sergei I.. 2017. “The ‘KGB People,’ Soviet Americanists and Soviet-American Academic Exchanges, 1958-1985.” The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 44 (2): 133–167.Google Scholar
Zlenko, Anatolii. 2005. “Liudyna z pohliadom u maibutnie.” In Heorhii Shevel’, edited by L. H. Bilyk and B. V. Ivanenko, 8–14. Kyiv: PV.Google Scholar
Zubok, Vladislav. 2009. Zhivago’s Children: The Last Russian Intelligentsia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

HDA SBU, the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service in Ukraine (Haluzevyi Derzhavnyi Arkhiv Sluzhby Bezpeky Ukrainy). Fond 16. The Secretariat of the GPU-KGB of the URSR.Google Scholar
TSDAHOU, the Central State Archive of Civic Organizations in Ukraine (Tsentral’nyi Derzhavnyi Arkhiv Hromads’kykh Ob’iednan’). Fond 1. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine.Google Scholar
Private Archive of Oxana Shevel (PAOS). Shevel, Georgii Georgievich, b. 1919. Trudovaia knizkha (Trudova knyzhka). Issued January 15, 1953.Google Scholar

Correspondence

Valerii Kuchyns’kyi (February 19, 2017 email) (KE).Google Scholar