ІСТОРІЯ ФОРМУВАННЯ ТА БОЙОВИЙ ШЛЯХ УКРАЇНСЬКОГО ЛЕГІОНУ САМООБОРОНИ ЗА МАТЕРІАЛАМИ МЕМУАРІВ ЙОГО УЧАСНИКІВ

Abstract

The history of wars and military conflicts belongs to the current topics of scientific research in modern historiography. An important place in their study belongs to historical sources, in particular memoirs. This article is devoted to the study of the formation and combat path of the Ukrainian self-defence legion based on the memoirs of its members. It is noted that Ukrainian military memoirs of the Second World War are characterized by the political and ideological views of the authors, in addition to the typical separation of memories according to the social characteristics of the memoirist. It has been established that the concept of Ukrainian military memoirs is quite conditional. According to the authors, the main feature of assigning memories to this type is the presence of the idea of struggle for Ukrainian statehood. The article presents a short historical tour of the Ukrainian self-defence legion, the main focus is on highlighting its combat path based on the memories of the participants. It was noted that the memoirs of the legion members were published abroad, primarily in the countries of North America, given the forced emigration of the authors. The authors elaborated and included in the research the memoirs of O. Horodyskyi, M. Karkots-Vovk and K. Hirniak, published at different times in the second half of the 20th century. It has been established that the authors of memoirs mainly describe events that they directly witnessed. Each of the authors provides a description of the events and draws conclusions not only by observing certain processes, but also expresses his attitude and gives an assessment of the events. At the same time, the value of memoirs has been noted as historical sources containing information that is almost never found in official documents. Among it, first of all, it is worth highlighting everyday aspects, the morale of the military, relations with the command, etc. It has been established that Ukrainian military memoirs dedicated to the Ukrainian self-defence legion not only describe the history of this military formation, but also highlight broader issues of the Second World War. The article notes the need to adhere to a critical analysis of memories, because they contain a significant influence of the authors’ personal experience, and, accordingly, subjective assessments of events and phenomena.