UKRAINIAN INSTITUTE OF NATIONAL REMEMBRANCE ACTIVITIES ON THE RESTORATION AND PRESERVATION OF MEMORY OF THE SOVIET REPRESSIONS IN THE WESTERN REGIONS

Abstract

Summary. The purpose of the article is to describe and analyze activities of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory on restoring the memory of Soviet repression in the western regions in the period from 1939 to 1953, as well as to propose measures to improve effectiveness of this work. The research methodology is based on a combination of a range of theoretical and methodological approaches, principles, methods and techniques, systematics, science, authorial objectivity, and the use of general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, generalization). Regulations, official reports and communications of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory were the empirical basis of the study. General scientific methods made it possible to process the collected information in order to structure it and obtain conclusions about the effectiveness of this work and ways to improve it. The scientific novelty of the article is that for the first time the state measures to restore the memory of Soviet repression in the western regions are covered on the basis of reports of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory for 2016‒2019 and messages covered on its official website covered. The peculiarities of these measures are analyzed in accordance with the directions (rule-making, decommunization and rehabilitation of victims of repressions of the communist totalitarian regime of 1917–1991, popularization, education). Conclusions. In the current difficult conditions, the problem of understanding the phenomenon of national memory is becoming increasingly important. Among Ukrainians, it is marked with ambivalence and divergent interpretations of the past that do not adhere to a single value-semantic logic; there is a clear regional dimension of contradictions in understanding the history of Ukrainian lands. These factors are used by the Russian Federation in the hybrid war against Ukraine. It manipulates the significant influence of the Soviet identity, which inhibits the rooting of Ukrainian national identity in order; to weaken the value foundations of our statehood. Therefore, the country needs national consolidation and an active humanitarian policy, in particular to restore and preserve the national memory of Ukrainian people. The central executive body that implements this policy is the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, which, among other things, takes a number of measures to restore the public memory of Soviet repression in the western regions and has the potential to increase effectiveness of this area of humanitarian policy.