The War in Ukraine: Jewish News #51
In This Issue: A Conversation with a Far-Right Ukrainian Activist.
A Conversation with a Far-Right Ukrainian Activist
Oleg Odnorozhenko is for racial separation, but against antisemitism; he is for maintaining ethnic minorities in Ukraine, but against the concept of a “civic nation”
I met Oleg Odnorozhenko two weeks ago during a visit to Vilnius, through a mutual colleague. The colleague introduced him as a Ukrainian historian and one of the founders of the Azov Brigade. Odnorozhenko explained that he had founded Azov in 2014, and fought in the Ukrainian military from 2022 to 2024, until he suffered a spinal injury and was discharged. He is now in Vilnius researching the medieval Grand-Duchy of Lithuania. He seemed friendly and glad to meet me, a Jewish historian. I asked if I could interview him once I returned to New York, and he agreed.
I checked out Odnorozhenko on the internet and discovered that he had been active in a number of far-right Ukrainian organizations, most prominently “Patriot of Ukraine”, which dissolved in 2014 when it merged into the Azov Brigade. Wikipedia offers the following characterizations of “Patriot of Ukraine”: “[It] promoted an extreme nationalist platform, aiming to create ‘a uniracial and uninational society’. It deployed physical and symbolic violence (including on occasions the use of firearms) against ethnic and social minorities and political opponents […] It was overtly racist. It sometimes used neo-Nazi symbols. Volodymyr Ischenko has described it as neo-Nazi while others regard it as ‘proto-fascist’.”
After reading these words, I was reluctant to interview Odnorozhenko. But given that he was friendly and happy to have contact, I decided not to prejudge him based on his associations and statements more than a decade ago. I also noticed that he recently published an anthology called Ukrainian Nationalism and posted a photo of himself presenting the book to President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Arsenal Book-Fair. How antisemitic could he be if he wanted to be photographed with Zelensky?
So we talked. What follows below are selections from our Zoom conversation, conducted paradoxically in Russian. Some of his ideas are distinctly illiberal, others are in my view quite mainstream. There are to my mind a few contradictions and ambiguities: How can one advocate the idea of Ukraine as an ethnic nation and characterize Zelensky as a good president of Ukraine? Is the conflict in today’s world between civilizations (West vs. East) or between freedom and dictatorship?
It seems that Odnorozheno’s views have evolved over the past decade. Alternately, he soften presentation to satisfy me and a Jewish audience. I’ll let you be the judge.
Q: You have belonged to a number of organizations that have a reputation of being extreme right-wing. Do you think that reputation is justified?
A: To answer that question, we’d need to go into definitions of what is extreme, and what is right-wing. There are many stereotypes about the Azov movement. One of the stereotypes spread by our Ukrainian political opponents and of course by Russia, is that Azov is an antisemitic organization. To explain the real situation, I’ll bring one fact. One of the founders of Azov was the Jewish rabbi Natan Khazin. You can contact him to get more information on his participation in Azov. [For more on Natan Khazin see here, here and here. DEF]
This one fact indicates that the charge of antisemitism is not just an exaggeration, it is a naked lie. A big lie that’s been spread through the media. You can contact people of Jewish background who have participated in Azov and clarify it with ease. You’ll see that antisemitism never existed in Azov as a matter of principle. [On Jews in Azov, see here and here. DEF]
As far as “right-wing”, the Patriot of Ukraine organization and Azov always stood on anti-socialist foundations. Ukrainian nationalism has always been anti-socialist and anti-communist. In that sense we are anti-left.
Q: I’ve seen it written in places that Azov’s emblem is a Nazi emblem. How do you respond?
A: This too is a stereotype. The emblem is based on the letters I and N – the Idea of the Nation. It’s a monogram. The symbol has been part of the Ukrainian heraldic tradition since the Middle Ages. If one wants to, one can find Nazi symbols in the Russian St. George’s emblem, and in the emblem of the Federal Republic of Germany. But there’s no need to find something that isn’t there. “Patriot of Ukraine” and other nationalist organizations are non-conformists and have written many politically incorrect things. If we really advocated the ideas of Nazism, of the Third Reich, believe me, we would have said it and written it. If you check, you’ll see that we had a very critical attitude toward the Third Reich and toward Nazism.
Q: So what kind of political and economic system do these organizations support? a free market? A multi-party system?
A: Yes of course, the free market. We believe that the state should assume only the most essential functions, such as defense, foreign relations. We believe strongly in local self-administration, which is a Ukrainian tradition. Self-administration is really not possible without competition. Our organizations believe that society can only realize itself based on competition in all spheres: economic, political, social, cultural. We are definitely opposed to a single party state, and to all forms of dictatorship. The state should grow integrally out of society and not be opposed to society. But truth be told, we are critical of Western representative democracy where elected leaders manipulate society and usurp authority.
Q: in the things I read about these organizations, it says that you support a uniracial and uninational state. What about the question of race?
A: I believe that the optimal form of existence is a single-race society. A multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-religious society cannot exist organically. That doesn’t mean that any particular race or religion should be suppressed or destroyed. A society with more than one race always becomes conflict-prone. Europe is in a crisis because of its policy of multiculturalism. The Islamization of Europe is a consequence of not paying attention to this basic fact. The Islamization of Europe and Islamic terrorism in Europe have real roots in the Islamic religion. Let’s not ignore the true nature of the conflict.
The mixing of races isn’t possible. Look at the United States. All the efforts at integration of the black population have only led to a counter-reaction. We do not relate to other races and ethnicities with hostility. But we Ukrainians want to preserve ourselves as an ethnic and racial group.
Q: So how do you relate to Crimean Tatars, who are Muslim?
A: Crimean Tatars have always demonstrated loyalty to the Ukrainian state, and they follow a moderate interpretation of Islam. So I don’t see a problem. We have a positive attitude toward our neighbors. But if a neighboring people adopt an anti-Ukrainian position, there will naturally be a reaction. As in the case of Hungary, for instance.
Q: How do you view the ethnic minorities in Ukraine? Is it desirable that ethnic minorities leave Ukraine for their own countries, so that Ukraine would be 100% ethnic Ukrainian?
A: No, no one considers that an objective. But I do oppose the idea of a civic or political nation - that a person belongs to a nation because he has that country’s passport. Ukraine is the state of the Ukrainian ethnic nation, who are the state-forming ethnic group. Romanians are the state-forming ethnic group in Romania.
I see no need to Ukrainianize the Hungarians who live in trans-Carpathia or the Romanians who live in the Chernivtsi region. We should have parity with neighboring states. We won’t Ukrainianize the Romanians in Ukraine, and Romania won’t Romanianize the Ukrainians in Romania. I see no point in forcing people to adopt a different ethnic membership. Ethnic minorities should declare their loyalty to the Ukrainian state and have the right to preserve their ethnic nature. Forcible assimilation leads to a person’s loss of their roots.
Q: And what about voluntary assimilation?
A: Voluntary assimilation occurs over several generations and is a natural process. Ethnic nations develop by virtue of the fact that members of other ethnic groups join them. The authoress Lesa Ukrainka is considered a maximally Ukrainian phenomenon, but she was Croatian on her father’s side and Greek on her mother’s side. Her mother’s family was Drahomanov, a Greek line that lived for generations in central Ukraine. Her parents made an important contribution to Ukrainian culture. Lesa Ukrainka adopted the features of Ukrainian culture and expressed them. One can’t exclude the fact that certain people will want to join the Ukrainian nation.
Q: So how do you view the phenomenon of Zelensky? Is he a person of Jewish background who became a Ukrainian?
A: No, I wouldn’t say Zelensky became a Ukrainian. But I also don’t think he is Jewish in the full sense of the word. Zelensky is a product of the Soviet context, where Jews minimized their Jewishness because of state antisemitism. For years, Zelensky didn’t declare himself as Jewish.
But Zelensky changed beginning on February 24, 2022. He became a totally different person. He became the general national leader of Ukraine, and has managed that mission quite well. It was a conscious choice on his part. After the Russian invasion he began declaring his Ukrainian patriotic position - and his Jewish origins. I never heard either of those things until 2022. To respond to Russian propaganda and accusations of Ukrainian Nazism and antisemitism, he declared that he, the president of Ukraine, is of Jewish origin.
I agree with Zelensky that antisemitism is not strong in Ukraine. In 2019, when he ran for president, there were many criticisms of Zelensky – that he was an offensive comedian, that he was incompetent, a person without political experience. The only topic that was not raised was his Jewish origin. There probably were people who wanted to raise it, but they knew that it would not resonate in Ukrainian society. His Jewish origins did not affect his supporters or his opponents.
And since 2022, he is seen by the majority of society as the overall national leader. And I believe he is fulfilling his role in a dignified manner. I was his categorical opponent in 2019. I am still his opponent in many respects. But one shouldn’t give in to generalizations or emotions. Since 2022, he is doing his job well.
Q: What is your attitude to Israel?
A: In my public talks and writing, I’ve always supported Israel in its problems with Palestinian terror attacks, and the Seventh of October.
Q: Is that because you and Israel have a common enemy in Islam?
A: For me, the dividing line is not between Islam and non-Islam. The dividing line is between civilizations. On the one hand there is Greko-Roman civilization, which later became Judeo-Christian civilization. I am critical toward western political democracy, but political democracy is an outgrowth of our civilization. Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East. It is part of the civilized world that respects the individual, that doesn’t demand uniformity in society. Uniformity is the demand of Communism, fundamentalist Islam, etc. Roughly speaking, the dividing line is between the civilized world and dictatorships – whose major representatives are China, Putinist Russia, Iran, North Korea. In this respect one must be on one side of the barricade or the other. We are on the same side of the barricade as America, Israel, Europe. And I would add Australia, Japan, and South Korea.
Q: Do you agree that there are people in the Azov Brigade that are neo-Nazi?
A: There are people who sympathize with the Third Reich and Nazism in the organization. Why? Because in Soviet times, the Third Reich was presented as the diametrical opposite of the Soviet Union. Because of that, people with anti-Soviet views embrace the aesthetics of the Third Reich for non-conformist reasons, without delving into the question of what the Third Reich actually was. This is how it works in popular consciousness. People who don’t know the specifics of history declare, because of their antipathy to the Soviet Union, their sympathy for the Third Reich. The more people learn about the history of the Second World War, the more that sympathy disappears.
There can be no mass support for Nazism in Ukraine. It’s a fact that at Babi Yar, they shot not only Jews. They also shot members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The poetess and OUN leader Olena Teliha was shot at Babi Yar and is buried there.
Q: Do you support the Svoboda party [a far-right party based in Western Ukraine]?
A: No, I’m an opponent of Svoboda. First, they have what I consider to be socialist ideas. I also don’t share their anti-Polish, Polonophobic, attitude. I believe that our state should have maximally good relations with our neighbors. Ukraine cannot afford to have an opponent in the rear. We are conducting a very difficult war in the east with a very problematic, strong, and cruel enemy. With our west we should have good relations.
Q: Svoboda has also had quite a few antisemitic voices.
A: I haven’t noticed that. It doesn’t exist in their party platform. Also, Svoboda is at the forefront of the cult of Stepan Bandera [ a leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists during World War II - DEF]. In our organizations, “Patriot of Ukraine” and “Azov”, we have a critical view of Bandera. Bandera created a split in the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and instigated a civil war against other Ukrainians, particularly the supporters of Andriy Melnik. But again, because the Soviet Union made Stepan Bandera the diametrical opposite of the Soviet regime and called all supporters of an independent Ukraine “Banderovites”, Bandera has acquired a cult status.