ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the ambivalent role of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Ukrainian collective memory and its implications for nation-building, regional politics, the relations with the neighbors, and the pro-European aspirations of the Ukrainian elites. Following the approach of Eva-Clarita Onken, who suggested a differentiation between three levels of memory politics (domestic memory politics, memory politics in bilateral relations, and memory politics in the European Union), it presents one more level of analysis: the regional/local one. The chapter addresses the role of the MRP in Ukrainian history, political memory, and post-Soviet nation-building. The chapter deals with Ukraine's half-hearted attempt to adopt the anti-Soviet memory regime, with some of its regional effects and with its implications for the Ukrainian-Russian and Ukrainian-Polish relations. The myth of the Great Patriotic War remains the core of Russia's memory politics, and the narrative of the liberation of Europe from Nazism is still used to legitimize the country's geopolitical status on the European continent.