Petro Schelest

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Petro Shelest ( Ukrainian Петро Шелест , Petro Selest; Russian Пётр Ефимович Шелест , Pyotr Yefimovich Schelest * February 1 jul. / 14. February  1908 greg. In Andreevka , Circle Smijew , Kharkov Governorate , Russian Empire , now Oblast Kharkiv , Ukraine ; † January 22, 1996 near Moscow ) was a Soviet and Ukrainian politician.

Petro Schelest; before 1937

Life

Schelest was born into a farming family and worked in various fields at an early age. As a 13-year-old, he carried letters, and shortly afterwards he worked a. a. as a machinist's assistant on a steam locomotive and later as a locksmith repairing locomotives.

He studied at the Metallurgical Institute of Mariupol and then worked as chief engineer, factory director and in other responsible party and economic offices in Kharkov, Chelyabinsk , Moscow, Saratov , Leningrad and Kiev . In 1923 he joined the communist youth organization Komsomol , four years later he was accepted as a student at the party school in Isjum city . In 1928 he became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). His rise as a functionary led through the following stations: 1954 to 1957 Second Gorkom Secretary and Second Obkom Secretary of Kiev, then from 1957 to 1962 First Obkom Secretary of Kiev.

Political climate in Ukraine in the early 1960s

During the thaw period , nationally oriented currents emerged in Ukraine, which were limited to a narrowly limited circle of intellectuals. They called for the rehabilitation of victims of the Stalinist repression and opposed the Moscow policy of zblizhenie i slijanie (сближение и слияние - rapprochement and merger) of the Soviet nations. Therefore, they advocated the strengthening of the social position of the Ukrainian language. From around 1962, this canon of topics was also expanded to include socio-political topics.

Rise to party leader of Ukraine

The rise of Schelest into the power centers of the party was promoted by Khrushchev : 1962 to 1963 he was secretary and from 1963 to 1972 first secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, succeeding Nikolai Podgorny . As head of the Communist Party of one of the three large Soviet republics, he was initially a candidate for the Presidium from 1963 to 1964 and finally, from November 16, 1964 to April 27, 1973, a full member of the highest political body in the USSR , the Politburo (called Presidium from 1952 to 1966) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). He supported the anti-Stalinist course of Khrushchev. He owes his rise to the Politburo to the fall of Khrushchev in 1964.

Politician

Ukrainian autonomism

Petro Schelest combined seemingly contradicting positions. As party leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU), Schelest continued the autonomist policy of his predecessor Alexei Kirichenko . He promoted the Ukrainization , especially in the areas of education and culture. For example, he encouraged writers to write in Ukrainian, announced textbooks in Ukrainian, and advocated the revival of Ukrainian history studies. In his book Ukraïno naša radjanska (German: Oh Ukraine, our Soviet ) in 1970 he assessed the Ukrainification policy of the 1920s positively and promised to build on it.

In practice, Schelest had cultural Ukrainization a. a. by issuing a number of publications that would have been unthinkable under other circumstances. So appeared during his tenure a. a. a dictionary of the Ukrainian language , the multi-volume history of the cities and villages of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Історія міст и сіл України; Istorija mist i sil Ukraïny) and the Ukrainian Historical Journal (Ukrainian: Украïнський Іслричний Žунj сторичний).

Schelest, who boasted of Cossack roots, campaigned massively for the erection of a large Cossack memorial on the island of Chortyzja and promoted research into Cossack history.

Ukrajino nascha radjanska

Schelest's most important book, Ukraïno naša radjans'ka , was apparently not (exclusively) written by himself, the styles in which the individual chapters are written are too different.

The book, whose print run of 100,000 copies was quickly sold out, essentially contains three components: elements of historical-political essays, assessment of the current state of the Ukrainian economy and culture, and superficial generalities of a tourist handbook.

The book contradicted the official interpretation of Ukrainian history as it had been laid down in 1954 in the theses of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia 1654-1954 , in many points, sometimes rather subtly, by for example: critical "issues are not treated in the" required "tone. For example, the Cossack Rada of Perejaslav in 1654 is presented dryly and without enthusiasm as a central event in the history of Ukraine, while the role of the Zaporoger Sitsch is rousing and detailed. While the official view interpreted the great Cossack uprising of 1648–1654 as a peasant war, Schelest put the Cossacks in the foreground - he made the class struggle among the Cossacks completely disappear.

Particularly noticeable is the extraordinary emphasis and pride in the achievements of the Ukrainian people, the socio-economic growth and the development of the Ukrainian SSR and underdeveloped areas into highly developed agricultural and industrial countries.

This must be seen in the context of a certain regional egoism, which, contrary to the Soviet solidarity principle, wanted to contribute less to the Union fund and to keep a larger share of the Ukrainian economic results in Ukraine. This inevitably had to lead to conflicts.

Berkhoff goes so far as to describe the book as a "patriotic book, which included extensive praise of the Cossacks".

In April 1973 a review appeared in the magazine Komunist Ukraïny , in which Schelest was sharply attacked for various "ideological errors". He was accused of nationalism and the idealization of the Zaporog Cossacks.

Conflict and fall

With all this, Schelest remained a Soviet patriot and a hardliner in foreign policy. While he gave the national dissidents in the Ukraine extraordinarily large leeway, he was one of the driving forces behind the intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 ( Prague Spring ) and opposed the policy of détente as well as the forthcoming visit of US President Richard Nixon in 1972 .

The conflicts over Schelest's autonomism and his hard line on foreign policy finally led to his surprising dismissal as party leader of Ukraine in May 1972. In research there is disagreement about the weighting of these factors.

That is why Schelest was overthrown as head of the Communist Party of Ukraine in 1972. He was informed of the dismissal at a meeting in Moscow on May 19, 1972. His successor as the leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine was Volodymyr Shcherbyzkyj , whose inauguration ushered in an ice age that would last until 1989 and was characterized by the "relentless pursuit of the weak beginnings of a dissident movement, the suppression of cultural and linguistic Ukrainians, the defense against all reforms". Many of Schelest's partisans lost their posts in the state and the party, and Shcherbyzkyi's rule also had drastic consequences in the field of science. a. Any preoccupation with the Cossack issue was banned for years. He was given his seat in the Politburo until April 27, 1973.

Schelest was not allowed to return to Ukraine, he remained in Moscow, as it were, in exile. From 1974 to 1985 he worked as head of a development office in the aviation industry. After his death, he was reburied on June 13, 1996 in the Baikowe Cemetery in Kiev.

Fonts

  • Ukraïno naša radjans'ka. Kiev 1970. (ukr .: Україно наша радянська.)
  • Idei Lenina peremahajut '. Kiev 1971. (ukr .: Ідеі Леніна перемагають)
  • ... Da ne sudimy budete. Dnevnikovye zapisi, vospominanija člena Politbjuro CK KPSS. Moscow 1995. ISBN 5-85610-006-9 (Russian .: ... Да не судимы будете. Дневниковые записи, воспоминания члена Политбюро ЦК КПСС.)
  • The historic mission of youth. Berlin 1970.

literature

  • Karel C. Berkhoff: "Brothers, We Are All of Cossack Stock": Campaign in Ukrainian Newspapers on the Eve of Independence. In: Harvard Ukrainian Studies , Vol. XXI (1997). Pp. 119-140.
  • Yaroslav Bilinsky: The Communist Party of Ukraine After 1966. In: Peter J. Potichnyj (ed.): Ukraine in the Seventies. Papers and Proceedings of the McMaster Conference on Contemporary Ukraine, October 1974. Oakville 1975. pp. 239-266.
  • Jurij Danyljuk: Vidrodžujučy storinky mynuloho. In: Jurij Danyljuk u. a .: Zberežemo tuju slavu. Hromads'kyj ruch za uvičnennja istoriï ukraïns'koho kozactva v druhij polovyni 50-ch - 80-ch rr. XX st. Zbirnyk dokumentiv ta materialiv. Chmel'nyc'kyj; Kiev 1997. pp. 6-23.
  • Christian Ganzer: Soviet Heritage and Ukrainian Nation. The Museum of the History of Zaporozhian Cossacks on the island of Khortycja. With a foreword by Frank Golczewski. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2005 (Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, vol. 19). ISBN 3-89821-504-0
  • Jaroslaw Hrycak: Historia narodu. Lublin 2000.
  • Ernst Lüdemann: On the solution of the national question in Soviet-Ukrainian historiography. In: Research on Eastern European History 40 (1988). Pp. 229-395.
  • Bohdan Nahaylo: The Ukrainian Resurgence. London 1999. ISBN 1-85065-168-X .
  • Jaroslaw Pelenski: Shelest and His Period in Soviet Ukraine, 1963-1972: A Revival of Controlled Ukrainian Autonomism. In: Peter J. Potichnyj (ed.): Ukraine in the Seventies. Papers and Proceedings of the McMaster Conference on Contemporary Ukraine, October 1974. Oakville, Ontario 1975. pp. 283-305.
  • Gerhard Simon: Ukraine on the way - where to? In the S. (Ed.): The new Ukraine. Society - Economy - Politics (1991-2001). Cologne; Weimar; Vienna 2002. ISBN 3-412-12401-X . Pp. 5-27.
  • Lowell Tillett: Ukrainian Nationalism and the Fall of Shelest. In: Slavic Review , Vol. 34, No. 4: 753-768 (1975).

Web links

Commons : Petro Schelest  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Sources & Notes

  1. ↑ Gorkom = city committee of the party
  2. ↑ Obkom = Committee of the Oblast
  3. ↑ Jaroslaw Pelenski: "Shelest and His Period in Soviet Ukraine, 1963-1972: A Revival of Controlled Ukrainian Autonomism." In: Peter J. Potichnyj (ed.): Ukraine in the Seventies. Papers and Proceedings of the McMaster Conference on Contemporary Ukraine, October 1974. Oakville, Ontario 1975. pp. 283-305. Here: p. 286.
  4. ↑ Ernst Lüdemann: "To the solution of the national question in the Soviet-Ukrainian historiography." In: Research on Eastern European History 40 (1988). Pp. 229-395. Here: p. 240
  5. ↑ Yaroslav Bilinsky: "The Communist Party of Ukraine after 1966." In: Peter J. Potichnyj (ed.): Ukraine in the Seventies. Papers and Proceedings of the McMaster Conference on Contemporary Ukraine, October 1974. Oakville 1975. pp. 239-266. Here: p. 248.
  6. ↑ Pelenski, p. 286ff.
  7. ↑ Jurij Danyljuk: "Vidrodžujučy storinky mynuloho." In: Jurij Danyljuk u. a .: Zberežemo tuju slavu. Hromads'kyj ruch za uvičnennja istoriï ukraïns'koho kozactva v druhij polovyni 50-ch - 80-ch rr. XX st. Zbirnyk dokumentiv ta materialiv. Chmel'nyc'kyj; Kiev 1997. pp. 6-23. Here: p. 7.
  8. ↑ Jaroslaw Hrycak: Historia narodu. Lublin 2000. p. 287
  9. ↑ Danyljuk, p. 12ff.
  10. ↑ Pelenski, pp. 287f.
  11. ↑ Lüdemann, p. 240.
  12. ↑ Pelensky, p. 285.
  13. ↑ The text of the theses in the Russian original and in German translation in: Christian Ganzer: Soviet heritage and Ukrainian nation. The Museum of the History of Zaporozhian Cossacks on the island of Khortycja. With a foreword by Frank Golczewski. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2005 (Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, vol. 19). ISBN 3-89821-504-0 , pp. 184-220.
  14. ^ Lowell Tillett: "Ukrainian Nationalism and the Fall of Shelest." In: Slavic Review, Vol. 34, No. 4: 753-768 (1975). Here: p. 759f.
  15. ↑ Pelensky, p. 285
  16. ↑ Bohdan Nahaylo: The Ukrainian Resurgence. London 1999. ISBN 1-85065-168-X . P. 26ff.
  17. ↑ Karel C. Berkhoff: “'Brothers, We Are All of Cossack Stock': Campaign in Ukrainian Newspapers on the Eve of Independence.” In: Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Vol. XXI (1997). Pp. 119-140. Here: p. 120.
  18. ↑ "Pro serjozni nedoliky i pomylky odnijeï knyhy." (German: "About serious shortcomings and mistakes in a certain book.") In: Komunist Ukraïny (ukr .: Комуніст України), 1973, No. 4. pp. 77-82 .
  19. ↑ Nahaylo, p. 33
  20. ↑ Tillet: Public Denunciation indicates that the resignation took place because of Schelest's attitude towards the nation, not because of his foreign policy line, p. 767; Bilinsky: Dismissal because of tough foreign policy and Nixon visit, p. 250, but also economic demands, conflict with Brezhnev and Ukrainian nationalism played a role, p. 251; Pelensky thinks that the dismissal because of the Nixon visit and foreign policy is doubtful and more likely because of the book Ukrajino, nascha radjanska (Nation, Economy, KP), p. 284.
  21. ↑ Gerhard Simon: “The Ukraine on the way - where to?” In: Ders. (Ed.): The new Ukraine. Society - Economy - Politics (1991–2001). Cologne; Weimar; Vienna 2002. ISBN 3-412-12401-X . Pp. 5-27. Here: p. 9.
personal data
SURNAME Schelest, Petro
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schelest, Pyotr Efimowitsch; Шелест, Петро (Ukrainian); Шелест, Пётр Ефимович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Soviet and Ukrainian politicians
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Andrejewka , Kharkov Governorate , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1996
Place of death near Moscow