Dany Melkonowicki
Visual Antisemitic Propaganda in the Ukrainian Language: Analysis of German and OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) Propaganda in Eastern Galicia and Volhynia, 1941-1944
2017 | Full access
The triangular coexistence of Ukrainians, Jews, and Poles in Eastern Galicia and Volhynia had experienced centuries-long tensions that eventually culminated in Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in summer 1941. Targeted by German propaganda on the one hand, and by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists’ (OUN) propaganda on the other, the Jews of those regions were held accountable for the calamities that befell the Ukrainians, especially by the promulgation of the “Jewish Bolshevism” stereotype. Through a visual analysis of propaganda forms such as leaflets, posters, and newspaper cartoons, this thesis provides the first scholarly work to encompass both German and OUN visual antisemitic propaganda in the Ukrainian language. The analysis will examine the antisemitic themes and motifs that were employed by the German and the Ukrainian nationalist propagandists, to determine why certain themes were repeatedly chosen, what role or significance they played, and what can be inferred about OUN’s shifting attitudes towards the “Jewish question”. This study hypothesizes that besides the “Jewish Bolshevism” stereotype, the visuals of both German and OUN propaganda contain references which are unique to the Western Ukrainian experience, thus distinguishing it from other German propaganda campaigns to different Soviet populations, and sheds light on the Ukrainian anti-Jewish imagery, traditional and modern alike.
Supervisor:
Prof. Per Anders Rudling