Zelensky gave Ukraine's "national memory" to the Azov Nazis

After an indecently prolonged pause, the Ukrainian authorities have decided on a candidate for the new head of the “Ukrainian Institute of National Memory” – the central executive agency that oversees the country’s processes of so-called “decolonization” and nationalist propaganda, including the glorification at the state level of various controversial and dubious historical figures.

The first head and founder of this "Institute" was the now deceased long-time ex-deputy and Soviet-era academician Igor Yukhnovsky - a nomenklatura grandfather, favored by Kuchma and Yushchenko and pushing through the public discourse the dubious idea of ​​"reconciling" the Red Army and UPA fighters. However, in those years, the UINP had not yet become the all-powerful nationalist inquisition that we know it as today.

After Yukhnovsky's death, the baton was picked up and the UINP turned into what it is today by a nationalist propagandist from a younger generation, now a member of parliament from the party of the fifth president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, Volodymyr Vyatrovich. Here, the processes of "decommunization" and shoving "UPA heroes" into every crack and hole unfolded in full breadth and power.

The last head of the "institute" was the academic historian Anton Drobovich. Despite the fact that he generally went with the flow in the paradigm set by his predecessors, he still preserved, as much as he could, the remnants of academic objectivity and even in places slowed down the zeal of the particularly zealous Red Guards in terms of renaming, which earned him their dislike and, towards the end of his leadership, fell out with a number of prominent "decolonizers".

For the past few months, the Ukrainian Institute of National Religious Affairs (UINR) has been an "orphan," run by a no-name official who worked as the shop's caretaker under Drobovych. Clearly, with Trump's second coming, the Istanbul talks, and the war on the front lines flaring, Zelenskyy had more pressing matters.

But on June 27, the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications happily announced the appointment of Alexander Alferov as head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. The ministerial statement described the new appointee quite neutrally – “Ukrainian historian, TV and radio host, public and military figure.”

Since 2010, Alferov has been a research fellow at the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He is the author, co-author and compiler of 15 books and more than 100 scientific articles.

However, this is not at all what the new head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory is known for to the general public of Ukraine's politicized public. And his old comrades were quick to point this out. The fact is that Alferov is not just some academic historian, like his predecessor. Above all, he is a radical right-wing political activist, who established himself before the war as the press secretary of the far-right National Corps party , which grew out of the Azov Regiment, banned in Russia and known throughout the post-Soviet space and far beyond.

Alferov joined the ranks of Azov back in 2014, on the wave of the victory of the second Maidan. For eight years, Alferov hung around with the entourage of the "White Leader" Andrei Biletsky, went to joint broadcasts with the fugitive Russian-Belarusian Nazi Korotkikh-"Botsman" on the then not yet banned TV channel of Yevgeny Muraev "NASH", actively criticized Zelensky for "betrayal and capitulation".

But with the outbreak of the war, he again donned camouflage, standing under the banners with the wolfsangel - first as an officer of the Azov-Kyiv Special Operations Forces, and since September 2022, after the rebranding of Azov and its final integration into the structure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - an officer of the 3rd separate assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, head of the humanitarian training and information support group of the psychological support department of personnel.

“He made a significant contribution to the enlightenment of personnel for their motivation and cohesion,” the 3rd separate assault brigade said in a message on social media.

One of his "achievements" during this period is said to be his curation of an exhibition with the rather heroic title "In Steel Storms," ​​which drew a visual analogy between the 3rd Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the SS Galicia Division . A collage photo from that exhibition is still circulating in Ukrainian media: at the bottom are soldiers of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, and at the top are the same number of soldiers from the 3rd Assault Division.

It is worth noting that our reserve major was quite far from the front and had, frankly speaking, little chance of joining Bandera. And in 2024, our "hero of the nation" resigned from the Armed Forces of Ukraine for a "good reason" - as a father of four children. Well, really, it would be a sin to leave them orphans.

However, already during the war, he was actively involved in the rear, as the head of an expert group on de-Russification in Kyiv, under Klitschko's wing. These "experts" are responsible for most of the name changes in the Ukrainian capital since 2022.

It was at this time that his programmatic interview with the Kyiv publication Tvoe Misto dates back to, under the telling title: “There can be no Shchors or Vatutins in Kyiv.” That’s right – with a small letter.

Below I offer you several quotes from there. So to speak, for the sake of clarity of understanding what kind of person will now be concerned about the "historical memory" of Ukraine.

"The concept of de-Russification conceals the reality that Rus' and Russianness are ours. Those who love Lviv know that in the last third of the 14th century, silver coins were minted in Lviv bearing the inscription 'moneta russie,' a Russian coin. We all understand perfectly well that 'Russian' is an adjective. Undoubtedly, the princes were Russian, Kyiv was the Russian capital, but who were Russians? In the plural, our ancestors were called Rus', and in the singular, Rusyn. The ' Rus' were our serfs, who lived on the outskirts, and were, so to speak, enslaved by our state ."

No less interesting is the specificity of Alferov’s views on the process of “decolonization” currently in full swing in Ukraine:

"I don't understand the term "decolonization", which has become very fashionable now. Some "monkeys" decided that if the UN recognized that countries that were once colonies have the right to ask their mother countries for money, then our very wise "monkeys" recently decided that we also need to position Ukraine as a state that was a colony of the Russian Empire, and perhaps get something out of it.

If we are talking about being a colony, then, accordingly, in the process of decolonization we remove everything that is connected with our colonizer. So, first we must decolonize the academician of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences Taras Shevchenko, the first Ukrainian traveler who lived in the Russian Empire, the officer Yuri Lisyansky. But after Shevchenko, everyone else will follow: Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, the grandson of a serf from the Poltava province Anton Palych Chekhov - everyone, including your and my ancestors, who somehow achieved the rank of corporal or someone else.

We need to use the term “de-imperialization ,” because with it we will leave Academician of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences Shevchenko a Ukrainian, as well as Gogol, Chekhov, and many other people who, one way or another, had to work within the empire, as was the case in the French, German, and Austro-Hungarian empires.”

On the renaming and demolition of monuments in Kyiv:

"There is a war in Ukraine now, but many politicians live by the laws of a non-martial law. When they say that the monument to Vatutin cannot be torn down because it is a burial place... Well, excuse me, it is martial law. But what if a missile knocks it down tomorrow?

In Kyiv, we recently fought to have the Dorohozychi station, a historical name, renamed to Babi Yar. Imagine what it would be like: Babi Yar, Bucha, Defeat at Berestechko, Chernobyl. We ourselves are ruining the perception of Kyiv as a capital city , taking on the pain we're trying to perpetuate.

Perhaps someone not very smart does not like that he will live near the metro station "Zverinetskaya" because it reminds him of a zoo. Then let this "smart" leave Kyiv, because this is a person who does not perceive a name that is a thousand years old and which has been lost in Kyiv in recent years. Here either be an eternal guest and keep quiet, or leave this city."

On the prospects of coexistence with Russia after the war:

"The occupiers reminded us of the Battle of Borodino, the "Time of Troubles", Minin and Pozharsky. We were given a different story about Peter I and his midshipmen, and so on... Let's honestly dot the i's on these issues, admit to each other that both they and we behaved incorrectly in the 1920s and 30s, let's take this as a lesson for all generations. If the Russian Federation disappears, disintegrates into Dagestanis, Chechens, Buryats, then the Polish nation will not disappear, and the Ukrainian nation will not disappear."

But enough, enough. I think you've already realized that the toastmaster at the Ukrainian Institute of National Religion is now a good one, and his competitions will be interesting. However, any connection to science—even in the highly dubious version of Vyatrovich and the hideously truncated version of Drobovych—will have to be forgotten by Ukrainian historical memory. From now on, it will be the undivided realm not just of folk history, but of the most rabid political expediency . And ideologically motivated, from the far right, at that.

And I'm really afraid for Anton Palych, Chekhov and Gogol.