WOMEN IN THE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE OF THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE: THE TRAGEDY OF UNINTENTIONAL BETRAYAL

Abstract

The paper presents an attempt at analytical comprehension and emotional appraisal of the manipulative use of women who took part in the liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people against the Bolshevik system and got trapped by unintentional betrayal. As a result of the NKVD, USSR MSS, KGB’s provocative special operations to destroy the nationalist underground, women underground fighters became unwilling traitors to their comrades and experienced not only the physical and moral torment of captivity, imprisonment, and exile but also the tragedy of personal devaluation and humiliation from recognizing the enemy’s ability to confuse them and use them as a tool to destroy the underground organization. The issue of unintentional betrayal is considered not only as a personal tragedy of a woman victim of a totalitarian system but also in the context of the formation of distorted value foundations of Soviet society, incapable of tolerating otherness, aimed at destroying an independent human personality and turning her into a victim of the regime. It should be emphasized that the tradition of social life based on the principle of «victim-executioner», which has always been the basis of Russian culture and later became the principle of Soviet society, has fully manifested itself in Russia’s current aggressive war against Ukraine. Ruscism has become the heir and direct successor, as well as a reflection of the hateful social order formed during Soviet totalitarianism, which leads to many personal tragedies.