Establishment of the soviet administration in the carpathian region through the use of the open forms of punishment (1944 - 1954)

Abstract

Summary. The publication’s purpose. The purpose of this article is to reveal the peculiarities of the use of the public forms of the punishment and the intimidation (open trials and executions, exposing of the victim bodies to the general survey, the rebel graves destruction) of the nationalists and local residents who supported the Ukrainian liberation movement in the Carpathian region (1945 – 1954) by the Soviet repressive and punitive bodies. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, systematic, scientific approaches, verification, the author’s objectivity, as well as the use of general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, generalization) and special-historical (historical-genetic, historical-typological, historical-system) methods. The scientific novelty consists in the fact that for the first time on the basis of the unknown and less-known archival documents, the forms of conducting the open trial processes and the executions, exposing of the victim bodies to the general review, and the destruction of the rebel graves have been considered comprehensively. Conclusions. Consequently, the Stalin’s regime used the most brutal measures to overcome the opposition to its policy. The terror against the liberation movement and the local population was encouraged by the supreme leadership of the state. One of the forms of the establishment of the Soviet administration and the struggle against the Ukrainian liberation movement was the policy of intimidating members of the OUN and the UPA and the local population: the open trials and the executions, the exposition of the victims’ bodies to the public, and destroying the rebellious graves. A special importance of the Soviet administration was give to the open trials of the OUN members and the UPA members and the executions aimed at discrediting the activities of the OUN, to form a negative attitude towards the nationalists. However, neither the public executions nor other force and propaganda forms were able to deprive the nationalists of the support and the population assistance, to keep them in fear, as the regime sought for, but it did not contribute to the formation of the pro-Soviet mood. The perspectives of the research is the studythe peculiarities of conducting the open court trials in Volyn region.