Talk:Ukrainian Insurgent Army

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Primary perpetrator?

"It was the primary perpetrator of the ethnic cleansing of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia." it says in lede. I don't dispute that might be correct. However, the source is a non-peer reviewed article by Ewa Siemaszko [1] orginally published in but no longer available at the website of the Institute of National Remembrance. I suggest the statement be removed unless another more reliable source can be found for it. Jabbi (talk) 18:39, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

@Jabbi - Ewa Siemaszko is a WP:RS but there are also plenty of other sources available and easy to locate with a simple google book search. I disagree with your suggestion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 19:22, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

GizzyCatBella, save us some time please and either show how she's RS or find another source. --Jabbi (talk) 19:25, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I did. - GizzyCatBella🍁 19:33, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Some might perhaps benefit from reading this book:

Attacks on Poles during the massacres in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were marked with extreme sadism and brutality. Rape, torture and mutilation were commonplace. Poles were burned alive, flayed, impaled, crucified, disembowelled, dismembered and beheaded. Women were gang raped and had their breasts sliced off, children were hacked to pieces with axes, babies were impaled on bayonets and pitchforks or bashed against trees.

The atrocities were carried out indiscriminately and without restraint. The victims, regardless of their age or gender, were routinely tortured to death. Norman Davies in No Simple Victory gives a short but shocking description of the massacres:

Villages were torched. Roman Catholic priests were axed or crucified. Churches were burned with all their parishioners. Isolated farms were attacked by gangs carrying pitchforks and kitchen knives. Throats were cut. Pregnant women were bayoneted. Children were cut in two. Men were ambushed in the field and led away. The perpetrators could not determine the province's future. But at least they could determine that it would be a future without Poles.

GizzyCatBella🍁 19:38, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry GizzyCatBella. I don't understand what point you're trying to make here. I don't think a statement about the "[UPA being] the primary perpetrator of the ethnic cleansing of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia." should supported by a disputable source. There is no suggestion that the massacres weren't barbaric, etc. nor even that the statement is incorrect, only that the statement should have a reliable source, especially as it is in the lede. We've been here before I think... --Jabbi (talk) 19:44, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Who was a primary perpetrator? - GizzyCatBella🍁 19:52, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

And why Ewa Siemaszko is not a WP:RS? - GizzyCatBella🍁 19:53, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

The UPA clearly was the primary perpetrator as is supported by Snyder and others, like you say. Thanks for adding that source. My suggestion to remove the original statement was not because I questioned the statement, only the source behind it. Ewa Siemaszko is not an academic, her publications are not peer-reviewed, the source was archived from the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, a Polish institution with the mandate to ensure and safeguard the legacy of the victims of this massacre and other victims. On her article page there is some discussion of how an Ukrainian historian disputes her findings, which is not surprising. In my view it is possible to use her as a source, but rarely as an authoritative source. Conversely, the same applies to the Ukrainian historian if we are discussing non-peer-reviewed material. Jabbi (talk) 20:01, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Having read through this, I think it's quite obvious actually that this particular source should be removed. Jabbi (talk) 20:27, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I disagree this particular source by Ewa Siemiaszko should be removed - GizzyCatBella🍁 20:35, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, it's not great. The author is probably reliable, but the pdf doesn't include information on where it was published, there is nothing about it being peer reviewed. If we have better sources for the same fact, there is no need to keep this source here anymore. I don't think we HAVE to remove it, but I don't see a pressing need to KEEP it either. However, on another note, IPN is generally considered a reliable source; the RSN discussion did not end in a consensus saying otherwise. It's pretty much a WP:DEADHORSE. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:38, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I would say that it would be prudent to remove this source for the following reasons:

• it is not clear that this is a final publication, it might a draft for all we know
• there are no sources cited, nothing to substantiate the claims otherwise made in this article
• the article summarizes work done by Ewa and her father Władysław which is not peer-reviewed
• the article argues strongly for a particular viewpoint that there is not academic consensus for, and has even been refuted, namely that the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia was an act of genocide.

Jabbi (talk) 20:34, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

GizzyCatBella, do you still oppose removing the source? if so, I expect to put it forward at RS noticeboard. --Jabbi (talk) 14:38, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Jabbi - Did you see other sources present in the article such as this one for example? (there are more) What do you have to say about it? - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:43, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

How about this one @Jabbi ? - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:49, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Jabbi You question a source written by a scholar but you have no issues with a source written by random blogger? Fix that first please, then we will talk about Ewa Siemiaszko. - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:52, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I can continue if you want, later ending on the Encyclopedia of Ukraine who’s editor and chief was a former Nazi collaborator. - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:57, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that you are trying to distract from the present issue. For your benefit I had a look at the first source you mentioned and will say that, at first glance, that source does not seem reliable and should be removed. However, it seems to contain citations and the title seems to be "Military history" volumes 5-6 2002. So quite possibly it is an Ukrainian academic publication. Tricky.

I feel it is strange to have to explain to you that you have no authority to dictate in what order things happen here on Wikipedia. I have been editing various pages in this general historical area and came across this in the lede. I have no obligation to fix every possible inaccuracy in this article and you certainly don't have any say in that.

As the Polish Wikipedia article on Ewa Siemaszko explains, she is not a scholar but a "Polish food technologist engineer [3] [4] , since 1990 also a researcher of the genocide committed against Poles in Volhynia during World War II [5]". The book she researched and published with her father is considered to be a great achievement in terms of gathering together accounts and data but it acknowledged to be the work of "amateur historians" and as a consequence not 100% reliable. --Jabbi (talk) 15:09, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

No, I’m not trying to distract anything. - GizzyCatBella🍁 15:10, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

And I’ll remind you your original request. You wanted statement be removed that UPA was the main perpetrator of the massacres. You said it that might be correct Might be correct?! (but not necessarily?!?) So I’ll asking you again. Who was the perpetrator of the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia ? - GizzyCatBella🍁 15:10, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

.. and to end this Jabbi - You can remove Siemiaszko for what I care, but after you take care of random internet blogs being used as sources that are of a way lesser quality (unacceptable). Thank you. - GizzyCatBella🍁 15:24, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

GizzyCatBella, thank you. I've responded to this earlier, as you should be aware of, but I'll repeat again. I said "Might be correct" only because the validity of the statement supported by the source was irrelevant, not because I questioned it. It is the source that was the problem, I fully anticipated there to be other sources, such as Snyder which you quickly found. Perhaps I would have saved us some time by just replacing it directly. Happy new year --Jabbi (talk) 15:30, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Same to you 👍 - GizzyCatBella🍁 00:51, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

It’s hard to see what the relevance of that discussion to this one is. Volunteer Marek 02:55, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Granted, I skimmed that discussion a little hastily. My impression was that IPN was considered to have an overly political agenda (something it has been accused of and perhaps hasn't gone away entirely actually). However, I am not a big fan of dead horses. Jabbi (talk) 20:36, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

An organization can have an overly political agenda, but its research publications can still be considered reliable. There is a ton of similar cases from all countries and fields. Heck, there are famous scholars out there who are quite "political" aka "controversial" yet certainly reliable. Don't confuse neutrality with reliability. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:58, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Project AERODYNAMIC ties to UIA

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was funding Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) as seen in these documents. Should United States of America (USA) government ties to UIA be mentioned? TrolerJeans (talk) 11:42, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

In the history section Jgmac1106 (talk) 15:50, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Source for review

• Bolianovskyi, Andrii (30 March 2021). "Historiography of Confrontation Between Polish and Ukrainian Underground Forces During the Years of the German-Soviet War: Main Tendencies of Interpretation of the Events in Poland". East European Historical Bulletin/Східноєвропейський історичний вісник (18). Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University: 239–251. doi:10.24919/2519-058x.18.226505. ISSN 2664-2735.

BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:01, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Bolianoovskyi is a credible source. You can cite information from this article. Jgmac1106 (talk) 15:49, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

What is the ground for such a conclusion? Paul Siebert (talk) 16:32, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I reviewed this page: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C7&q=Bolianovskyi%2C+Andrii+&btnG= there are many scholars in this space who may not be free of State sponsored support so if I am mistaken and this person does represent state based scholarship let me know. Jgmac1106 (talk) 17:28, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

It seems you totally misunderstand how Western science works. What you call "state sponsored support" is research grants distributed by national science agencies. These grants by no means make a recipient dependent. In addition, most scholars have tenure, which makes them totally independent of any state. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:45, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

With regard to Andrii Bolianovskyi, what is more important is the this. It seems this author is not widely cited, and mostly by Ukrainian peers, so it seems he is being essentially ignored by the international scholarly community. IMO, that is a problem. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:51, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

That is the author. What of the peer reviewed journal? How does East European Historical Bulletin supported by Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University not meet the Wikipedia criteria for a reliable source? Is it on the banned source list? Are you suggesting no primarily Ukrainian scholarship has a place in this article? Jgmac1106 (talk) 18:27, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

According to formal criteria, this journal is peer-reviewed. However, the quality of its publications and of the peer-review procedure is unknown.

Moreover, as far as I know, a PhD degree is social sciences obtained in Russia is usually not considered in the West as PhD, and it seems the situation is the same with Ukrainian PhD diploma (as far as I know, the state of social sciences in Ukraine does not differ significantly from that in Russia).

The journal has unknown impact-factor, other metrics is also non-impressive. Recently, we had a discussion about Glaukopis, which is also formally "peer-reviewed, and came to a conclusion that it is not a reliable source.

I would be very cautious with this type journals, because, for example, in Russia, there is a lot of "peer reviewed" journals of similar (or even higher) quality this is an exmple that I found in a couple of mouse clicks. If we include your source, what prevents us from including Russian peer-reviewed journal printed by numerous low rank universities?

BTW, it seems you forgot to self-revert, as two users asked you. Please, do that. That will create a much more calm and friendly atmosphere, and may facilitate implementation of your changes, at least, partially. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:53, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Image files

Is anybody with access to the languages and sources able to provide more contextual information about the second and third pictures in the article? It would be helpful to give some sense of when the second one is from and how it relates to the UPA's history. The third one includes a Ukrainian nationalist military symbol but it doesn't exactly resemble the iconography in the article and it looks to me like UPA may not be mentioned in the monument (it says something like Ukrainian Formative Army???). BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:58, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Restructuring Lede

I am restructuring the article and adding a dfn, history, belligerents, etc to match the text structure of other articles on partisan and guerilla units. Further I am replacing the noted citations which other editors have ntoes are either bias or low quality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jgmac1106 (talk • contribs) 15:11, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Paul Seibert the article is also facutally incoreect as written in the DFN the UPA was not just OUN-B. By describing the military wing of the OUN as just OUN-B is incorrect. Jgmac1106 (talk) 15:36, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Paul Seibert look at the line to start the second pagraph: "OUN's goal was to drive out occupying powers and set up an independent government, it would be achieved by a national revolution led by a leader with dictatorial power; OUN accepted violence as a political tool against enemies of their cause"

The article is about the UPA and not OUN, further why "with dictorial power" or

"OUN accepted violence as a political tool against enemies of their cause""

do you know of partisan militias that did not use violence?

You have to be careful with articles about Ukrainian Nationalism as efforts for 8o years have been made to cast UPA as villains and in the last 20, especialy since Orange Revolution efforts to cast the UPA as National heroes.

There is zero reason to put such an emphasis on "Bandera" I tried to rewrite the DFN so people understand it was followers of Bandera who first formed the military wing of OUN. Jgmac1106 (talk) 15:45, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Paul Siebert what I am trying to do is reformulate the definition of the UPA page to include a dfn. Further the sources I am using address notes from past editors that current citations lack credibility.

The UPA is not defined by the Polish Ukrainian conflict. That disucssion does not belong in the dfn.

Thank you for starting the discussion. Please, do the following:

• Move this section to the bottom of the talk page. That would be in accordance with our rules. In future, start a new topic using the "Add tooic" button.
• Sign your last post by adding two dashes and four tildas.

Since the discussion is still is in progress, please, self-revert and wait until the talk page discussion comes to some consensus. Otherwise, I'll have to undo your bold changes.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:29, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

look at old revision there was a warning that the first citation: Encyclopedia of Ukraine was used. The note in the article stated a biad nature. I replaced with a peer review article.

I replaced "Vedeneyev, D. Military Field Gendarmerie – special body of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. "Voyenna Istoriya" magazine. 2002. " A magazine article with a peer reviewed citation and did not remove the claim.

I did not remove Stepan Bandera in the reference in the dfn but framed it in away that trias to capture historical reference without bias.

I did reframe and remove "UPA carried out the ethnic cleansing of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, murdering tens of thousands of Poles and Jews, mostly women and children." from the DFN. It belongs in the Poland section of the article. It is not the dfn of the UIA/UPA.

I did not remove nor downplay the article. The goal was to craft a dfn using peer reviewed research that did not play to "hero" or "villian" narrative. Jgmac1106 (talk) 17:24, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

(also not sure if I should revert since you gave me a DS alert) Jgmac1106 (talk) 17:25, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I gave you a DS alert because this topic is under DS, and all conflicts (if there will be any conflict) are supposed to be ultimately resolved at WP:AE. However, to make it possible, all parties are supposed to be properly warned about DS. I am not sure if you had been warned during the last year, and that is why I posted that template.

And, keep in mind, that by placing the DS template, I warned you and, simultaneously, warned myself.

I am not sure why Encyclopedia of Ukraine was labelled as unreliable.

WRT Poland section, massacre of Poles was one of the main crimes committed by UPA. Therefore, it belongs to both Polish section and the lede.

In general, you edits are to massive to be implemented without a talk page discussion. Please, revert all your edits and give us a summary of what you want to do, which sources you want to add, and which sources you are going to replace. By asking you to self-revert, I am not implying that I totally disagree. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:42, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

An encyclopedia is by definition a secondary source. I utilized Plokhy's "The Gates of Europe" as my primary source and then relied on peer reviewed research.

Again as I stated to the other editor, I can't find other partisan militia articles that would structure the lede in the way you suggest. Jgmac1106 (talk) 18:08, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I meant, first citation, not as a primary source. The other articles I cited are well known Eastern European scholars and their work peer reviewed. Jgmac1106 (talk) 18:09, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

You should revert because you removed well-sourced information. Also massacres conducted by UPA are certainly defining for UPA and it should be included in the lead (which you btw removed). What's more you added claims that UPA had 100k soldiers behind Soviet lines, which isn't based on RS and according to my knowledge not true. Please restore the article to the state it was before any of your changes. Marcelus (talk) 17:42, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I read through articles about IRA,Provo, FARC, KLFA, Italian Resistance, and Yugoslav Partisans. I can find no other article about a partisan militia that highlights a specific incident of ethnic conflict as the dfn. The massacres are important but if one defined "what is UPA/UIA" a gist statement should not be written in a way that defines OUN and/or the military wing soley by the Polish and Ukrainian conflict. Jgmac1106 (talk) 17:59, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

There is a big difference between UPA and other rebels listed by you. Everybody knows about murder of Jews and Poles by UPA members, but other achievements of UPA are much less obvious. Therefore, there is no reason to organise this article by analogy with the articles about, e.g. Italian of Yugoslav partisans. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:12, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

What is the difference? It seems to me when you say "big difference" you are speaking with a little bit of bias. Modifiers have a tendency to indicate bias.

My goal is to bring this article about a partisan militia inline with other articles about [artisan militias. One way to do this is to align text structure of other articles who have a higher rating.

This is a C- class article for a reason. It needs work. Removing attempts to draw "big differences" is part of that work. Jgmac1106 (talk) 18:16, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

No bias. Actually, I am interested to see the sources about UPA's activity against Nazi Germany. So far, I found nothing serious. English scholarly sources tell mostly about UPA's role in the Holocaust and murder of Poles. I recall Mark Solonin mentioned that during Nazi occupation, UPA was controlling some region around some important railway hub, thereby preventing attacks of this strategic railway by Soviet partisans (so the Germans were able to use it for their Eastern Front campaign). And it seems there were virtually no conflicts between UPA and Werhmacht. Therefore, the major activity of UPA during Nazi occupation was the Holocaust and murder of Poles. You must agree that that makes UPA significantly different from, e.g. Yugoslav Italian partisans. WRT UPA's activity after Soviet pushed Germans from Ukraine, it cannot be presented out of a context of their previous deeds.

That is what I know from the sources available for me. From English sources.

The arguments about Soviet misinformation and propaganda are not working here. Whereas the Soviet propaganda against UPA was pretty active in Ukraine, that was "for internal use only". In the rest of the USSR, the concept was totally different: any information about UPA (both negative and positive) was suppressed, they were being described as a small group of nationalists, which had virtually no support from true Ukrainians. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:34, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I still mentioned the massacre. Check now. I added Rudling so people can not say scholars from both sides of "hero v villian" are not represented

I also explicitly identified that OUN had a fascist philosophy and split into OUN-B which included the future UPA.

I changed ethnic violence to ethnic cleansing and massacre. I didn't restore the direct quote. You don't use direct quotes in a lede Jgmac1106 (talk) 19:07, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

When OUN-B declared Ukrainian statehood when Germany went to war with Soviet Union did Htiler grant it or throw Bandera and Stets’ko into prisons and then concentration camps?

In terms of actions against Nazi Germany when the OUN-B left the auxillary and took their weapons in 1943..that is military action against Nazi Germany...

There are over 60 attacks. They are documented in this article Jgmac1106 (talk) 19:25, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I was unable to find this information in Yurchuk. Can you please drop a quote or at least a page number? Paul Siebert (talk) 20:31, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

By the way, the article says that UPA had 100,000 troops fighting behind enemy Soviet lines by 1944. What about pre-1944 time? How many fighters were in UPA under German occupation? It seems we should clearly explain that the size of UPA was different during different moments of its history. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:34, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

The citation to the size of the UPA is from "The Gates of Europe" page 281. "The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which had close to 100,000"

In fact further down in this article I think an inflated number of 200,000 is used. Jgmac1106 (talk) 18:11, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Actually, Plokhy is a reliable source, no objections. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:24, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert - Paul, in order to edit this topic area, all accounts are required to have extended confirmed credentials, as stated here. However, Jgmac1106 does not possess these credentials as they currently have a total of 227 edits. While I do not wish to intervene at this time, I want to bring this fact to your attention. - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:48, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Change to Chronological History and/or Area of Operations

The page currently has a geographic text structure for history. I tried to compare other partisan militia pages, IRA,Provo, FARC, KLFA etc. We should try to align to other articles and best practices in history articles.

I propose creating a History section and following a chronological text structure. This can be arranged in geographic subheadings or paragraphs. The sections are also out of balance with actions against Soviet Union accounting for way more characters

A Historical Period 1. Soviet Union 2. Poland 3. Germany

B Historical Period 1. Soviet Union 2. Poland 3. Germany

etc Jgmac1106 (talk) 17:54, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Remove Military Rank and Insignia

This article is too long. The Rank and Insignia should be removed to a different article similar to other military unit articles. Jgmac1106 (talk) 18:12, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

No objections Paul Siebert (talk) 19:41, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Looking at other top level military and partisan pages rankings and insignia are included. I will just copy the common table format used in B and A military history articles. Jgmac1106 (talk) 20:20, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Greeting, Anthem, Flag, Wards to Infobox

To reflect other articles about partisan militias and to shorten this too long article I propose moving these three sections to the infobox Jgmac1106 (talk) 19:31, 16 April 2023 (UTC)