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John-Paul Himka

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John-Paul Himka
Іван-Павло Химка
Born (1949-05-18) May 18, 1949 (age 75)[1]
Detroit, Michigan, US[1]
Academic background
EducationUniversity of Michigan BA (1971) Byzantine-Slavonic Studies
Ph.D. History[1]
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
Thesis"Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890" (1977)
Academic work
DisciplineHistory
InstitutionsUniversity of Alberta
Main interestsHistory of Eastern Europe, Ukraine[2]

John-Paul Himka[a] (born May 18, 1949) is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton.[1] Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively.[1] The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. As a historian Himka was a Marxist in the 1970s–80s, but became influenced by postmodernism in the 1990s. In 2012 he defined his methodology in history as "eclectic".[3]

Life

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Himka is of mixed ethnic background, Ukrainian (on father's side) and Italian (on mother's). Initially, he wanted to become a Greek Catholic priest and studied at St. Basil Seminary in Stamford, Connecticut. However, due to the radicalization of his political views to the left by the end of the 1960s he did not pursue that vocation.[3]

Career

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Beginning in 1977, he taught at University of Alberta, Department of History and Classics.[4] He became full Professor in 1992 and retired from the university in 2014.[1] Himka is the recipient of several awards and fellowships, most notably the Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2006, the Philip Lawson Award for Excellence in Teaching,[5] and the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Research Excellence.[6] He served as co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine for three volumes devoted to history.[7]

Himka, who traveled to Ukraine to conduct research since 1976, began to work with academics at Lviv University's Department of History. Initially Himka focused on Galicia's social history in the 19th and 20th centuries.[8] The 1988 1000th anniversary of the Christianization of Rus' kindled his interest in the history of the Greek Catholic Church and the influence of the church on the development of Ukrainian nationalism.[8] In 2002 he researched socialism in Habsburg Galicia, a formerly autonomous region in Western Ukraine, sacred culture of the Eastern Slavs (on iconography in particular) and the Holocaust in Ukraine. Since the late 1990s his contention with what he calls Ukrainian "nationalist historical myths" became subject of increasing, sometimes heated, debates both in Ukraine and Ukrainian Diaspora (especially in North America). Himka challenged the interpretation of Holodomor as a genocide and the view that Ukrainian nationalism and nationalists played no or almost no role in the Holocaust in Ukraine. He also opposed official glorification of such nationalistic heroes as Roman Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera in Ukraine during the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko.[3]

The fundamental point of contention between the adherents of the national myth and me is whether or not the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (hereafter OUN) and its armed force, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (hereafter UPA, from its Ukrainian initials) participated in the Holocaust. They deny this entirely. My research indicates, however, as does the research of scholars around the world, that the participation was significant.

— John-Paul Himka [6]

In his 1996 article, Krakivski visti and the Jews, 1943: A Contribution to the History of Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during the Second World War, published in the Journal of Ukrainian Studies, based on earlier Ukrainian-language versions presented in 1991 in Kyiv and 1993 in Jerusalem at Ukrainian-Jewish relations conferences, Himka wrote that the history of Ukrainian-Jewish relations during WWII remained surprisingly underinvestigated. Himka cited Raul Hilberg's "monumental study", The Destruction of the European Jews as the source used by historians.[9] In response to this lacuna, Himka presented his detailed study of the publishing of a series of antisemitic articles in 1943 in the "flagship of Ukrainian journalism under Nazi occupation," Krakov's daily newspaper Krakivs'ki Visti.[10]: 82  The primary sources for his study included the articles as well as the records of the Krakivs'ki Visti maintained by Ukrainian-Canadian Michael Chomiak, who was born in Ukraine in the 1910s as Mykhailo Khomiak and changed his name to Michael Chomiak when he emigrated to Canada at the end of WWII. The Provincial Archives of Alberta acquired Chomiak's records in 1985 following Chomiak's death. He was the chief editor of Krakivs'ki Visti from 1940 to 1945. Himka is his son-in-law.[10]: 82  Himka described how Krakivs'ki Visti "played an important and, generally, positive role in Ukrainian life,"[10]: 83  "serving as a buffer between the German occupation authorities and the population of the Generalgouvernement."[10]: 84  In response to a May 1943 order by the German press chief, the newspaper published antisemitic articles from May 25 through July[10]: 85  which were received negatively by the Ukrainian intelligentsia in general.[10]: 95 

Himka completed a series of three major studies on the history of Ukrainian Galicia in the 19th century. The first, Socialism in Galicia: the emergence of Polish social democracy and Ukrainian radicalism (1860–1890) was published in 1983.[11] The second, Galician Villagers and the Ukrainian National Movement in the Nineteenth Century[12] was published in 1988. The third, Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine: The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867–1900, which is "devoted to the interrelations between church and state", was published in 1999.[13] In a book review in the Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Larry Wolff described Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine as a subtle, sophisticated and insightful account of an "important and profoundly complex historical problem." Wolff writes that Himka's research "makes the case for a contingent and evolutionary perspective on nationality in which several different forms and inflections of national identity jostle one another in cultural competition, enhanced or diminished by various historical forces, including religion, without any predetermined outcome." Himka, "engaged with the all-important issue of national identity, makes a brilliant contribution, not just to the history of Ukrainian nationality, but also to the general theoretical understanding of modern nationalism."[14]: 476 [15]: 397  Himka employs "concepts of nationality and nationalism developed by Ernest Gellner, E.J. Hobsbawm, and Miroslav Hroch.[16] Himka observed that the "Greek Catholic case in Galicia" is "a stunningly transparent instance of how much agency and choice can be involved in the construction of nationality."[13]: 163 

In his 2005 article, War Criminality: A Blank Spot in the Collective Memory of the Ukrainian Diaspora War Criminality[17] he examined material that emerged from an important Ukrainian-Jewish relations conference held in 1983, that happened to be held on the 50th anniversary of the Soviet famine of 1932–33.[18] as well as "current electronic media and recent years of The Ukrainian Weekly, supplemented with a retrospective sampling of articles from Svoboda."[18] At the 1983 conference, Professor Yaroslav Bilinsky denied "a causal connection between alleged collaboration of Jewish-born Communists in the collectivization of agriculture and the Great Famine and any proven collaboration of Ukrainian-born extremists in the Holocaust."'[17]

His 2009 book, Last Judgment Iconography in the Carpathians, was the result of ten years of research "throughout the region of the Carpathian Mountains, where he "found a distinctive and transnational blending of Gothic, Byzantine, and Novgorodian art."[19]

In his chapter Ethnicity and the Reporting of Mass Murder: Krakivs′ki visti, the NKVD Murders of 1941, and the Vinnytsia Exhumation,[20] Himka examined how the Krakivs'ki Visti, an "important [Ukrainian] nationalist newspaper" "reported on two cases of mass violence by the Soviets, the 1941 NKVD prisoner massacres and the 1943 Vinnytsia massacre. Himka wrote that Krakivs'ki Visti "ethnicized both perpetrators and victims, ascribing primarily Jewish identity to the former and depicting the latter as almost exclusively Ukrainian."[21]: 17 

Personal life

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John-Paul Himka is married to Chrystia Chomiak,[1] the daughter of Michael Chomiak (1905 – 1984),[22][23] who was an editor of the Ukrainian antisemitic newspaper Krakivs'ki Visti. Himka learned of this only after Chomiak died in 1984.[24][25] They have two children.[1]

Awards

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He was awarded the 2001-2002 Killam Annual Professorship[8]

  • Antonovych prize (1988)
  • Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2006)
  • Philip Lawson Award for Excellence in Teaching [5]
  • J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Research Excellence

Bibliography

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Books
  • Socialism in Galicia: The Emergence of Polish Social Democracy and Ukrainian Radicalism (1860–1890) (1983)
  • Galician Villagers and the Ukrainian National Movement in the Nineteenth Century, Palgrave Macmillan (1988)
  • Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine: The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867–1900 (1999)
  • Last Judgment Iconography in the Carpathians (2009)
  • Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust: OUN and UPA’s Participation in the Destruction of Ukrainian Jewry, 1941–1944 (2021)
Edited and co-edited volumes
  • (Assistant editor.) Rethinking Ukrainian History (1981)
  • (Editor, translator and author of introduction.) Rosdolsky, Roman. Engels and the "Nonhistoric" Peoples: The National Question in the Revolution of 1848 (1986)
  • Galicia and Bukovina: A Research Handbook about Western Ukraine, Late 19th and 20th Centuries (1990)
  • Co-editor (with Hans-Joachim Torke). German-Ukrainian Relations in Historical Perspective (1994)
  • Co-editor (with Andriy Zayarnyuk). Letters from Heaven: Popular Religion in Russia and Ukraine (2006)
  • Co-editor (with Joanna Beata Michlic). Bringing the Dark Past to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Post-Communist Europe (2013)

Notes

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  1. ^ Ukrainian: Іван-Павло Химка, romanized: Ivan-Pavlo Khymka

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Himka, John-Paul. "John-Paul Himka: CV". University of Alberta, Department of History and Classics. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 January 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  2. ^ "John-Paul Himka". UAlberta.academia.edu. nd. Retrieved June 10, 2018.
  3. ^ a b c Інтерв'ю: Іван-Павло Химка: 'Я пережив багато методологічних мод' [Interview: John Paul Himka 'I have lived through many methodological trends'] (in Ukrainian). Historians.in.ua. 2 April 2012. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  4. ^ John-Paul Himka, Curriculum vitae. Archived 2017-01-27 at the Wayback Machine Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta.
  5. ^ a b Fellow Professor John-Paul Himka. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  6. ^ a b John-Paul Himka, Challenging the Myths of Twentieth-Century Ukrainian History. Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, page 3 in PDF.
  7. ^ John-Paul Himka Archived 2012-04-16 at the Wayback Machine, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
  8. ^ a b c Janelle, Jacqueline (February 8, 2002). "The history of Dr. John-Paul Himka: Killam professor digs into history before it was history". FOLIO, University of Alberta. Retrieved June 10, 2018.
  9. ^ Hinberg, Raul (2003) [1961]. The Destruction of the European Jews. Yale University Press. pp. 1, 388. ISBN 0300095929.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Himka, John-Paul (Summer–Winter 1996). "Krakivski visti and the Jews, 1943: A Contribution to the History of Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during the Second World War". Journal of Ukrainian Studies. 21: 81–95.
  11. ^ Himka, John-Paul (1983). Socialism in Galicia: the emergence of Polish social democracy and Ukrainian radicalism (1860–1890). Harvard University Press for Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. p. 244. ISBN 0-916458-07-5.
  12. ^ Himka, John-Paul (1988). Galician Villagers and the Ukrainian National Movement in the Nineteenth Century. New York: St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 0920862543.
  13. ^ a b Himka, John-Paul (1999). Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine: The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867–1900. Montreal and Kingston: McGill/Queen’s University Press. pp. 236. ISBN 978-0-7735-1812-4.
  14. ^ Wolff, Larry (December 1997). "Review of". Harvard Ukrainian Studies. XXI (3–4): 475. JSTOR 41036711.
  15. ^ Plokhy, Serhii (September 1, 2000). "Review: Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine. The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867-1900 by John-Paul Himka". Canadian Slavonic Papers. 42 (3). Ottawa, Ontario: 397–399. JSTOR 40870196.
  16. ^ Wozniak, Peter (July 1999). "Review of Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine". H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and the Social Sciences: Habsburg.
  17. ^ a b "War Criminality: A Blank Spot in the Collective Memory of the Ukrainian Diaspora". Spaces of Identity. 5 (1). April 11, 2005. Retrieved June 10, 2018.
  18. ^ a b Potichnyj, Peter J.; Aster, Howard, eds. (1988). Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
  19. ^ Himka, John-Paul (2009). Last Judgment Iconography in the Carpathians. Scholarly Publishing. p. 328. ISBN 978-0802098092.
  20. ^ Himka, John-Paul (15 February 2013). Bartov, Omer; Weitz, Eric D. (eds.). Ethnicity and the Reporting of Mass Murder: Krakivs′ki visti, the NKVD Murders of 1941, and the Vinnytsia Exhumation. Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands. Bloomington: Indiana University Press Year=2013. p. 528. ISBN 978-0-253-00635-6.
  21. ^ Bartov, Omer; Weitz, Eric D. (eds.). Introduction. Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands. Bloomington: Indiana University Press Year=2013.
  22. ^ Colby Cosh (March 8, 2017). "Of course it's 'news' that Freeland's grampa was a Nazi collaborator, even if the Russians are spreading it". National Post.
  23. ^ John-Paul Himka. "Ethnicity and the Reporting of Mass Murder: Krakivs'ki visti, the NKVD Murders of 1941, and the Vinnytsia Exhumation". Time and Space. Lviv: University of Alberta. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2017-03-10. Krakivs'ki visti published materials from German papers, especially the Nazi party organ Völkischer Beobachter, which appeared frequently. Articles were also translated from Berliner Illustrierte Nachtausgabe and all most important Berlin papers.
  24. ^ Robert Fife, Ottawa Bureau Chief (March 7, 2017). "Freeland knew her grandfather was editor of Nazi newspaper". The Globe and Mail. Although [Himka] acknowledged that Mr. Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator, he maintained that the Germans made the editorial decisions to run anti-Semitic articles and other Nazi propaganda.
  25. ^ David Pugliese (March 8, 2017). "Chrystia Freeland's granddad was indeed a Nazi collaborator – so much for Russian disinformation". Ottawa Citizen. Chomiak edited the paper first in Krakow (Cracow), Poland and then in Vienna. The reason he edited the paper in Vienna was because he had to flee with his Nazis colleagues as the Russians advanced into Poland.
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