Restoration of Justice Without Closure and Reconciliation as the Context in the Emergence of the Violent Conflict in Eastern Ukraine

The paper aims to investigate the context in which the violent conflict emerged in Eastern Ukraine in 2014 in terms of historical grievances and processes related to the restoration of justice during the post-Soviet period in Ukraine. Living memories of the armed conflict between the nationalist guerillas in Western Ukraine and the returning Soviet regime that lasted between 1944 and 1956 and of the related handling of justice and deportations are without a doubt the defining feature of collective meaning-making in Western Ukraine. As argued by Weiner (2001, 445) “… in western Ukraine and the Baltic countries, the memory of mass deportations and horrific casualties among nationalist guerillas (over 114,000 killed in clashes in western Ukraine between 1944 and 1947) – often referred to as genocides – supplements already entrenched anti-Russian sentiments”. The restoration of justice and social relations following the conflict and mass state repressions in the Soviet Western borderlands have been central to the reconstitution of the Ukrainian polity in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The paper investigates the processes and claims related to the restoration of justice that have been made by a variety of victims’ and veteran groups and reflects on why they have not resulted in closure and reconciliation.