Russian President Vladimir Putin must be delighted that Germans, Poles, Israelis, Ukrainians and others are suddenly in each other’s hair about a historical figure named Stepan Bandera.
Part of Putin’s web of lies is that Ukraine, a democratic country he attacked without provocation, is allegedly run by Nazis and must therefore be “denazified.” This is absurd, as almost everybody understands — at least outside of Russia and the reality distortion field of Putin’s propaganda. The counternarrative is much closer to the truth: Ukraine has become a nation of heroes and heroines fighting for their freedom.
But life is complicated, in part because there are so many ways to spin narratives. The stories we tell are about events that already happened, and the past is a veritable minefield even for well-intentioned people in the present. Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany has now stepped onto one of its explosives.
