This book is based on Ernest Gyidel’s doctoral dissertation, defended at the University of Alberta in 2019 under the supervision of David R. Marples. Gyidel conducted research primarily in the archival collection of Michael Chomiak (also Mihailo Khomiak), kept at the Provincial Archive of the Province of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Chomiak served as an editor of Krakivski Visti, which appeared in the occupied Kraków from January 1940 through October 1944 and in Vienna until April 1945. The most important part of his archival collection is the editorial archive that survived almost intact. Gyidel also used the newspaper’s collection held in the possession of the notable historian of Ukraine, John-Paul Himka, who inherited it from Chomiak, his father-in law. Himka advised Gyidel on his master’s thesis and it was in conversations with him that the topic of his dissertation was determined.

Gyidel situates his research within the historiography of the “legal” press in Nazi-occupied Poland and Ukraine, more specifically the General Government and Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Intended for consumption by the subjugated populations, those publications were controlled by the authorities. Nevertheless, besides carrying government propaganda and official press releases translated from German, they also contained original materials written and edited by native-speaking journalists and writers. Gyidel makes the case that in comparison with the Polish-language “reptile press,” as it was known at the time, as well as Ukrainian-language periodicals published in Galicia (Lvivski visti) and in Reichkomissariat Ukraine, Krakivski visti enjoyed the largest autonomy. This was due to the policy of Governor-General Hans Frank, who favored Ukrainians as a counterpoise to the Polish majority in the General Government. The newspaper had by far the widest readership, with a print-run of up to seventy thousand. Among its authors were the best talents from both western and eastern Ukraine, as numerous former Soviet Ukrainian intellectuals moved to the west during the Nazi occupation.

Gyidel argues that Krakivski visti can be legitimately seen as a collaborationist outlet but only in a limited sense, as it was not treasonous to the Ukrainian cause. It was broadly nationalist but not in the sense that it supported the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists or OUN, with whom this term is often identified (OUN and Nazis were enemies from the fall of 1941).

The book consists of three parts. The first focuses on the history of the periodical, its editors and its authors, as well as its relations with the Ukrainian Central Committee, a collaborationist body created by Frank with its seat in Kraków, as well as German censors and the OUN, particularly its more moderate melnikite faction. The second and third parts analyze the periodical’s content, with the second, titled “A School of Hate,” covering propaganda materials against the supposed enemies of the Ukrainian nation, such as Poles, Soviets (Russians), and Jews, and the third dedicated to the Ukrainian nation’s glorious past and celebration of its writers and poets.

Gyidel’s research is deep, and his writing is clear and persuasive. His detailed exploration of the intricate relations between the editors and the contributors and of the latter’s motivations for collaboration with the newspaper is fascinating. Gyidel claims that they wrote for the newspaper mostly for financial reasons but also due to their sense of duty to serve the Ukrainian public and Ukrainian national cause. The newspaper did participate in the campaigns initiated by the occupying authorities, particularly against Jews but also against the Poles and Russians, but some materials of that nature were submitted on the authors’ own initiative. Gyidel is at pains to demonstrate that even when published materials belonged in the German propaganda campaigns, the arguments and grievances against the supposed enemies of the Ukrainian nation stemmed from Ukrainians’ own experiences during the preceding decades and were borrowed from the traditional toolkit of Ukrainian nationalism rather than from Nazi Aryan racism. The implications of this claim are insufficiently explored, however, as Nazi antisemitic and anti-Slav rhetoric likewise exploited the Germans’ own grievances against members of those ethnicities and there has never been an impenetrable wall between an ethnic nationalism and a hard-core racism. Still, this book is a highly valuable addition to the intellectual and social history of Ukraine during World War II.