«Do not forget about the sword»: Symon Petliura, Ukraine, Israel, and the contentious memory that cannot be given to Moscow

Simon Petliura — an inconvenient hero and a complex historical figure. For Ukraine, he is associated with the army, the UNR, and the struggle against Moscow. For Israel, he is linked with Jewish pain, pogroms, murder in Paris, and the question of historical responsibility.

Simon Petliura was killed almost a hundred years ago. But his name has returned to the Ukrainian conversation not as a date from a textbook, but as a nerve of today's war.

Ukraine is once again at war with Moscow. Once again proving that it is not a 'borderland', not a buffer, not part of a foreign empire, but a separate state with its own army, memory, and right to a future.

And here Petliura's phrase “Do not forget the sword” sounds not like an old political metaphor.

It sounds like a warning.

For Ukraine, Petliura is one of the symbols of a generation that tried to maintain independence after the collapse of the Russian Empire. He was the head of the UNR Directory, the chief ataman of the Ukrainian People's Republic's troops, and a man who understood very early on: statehood without armed force quickly turns into a plea to the enemy for mercy.

But for Israel, this story cannot be only Ukrainian.

Here…

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