Unlikely Allies

"Unlikely Allies complicates what has been assumed about the functioning of the GG and the centrality of Poles to that story. It is an important study that will contribute to a broader understanding of local agency in eastern Europe under Nazi German occupation and the trajectory of Ukrainian nationalism." —H-Net

"Unlikely Allies is an important contribution to the subject of the Ukrainian nationalists' collaboration with Nazi Germany. Even readers who do not agree with the author's interpretations will appreciate the book as it introduces a lot of new factual material into historiographical circulation." —Austrian History Yearbook

"Accessible, refreshing, and bold, Markiewicz's intelligent study shows how the Nazis' complex and asymmetrical relation to the Ukrainian nationalists was facilitated by ideological similarities and perceived common enemies while complicated by diverging aims and interests. Unlikely Allies reconstructs and contextualizes the activities of the Ukrainian Central Committee (UTsK) in Krakow under Volodymyr Kubiiovych, the top Ukrainian collaborator in occupied Poland. This original study is an indispensable corrective to the prearchival, selective, and highly ideological accounts produced by Kubiiovych himself, and other emigres during the Cold War, which still informs much of the discussions on this topic in Ukraine and in its overseas diaspora." —Per A. Rudling, author of The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906–1931

"Drenched in archival research, this evenhanded study of the Ukrainian Central Committee under Nazi occupation offers a detailed examination of collaboration motivated by nationalism. The central protagonist of the study, Volodymyr Kubiiovych, the head of the committee, viewed himself as the leader of the Ukrainian nation in occupied Poland (the General Government). He wanted to use the Germans to promote the consolidation of his nation, but who ultimately used whom proved to be very different from what he imagined. Topics covered include Kubiiovych's ethnic cleansing projects, the delivery of forced laborers to the Reich, requisitions of produce from the local population, education, the press, the church, the formation of the Waffen-SS Division Galizien, and the evacuation of Kubiiovych and his committee from Eastern Europe as the Red Army proceeded westward." —John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta