"The truth hurts but silence kills" was a slogan used in South Africa after the collapse of the apartheid regime in the mid-1990s.
That slogan came to mind in mid-May 2026, when a short essay by historian Daria Mattingly titled "Decolonisation without Innocence" caused a considerable stir among experts as well as more broadly among interested non-specialists, always ready to tear each other apart over their differing views on Ukrainian history, parenting and football.
In her essay, Mattingly reminded readers of something that might seem obvious: there are stains on the past of any country and nation. They are difficult to take pride in, unlikely to appear in a Ukraine WOW-style exhibition where everything is presented for the public to enjoy. They are in the blind spot of public discourse, because they don't fit within the framework of the "victim nation" or "hero nation".
Ukraine has indeed existed for a long time within the paradigm of victimhood – external enemies, internal strife, circumstances beyond our control. Unfortunately that's a fact, and there's no getting away from it.
This paradigm was later supplemented by a discourse of "heroic resistance to all those circumstances". Everything else falls into either the "hostile narratives" category or a grey zone of silence, with the excuse that "now is not the time" to bring up a particular issue and it can wait until the war is over. This includes stories in which the colonised themselves became instruments in the hands of the colonisers.
The question of how to approach this sensitive topic can hardly be called the most urgent issue when a full-scale war is on. On the other hand, the honesty of the answer could determine what kind of country Ukraine becomes in the future.
Is Ukraine capable of reflecting on the darker chapters of its history and consciously choosing "never again"?
Will decolonisation lead to a real change in mindset, or will people simply replace one set of labels with another, automatically condemning everything that was once praised and praising everything that was once condemned?
How is it that an honest conversation neither diminishes nor devalues the tragedy and heroic resistance of Ukrainians, but actually deepens the understanding of both that tragedy and that heroism?
How did Ukrainians, who were colonised by Russia, themselves become instruments of colonisation in Central Asia, Crimea and Ukraine's west?
What are the similarities and fundamental differences between the colonisation of Ukraine, Scotland and Ireland, including when it was carried out by the locals themselves?
What drives people to cooperate with occupying authorities, both in centuries past and today?
Why is not every interaction with the enemy in occupied territories necessarily collaboration?
We discussed these issues with historian Daria Mattingly, a lecturer at the University of Chichester in the UK whose research interests include the Holodomor, Stalinism, and the social history of mass violence. She is also co-editor of The Holodomor in Global Perspective in the Ukrainian Voices series. Mattingly frequently comments on Ukrainian history, Russia's war against Ukraine and decolonisation policy. [The Holodomor was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine which lasted from 1932 to 1933 and claimed the lives of millions of Ukrainians – ed.]
Which people become collaborators?
As scholars like to say, let's start by defining our terms. Is it correct to call Ukrainians who carried out orders from Moscow during the Holodomor "collaborators"?
In Western historiography, collaborators are usually understood to be people who were part of an occupation regime or who cooperated with its representatives. The term itself is most commonly associated with the events of World War II.
In my opinion, the Soviet authorities in Ukraine during 1932-33 were not an occupation administration in the formal legal sense, as the Nazis were during World War II.
Ukraine was a Soviet republic, and before the Holodomor, local executors – collective farmers, activists and members of the Komsomol [the Soviet youth organisation] – were part of Soviet Ukraine, which the world recognised as part of the Soviet Union.
But if we use the term "collaborationism" more broadly to mean local participation in violence against one's own society, then it can also be applicable in the history of the Holodomor.
They acted as accomplices, and in that sense they can be regarded as collaborators – not with a foreign occupier, but with a centre of power that turned the Ukrainian countryside into an object of punishment. Of course, that in no way exonerates Moscow, where the orders originated.
But all those orders required a vast number of grassroots executors to carry them out. And they weren't always merely victims of coercion.
If we try to systematise it, what drives a person to cooperate with an occupation regime – a century ago and today?
Social historians and psychologists distinguish six main types of participants in mass violence.
The first type is people who have been trained by the authorities to obey any orders. This includes the police, the army and punitive bodies.
The second type is fanatics. Some of the Ukrainians who helped carry out the Holodomor were people who sincerely believed in communism and fully identified with the regime. Such people were an absolute minority, though. Research shows that no more than 5% of those who participate in political violence do so for ideological reasons.
The third type consists of people who benefit from cooperation – those who collaborate with the occupiers for mercenary reasons. This can take many forms, from career advancement to stealing your neighbour's coat or settling personal scores.
The fourth type is sadists or criminal elements who enjoy violence and see genocide as an opportunity to commit violence with impunity.
The fifth type is the so-called compromised participants in violence – people who were forced into participation by the authorities. The writer Anatolii Dimarov gave a vivid description of this experience. His mother was a teacher who was forced to search collective farmers' and individual households, record everything (how many chickens they had, how many eggs should be laid), confiscate their property and take part in dekulakisation. She would cry afterwards, but she understood that if she refused, she would condemn her own family to starvation.
The sixth type – and the largest group – is conformists. Their logic is that there's no point arguing with the authorities; it's best not to create problems for yourself and just do what the rest of the group is doing. Adaptation seems safer than resistance. This is not a justification, but an explanation of how conformity functions within systems of violence.
The same person can belong to several categories at once: they may be ideologically convinced, seeking career benefits, afraid of punishment and simultaneously taking advantage of the opportunity to commit violence without consequences.
You've studied archival documents from the Holodomor period and spoken with eyewitnesses. That allows you to see details that are difficult to discern from textbooks, particularly about the Ukrainians through whom Moscow acted. Which micro-histories have stayed with you the most?
Some of these stories were so mind-boggling that Shakespeare pales in comparison. They don't change the broader framework of the tragedy, but they add details that paint a fuller picture of village life during collectivisation and the Holodomor.
One such story is about a young teacher from the Novomyrhorod district who moved to Zhytomyr Oblast to work in a rural school. During collectivisation, he became involved in the dekulakisation of peasants and the establishment of a collective farm, and he later participated in searches during the Holodomor. Yet none of the witnesses or children of witnesses whom I interviewed in that village in Zhytomyr Oblast spoke negatively about him. That surprised me, because he had been a co-creator of the famine at the local level by carrying out orders.
People remembered him not only as an executor of Soviet policy, but as having fathered many children in the village by different women. That's what struck me most: the archives reveal his participation in violent policies, but local memory shows how such people could remain part of the village's social world without being unequivocally remembered as "monsters".
During World War II he served in the Red Army, in the infantry, and suffered a serious injury. He was sent to Leningrad for surgery. The operation was performed by a female surgeon who later became pregnant by him. He then wrote back to the village to say he would not be returning because his son had been born there.
The whole village erupted over it – people started writing to every authority they could, and he was forcibly returned to the village. He stayed there afterwards and had more children.
For me, this story matters not because of its domestic drama, but because it shows that perpetrators aren't always remembered as criminals. A person could participate in violent policies while simultaneously remaining a village teacher, neighbour, relative, father – part of the local social fabric.
Field research also changed my understanding of the family stories I grew up with. In the 1980s, my grandma was always talking about the Holodomor. One of the recurring themes was that those who had taken grain from the peasants suffered divine retribution – "God's punishment". All of them supposedly later died tragically in one way or another. I was always curious about what "God's punishment" actually meant and whether there was a rational explanation for it.
Later, when I was researching the Holodomor as a historian, I discovered that "God's punishment" existed purely as folklore – a mythopoetic vision of justice.
The reality was different. I found no extraordinary mortality rates, accidents, mutilations or murders among the perpetrators of the Holodomor, either in my grandmother's village or elsewhere. They continued to live alongside their victims, becoming headteachers, chairing village councils and collective farms, sometimes even marrying locally. Some became ordinary collective farm workers.
No one was punished.
Recruits of the empire, and the grey zone between heroism and betrayal
Who was most vulnerable to becoming an executor of the repressive policies of "Big Brother" during the Soviet era? And which sections of the population are most at risk of collaborating with the Russians today in the occupied territories of Ukraine?
The problem was that the Soviet authorities could reach anyone – no social class or ethnic group was immune.
After the revolution and civil war, groups that had previously faced discrimination, poverty or restrictions on their rights were especially vulnerable to Soviet promises of social mobility. These included people from very different backgrounds: Jews from small towns, impoverished Ukrainians, young people from peasant families.
The Soviet regime skilfully exploited this vulnerability by offering education, careers, status and access to power or privileges in exchange for loyalty and participation in its policies. This does not imply collective responsibility for any group; it is about how the imperial system recruited people from various backgrounds.
Perhaps one of the most vulnerable categories was collective farm workers. Until the mid-1970s, most of them did not have internal passports and could not travel without permission. This was effectively legalised serfdom, because people were deprived of even minimal social mobility.
One can romanticise and glorify the Ukrainian countryside, but life there was extremely hard. And if any opportunity arose to leave the village, people would try to seize it.
As for who is most vulnerable to collaboration with the Russians today, I can only speculate, since I don't do any specific research in this area, although I do, of course, constantly keep track of developments in the occupied territories.
Those most vulnerable to the various forms of collaboration are people who can't leave: people with disabilities, elderly people, public sector workers, and people who are dependent on humanitarian aid. For them, it's Hobson's choice.
Read more: Court, forgiveness, or compassion. How Ukraine punishes collaborationism and why changes are needed
Where does survival under occupation end and voluntary cooperation with the enemy (i.e. collaborating) begin?
Briefly, collaboration does not begin when a person accepts a pension in roubles or Russian humanitarian aid in order to survive, but when they start to consciously help the occupation regime gain power over others – by informing, or taking part in or enabling violence.
It is not possible to live under occupation for very long without interacting at all with those who control the territory. However, that does not mean that everyone who interacts with them is a collaborator in the full moral or criminal sense.
Between heroism and betrayal there is always a vast grey zone of fear, hunger, children, medicine, pensions, access to work and education. History and international practice teach Ukraine not to forgive collaboration, but also not to criminalise life under occupation, as happened in the Soviet Union after World War II, when everyone who had remained "under the Germans" was automatically considered a traitor.
There must be a gradation of responsibility for specific actions.
The first category consists of those who committed serious crimes – torture or informing. They must bear criminal responsibility.
Next comes political and administrative collaboration. A person who headed an occupation education department, spread propaganda, organised elections or legitimised the occupiers should also face consequences – either criminal prosecution or a ban on holding positions in government, education, media or public administration.
But each such case must be thoroughly investigated: we have examples where people lost their lives for refusing to cooperate with occupation administrations.
The third category is professional cooperation in the grey zone – public sector employees such as doctors, utility workers, teachers, social services staff and so on. Here it is necessary to establish whether their work caused harm to others and whether they were serving the occupation forces.
How the empire was expanded through Ukrainian hands
Let's return to your thesis of "decolonisation without innocence", which caused outrage among some readers. What role did Ukrainians play in the colonisation of Central Asia, the Far East and Crimea by the Russian and Soviet empires?
Ukrainians were not the architects of the Russian Empire in the sense that the elites of St Petersburg or Moscow were. But Ukrainians were among those through whom the empire moved, expanded, changed demographics and displaced indigenous peoples.
For the most part, Ukrainian settlers in Kazakhstan, Siberia, the Russian Far East and Crimea were participants in colonising processes not by design, but as a consequence of their actions. They did not go there in order to displace local populations or build a great empire. They went, either under coercion or voluntarily, for very practical reasons – to cultivate land, for example.
Some Ukrainians ended up in Central Asia by force – as exiles, deportees, special settlers, dispossessed kulaks and victims of the Soviet system of repressions.
But there were also voluntary or semi-voluntary waves of migration, such as the colonisation of the steppe and Soviet campaigns to cultivate virgin soil. Hundreds of thousands of people were mobilised by the Komsomol to develop "virgin lands" in Kazakhstan in the 1950s. This was not empty land: the Kazakhs had previously used it as grazing territory during seasonal migrations and so on.
This does not make every Ukrainian settler guilty. This is not about moral responsibility, but it does mean that the Ukrainian presence formed part of the broader imperial transformation of the Kazakh lands.
With regard to Crimea, it is important not to confuse different things. The Ukrainian presence in Crimea is not identical to Russian colonisation. But after the Russian Empire's conquest of the Crimean Khanate, and especially after the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944, the peninsula underwent radical demographic re-engineering. People were resettled there from various parts of the USSR, including Ukraine. In this sense, some Ukrainians ended up as settlers on land from which the indigenous population had been forcibly removed.
Again, it is incorrect to say that the Ukrainians were colonisers, because that suggests they were acting as a nation with its own imperial project. That is not the case. It is more accurate to speak of Ukrainians as participants in colonising processes, or as colonised people who became instruments in the colonisation of others.
What was specific about these processes in Western Ukraine in the mid-20th century?
After 1939, and especially after 1944, people from Ukraine's east came to Western Ukraine not simply as Ukrainians coming to other Ukrainians. They arrived as agents of the Soviet state – party officials, NKVD officers, prosecutors, police officers, administrators, teachers, agronomists.
They may have been ethnically Ukrainian, but politically they were Soviet people. They represented not Ukrainian national solidarity, but the Soviet centre.
So for many people in Galicia and Volhynia, an "easterner" was not simply someone from Ukraine's east, but an embodiment of Soviet power – Russification, collectivisation, the closure of churches, the repressive apparatus, bureaucracy, the new Soviet morality.
Of course, not all of them were agents of repression. Some helped the locals, married into local communities, stayed, and even became Ukrainianised.
History is made up of individual human lives, and that is always a complex, mixed picture. So it is inappropriate to claim that under Soviet rule "eastern Ukrainians colonised Western Ukraine". They were intermediaries – cadres of Sovietisation from other regions.
Victims of empire or empire-builders: the cases of Scotland and Ireland
As historian Yaroslav Hrytsak likes to say, "Here's some good advice: if you don't know the answer, try broadening the context." The colonisation of Ukraine by Russians through Ukrainians, and, say, the colonisation of Scotland by the English – what do they have in common and what are the fundamental differences?
The commonality is that Ukraine, Ireland and to an extent Scotland can be viewed through the categories of unequal integration into the imperial space, internal colonisation and the participation of subordinate peoples in empire-building. But the mechanisms differed in each case.
Scots were actively involved in the colonisation of India. The same can be said of Ukrainians who represented the Russian Empire in Central Asia during its colonisation – not only peasant settlers, but also administrators.
The key difference is that the Scots retained at least symbolic autonomy within their union with England, that is, Great Britain. Ukrainians did not have that. And that was rather humiliating.
To advance, you had to become "Great Russian", to shed your Ukrainian identity in order to become a full agent of the empire. Or you could retain your Ukrainian identity to the extent allowed by the state, i.e. the centre, but this would limit your social mobility.
If you wanted to rise, you had to politically become an agent of the empire.
How is colonisation by Scottish or Irish people viewed today in Scotland and Ireland? Is there a consensus among historians?
You'd be surprised how intense the debates still are in British academia.
For a long time in Scottish public memory, there was a tendency to view Scotland as either a victim of England or a junior partner within the British state. In current historical research, however, there is a shift away from the old model of Scotland as a colony towards recognising Scots as participants in the imperial core.
Modern historiography is increasingly emphasising that Scots were not merely subordinates; they were soldiers, administrators, plantation owners, missionaries, traders, slave owners and so on.
Many studies argue that Scotland was both subordinated within the British Empire and complicit in it. However, Scots' expectations of imperial participation were fulfilled to a far lesser extent than they had hoped.
The predominant position among historians and the official narrative reflected in contemporary museum debates in Scotland is "we were subordinated, but we also built the empire". This is closest to the formula I propose for Ukraine – decolonisation without innocence.
Of all the peoples colonised within the British Empire, the Irish experience, in my view, is the closest analogy to Ukraine. Ukraine shares many similarities with this model.
Ireland was integrated into imperial history from the early modern period up until modern times in much the same way as Ukraine was. Irish people served in the British army, the police, the colonial administration, missionary organisations; they were settlers, officials, soldiers and sometimes agents of imperial repression.
But that doesn't mean the Irish were not colonised. It means that a colonised people can simultaneously be both victims of imperial violence and a human resource for the empire – as in the case of Ukraine.
Decolonisation without innocence and the million-dollar question
Why is it important today that we don't just talk about Ukrainians as victims of imperial colonial practices and about those who resisted, but also about those who became executors of the imperial order?
Because otherwise we will not understand why some people are collaborating with the occupiers in occupied territories today.
It would be dangerous for historical scholarship to assume that any nation consists only of victims and heroes. Ukrainians are no exception. That is why historians must not speak in terms of collective guilt, but rather of concrete mechanisms of participation, coercion, benefit, fear and responsibility.
In some popular narratives of the Holodomor, local participation is often ethnicised: responsibility is attributed to "Russians", "Jews", or individual "traitors" who sold their souls to the Soviet system. This is similar to the folkloric explanation of "God's punishment" that would befall those who confiscated grain.
Historians do not pass judgement. What we do is show, based on documents and testimony, how the Holodomor became possible, where the orders came from and who carried them out.
In my view, modern Ukraine should not imitate the myth of a pure victim-nation. Our maturity lies elsewhere: in distinguishing imperial centres from local complicity, survival from crime, coercion from voluntary participation in violence.
This is how we can speak about some Ukrainians' collaboration with the Russians and collaboration with the Nazis during the Second World War – without Soviet-style labels of "traitor", without national self-justification, without collective guilt.
Before our conversation, I saw a comment on your essay, "Decolonisation without innocence", that said: "While Ukrainians are fighting an existential war with inhuman Muscovite monsters, we're being stabbed in the back from all sides at home."
I suspect this is a fairly widely-held view. How can we recover historical memory in its full and not always complimentary complexity without also undermining our ability to resist – without shooting ourselves in the foot?
That is the million-dollar question.
I think I understand what this is about, and why people may take my words that way when there's a war going on.
I have to be honest: I speak from a position of significant privilege. I've been living and working in the West for nearly twenty years – no air-raid warnings, no personal physical risk. This does not invalidate the questions, but it changes the conditions in which I ask them.
However, the essence does not change. Recovering historical memory without harming resistance is only possible when that memory does not turn into either self-flagellation or uncritical self-exoneration.
We are mature enough to see the full complexity of our own history. And because of that, our resistance to the empire is not weaker, but more mindful.
We can and should talk about these uncomfortable aspects of our history precisely because we are not Russia, where discussion is tightly controlled.
Together with my colleagues, I am on a list of people banned from entering the Russian Federation for life. I don't regret this; on the contrary, I consider it a badge of honour. I do not believe I can be reasonably accused of working for the enemy or stabbing anyone in the back.
In fact, I am simply trying to contribute to a discussion that is now happening among scholars in Ukraine about the need to see the broader picture rather than reduce it to binaries. This is an uncomfortable but necessary part of an honest Ukrainian decolonial conversation.
I understand how sensitive this is, because people project these issues onto their family histories and no one wants to believe they may have even indirectly contributed to colonisation.
Recovering historical memory without harming resistance means telling the truth without collective stigmatisation. Every society that has lived under empires has its victims, executors, intermediaries and beneficiaries. And this does not diminish Russian responsibility. On the contrary, it shows how it operated and how insidious it was, because it worked through local people. It shows how deeply it penetrated the fabric of society.
When we look honestly at the past, we protect the future. A binary interpretation of history – that we are exclusively a nation of victors and heroes – is what they have in Russia. That is what distinguishes us from them.
Ukrainian memory should not be a death cult of victims and heroes, or a nation on trial, but a study of imperial mechanisms – including those moments when the empire operated through local people, including Ukrainians themselves.
Mykhailo Kryhel for Ukrainska Pravda
Translated by Myroslava Zavadska and Tetiana Buchkovska
Edited by Teresa Pearce