SUMMARY:

Oleksandr Zaitsev responds to the review of his book Ukrainian Integral Nationalism (1920s–1930s): Studies in Intellectual History (Kyiv, 2013) by Alexander Gogun. Zaitsev insists on the accurate definitions of terms: in his view, integral nationalism is a (false) political claim for a single subjectivity of a group defined as an ethnocultural nation, whereas totalitarianism is an equally false claim for the singularity of subjectivity of a group shaped by a common ideological allegiance. Therefore, Ukrainian nationalism of the period demonstrated more parallels with Italian fascism than with Soviet communism. There was, however, an important difference with classical fascism and to an even greater degree, with Nazism: Ukrainian nationalism was the ideology of a stateless nation that had to compensate for missing political and social institutions.