Yuschenko Urges To Continue Historical Research Of Ukrainians' Participation In First And Second World Wars

President Viktor Yuscenko urged historians to continue research of the participation of Ukrainians in the First and the Second World Wars, military conflicts of the Soviet Union times and international peacemaking missions.
The president told this in his speech on the Victory Day celebration in the Memorial Complex of the National Museum of the Second World War.
«We have to generate the civilized culture of the attitude to our own history and memory. The time has come to speak about all-embracing academic research work concerning the participation of Ukrainian people in the First and the Second World Wars, the conflicts of the Soviet times and participation in the international peacemaking. We have to know by names all the heroes and all our losses,» Yuschenko said.
He urged to standardize the symbols of respect of the war victims throughout the country and to revive the historical commemorative symbols.
«We have to reduce to a common denominator the symbols of commemoration of the war victims throughout the country. We have to get rid of the totalitarian attributes and artificial pathos that are alien to Ukrainians. We have to revive historically significant commemorative tokens, the destruction of which means the destruction of ourselves,» emphasized the president.
Yushcenko believes that the social movement of national memory revival will be organized for this purpose.
He holds that the search of historical truth should be devoid of emotions and division into fronts, and should bring the unifying issues instead of the separating ones.
Yuschenko considers that the Ukrainian mutual understanding forum should be founded by the business, political and social circles.
«It is symbolic that the Europe day is celebrated these days, when we talk with all the European peoples about our common values, about common history and, of course, we talk about our common future. Ukraine accepts the symbol of this day as its own,» said Yuschenko.
He congratulated the veterans with the Victory Day.
«I congratulate you heartily, my dear compatriots with the Day of the Great Victory, the day of glory and the day of memory. Glory to you, dear veterans, glory to your feat and long live Ukraine,» said the president.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, May 9 Ukraine is marking the 61st anniversary of victory in WW-II.