FROM THE 'RIGHT SECTOR' TO AZOV
As previously stated, Olena Semenyaka, prior to the Maidan 'revolution' in 2013-4, was a frequent contributor to the 'political and cultural project Politosophia, launched by her colleague Sviatoslav Vyshynsky, which aimed at spreading the themes of the conservative revolution and traditionalism among the Ukrainian student youth.' (Nonjon: First Lady) So far as I can see the last piece she wrote for Politosophia was dated 31st March 2014. (19) It is a short account of a meeting held on the 29th March 'at the Kyiv headquarters of the C14 organization (the seized office of the Communist Party of Ukraine) to listen to the two-hour lecture by Ihor Garkavenko "Right Yellow" by the light of torches, while politicians and theoreticians like Dugin , who finally started to take Ukrainian nationalism seriously and to give advice to the "Right Sector", invent the fact that we are ready to "bend under the new government". It was about the transition from a national to an actual nationalist revolution, which we must carry out now, deepening and bringing to a logical conclusion the sharp split between the current Maidan and its political representatives in the parliament…' (20)
(19) The Politosophia website lists the contributions of its different writers. Semenyaka at https://politosophia.org/page/olena-semenyaka.html
(20) Olena Semenyaka: "Right October" and the Second Nationalist Revolution of Igor Harkavenko, https://politosophia.org/page/pravy-zhovten-i-druha-natsionalistychna-revoliutsia-ihoria-harkavenka.html, machine translation.
The meeting was held about a month after the overthrow of the President, Viktor Yanukovich, on the 24th February. The 'sharp split between the current Maidan and its political representatives in the parliament' is described in some detail in Richard Sakwa's book Frontline Ukraine:
'The Maidan now constituted itself as a "people's parliament", acting not just as a check on the new authorities but also to advance policies of its own, notably the lustration of officials considered too close to the old regime or corrupt, or both. The "square" of people's power sought to control the "castle" of government. The square as we have seen was far from homogeneous, and the various contradictions would ultimately be fatal for the revolution. The key contradiction was between the idealism of the middle class "revolutionaries", fighting for dignity and responsible government, and the militants who tended to come from the margins of society and drew on the ultra-nationalist traditions of interwar Galicia. Both groups aspired to overcome the obvious political and economic stagnation of the country, yet their alliance was trapped in a palpable dilemma: if unity was maintained, then the whole revolution would be tainted by the "fascistic" features of the right wing militants; but if it fell apart, then the revolution would be usurped by the restoration of bureaucratic-oligarchic power or diluted by concessions to the pluralists (by now considered tantamount to capitulation to the Kremlin). With the country's territorial integrity under threat, the militant part of the square prevailed over the more pacific "bourgeois" element - although the territorial threats were in large part a response to the militancy of the square in the first place. The alliance was maintained, but the square ultimately brought to the castle little more than a reconfigured form of bureaucratic-oligarchic power, although now espousing the rhetoric of civil society and its ultra-nationalist inflections.' (21)
(21) Richard Sakwa: Frontline Ukraine - Crisis in the Borderlands, London, I.B.Tauris, 2015, pp.93-4. The 'pluralists' mentioned in the article are those who were willing to make concessions to the Russian side of Ukrainian culture. This, and the conflict with the Ukrainian exclusivist 'monists', will be discussed in more detail further in the present article.
The name of the group Semenyaka was addressing - C14, or S14 - is, according to its Wikipedia entry, a play on the Ukrainian word 'Sich', traditional centre of Cossack organisation. The word in Ukrainian - Січ - looks like C14 in English. It has also been claimed that the '14' represent the 'fourteen words' of a US White Nationalist, David Eden Lane - 'We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children' or 'Because the beauty of the white Aryan woman must not perish from the earth.'
Be that as it may, C14 (which later, in 2018, made a name for itself terrorising a Romany camp (22)) was part of the loose alliance of what might be called traditional Ukrainian nationalist groups - chiefly the political party, Svoboda - gathered together under the umbrella label The Right Sector. It was The Right Sector who had come to dominate the events on the Maidan in 2014, including most probably the sniper fire against both police and demonstrators which finally brought about the flight of Yanukovich. (23) It was they who were responsible for the large portrait of Stepan Bandera which dominated the Maidan protest headquarters.
Semenyaka was working for them as a press officer but later in 2014 she transferred her affections to Azov. According to Nonjon: 'the divorce was completed in 2015, when Semenyaka joined the Azov Regiment's National Guard unit.' It is important to stress the distinction to be drawn between Azov and the Right Sector. Nonjon goes on to say ("First Lady" of Ukrainian Nationalism): 'That decision was not just an instance of opportunism. Rather, it was driven by shared ideology and ambitions: war is omnipresent in the political discourse of the Azov movement. Building on the soldierly ideal of German revolutionary conservative authors like Ernst Jünger and Ernst von Salomon, war is a constant reference for Semenyaka, too: war justifies the need to design a new form of society where the interests and protection of the people are absolute priorities.'
(22) See eg Christopher Miller: Police Break Silence After Video Shows Far-Right Attack On Kyiv Roma, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 26th Aril 2018 - https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-police-break-silence-after-video-shows-far-right-attack-on-kyiv-roma/29194216.html See also ibid: Ukrainian Militia Behind Brutal Romany Attacks Getting State Funds, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 14th June, 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-militia-behind-brutal-romany-attacks-getting-state-funds/29290844.html: 'C14's Educational Assembly and a C14 Sich children's summer camp will receive 440,000 hryvnia (about $16,900) from the ministry for three children's events.'
(23) This is the argument developed by the Canadian researcher Ivan Katchanovski in eg The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: Revelations from Trials and Investigation, Paper presented at the virtual 10th World Congress of the International Council for Central and East European Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, August 3-8, 2021, updated November 29, 2021.