So the Polish government has finally done it. They have stripped Volodymyr Zelensky of his highest honour. The cause? A dispute over the naming of a Ukrainian army unit. The name in question is the “14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galizien,” a formation that fought alongside the Nazis and has been the subject of whitewashed nationalist reverence in parts of Ukraine. Now, before the howling begins, let us be clear: this is not a defence of Putin or a dismissal of Ukrainian suffering. It is a moment to reflect on the decay of historical memory and the intellectual decadence that has gripped Europe’s elites.
We are living in an age of historical illiteracy, where symbols are treated as mere tools of political expediency. The Polish decision is a rare flash of spine in a continent that has long since surrendered to historical relativism. For decades, the West has indulged the myth that Ukraine is a monolithic nation of freedom fighters, conveniently forgetting the ugly strains of ultranationalism that plagued its 20th century. The SS Galizien division was not some footnote. It was a collaborationist force that swore allegiance to Hitler. Yet, in the fog of war, we are supposed to pretend that this does not matter.
Zelensky, for all his Churchillian posturing, has allowed this rot to fester. By permitting the glorification of such units, he is playing with fire. Honour is not a commodity to be traded for geopolitical loyalty. It is a fragile thing, easily stained. Poland understands this. They have not forgotten the horror of the Volhynia massacre or the Nazi occupation. They see the rewriting of history as a direct threat to European order.
The liberal commentariat will wring their hands and accuse Warsaw of playing into Kremlin hands. They will say this is a gift to Russian propaganda. But this is the cowardice of the intellectual establishment: the refusal to confront uncomfortable truths. The West has spent two years arming Ukraine without demanding any moral accounting. We have pretended that the fight against Russia is so pure that we must overlook everything else. This is how decadence works. It is the slow erosion of standards in the name of expediency.
Let us look at the parallels. Rome, in its final centuries, began to reward barbarians with Roman titles and honours. It blurred the line between citizen and enemy. It thought it could buy loyalty with symbols. It collapsed. The Victorian era, for all its faults, understood that honour was a currency that could be debased by overuse or misattribution. They would not have given a Victoria Cross to a man who praised the Sepoy rebels, no matter how useful he was against the Russians.
This is not about Zelensky personally. It is about the principle. If Ukraine wants to join the European club, it must accept the club’s rules of historical honesty. You cannot simultaneously claim the mantle of anti-fascist resistance and honour those who served the fascists. It is a contradiction that cannot stand.
The Polish government has done a service to Europe. They have reminded us that history is not a buffet where you pick the parts you like and ignore the rest. It is a chain of consequence. And if we break that chain, we will find ourselves in a dark room with no memory of how we got there.
So go ahead, call me a contrarian. Call me a Russophile. I have heard it all before. But read your Gibbon. Read your Orwell. They knew that the first step toward tyranny is the rewriting of the past. And the first step toward recovery is the courage to say: this honour is no longer deserved.
