History of the Ukrainian minority in Poland

The history of the Ukrainian minority in Poland dates back to the Late Middle Ages,[1] preceding the 14th century Galicia–Volhynia Wars between Casimir III the Great of Poland, and Liubartas of Lithuania. Following the extinction of the Rurikid dynasty in 1323, the Polish Kingdom extended further east in 1340 to include the lands of Przemyśl and in 1366, Kamianets-Podilskyi (Kamieniec Podolski). After the Union of Lublin (1569), principalities of Galicia and Western Volhynia became, what's known as, the Ruthenian Voivodeship of the Polish Crown, while the rest of Red Ruthenia together with Kiev came under Lithuanian control. The Polish borders reached as far east as Zaporizhia, and Poltava.

The 26 Ukrainian Festival in Zdynia, "Lemkivska Vatra", 2008

Kingdom of Poland and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The annexation of Red Ruthenia by Casimir III (Kazimierz) came about as a result of the Polish–Lithuanian peace treaty signed in 1366. It was a two-stage affair, according to Hustyn Chronicle by Zakhariia Kopystensky (d.1627). The Polish King vowed to respect the Orthodox faith, but also, bestowed the Ruthenian gentry with the same rights as the Polish. Kopystensky—the re-discoverer of the ancient Hypatian Codex of southern Rus – regarded the eastern Slavs as "one nation in the medieval sense of the term, descended from a common ancestor." He "clearly differentiates between Muscovy and Ukraine-Rus'" in his work.[2] The total area of Ruthenian lands annexed by Poland was about 91,000 km2 (35,135 sq mi), and most of the population spoke Ruthenian (a linguistic predecessor of both modern Ukrainian and Belarusian[3]). The local nobility gradually became polonized, and many members of the Ruthenian szlachta converted to Roman Catholicism.[4][5] Among the most famous Ruthenian families who polonized themselves were the Wiśniowiecki, Zbarascy, Zasławski, and Czartoryski families. Others, such as the Ostrogski, Sanguszko, and Kisiel families, resisted polonization. All these noble Ruthenian families were very influential in pre-1795 Poland, and one of the Polish kings, Michael Korybut Wiśniowiecki, was the son of a notable Ruthenian magnate Jeremi Wiśniowiecki. Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky and representative of populist movement in Ukraine, attacked Poland, claiming: "the four centuries of Polish rule had left particularly destructive effects (...) economic and cultural backwardness in Galicia was the main "legacy of historical Poland, which assiduously skimmed everything that could be considered the cream of the nation, leaving it in a state of oppression and helplessness".[6]

Second Polish Republic

Poland re-established its sovereignty in 1918 after a century of rule by Austria-Hungary, the German, and the Russian Empires; however, her western and eastern borders were not determined right away.[7] The Bolshevik, Polish and Ruthenian claims over the disputed territories led to the Polish–Ukrainian and Polish–Soviet wars. The end of open warfare was achieved with the logistical aid by France. A formal treaty, the Peace of Riga, was signed on 18 March 1921, establishing Polish borders for the period between the World Wars. A process of economic recovery followed.[8]

Ukrainian minority in the Second Polish Republic

After the Polish-Ukrainian War, the eastern part of Galicia and Volhynia were captured by Poland. Ukrainian leaders at that time were retained a strong sense of honor.[9] During the entire time of its existence, there were no cases of mass repressions against national minorities in territories held by the West Ukrainian government;[10] the Ukrainian forces controlling the city even neglected to arrest Polish nationalist leaders and intelligentsia, enabling the latter to rebel against the Ukrainian government.[9] Polish forces captured Lviv after a week-long battle with the Ukrainians. They were fired at in the streets by civilians when they entered the city, and retaliated. They burned the Ukrainian and Jewish sections and killed approximately 270 Ukrainians; however, the British mission also noted that there were no clear conclusions as to the specific motive behind the massacre.[11] The percentage of Jews killed corresponds to the demographics in Lviv at that time.[12] In the eastern half of Galicia, Ukrainians made up approximately 65% of the population while Poles made up 22% of the population and Jews made up 12%.[13] Of the 44 administrative divisions of Austrian eastern Galicia, Lviv (Polish: Lwów, German: Lemberg), the biggest and capital city of the province, was the only one in which Poles made up a majority of the population.[14] Ukrainians represented about 16% of the total population of the pre-war Poland. Over 90% of them lived in the countryside, 3–6 percent were industrial workers, and close to 1% belonged to Intelligentsia.[15] As to religion, 60 percent were Uniate Catholics and 39 percent professed Orthodox faith.[16] While national consciousness among the Galician Ukrainians was very strong, the Ukrainians of Volhynia were largely influenced by strong Russophile trends and had pro-Soviet sympathies, while having little national inclination[17][18] According to Polish census of 1931 the following areas hosted a large number of Ukrainian population in Poland:

Two contradicting policies towards national minorities were competing in Poland at the time. The assimilationist approach advocated by Roman Dmowski (minister of foreign affairs) and Stanisław Grabski (minister of religion and education) clashed with the more tolerant approach advocated by the Polish chief of State Józef Piłsudski,[20] whose project of creating the Międzymorze federation with other states failed in the aftermath of the Polish-Soviet War. The ultranationalist Roman Dmowski and his National Democrats, with its consistent militantly anti-Ukrainian policies, was supported by the Polish minority in Eastern Galicia.[21]

Political and cultural life

Vasyl Mudry, Ukrainian speaker of the Polish parliament, leader of the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (the largest Ukrainian political party in interwar Poland).

The Polish authorities renamed the eastern part of Austrian Galicia "Eastern Little Poland" and created administrative units (Palatinates) designed to include as many non-Ukrainians as possible.[22]

In 1924 the Polish government under Władysław Grabski excluded the Ukrainian language from use in government institutions. It also avoided the official use of the word "Ukrainian", replacing it with the historical name "Ruthenian".[23]

Ukrainians during the interbellum had several representatives in the Sejm. In 1928–1930 there were 26 Ukrainian MPs in Polish parliament, including Marshall Deputy of the Sejm, Volodymyr Zahajkiewicz and the Secretary of the Sejm, Dymitr Ladyka. Ukrainian and Belarusian deputies created a powerful "Ukrainian-Belarusian Club" (Klub Ukrainsko-Bialoruski), whose members were very active in those years. In 1935 there were 19 Ukrainian deputies, and in 1938 – 14, including Vasyl Mudry – Deputy Marshal of the Polish Sejm.[24][25]

On 12 July 1930, activists of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), together with Ukrainian Military Organization, began the so-called sabotage action, during which Polish estates were burned, roads, rail lines and telephone connections were destroyed. The OUN used terrorism and sabotage in order to force the Polish government into reprisals so fierce that they would cause the more moderate Ukrainian groups ready to negotiate with the Polish state to lose support.[26] OUN directed its violence not only against the Poles, but also against all those Ukrainians who wished for a peaceful settlement of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict.[27] In response to this terrorism, the Polish government implemented its so-called pacification in Galician villages suspected of support for UVO. Polish security forces conducted thorough search in Ukrainian houses and buildings, devastating many of them in the process, destroying Ukrainian books, folk dresses, as well as other cultural objects. They frequently forced Ukrainian villages to sign an oath of loyalty to Poland and renounce allegiance to the Ukrainian nation, and inflicted corporal punishment in the form of public whippings. According to Ukrainian sources, seven people were beaten to death while the Polish sources put the number of dead at two. In addition, several Ukrainian members of the Polish parliament, including Vasyl Mudry, were arrested after the Polish authorities discovered that there had been contact between the Ukrainian political parties and UVO. Ukrainian secondary schools were closed down. Poland's Pacification of Western Ukraine was condemned by Great Britain, France and Germany, although the League of Nations released a statement claiming that Polish activities were justified due to Ukrainian sabotage activities.[28]

In 1935 the situation temporarily improved, as the Polish government reached an agreement with the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (UNDO), the largest Ukrainian political party in Poland; most prisoners of the Bereza Kartuska prison were released. Ukrainian language education and their political representation improved.[29] But key demands by the Ukrainians, such as local autonomy, a Ukrainian-language university, and an end to Polish colonization efforts on territories inhabited by Ukrainians, were never met.[30] Ukrainian extremists continued their attacks on the Poles, and the moderates lost their bid to stabilize the situation.[31] A Polish report about the popular mood in Volhynia recorded a comment of a young Ukrainian from October 1938: "we will decorate our pillars with you and our trees with your wives."[32]

Ukrainian organizations continued to grow in spite of Polish interference that included destroying reading rooms during pacification in 1930 and banning them in certain regions.[33] Despite such measures, Prosvita society was able to increase the number of reading-room libraries to 3,075 by 1939 (with over 500 new outlets by 1936 with full-time professional staff).[33] There was the Luh sobriety association, and the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, several newspapers (including Dilo) and the sports organizations. The new Ukraina Lwow soccer team was close to promotion to the Ekstraklasa (a Polish professional league for football clubs). The government statistics for the year 1937 listed about 3,516 Ukrainian co-operative unions with a total of 661,000 members. Polish government made efforts to limit them, including forcibly merging them with Polish cooperatives in some regions.[34] There were nine legal Ukrainian and Ruthenian parties, reflecting a full range of political opinion.[35] Approximately 120 Ukrainian periodicals were published in the 1930s.[35]

Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw, established by virtue of the Decree of the Council of Ministers of Poland in 1930, organized over 50 scientific symposia and published dozens of scholarly works.[36] It became the main center of Taras Shevchenko studies in Europe in the 1930s.[37] Warsaw University opened its departments for Ukrainian professors from Lviv and the cities of Soviet Ukraine like Kyiv and Kharkiv.[36]

The Ukrainian cultural life and political representation in Poland sharply contrasted with that of the Stalinist Soviet Union.[38] The Ukrainian people in the Soviet Ukraine "suffered more from Stalin's rule than any other European part of the USSR" in the same period, ravaged by the terror of Great Famine and the killing of thousands of educated Ukrainians.[7] Because Polish discriminatory policies stopped short of mass murder and complete destruction of Ukrainian cultural and political forces, the Ukrainian population was frustrated and outraged but not broken.[22]

Polish governance brought material progress to many Ukrainians. During the first decade of Poland's independence, electrification and telephone service were introduced to all important towns, and the proportion of children attending to schools rose from 15% to 70% in Volhynia alone.[39] During the 1920s, the Polish Ministry of Education increased the number of schools in the Ukrainian areas over three-fold, to 3,100 by 1938, thus reducing the illiteracy rate among people ten-years-and-older from 50% down to 35% by 1931.[40]

Policies of Józef Piłsudski and the "Volhynia Experiment"

In May 1926 Józef Piłsudski took power in Poland through a Coup D'état. Piłsudski's reign marked the much-needed improvement in the situation of ethnic minorities. Piłsudski replaced the National-Democratic "ethnic assimilation" with a "state assimilation" policy: citizens were judged by their loyalty to the state, not by their nationality.[7] In 1930 the Ukrainian Scientific Institute was established with government funding.[41] Until the outbreak of the Second World War the institute managed to publish more Ukrainian books than any other Ukrainian institution including the works of Taras Shevchenko in 14 volumes and the series of major liturgical texts in first ever Ukrainian translation.[42] The Institute conducted in-depth scientific research into Ukrainian cultural history.[43] However the continuing series of terrorist attacks by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists to sabotage Pilsudki's efforts, resulted in government pacifications[7][44] and meant that the situation continued to degenerate, despite Piłsudski's efforts.

While Ukrainian nationalism was well-established in Galicia and the Ukrainian inhabitants there were generally hostile to Polish rule, the Ukrainian-inhabited region of Volhynia was less developed. Accordingly, the Polish government sought to isolate the Ukrainians of Galicia from those in Volhynia and to assimilate Volhynians to the Polish state politically, by combining support for Ukrainian culture and language with loyalty to the Polish state. It thus hoped to create a pro-Polish Ukrainian identity that could serve as a model for the Ukrainians being oppressed across the Soviet border from Volhynia.[45]

In 1928 Henryk Józewski, the former deputy minister for internal affairs in the Ukrainian government of Symon Petliura, was nominated the voivode of Volhynia, to carry out the program of cultural and religious autonomy for Ukrainians in that region. Józewski, a Pole from Kiev (where, unlike in Galicia, Poles and Ukrainians had a history of cooperating with one another),[46] was a Ukrainophile who felt that the Polish and Ukrainian nations were deeply connected and that Ukraine might one day become a "Second fatherland" for Poles. Józewski brought Ukrainian followers of Symon Petliura, including former officers in Petliura's army, to his capital of Lutsk in order to help in his Volhynian administration. He hung portraits of Petliura alongside those of Pilsudski in public places,[47] founded the Institute for the Study of Nationality Affairs and educational society for the Orthodox (which expanded to 870 chapters in Volhynia), subsidized Ukrainian reading societies (by 1937, it had 5,000 chapters), and sponsored Ukrainian Theater. The use of Ukrainian language, instead of Russian, during church sermons was encouraged.[41] Józewski also led the negotiations concerning the regulation of the legal status of the Orthodox church in Poland.[48] A loyal Ukrainian political party, the Volhynian Ukrainian Alliance, was created.[41] This party was the only Ukrainian political party allowed to freely function in Volhynia.[47] During the period of his governance, Józewski was the object of two assassination attempts: by Soviet agents in 1932 and by Ukrainian nationalists in 1934.[49]

After his sponsor Pilsudski's death in 1935, Józewski's Ukrainian programme was cancelled. The anti-Ukrainian Polish elements in the Polish military took control over policies in Volhynia. Józewski was criticized for allowing Ukrainians to buy land from Poles, Orthodox churches were demolished or converted to Catholic use during the "revindication" campaign, and by 1938 Józewski himself lost his post.[45][50] Under his successor, all state support for Ukrainian institutions was eliminated, and it was recommended that Polish officials cease using the words "Ukraine" or "Ukrainian." [51] The Polish army Generals believed that filling all state offices in Volhynia with ethnic Poles would ensure fast mobilization and prevent sabotage in case of a Russian attack on Poland.[52] Ukrainians were systematically denied the opportunity to obtain government jobs.[53] Local elected ethnic Ukrainian officials were relieved of their posts.[54] Although the majority of the local population was Ukrainian, virtually all government official positions were assigned to Poles. Land reform designed to favour the Poles[55] brought further alienation of the Ukrainian population.[7]

Military colonists were settled in Volhynia to defend border against Soviet intervention.[52] Despite the ethnic Ukrainian lands being overpopulated and Ukrainian farmers being in need of land, the Polish government's land reforms gave land from large Polish estates not to local villagers but to Polish colonists.[53] This number was estimated at 300,000 in both Galicia and Volhynia by Ukrainian sources and less than 100,000 by Polish sources (see osadnik)[56]

Plans were made for a new round of colonization of Volhynia by Polish military veterans and Polish civilians and hundreds of new Roman Catholic churches were planned for the new colonists and for converts from Orthodoxy.[51]

The ultimate result of Polish policies in Volhynia was that a sense of Ukrainian patriotism was created; however this patriotism was not tied to the Polish state.[45] As a result of the anti-Ukrainian Polish policies, both Ukrainian nationalists and Communists found fertile ground for their ideas among the Volhynian Ukrainian population.[51]

Religious and cultural policies

Following the First World War, the government policy was initially aimed at limiting the influence of the predominantly Greek Catholic Ukrainians from Galicia on the Orthodox Ukrainians in Volhynia.[7] A decree defending the rights of the Orthodox minorities was issued but often failed in practice, as the Roman Catholic Church, which had been persecuted under Tsarist rule[57][58][59] and was eager to strengthen its position as well as to reclaim Catholic properties that had been confiscated and converted into Orthodox churches,[60] had official representation in the Sejm (Polish parliament) and the courts. Eventually, a hundred ninety Orthodox churches were destroyed and often abandoned[61] and another one hundred fifty were transformed into Roman Catholic churches. As a result, out of 389 Orthodox churches in Volhynia in 1914, only 51 remained in 1939. In addition to losing church buildings, the Orthodox Church lost large areas of land, which were taken the Polish state and kept by it, or given to the Roman Catholic Church.[54] In the regions of Chelm and Polisia, armed groups of Polish colonists known as Krakus terrorized Ukrainian civilians into converting to Catholicism.[62] Remaining Orthodox churches were forced to use the Polish language in their sermons. The last official government act of the Polish state in Volhynia was to, in August 1939, convert the last remaining Orthodox church in the Volhynian capital of Lutsk into a Roman Catholic one.[32] The Orthodox clergy in Volhynia used the persecution of their church to build up already strong feelings of resentment among the local Ukrainian people against the Poles.[54]

In contrast to the persecution experienced by the Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church under respected by Polish authorities Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky was allowed to prosper in terms of intellectual and religious activities.[63][64]

In Lviv, where Roman Catholics constituted in 1900 at least 52.5% of population, and 76.86% of citizens spoke Polish(although a portion of that population was Jewish),[65] the Polish government sought to emphasize that city's Polish character by limiting the cultural expressions of that city's non-Polish minorities.[66] Unlike in Austrian times, when the size and amount of public parades or other cultural expressions such as parades or religious processions corresponded to each cultural group's relative population, during Polish rule limitations were placed on public displays of Jewish and Ukrainian culture.[66] Celebrations, dedicated to the Polish defence of Lviv, became a major Polish public celebration, and were integrated by the Roman Catholic Church into the traditional all Saints Day celebrations in early November. Military parades and commemorations of battles at particular streets within the city, all celebrating the Polish forces who fought against the Ukrainians in 1918, became frequent. The Polish government fostered the idea of Lviv as an eastern Polish outpost standing strong against eastern "hordes." [66]

Attempts at normalization

After the OUN's assassination of Poland's minister of the interior in 1934 attempts were made at normalization between the government and the UNDO representatives led by Sheptytsky.[67] Ukrainian dissidents were freed from Bereza, and credits were forwarded to Ukrainian cooperatives and economic institutions. However, the more radical Ukrainian nationalists rejected the rapprochement.[67]

Between 1934 and 1938, a series of violent and sometimes deadly (as in Warsaw, with 2 victims)[68] attacks against Ukrainians took place. In one of them in Warsaw dormitories in late 1938 – wrote Monsignor Philippe Cortesi – Polish police watched attacks of National Democracy's members on Ukrainian students and after the riots allegedly arrested the Ukrainian victims for disturbing the peace.[68] In 1938–1939 a number of Ukrainian libraries and reading rooms were burned by Polish mobs of misguided patriotic youth who often went unpunished by the Polish police forces.[67] Polish youths were organized into armed, local paramilitary Strzelcy groups and terrorized the Ukrainian population under the pretext of maintaining law and order, wrote Subtelny. Violent incidents went unreported in the Polish press according to Burds, and Ukrainian newspapers that discussed them were confiscated by the Polish authorities whever they were found.[68]

Education

"Mother tongue" and language of instruction in Polish schools, 1937–1938. Many of the schools in the category "Ukrainian/Belarusian" were in fact bilingual, with Polish as also a language of instruction. The data is from the 1938 Statistical Yearbook of Poland. Click to enlarge.

Due to Polish Second Republic's centralized model of government, decisions concerning education were made in Warsaw.[69] Polish educational policies were geared towards bi-lingual schools. Ukrainian language usage was negatively impacted by the system. A law setting up bilingual Polish-Ukrainian schools and Polish schools, passed in 1924 by the government of Władysław Grabski, resulted in a rapid decline in the number of uni-lingual Ukrainian schools (from 2,426 in 1922 to 352 in 1938 in Galicia; and from 443 in 1922 to 8 in 1938 in Volhynia) and increase in Polish-Ukrainian bilingual schools (2,485 in Galicia; 520 in Volhynia) and Polish schools.[70] By the 1930s these "bilingual" schools became effectively Polish.[71]

By 1938, Polish authorities increased the number of elementary schools in Volhynia and Polessia over three times to 3,100, and from 4,030 to 4,998 in Galicia [70] Thus, in spite of such policies curbing the use of the Ukrainian language, the illiteracy rate in Ukrainian territories fell from 50 percent to 35 percent. Polish policy also gave rise to the first generation of educated Volhynian Ukrainians.[72]

Ethnic Ukrainians were slightly underrepresented in the secondary education system. In the 1936/37 academic year 344 Ukrainians (13.3%) in comparison to 2599 Poles were enrolled in secondary school, in which Ukrainians were 13.9% of the population in the 1931 Polish census.[73] Polish census figures undercounted the actual number of Ukrainians significantly, however,[22] and a realistic estimate of the percentage of the Polish population who were ethnic Ukrainians was approximately 16 percent.[15] In the 1938/9 academic year only 6 Ukrainians were accepted for tertiary education.[74] Ethnic Ukrainians were largely restricted to be educated in the national language, Polish, rather than in their own language. In Poland, there was one Polish gymnasium for every 16,000 ethnic Poles but only one Ukrainian gymnazium for every 230,000 ethnic Ukrainians.[75]

During the Habsburg era, Lviv had housed the largest and most influential Ukrainian institutions in the world.[76] At the University, in 1919 Poland shut down all Ukrainian departments that had opened during the period of Austrian rule save for one, the 1848 Department of Ruthenian Language and Literature, whose chair position was allowed to remain vacant until 1927 before being filled by an ethnic Pole.[62] Most Ukrainian professors were fired, and entrance of ethnic Ukrainians was restricted.[75]

The Ukrainian community's reaction to the anti-Ukrainian educational policies of the Polish government was to create private institutions at its own expense. By the 1937–1938 school year, forty percent of Ukrainian gymnazium, teachers' college, and professional school students attended private schools.[71] Donations from Ukrainian immigrants in Canada and the United States helped to financially support such schools.[75] An underground university in Lviv (which had 1,500 students), and a Ukrainian Free University in Vienna (later moved to Prague)[77] were established. Andrey Sheptytsky, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, attempted to create a private Ukrainian Catholic University but his efforts were thwarted by the strong opposition of the Polish government, which threatened to cancel its Concordat with the Vatican if the Vatican were to recognize a Ukrainian university.[78]

Ukrainians who after World War I found themselves under Polish rule were worse off than those in the new state of Czechoslovakia. In the region which became part of Czechoslovakia after World War I Ukrainian schools did not exist until the establishment of that country. However, by 1921–1922 89 percent of Ukrainian children were enrolled in Ukrainian-language schools.[54]

The result of Poland's discriminatory educational policies against Ukrainians was that many educated Ukrainians became politically radicalized and militantly opposed to Poland.[75]

Ukrainian responses to Polish governance

Olha Basarab, Ukrainian political activist, member of the executive of the Lviv branch of the Union of Ukrainian Women and Ukrainian Military Organization. Arrested after materials indicating cooperation with Germany's intelligence were found at her home, she died in prison in 1924. Different accounts of her death exist, from suicide to accusations of torture and murder[79][80][81]

From the beginning and until the decision at Versailles to give eastern Galicia to Poland in 1923, the Ukrainians considered Polish rule over lands primarily inhabited by them to be illegitimate, and they boycotted the Polish census of 1921 and the Polish elections of 1922.[82] German-Jewish writer Alfred Döblin, travelling in eastern Galicia in 1924, expressed more sympathy for the Ukrainians under Polish rule than towards the Poles who dominated them. He described the Ukrainians' "terible, blind, numb" hatred for the Poles.[83] All Ukrainian political parties and organizations considered Polish rule over territories inhabited primarily by ethnic Ukrainians to be illegitimate.[84] The largest Ukrainian political party in Poland, which dominated political life for the Ukrainian minority in that country, was the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (UNDO).[85] UNDO supported constitutional democracy and focused on building up Ukrainian institutions, promoting Ukrainian education, and fostering Ukrainian self-reliance organizations that could operate independently from the Polish authorities in order to prepare Ukrainians for independence.[62]

In contrast to the peaceful activities of the mainstream Ukrainian political party UNDO, the radical Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists sought to struggle against the Polish government through violence. The OUN carried out hundreds of acts of sabotage in Galicia and Volhynia, including a campaign of arson against Polish landowners (which helped provoke the 1930 Pacification), boycotts of state schools and Polish tobacco and liquor monopolies, dozens of expropriation attacks on government institutions to obtain funds for its activities, and approximately sixty assassinations. Some of the OUN's victims included Tadeusz Hołówko, a Polish promoter of Ukrainian/Polish compromise, Emilian Czechowski, Lviv's Polish police commissioner, Alexei Mailov, a Soviet consular official killed in retaliation for the Holodomor, and most notably Bronisław Pieracki, the Polish interior minister. The OUN also killed moderate Ukrainian figures such as the respected teacher (and former officer of the military of the West Ukrainian People's Republic) Ivan Babii, and in 1930 assaulted the head of the Shevchenko Scientific Society Kyryl Studynsky in his office.[86]

The OUN's terrorism was condemned by most mainstream Ukrainian political leaders. The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky, who was particularly critical of the OUN's leadership in exile who inspired acts of youthful violence, writing that they were "using our children to kill their parents" and that "whoever demoralizes our youth is a criminal and an enemy of the people."[87] UNDO opposed acts of terrorism because they resulted in Polish retaliation against the Ukrainian population.[84]

When Poland was partitioned by Germany and the Soviet Union, the overwhelming majority of Poland's ethnic Ukrainians were sincerely glad to see the Polish state collapse.[88]

Second World War

In 1939 Poland was occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union, the mostly Ukrainian-inhabited territories of Volhynia and Galicia were annexed by the Soviet Union. Some territories inhabited by Ukrainians, however, were placed under German control. In these areas, Ukrainian cultural activities such as theaters, schools and reading rooms that had been suppressed by the Polish government were reestablished. Approximately twenty Ukrainian churches were revived.[89]

During World War II the Ukrainian Central Committee (UCC), which was the officially recognized Ukrainian community and quasi-political organization under the German occupation, was founded and based in Cracow. It was responsible for social services, veteran affairs, education, youth and economic activities. For example, after a flood and famine in Transcarpathia, the Committee was able to save and resettle 30,000 Ukrainian children. By late 1943 it operated 1,366 kitchens and was able to feed 100,000 people. The Committee's interventions led to the release of 85,000 ethnic Ukrainian prisoners-of-war (presumably, from the Polish military) who were captured during the German-Polish conflict. It was unable, however, to intervene in the brutal treatment of Ukrainian prisoners who had fought in the Soviet military. When the Germans began to kill Ukrainian peasants in the Zamosc region for alleged resistance, Kubiyovych's protest to Hans Frank was able to halt that slaughter. The Committee was also able to build student residences housing 7,000 students, provided scholarships worth 1.35 million zlotys, and organized over 100 youth groups, camps and sports clubs.[89]

A Ukrainian Publishing House was established in Cracow. It published numerous Ukrainian works and textbooks. In spite of problems with German censors and chronic paper shortages, the Ukrainian Publishing House also published a Ukrainian daily newspaper.[89]

Ukrainian-populated territories that had been part of Poland were the scene of extreme violence between Ukrainians and Poles. During the Second World War Ukrainian nationalists killed between 40,000–60,000 Polish civilians in the former Polish territory of Volhynia[90] and between 25,000[91] to 30,000–40,000 in the former Polish territory of Eastern Galicia[90] The number of Ukrainian civilians killed in reprisal attacks by Poles is estimated at 10,000–20,000 in all territories covered by the conflict (including south-eastern areas of present-day Poland).[92]

See: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood, 1941 and massacres of Poles in Volhynia.

After Second World War

After the quashing of a Ukrainian insurrection at the end of World War II by the Soviet Union, about 140,000 Ukrainians remaining in Poland were forcibly moved to Soviet Ukraine, and to new territories in northern and western Poland during Operation Vistula.

Since 1989, there has been a new wave of Ukrainian immigration to Poland, mostly consisting of jobseekers. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, around 300,000 Ukrainian citizens work in Poland yearly.[93]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Michael J. Mikoś. "Middle Ages. Cultural background". Printed source: Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to the End of the Eighteenth Century. A Bilingual Anthology, by Michael J. Mikoś, Warsaw: Constans, 1999. Staropolska online. Retrieved 13 August 2011.
  2. ↑ Stephen Velychenko (1992). National history as cultural process: a survey of the interpretations of Ukraine's past in Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian historical writing from the earliest times to 1914. CIUS Press. ISBN 0-920862-75-6. Retrieved 13 August 2011.
  3. ↑ Patricia Kennedy Grimsted. The Ruthenian (Volhynian) Metrica: Polish Crown Chancery Records for Ukrainian Lands, 1569–1673. In: Harvard Ukrainian Studies. Vol. 14/nr 1–2. Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. June 1990. p. 9.
  4. ↑ Paul Robert Magocsi. A History of Ukraine: The land and its Peoples. University of Toronto Press. 2010. p. 157.
  5. ↑ Orest Subtelny. Ukraine: a history. University of Toronto Press. 2000. pp. 94–96, 102.
  6. ↑ C. M. Hann, Paul Robert Magocsi. Galicia: A Multicultured Land. University of Toronto, 2005. ISBN 0-8020-3781-X. Google Print, Page 85.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-10586-X Google Books, p. 144
  8. ↑ Prof. Władysław Filar, Wołyń w okresie międzywojennym (Wołyń Voivodeship in the interwar period.) (Polish) Retrieved 15 August 2011
  9. 1 2 Ukrainian Collaboration in the Extermination of the Jews during the Second World War: Sorting Out the Long-Term and Conjunctural Factors by John-Paul Himka, University of Alberta. Taken from The Fate of the European Jews, 1939–1945: Continuity or Contingency, ed. Jonathan Frankel (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), Studies in Contemporary Jewry 13 (1997): 170–189.
  10. ↑ Jarosław Hrycak. (1996). Нариси Історії України: Формування модерної української нації XIX-XX ст (Ukrainian; Essays on the History of Ukraine: the Formation of the Modern Ukrainian Nation). Kiev, Ukraine: Chapter 3.
  11. ↑ Norman Davies. "Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth Century Poland." In: Herbert Arthur Strauss. Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39. Walter de Gruyter, 1993.
  12. ↑ Lviv#Demographics
  13. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 123
  14. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 134
  15. 1 2 G. Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 1942–1960, PAN, 2006, pp. 38–39
  16. ↑ E. D. Wynot, Polish politics in transition: the camp of national unity and the struggle for power, 1935–1939, University of Georgia Press, 1974, p. 13
  17. ↑ P. A. Rudling. Theory and Practice. Historical representation of the wartime accounts of the activities of the OUN-UPA (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Ukrainian Insurgent Army). East European Jewish Affairs. Vol. 36. No.2. December 2006. p.165
  18. ↑ ^ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 145
  19. ↑ Historia 1871–1939 Anna Radziwiłł, Wojciech Roszkowski Warsaw 2000 page 278
  20. ↑ Zbigniew Brzezinski in his introduction to Wacław Jędrzejewicz's "Pilsudski A Life For Poland" wrote: Pilsudski's vision of Poland, paradoxically, was never attained. He contributed immensely to the creation of a modern Polish state, to the preservation of Poland from the Soviet invasion, yet he failed to create the kind of multinational commonwealth, based on principles of social justice and ethnic tolerance, to which he aspired in his youth. One may wonder how relevant was his image of such a Poland in the age of nationalism.... Quoted from this website.
  21. ↑ Orest Subtelny. (1988). Ukraine: A History. Tornto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 428
  22. 1 2 3 Jean-Paul Himka. (1992). Western Ukraine between the Wars. Canadian Slavonic Papers. Vol. 34, No. 4 (December 1992), pp. 391-412
  23. ↑ Paul Robert Magocsi. (2010). A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 638
  24. ↑ M. Smogorzewska, Posłowie i senatorowie Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1919–1939, t. 4, 1998, Wydawnictwo Sejmowe, p. 212
  25. ↑ Posiedzenie Sejmu i Senatu RP 2 września 1939 r. (Session of Polish parliament: 2 September 1939)
  26. ↑ Eastern Europe in the twentieth century By R. J. Crampton, page 50
  27. ↑ Galicia By C. M. Hann, Paul R. Magocsi, page 148
  28. ↑ Pacification Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto, article written by Andrzej Chojnowski
  29. ↑ Roy Francis Leslie, The History of Poland Since 1863, Cambridge University Press, 1983, ISBN 0-521-27501-6, Google Print, p.200
  30. ↑ Encyclopedia of Ukraine, "Normalization" article written by Andrzej Zięba
  31. ↑ Subtelny, Ukraine.. pp. 431–432
  32. 1 2 Timothy Snyder. (2005). Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp.167
  33. 1 2 Prosvita at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).
  34. ↑ Paul Robert Magocsi. (1996). A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 442 and pg. 589.
  35. 1 2 G. Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 1942–1960, PAN, 2006, p. 41
  36. 1 2 Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. November 9, 2007
  37. ↑ M. Antokhii et.al.Shevchenko, Taras. Encyclopedia of Ukraine. 2004
  38. ↑ I. Vushko, Korenisatsiia and its discontents: Ukraine and the Soviet Nationality policies during the 1920s, EU working papers, MWP 2009/12
  39. ↑ T. Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine, Yale University Press, 2005, p. 61
  40. ↑ P. Magocsi, A history of Ukraine, Toronto University Press, 1996, pp. 594, 637 in Google Books
  41. 1 2 3 T. Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine, Yale University Press, 2005, pp. 67, 302, 384
  42. ↑ Stefan Kozak. "ukraiński instytut Naukowy w Warszawie (1930–1939)" (PDF file, direct download 5.87 MB). Warszawskie Zeszyty Ukrainoznawcze. Katedra Ukrainistyki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. p. 15. Retrieved 20 November 2013.
  43. ↑ Katia Davydenko, Ostap Kin (2012). "Oleksander Lotots'kyi Papers" (PDF file, direct download). Shevchenko Scientific Society. Retrieved 20 November 2013.
  44. ↑ Davies, God's Playground, op.cit.
  45. 1 2 3 Timothy Snyder. (2004). The reconstruction of nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 . New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 144–149
  46. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 121
  47. 1 2 T. Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine, Yale University Press, 2005, pg. 67–77
  48. ↑ Andrzej Chojnowski. Stanisław Stempowski on his participation in the Government of the Ukrainian People's Republic. In: Harvard Ukrainian Studies. Vol. 14/No. 1-2. Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. June 1990. p. 145.
  49. ↑ T. Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine, Yale University Press, 2005, p. 15.
  50. ↑ T. Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine, Yale University Press, 2005, pp. 138, 147, 164–166.
  51. 1 2 3 Timothy Snyder. (2005). Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 165–166
  52. 1 2 Timothy Snyder. Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine. Yale University Press. 2007. pp. 156–157, 176.
  53. 1 2 Roger Dale Petersen. (2002). Understanding ethnic violence: fear, hatred, and resentment in twentieth-century Eastern Europe. Cambridge University Press, p. 122
  54. 1 2 3 4 Janusz Radziejowski. (1983). The Communist Party of Western Ukraine: 1919-1929. Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press at the University of Toronto, p. 7
  55. ↑ Snyder, op cit, Google Print, p.146
  56. ↑ Subtelny, O. (1988). Ukraine: a History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 429. ISBN 0-8020-5808-6
  57. ↑ Christopher Lawrence Zugger. The forgotten: Catholics of the Soviet empire from Lenin through Stalin. Syracuse University Press. 2001. pp. 26–27.
  58. ↑ Dennis J. Dunn. The Catholic Church and Russia: popes, patriarchs, tsars, and commissars. Ashgate Pub Ltd. 2004. p. 52
  59. ↑ Hubert Jedin et al. History of the Church, Vol. IX. The Church in the industrial age. Continuum International Publishing Group. 1981. pp. 171–174.
  60. ↑ Timothy Snyder. Sketches from the Secret War. A Polish artist's mission to liberate Soviet Ukraine. Yale University Press. p. 147.
  61. ↑ The Impact of External Threat on States and Domestic Societie, Manus I. Midlarsky in Dissolving Boundaries, Blackwell Publishers, 2003, ISBN 1-4051-2134-3, Google Print, p.15
  62. 1 2 3 Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5808-6.
  63. ↑ Joaquim Carvalho. Religion and power in Europe: conflict and convergence. Edizioni Plus. 2007. pp. 243–244.
  64. ↑ Paul Robert Magocsi. A history of Ukraine. University of Toronto Press. 1996. pp. 595–596.
  65. ↑ Nationbuilding and the politics of nationalism: essays on Austrian Galicia Andrei S. Markovits,Frank E. Sysyn, p. 94, Harvard University Press 1982
  66. 1 2 3 Paul Robert Magocsi. (2005)Galicia: a Multicultured Land. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 144–145
  67. 1 2 3 Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 1442697288.
  68. 1 2 3 Jeffrey Burds, "Comments on Timothy Snyder's article", "To Resolve the Ukrainian Question once and for All: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943–1947" by Timothy Snyder in the Journal of Cold War Studies, Volume 1, Number 2 (Spring 1999), Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Monsignor Dr. Philippe Cortesi, the Papal Nuncio in Warsaw, condemned the violence in a private letter to the Polish Minister of Internal Affairs regarding just one such event of 2–3 November 1938. Polish members of the 'En-De' ('National Democracy', a militant Polish patriotic-nationalist organization) attacked Ukrainian students in their dormitories in Warsaw.
  69. ↑ Nathaniel Copsey. Public opinion and the making of foreign policy in the 'New Europe': a comparative study of Poland and Ukraine. Ashgate Publishing. 2009. p. 87. ISBN 0-7546-7898-9.
  70. 1 2 P. Magocsi, A history of Ukraine, Toronto University Press, 1996, p. 594
  71. 1 2 Paul R. Magocsi. (2002). The roots of Ukrainian nationalism: Galicia as Ukraine's Piedmont Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 30 "By 1930s, many of these officially bilingual schools became Polish"
  72. ↑ T. Snyder, The reconstructions of nations, Yale University Press, 2003, p. 148
  73. ↑ (Polish) Główny Urząd Statystyczny (corporate author) (1932). Drugi powszechny spis ludności z dnia 9 XII 1931r. Formularze i instrukcje spisowe. Warsaw: Główny Urząd Statystyczny. p. 128.
  74. ↑ Mieczyslaw Iwanicki, Oswiata i szkolnictwo ukrainskie w Polsce w latach 1918–1939. praca habilatacyjna. Siedlce, 1975 s. 162
  75. 1 2 3 4 Orest Subtelny. Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 439 "Anti-Ukrainian discrimination was also evident at the university level. The government...systematically obstructed Ukrainians from obtaining a university education."
  76. ↑ Paul Robert Magocsi. (2005)Galicia: a Multicultured Land. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 12–15
  77. ↑ Ukrainian Free University website URL accessed 30 July 2006
  78. ↑ Paul Robert Magocsi(Ed.) (1989). Morality and Reality: The Life and Times of Andrei Sheptytsḱyi. Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Pres, University of Toronto. p. 275
  79. ↑ Encyclopedia of Ukraine University of toronto Press, 1984
  80. ↑ Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak (1988). Feminists despite themselves: women in Ukrainian community life, 1884–1939 Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies PRess, University of Alberta p. 164
  81. ↑ “Героям – слава!”: Ольга Басараб. (Ukrainian)
  82. ↑ Orest Subtelny. Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Tornto Press, p. 427.
  83. ↑ Larry Wolff.(2010).The idea of Galicia: history and fantasy in Habsburg political culture . Stanford University: pp.386–387
  84. 1 2 John Armstrong (1963). Ukrainian Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 18–19
  85. ↑ Encyclopedia of Ukraine, "National Democratic Party", written by Vasyl Mudry
  86. ↑ Lvivska Hazeta (Lviv Gazette), 7 October 2005. The Art of Compromises: Kyryl Studynsky and Soviet Rule. Article written by Ihor Chornovol
  87. ↑ Bohdan Budurowycz. (1989). Sheptytski and the Ukrainian National Movement after 1914 (chapter). In Paul Robert Magocsi (ed.). Morality and Reality: The Life and Times of Andrei Sheptytsky. Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. p. 57. A more detailed sample of Sheptytsky's impassioned words condemning the OUN, printed in the newspaper of the mainstream western Ukrainian newspaper Dilo: "If you are planning to kill treacherously those who are opposed to your misdeeds, you will have to kill all the teachers and professors who are working for the Ukrainian youth, all the fathers and mothers of Ukrainian children...all politicians and civic activists. But first of all you will have to remove through assassination the clergy and the bishops who resist your criminal and foolish actions...We will not cease to declare that whoever demoralizes our youth is a criminal and an enemy of our people."
  88. ↑ Jan Gross. (2002).Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Princeton: Princeton University Press p. 31
  89. 1 2 3 Myroslav Yurkevich. (1986). Galician Ukrainians in German Military Formations and in the German Administration. In Ukraine during World War II: history and its aftermath : a symposium (Yuri Boshyk, Roman Waschuk, Andriy Wynnyckyj, Eds.). Edmonton: University of Alberta, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press pp. 73–75
  90. 1 2 Grzegorz Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej do akcji "Wisła". Konflikt polsko-ukraiński 1943– 1947. Kraków 2011, p.447
  91. ↑ Timothy Snyder, Rekonstrukcja narodów. Polska, Ukraina, Litwa, Białoruś 1569–1999, Sejny 2009, p.196
  92. ↑ Grzegorz Motyka, W kręgu łun w Bieszczadach, Rytm, 2009, p. 13
  93. ↑ Krystyna Iglicka. Poland. Waiting for immigrants. But do we really want them?. CeSPI Country Papers. August 2008. p. 8.
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