W Lublin on 24 August will be the main celebration of the 35th anniversary of the independency Day of Ukraine: at 15:00 a service and a wreath at Lipowa Street, at 16:30 a ceremony at the consulate, at 5:30 a.m. event at Lithuanian Square. For Poland, it is simply a substance of security, memory and hard politics towards Russia.
Main ceremonies August 24
Lublin on Monday, August 24, will be 1 of the most crucial Polish places to celebrate the independency Day of Ukraine. As shown by a program published by the East Journal, the authoritative events will run from 22 to 29 August, but the main part is the day of the holiday.
The first point of the main celebrations was set at 3:00 p.m. at the Orthodox necropolis on Lipowa. The participants are to pray and pay tribute to the site commemorating soldiers of the Ukrainian Army of the People's Republic. It's not a random address. The memory of the URL soldiers touches the part of past in which Poles and Ukrainians, in all dramatic disputes of later decades, had a common opponent: the Bolshevik empire.
The next part will begin at 4:30 p.m. at the office of the Ukrainian consulate in the Pacific. The program includes hymns of both countries, a flag ceremony and the improvement of the 20-meter Polish-Ukrainian flag. At 5:30 p.m., the events will be moved to Litewski Square, where a public gathering under the slogan “Independence in the heart. Unity in action!’ In the evening, from 8:00 to midnight, the square is to be lit up in colors of Ukraine.
Lublin as the base of east politics
Lublin since the beginning of Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine was a city of first contact: logistical, humanitarian and social. According to local information, over 1.2 million refugees from Ukraine have passed through the city. This shows the scale of real aid, but besides the scale of the burden that fell on Polish local governments, services, organizations and average families.
Therefore, specified celebrations request to be seen more than through the prism of the ceremony. For Poland, free Ukraine is simply a buffer against Russian imperialism. It's a geopolitical fact, not a sentimental slogan. Moscow has been treating Central Europe for years as an area of pressure, blackmail and information war. all day of opposition in Ukraine removes any of this force from the Polish border.
But Polish state rations do not mean unconditional enthusiasm. It means hard aid where our safety lies, and an equally hard conversation about hard matters: memory of Volyn, rights of Poles in Ukraine, costs of assistance and principles of the presence of refugees in Poland. A mature policy is not to pretend that there are no problems. The point is that they are not given up by Moscow as fuel to quarrel nations.
Independence of Ukraine matters to Poland
The independency Day of Ukraine is celebrated on 24 August, on the anniversary of the act of independency in 1991. The legislature of the Republic of Poland resembles, that in the referendum of December 1, 1991 90 percent of voters advocated independence, and Poland was 1 of the first countries to recognise it.
This is besides crucial from the Polish point of view. The collapse of the russian Union has opened up a central Europe of sovereignty, which must not be given lightly present by either Moscow or bureaucratic projects to blur national states. independency makes sense erstwhile the people decide their own fate, boundaries, military, economy and memory.
W Lublin will be peculiarly visible. The town lies close to the east border, has its own experience of helping refugees and is simply a place where east politics is not abstract from cabinets. Here you can see that the war in Ukraine means concrete: queues in transitions, aid movement, administrative costs, force on public services and the request to keep order.
Solidarity without naivety
The anniversary program besides includes cultural, sporting and spiritual events. Lublin112 states behind the Consulate General of Ukraine in Lublin, that on August 26, in St. Jozafat's church, the Lviv YOSYFOVYCH LIVE squad will perform, and on August 29, on the Day of Memory of Defendants and Defendants of Ukraine, panachida will be celebrated and sunflowers will be laid at photographs of fallen soldiers.
Such a speech is proper: prayer, memory, seriousness. The Polish right does not gotta choose between compassion for the victims of Russian aggression and defence of Polish interest. 1 without the another would be a mistake. Compassion without realism becomes a politics without borders. Realism with no memory of the victims becomes cynical.
The stakes are simple. Poland is to support what weakens Russian imperialism and strengthens our security, but is to do so as a state conscious of its own history, its own costs and its own conditions. Lublin on 24 August will remind about this hard but essential balance.
Source: Polish Radio Lublin, east Journal, Lublin112, legislature of the Republic of Poland.
Source: Polish Radio Lublin
