In fresh days, there is much information in the Ukrainian media about events in honor of victims of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict. Most of them are accompanied by information documents, most of which repeat Polish thesis that only Ukrainians, only Poles, were killed and that they were killed only in Volyn. actual past is more complicated. I will effort to explain what is incorrect with the narrowing down to “Volyn-43” which remains out of focus.
The word “Volyn” means to the Ukrainians 1 of the most beautiful parts of the country, a beautiful region of forests and lakes whose ancient past dates back to the Russian times. It begins to take on a completely different meaning for our western neighbours. Volyn becomes synonymous with a terrible crime.
This perception is comparatively fresh – it is simply a small over 10 years old, but thanks to the mass media and politicians it most likely replaces its first meaning in Poles' awareness.
The comparison of this word with the number “43” in general eliminates any another context and is only seen as synonymous with mass murder, and more late the concept of “genocide”.
Such a change cannot be carried out solely through the efforts of the present media, even though they have a powerful influence on the formation of public awareness. “Volyn-43” is not a fiction of Polish or Russian propaganda. The basis of the information and political run is simply a true, terrible communicative about the murders of thousands of people that took place during planet War II.
However, torn from a wider geographical and chronological context, seasoned with emotions and political interests, the communicative sounded completely different. Focusing only on Volyn and only in 1943 creates a distorted image of what happened between Poles and Ukrainians before, during and after planet War II.
Indeed, in Volyn, especially in the summertime of 1943, the victims were mainly Poles. But it was different on Chełma in the erstwhile 1942 and the following 1944, otherwise in Galicia in the same 1944 or in Nadsana and Lemkowszczyń from 1945 to 1947. The broader geographical and chronological context shows that among the murdered and perpetrators of the murders were both Ukrainians and Poles. Therefore, it will not be possible to divide into torturers and their victims that due to nationality.
The broader context not only shows what happened between our peoples then, but can besides explain why this was possible. Why during 1 of the bloodiest wars in the past of humanity Ukrainians and Poles, who were victims of 2 totalitarian regimes – communist and Nazi, have put so much effort towards each other's fight. Why specified terrible manifestations of common hatred became possible among those who lived side by side.
The answer of those who usage the narrow scope of Volyn-43 is very simple – the pre-war idyll of the coexistence of 2 nations has been replaced by a terrible difference, thanks to the efforts of Ukrainian nationalists. They managed to capture their ideology, which as if from the very beginning predicted the necessity of destroying Poles, quiet and peaceful Ukrainians in general and pushing them to murder.
Like any simple answer to a complex historical question, it is wrong. And this is not only due to the fact that in the ideology of Ukrainian nationalists 1 can find a kind of polonaphobia, which should become the basis for the extermination of Poles. But besides due to the fact that the CNS never had adequate resources to mass indoctrinate society with its ideas.
Before, during and after planet War II, the main motivation for most Ukrainians supporting the fight of Ukrainian nationalists was the behaviour of their opponents – Polish, russian or German authorities. It was a brutal business policy, depriving not only of self-fulfillment, but frequently even of life, that pushed average peasants, far from all ideas, underground and insurgents. The average Ukrainian peasants, until late far from any political processes, were in general the basis of the Ukrainian people, and in peculiar the basis of the Ukrainian liberation movement OUN and UPA.
People from another layers of Ukrainian society (intelligence, military elite), even though they remained in the absolute minority, managed to set up an organizational framework linking the majority, motivated them with a alternatively abstract thought of independent Ukraine. Most participants in the Ukrainian liberation movement did not full know what the state for which they fought and even died was to be. It simply had to be different from existing Polish, russian or German realities, where there was no place for them due to the fact that they were Ukrainians.
If we dare to look behind the scenes of Volyn-43, we will see processes that have led to a large-scale confrontation. After all, planet War I and the first armed clash of Ukrainians with Poles on the ruins of this war of empires and the brutal discriminatory policy of the Polish authorities (pressing political and cultural rights, "pacification", demolition of Ukrainian churches) and yet planet War II and the fresh armed conflict between Ukrainians and Poles – all these events, which would last for centuries of history, took place in an highly compressed chronological period – in 30 years, in the life of 1 generation.
For Ukrainian-Galician who participated in the anti-Polish action in 1944, the events of the first Ukrainian-Polish war from 1918 to 1919 were not so remote. It happened 25 years ago. Thus the same Ukrainian could be a associate in both events. Although it is clear that most UPA soldiers were inactive young people who did not participate in the war 1918-1919. But their desire for revenge for the defeat of their parents was not less, especially given the memory of the humiliation of the interwar period in which these young Ukrainians were formed.
If we look behind the scenes of “Wołyńska 43” in our nearer times, we will see how the desire for revenge pushed the Polish underground into war crimes which in 1944 in Nadsian in the following year 1945. We will realize how the communists, who were hated by Moscow, managed to keep power in post-war Poland – at the price of solving the “Ukrainian question”.
Communists did what the majority of Polish society pursued after the war, as promised by nationalists before and during the war – Poland without Ukrainians, a practically monoethnic state. Destroyed, exported to the USSR and dispersed in northwestern Poland, the Ukrainian community, which played an crucial function in the formation of the state (as in the times of the Second Republic), ceased to exist. exist.
Therefore, we will be able to realize not only the causes and circumstances of the conflict between Ukrainians and Poles in the past, and will be able to answer questions about the peculiarities of current relations between our countries.
However, the scenes not only narrow down the viewing possibilities, but besides conceal from the viewer certain activities that do not appear on the stage. This was the case in the case of events in Volyn in 1943, where behind the scenes of the Polish-Ukrainian confrontation the German and russian factors curious in deepening the confrontation acted. In the same way, behind the scenes “Volyn-43” is conducted Russian propaganda aimed at worsening relations between the current Ukraine and Poland.
Read more about this in your book.
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Author
Volodymyr Tytrovich
Historian. Head of Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (2014-2019), Ukrainian national MP
