HISTORICAL MEMORY AND THE PROBLEM OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH RECONCILIATION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29038/2524-2679-2024-02-175-191Keywords:
Ukrainian-Polish political reconciliation, negative stereotypes, historical memory, Russian aggression, threat to Poland from Russia, European integration, world orderAbstract
The author aims to analyze, through the prism of the Russian Federation’s at- tempts to eliminate Ukrainian statehood and force Ukrainians to renounce their national identity, Ukrainian-Polish relations in historical retrospect. Their deve- lopment is hindered by negative stereotypes that arose in the past. The Ukrai- nian-Polish contradictions culminated in the aftermath of World War I, when the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires collapsed. The fact is that the lands of mixed Ukrainian-Polish residence were claimed by the reviving Poland, on the one hand, and the Ukrainian People’s Republic and the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic, on the other. In the interwar years, Ukrainian-Polish contra- dictions accumulated. And during World War II, they were further exacerbated by the policies of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR, which were facilitated in the realization of their imperial plans.
The author examined whether there were any attempts at Ukrainian-Polish rec- onciliation during the last century and how the issue of overcoming negative stereotypes in relations between Ukrainians and Poles looks like in the current situation, when Poland is one of the main defenders of Ukraine against Russian aggression.
The author has used interesting and not always accessible general materials to substantiate his arguments. The article deals with attempts at Ukrainian-Polish political reconciliation at various levels of public representation, from state and political leaders of both countries, Ukrainian and Polish scholars, to specific in- dividuals, such as Bohdan Osadchuk on the Ukrainian side and Jerzy Giedroyc on the Polish side.
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