Polish military parade in Lviv, between 1920 and 1930. Архів Центру досліджень визвольного руху, Львів / wikimedia Commons,
CC BY 3.0
Introduction
This module presents a selection of sources on the history of Ukrainians in interwar Poland. It traces their multifaceted relationship with the Polish state – from pragmatic coexistence to episodes of violence, and from cooperation to efforts at assimilation. The documents span the period from the Polish-Ukrainian War of 1918–1921, through phases of attempted normalization, to the varied experiences of repression and conflict, including both state violence against Ukrainians and acts of terror committed by right-wing Ukrainian organizations against Poles and against Ukrainians seen as collaborators.
The First World War and the ensuing reshaping of East-Central Europe spurred a range of initiatives to found a Ukrainian state in both western and central Ukraine, as well as a number of short-lived micro-states. During the “Ukrainian Revolution” of 1917–1921, Ukrainians came close to achieving political independence. Ultimately, however, these state-building efforts failed due to a lack of international diplomatic allies and the overwhelming power of neighboring states and military actors. These included, in particular,
eng. Second Polish Republic, deu. Zweite Polnische Republik, pol. II. Rzeczpospolita, pol. II Rzeczpospolita
The Second Polish Republic (Polish: II. Rzeczpospolita) is the common name for the Polish state (Republic of Poland) after it regained independence on 11.11.1918 in connection with the end of the First World War, following 123 years of partition. The territorial extent of the Second Polish Republic, especially to the east, was considerably smaller than that of the so-called 1st Republic (Republic of Nobles), which ceased to exist in 1795 with the third partition of Poland between the Habsburg Monarchy, Prussia and Russia.
The borders of the Second Polish Republic with the neighboring states were not established until 1921/22 and as a result of armed conflicts, although they remained controversial even afterwards (and in some cases for the entire existence of the Second Polish Republic). The German aggression on Poland on September 1, 1939 and the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939 were followed by the capitulation in Warsaw on September 28, 1939, which was the functional end of the Second Republic. The withdrawal of recognition of the Polish government-in-exile by the British and US governments on 5 July 1945 is often regarded as its formal end, although the organs of the later People's Republic of Poland were already recognized by the Soviet Union as the official representation of Poland on 24 June 1944. The President of the Polish government-in-exile in London, Ryszard Kaczorowski, handed over the insignia of the Second Republic to the then President in Warsaw, Lech Wałęsa, on 22.12.1990 as the last symbolic act of the Second Polish Republic.
The West Ukrainian People's Republic was a short-lived state more or less in the southwestern part of present-day Ukraine. It claimed territories of the disintegrating Habsburg Monarchy with a high proportion of Ukrainian or Rusyn population, such as Galicia, Bukovina, and Transcarpathia. The West Ukrainian People's Republic was founded on November 1, 1918, in Lviv, but by November 22, the government was forced to leave the capital due to the advancing Polish troops. Stanislau served as the seat of government for the longest period. Bukovina was soon occupied by Romanian troops, and Transcarpathia by Czechoslovak troops. On January 22, 1922, the West Ukrainian People's Republic joined the Ukrainian People's Republic.
) and the Red Army of the Russian and Ukrainian Bolsheviks (with regard to the
rus. Украинская Народная Республика, ukr. Українська Народна Республіка, deu. Volksrepublik Ukraine, deu. Ukrainische Volksrepublik, rus. Ukrainskaâ Narodnaâ Respublika, ukr. Ukraїnsʹka Narodna Respublіka
The Ukrainian People's Republic was founded in 1918 and stood in opposition to the Bolshevik USSR. After the conquest by the USSR in 1920, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was established.
), both of which took action against the Ukrainian state-building endeavors.
Both the West Ukrainian People’s Republic and the Ukrainian People’s Republic found themselves within an extremely complex geopolitical constellation and eventually foundered amid conflicts with neighboring powers. At the Paris Peace Conference, the Ruthenian national councils in the formerly northeastern Hungarian counties did not seek incorporation into the West Ukrainian People’s Republic but into
Czechoslovakia was a state existing between 1918 and 1992 with changing borders, names, and political systems. Its territories are now part of the modern-day states of Czechia, Slovakia, and Ukraine (Carpathian Ukraine, occupied by Hungary in 1939 and transferred to the Soviet Union in 1945). After 1945, Czechoslovakia came under increasing political influence from the Soviet Union. After the communist party seized power in 1948, the country finally became part of the so-called Eastern Bloc, a satellite state of the Soviet Union, and a member of the Warsaw Pact from 1955. Between 1960 and 1990, the communist country was officially known as the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (abbreviated to ČSSR). The democratic political change was initiated in 1989 with the Velvet Revolution and culminated in 1992 with the founding of the independent Czech and Slovak Republics.
The Kingdom of Romania was a historical state in south-eastern Europe that existed from 1881 to 1947. Its direct predecessor was the Principality of Romania, which was formed in 1861/62 from the constituent principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, but was initially still under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire. It was not until the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/78 that the political independence of the principality was achieved and it proclaimed itself a kingdom in 1881. The first king was Charles I (1839-1914), who, like all his successors, came from the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
Before the First World War (1914-1918), the territory only comprised the historical landscapes of Wallachia and parts of Moldavia and Dobruja. However, as a member of the victorious powers of the First World War, the territory was massively expanded and more than doubled after the end of the war. Among other regions, Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transylvania and parts of the Banat now also fell to the kingdom. This is why Romania in the interwar period is also referred to as “Greater Romania”; the state before 1918 as the “Old Kingdom”.
With the rise of nationalist and fascist groups in the 1930s, the country became increasingly unstable. By mid-1940, despite its attempt to remain neutral in the Second World War, Romania had to hand back large parts of the territories it had gained in 1918. In the same year, a military dictatorship was established, which now effectively exercised the power of government. A short time later, the country entered the war on the side of the Axis powers and in close cooperation with National Socialist Germany. In 1944, King Michael I (1921-2017) staged a coup d'état against his own government, as a result of which the country joined the Allies and declared war on the German Reich. Only around three years later, at the end of 1947, the now ruling Romanian Communist Party forced Michael to abdicate and proclaimed the Romanian People's Republic.
Bukovina is a historical landscape in modern Romania and Ukraine. The northern part is situated in the Ukrainian Chernivtsi Oblast, while the southern part is part of the Romanian Suceava County. The region once formed a part of the Principality of Moldavia and the Habsburg Monarchy.
, thereby fulfilling its claim to incorporate the entire former crown land into its state territory and subject its inhabitants to a rigorous policy of Romanianization.2 Poland annexed Eastern
deu. Galizien, yid. גאַליציע, yid. Galitsiye, ron. Halici, ron. Galiția, hun. Halics, hun. Gácsország, hun. Kaliz, hun. Galícia, ces. Halič, slk. Halič, rus. Галиция, rus. Galizija, ukr. Галичина, ukr. Halytschyna, pol. Galicja
Galicia is a historical landscape, which today is almost entirely located on the territory of Poland and Ukraine. The part in southeastern Poland is usually referred to as Western Galicia, and the part in western Ukraine as Eastern Galicia. Before 1772, Galicia belonged for centuries to the Polish-Lithuanian noble republic, and subsequently and until 1918 - as part of the crown land "Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria" - to the Habsburg Empire.
in 1919 and, during the Polish–Soviet War, gained additional Ukrainian territories from the legacy of the
Малоформатный атлас Российской империи (1796). Карта Российской империи (карта 1).
Russian Empire
rus. Российская империя, rus. Rossijskaja imperija, deu. Russisches Zarenreich, rus. Всероссийская империя, rus. Wserossijskaja imperija, deu. Kaiserreich Russland, deu. Russisches Kaiserreich, deu. Russisches Reich, deu. Russländisches Reich, deu. Russländisches Kaiserreich
The Russian Empire (or Empire of Russia) was a state that existed from 1721 to 1917 in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and North America. The country was the largest contiguous empire in modern history in the mid-19th century. It was dissolved after the February Revolution in 1917. The state was regarded as autocratically ruled and was inhabited by about 181 million people.
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was founded in Kharkiv in 1919 as a puppet state of Soviet Russia. It initially existed on a small territory in competition with other Ukrainian states. In 1922, it was one of the founding members of the Soviet Union. In 1934, the capital of the Ukrainian SSR was moved to Kyiv. Shortly after the start of World War II in 1939, Soviet troops occupied Polish territories east of the Bug River and annexed the areas with a high proportion of Ukrainian population to the Ukrainian SSR.
Kharkiv (population 2024: about 1,300,000) is the second largest city in Ukraine. It is situated in the East part of the country. The city was founded in 1630 or 1653 in the "Wild Field", as the steppe landscape in what is now southern and eastern Ukraine was called at the time. With the shift of the Russian border to the south, it lost its importance as a fortress, but subsequently became a center of trade and crafts. From 1918 to 1934 Kharkiv was the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
Since February 2022 Kharkiv has suffered heavy shelling in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
in 1919, and the Red Army subsequently seized its territory from the Ukrainian People’s Republic and the White Army. At the end of 1922, the UkrSSR was incorporated into the
deu. Union der Sozialistischen Sowjetrepubliken, deu. Sowjetunion, rus. Sovetskiy Soyuz, rus. Советский Союз, . Совет Ушем, . Советонь Соткс, rus. Sovetskij Soûz, . Советий Союз, yid. ראַטן־פֿאַרבאַנד, yid. סאוועטן פארבאנד, yid. sovətn farband, yid. sovʿtn-farband, yid. sovətn-farband, . Советтер Союзу, . Совет Союзы, . Советон Цæдис, . Совет Эвилели
The Soviet Union (SU or USSR) was a state in Eastern Europe, Central and Northern Asia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It emerged from the so-called Soviet Russia, the successor state of the Russian Empire. The Russian Soviet Republic formed the core of the union and at the same time its largest part, with further constituent republics added. Their number varied over time and was related to the occupation of other countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Soviet republics that existed only for a short time (Karelo-Finlandia) or the division or merger of Soviet republics. In addition, there were numerous autonomous republics or other territorial units with an autonomy status that was essentially limited to linguistic autonomy for minorities.
Before its formal dissolution, the USSR consisted of 15 Soviet republics with a population of approximately 290 million people. At around 22.4 million km², it was the largest territorial state in the world at the time. The Soviet Union was a socialist soviet republic with a one-party system and an absence of separation of powers.
As with the module on the First World War, the question arises – when defining the interwar period – of where to place its starting point. As a direct consequence of the collapse of the
Austria-Hungary (Hungarian: Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia), also known as Imperial and Royal Hungary Monarchy, was a historical state in Central and Southeastern Europe that existed from 1867 to 1918.
Lwiw (deutsch Lemberg, ukrainisch Львів, polnisch Lwów) ist eine Stadt in der Westukraine in der gleichnamigen Oblast. Mit knapp 730.000 Einwohner:innen (2015) ist Lwiw eine der größten Städte der Ukraine. Die Stadt gehörte lange zu Polen und Österreich-Ungarn.
Aufgrund des Krieges in der Ukraine ist es möglich, dass diese Informationen nicht mehr dem aktuellen Stand entsprechen.
attempted during the night of October 31 to November 1, 1918, to establish a ‘West Ukrainian People’s Republic’ in those parts of the Austrian crown land of Galicia that were predominantly inhabited by Ukrainians. The battle for Lviv against Polish units, which sought to incorporate the territory into the new Republic of Poland, was lost after only three weeks. However, the subsequent Polish–Ukrainian War lasted another year. In the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921 that followed, Poland was able to acquire additional Ukrainian lands (parts of
The historical landscape of Volhynia is located in northwestern Ukraine on the border with Poland and Belarus. Already in the late Middle Ages the region fell to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and from 1569 on belonged to the united Polish-Lithuanian noble republic for more than two centuries. After the partitions of Poland-Lithuania at the end of the 18th century, the region came under the Russian Empire and became the name of the Volhynia Governorate, which lasted until the early 20th century. The Russian period also saw the immigration of German-speaking population (the so-called Volhyniendeutsche), which peaked in the second half of the 19th century. After the First World War Volhynia was divided between Poland and the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, from 1939, as a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, completely Soviet and already in 1941 occupied by the Wehrmacht. Under German occupation there was systematic persecution and murder of the Jewish population as well as other parts of the population.
After World War II, Volhynia again belonged to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and since 1992 to Ukraine. The landscape gives its name to the present-day Ukrainian oblast with its capital Luzk (ukr. Луцьк), which is not exactly congruent.
Polesia is a historical region in the lowlands of the Bug and Prypiat river basins. It stretches from eastern Poland through Belarus and Ukraine to western Russia. The territories belonging to Kievan Rus were also claimed by Poland and Lithuania. In 1385, they were conquered by Lithuania. After the third partition of Poland-Lithuania (1795), they were incorporated into Russia. The original marshland was transformed from the 19th century onwards, mainly for agricultural purposes, with only the southern part remaining largely unchanged. However, the Pripyat Marshes were heavily contaminated with radioactivity as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
). Yet the formal status of Eastern Galicia was only confirmed at the Conference of Ambassadors in March 1923.5 This module covers the period from November 1, 1918, to 1939. One of its focuses is the gradually radicalizing, violence-prone nationalism of the interwar period, which the module presents through primary sources for use in academic instruction in the German-speaking world.
Contacts with Ukrainian nationalist groups abroad, particularly after the Polish ‘pacifications’ of 1921 and 1930, contributed to the ongoing radicalization of Ukrainian nationalists.6 At the same time, the module seeks to account for regional differences. In Volhynia, the so-called “
Prometheanism
Prometheism
also:
Prometheanism, Promethean movement
The anti-Soviet movement of the 1920s and 1930s initiated by Polish politician Józef Piłsudski (1867–1935), which promoted national independence movements in Eastern and Central Europe and separatist tendencies in the Soviet Union. The Prometheists aimed not only to end Soviet expansionism, but also to create independent Slavic nation states. Linked to the concept of Prometheism was the project of an East and East Central European confederation of states between the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas under Polish leadership (called ‘Międzymorze’ or ‘Intermarium’).
” movement – that is, the development of a pro-Polish current among Ukrainians of the Second Republic aimed at sparking an anti-Soviet Ukrainian movement in Soviet Ukraine – was significantly more successful, and short-term Interior Minister Józewski had plans to expand it at the state level.7 Precisely for this reason, the Ukrainian national movement in L’viv sought to extend the reach of its central cooperatives more strongly into Volhynia (as well as into the Chełm and Lemko regions).8 The module places particular emphasis on sources concerning the Ukrainian Military Organization and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which until now have scarcely been available in German translation. It also incorporates sources that highlight both the ideological diversity of the Ukrainian national movement and the many attempts at Polish–Ukrainian reconciliation.
From the Paris Peace Conference to the 1923 Conference of Ambassadors, the “Ukrainian question” in Eastern Galicia remained a central concern of European diplomacy.9 During this period, regulations for the protection of minorities and promises of autonomy for the Ukrainians of former Eastern Galicia were established; however, their implementation fell far short of expectations, culminating in Poland’s unilateral termination of the minority protection treaty in September 1934. The sources included in the module serve to critically illuminate the international framework and promises in contrast to the (largely absent) realization of minority protections. The Ukrainian search for alternatives to unfulfilled promises is exemplified by the demand for a Ukrainian university and the resulting founding of the Ukrainian [“Secret”] University in L’viv. This underground institution operated from 1921 to 1925, primarily enabling soldiers of the Ukrainian Galician Army to study, as they were denied enrollment at the Jan Kazimierz University in L’viv (then Lwów). The sources raise the question of whether these unfulfilled promises significantly contributed to the legal Ukrainian political movement losing ground to the radical right, particularly from the late 1920s onwards. This shift was marked by persistent violence on both the Ukrainian and Polish sides, which, through media coverage and other forms of commemoration, became inscribed in the collective memory.
Many wartime archives have been lost. Among them was the archive of the Ukrainian Galician Army, which was seized by the Red Army when the Ukrainian Galician Army surrendered. Research has shown that, over the course of the 1920s, this archive was used as fuel for heating by the institution that housed it.10 This epistemic violence against Ukrainian historical knowledge had serious consequences. In numerous families, the memory of deceased relatives could not be preserved, and due to the lack of records concerning missing or fallen soldiers, issues such as inheritance could not be legally resolved. At the societal level, this loss exacerbated an already problematic trend: memoirs and other personal documents by military figures and politicians of the revolutionary period are often considered the most authentic sources for this era, precisely because other sources are lacking, even though the events they describe frequently cannot be verified. Such personal documents are often used uncritically, even glorified. It should be noted, however, that memoirs are prone to what Bourdieu called the ‘biographical illusion,’11 whereby authors construct coherent life narratives, organize memories, or omit events retrospectively. Furthermore, military and political memoirs were often produced as commissioned works with specific agendas. Historians Ivan Krevec’kyj and Osyp Nazaruk, both of whom served as press officers for the Ukrainian Galician Army, published, among other works, the widely circulated brochure How to Write Memoirs. This guide provided detailed instructions for soldiers, politicians, and other memoirists of the revolutionary period. They stated the goal of this project openly: ‘What we cannot now achieve with the sword, we will secure through the memory of the struggle, which will stand as an everlasting testament for the entire Ukrainian nation.’12 Part of the module includes excerpts from these instructions, as well as memoirs by key figures closely associated with the authors of the guide. This allows users of the module to investigate firsthand the deliberate, top-down shaping of these memoirs. The memoirs served as a medium to present Ukrainian state-building as a legitimate enterprise, to deny Poland any competence in governing a multinational province, and thereby to unite the Ukrainian society of former Eastern Galicia behind the national movement.
The flip side of memoirs, in which one’s own soldiers and politicians are presented as heroes and champions of a just cause, was the propaganda about enemy violence. While such accounts also appear in memoirs, they were particularly prominent in press reports, ‘black books’ (in the Ukrainian case, the Blood Book, Kryvava Knyha), and other internationally oriented petitions. This form of propaganda was a significant phenomenon of the wartime period 1914–1945 and became increasingly radicalized after the outbreak of the First World War. Its aim was to highlight the enemy’s violence, while simultaneously exaggerating it, portraying the adversary as a ‘barbarian’ operating outside the bounds of the ‘civilized world,’ and often dehumanizing them. The ‘barbarity’ and propensity for violence were frequently inscribed into the constructed ‘national character’ of the enemy. Polish and Ukrainian authors competed in their depictions of atrocities to foster solidarity within their own ‘we-group.’ At the same time, the portrayal of violence served to appeal to the transnational (media) public13 – for example, at the Peace Conferences of 1918–1919 or before the bodies of the League of Nations. Such violent propaganda should not be interpreted as factual reporting but analyzed critically as propaganda, situated within the respective national discourses and functional contexts.14
Memorialization, political writings, and other formats used to process, reflect upon, and derive emotional, cultural, and political capital from the events of the turbulent years 1914–1921 were evidence of Ukrainian ‘cultures of defeat.’15 I therefore propose, following Schivelbusch’s concept for the East Central European interwar period, to use the term in the plural, because these cultures – despite their commonalities – could vary considerably depending on political affiliation and geographical origin, in particular between the former West Ukrainian People’s Republic and the former Ukrainian People’s Republic.
A key driving force behind the West Ukrainian turn to the right – that is, the Ukrainian national movement’s departure from the socialist and democratic ideals of its founding generation – were former soldiers of the Ukrainian Galician Army, who often became radicalized in prisoner-of-war camps, as well as intellectuals and staff of the various exiled governments.16 Through their memoirs and nationalist writings, they sought to ensure the “patriotic education” of the next generation of Ukrainian nationalists, with the hope that future freedom fighters would be better prepared for service to Ukrainian statehood. This idea was not only promoted in the prominent underground organizations – the Ukrainian Military Organization (Ukrajins’ka Vijskova Orhanizacija, hereafter UVO) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizacija Ukrajins’kych Nacionalistiv, hereafter OUN) – but also shaped the self-conception of Ukrainian scouting, gymnastics, rifle, and football clubs during the interwar period. This is no coincidence: as with the authors of the commemorative texts, the organizers and leaders of these associations were often drawn from the former Ukrainian Galician Army. In the 1920s, the UVO also financed the L’viv publishing house Červona Kalyna, which played a leading role in publishing military memoirs.
The former soldiers sought to embed their wartime nationalist orientation throughout Ukrainian society. The Polish state responded with an uneven mix of censorship, repression, and tacit toleration. The module presents several core ideological texts – for example by the geographer Stepan Rudnyc’kyj17 and the OUN’s chief ideologue Dmytro Doncov18 – here translated into German for the first time, alongside previously overlooked texts from nationalist underground publications of the Czechoslovak emigration, such as Oles’ Babij’s treatise on the cult of November 1. Babij portrays Ukrainian activists as a band of devoted revolutionaries who are meant to embody the cult of the state-building anniversary ‘in their blood and bone’ and to seize the ‘Galician land’ for themselves.19
Building on this, another group of sources examines the Ukrainian radical underground organizations, the Ukrainian Military Organization (Ukrajins’ka Vijskova Orhanizacija, hereafter UVO) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizacija Ukrajins’kych Nacionalistiv, hereafter OUN). The UVO was founded in 1920 in
Prague (population 2024: 1,397,880) is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. It is located in the center of the urban area on the Vltava River. The first Prague Castle was probably built in the 9th century. In the 10th/11th century, immigrant Jews lived alongside the local population in what were initially two neighboring castle settlements. At the beginning of the 1230s, Prague was granted city rights, followed by Malá Strana in 1257, Hradčany as a castle town in 1320 and the New Town of Prague (Nové Město) in 1348. From the very beginning, Prague was the residence of the Bohemian rulers, at the latest from the 12th century within the borders of the Holy Roman Empire. As the seat of the emperor in the 14th century, Prague developed into one of the most important centers of the entire empire, and the first university in Central Europe was founded here in 1348. In 1784, the four cities were formally united. Gradually, especially in 1920 and after the founding of Czechoslovakia in 1918, further towns were incorporated. Between 1938 and 1945, Prague became the capital of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which was dependent on the German Reich. After the Allies broke up the Reich in 1945, Prague was once again the capital of - now socialist - Czechoslovakia until 1992. After the collapse of Czechoslovakia, Prague remained the capital of the Czech Republic and one of the most culturally, economically and politically important cities in Central Europe.
and drew primarily on former members of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen (Ukrajins’ki sičovi stril’ci, also known as the “Ukrainian Legion” in the Habsburg context) – that is, the Ukrainian volunteer military units of the First World War – and the Ukrainian Galician Army that emerged from them. The secret organization, co-founded by Jevhen Konovalec, became notorious for carrying out acts of terror against Polish politicians as well as against Ukrainians willing to cooperate with the Polish authorities. At the same time, it was active in international right-wing networks and conducted espionage operations that were of particular interest to the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service.
When the OUN was founded in Vienna in 1929, with UVO involvement among others, the UVO gradually lost its significance as an independent organization and increasingly functioned as the OUN’s ‘military arm.’ Konovalec served as the first providnyk or vožd’ (‘leader’) of the organization, which was ideologically strongly influenced by Dmytro Doncov’s integral nationalism.20 The module’s sources include not only key texts on the imagined ideal of the Ukrainian nationalist but also media reactions to assassinations and statements on interethnic relations. As the collection focuses on the interwar period, it represents only a small segment of the history of the far right; for anti-Jewish and anti-Polish violence, sources on the OUN and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the Second World War should be consulted elsewhere
Despite its focus on nationalization, radicalization, and violence, the module is not intended to suggest that these developments were inevitable. For example, the Institute for the Study of Nationalities (Instytut Badań Spraw Narodowościowych) sought to provide a platform for constructive dialogue with the nationalities of the Second Republic.21 Elsewhere – particularly far from L’viv, in regions such as Volhynia and the Eastern Carpathians – political experiments in Polish Prometheanism22 and regionalism did take root. While Prometheanism aimed to contain the Soviet Union by strengthening its constituent nationalities, the regionalism of the 1930s sought to undermine the Ukrainian movement through the regional fragmentation of ethnographic subgroups. Selected sources highlight these experiments and the search for alternatives, especially through the example of Volhynia under the voivode Henryk Józewski.
The complex Ukrainian relationship with the Jewish population of the Second Republic can only be suggested in the limited sources provided. During the national movement’s turn to the right, antisemitic stereotypes and attitudes intensified. The example of Volodymyr Vjatrovyč, director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance from 2014 to 2019 and author of a short monograph on the OUN’s attitude toward Jews (1920–1950), illustrates how misleading a selective approach can be to this highly complex topic.23 In addition to the well-known Central European stereotype of “Judeo-Bolshevism” or the “Judeo-Commune,”24 which found particular resonance among Ukrainian nationalists radicalized against Moscow and the Soviet Union, antisemitism among both moderate and radical nationalists intensified during the 1930s – in ideology as well as in practice. These tendencies created fertile ground for nationalist radicalization during the Second World War, for acts of anti-Jewish violence, and for participation in the Holocaust. For these topics, however, a critical engagement with secondary literature is recommended.25 In general, it should also be noted that all translations of sources – particularly highly problematic nationalist-ideological texts, often drawn from book-length ideological treatises26 – are necessarily abbreviated excerpts, which should be read in close dialogue with the relevant literature.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jagoda Wierzejska for her tireless support with Polish sources and Fabian Baumann for his logistical assistance. Ksenya Kiebuzinski provided me with expert advice on legal issues and Canadian digital copies.
Sebastian Ramisch-Paul, Fremde Peripherie – Peripherie der Unsicherheit? Sicherheitsdiskurse über die tschechoslowakische Provinz Podkarpatská Rus (1918–1938), Marburg 2021.
2.
Kurt Scharr, Die Landschaft Bukowina. Das Werden einer Region an der Peripherie 1774–1918, Wien – Köln – Weimar 2010, pp. 219–223; for the ideological justification see Nicolae Iorga, Românismul in trecutul Bucovinei. Publicațiile Mitropoliei Buvovinei. București 1938.
3.
Benjamin Conrad, Umkämpfte Grenzen, umkämpfte Bevölkerung. Die Entstehung der Staatsgrenzen der Zweiten Polnischen Republik. 1918–1923. Stuttgart 2014; Stephan Lehnstaedt, Der vergessene Sieg. Der Polnisch-Sowjetische Krieg 1919-1921 und die Entstehung des modernen Osteuropa, München 2019.
4.
Hannes Leidinger, Zeit der Wirren. Revolutionäre Umwälzungen und bewaffnete Auseinandersetzungen im ehemaligen Zarenreich 1917–22, in: Wolfram Dornik et al. (eds.), Die Ukraine zwischen Selbstbestimmung und Fremdherrschaft 1917–1922. Graz 2011, pp. 29–60; Georgiy Kasianov, Die Ukraine zwischen Revolution, Selbstständigkeit und Fremdherrschaft, in: Wolfram Dornik et al. (eds.), Die Ukraine zwischen Selbstbestimmung und Fremdherrschaft 1917–1922. Graz 2011, pp. 131–179; Wolfram Dornik, Der Krieg in Osteuropa 1914–19, in: ibid., pp. 61–90; Bogdan Musial, Die Ukrainepolitik des bolschewikischen Russlands, 1917–22, in: ibid., pp. 367–390.
5.
Decision taken by the Conference of Ambassadors regarding the eastern frontiers of Poland. Paris, March 15, 1923, League of Nations, Treaty Series 1923, no. 15, pp. 261-265, http://www.forost.ungarisches-institut.de/pdf/19230315-1.pdf.
6.
Alexander J. Motyl, The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929. New York 1980.
7.
Cornelia Schenke, Nationalstaat und nationale Frage. Polen und die Ukrainer in Wolhynien 1921–1939, Hamburg, München 2004; Anstelle von Erinnerungen, in: Herder-Institut (ed.): Dokumente und Materialien zur ostmitteleuropäischen Geschichte. Themenmodul "Zweite Polnische Republik", edited by Heidi Hein-Kircher. URL: https://www.herder-institut.de//digitale-angebote/dokumente-und-materialien/themenmodule/quelle/1144/details.html.
8.
Prohrama pošyrennja dijal’nosti tovarystva na Volyn‘, Lemkivščynu, Nadsjannja, Pidlaššja, Polissja i Cholmščynu, CDIAL, fond 348, op. 1, spr. 10.
9.
Caroline Milow, Die ukrainische Frage 1917-1923 im Spannungsfeld der europäischen Diplomatie, Wiesbaden, 2002.
10.
Ljubomyra Fedunyšyn, Učast‘ Ivana Krevec’koho u nacional’no-vyzvol’nomu rusi v Halyčyni 1918–1923 rr., in: Ukrajina: kul’turna spadščyna, nacional’na svidomist‘, deržavnist‘ 18 (2009), pp. 551–555, here pp. 552–553.
11.
Pierre Bourdieu, Die biographische Illusion. In: BIOS. Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung und Oral History 1 (1990), pp. 75-81.
12.
Ivan Krevec’kyj, Osyp Nazaruk, Jak pysaty memuary. Pojasnennja i praktyčni vkazivky. Viden’ 1921 [first published: Kam’janec’-Podil’s’kyj 1919], p. 19.
13.
See also: Martin Schulze Wessel / Jörg Requate (eds.): Europäische Öffentlichkeit. Transnationale Kommunikation seit dem 18. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt/Main: Campus 2002 (in particular the contributions by Frank Hadler and Eberhard Demm) on the Czech and Lithuanian cases.
14.
Maciej Górny, Science Embattled. Eastern European Intellectuals and the Great War, Paderborn 2019; Jagoda Wierzejska, Polish and Ukrainian Propaganda of Violence During and Shortly After the War for Eastern Galicia (1918–1919), in: Tomasz Pudłocki, Kamil Ruszała (eds.): Postwar Continuity and New Challenges in Central Europe, 1918–1923: The War That Never Ended, Routledge 2022, pp. 175–198. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003185017-12; for propaganda in the Ukrainian revolution in general, see Stephen Velychenko, Propaganda in Revolutionary Ukraine: Leaflets, Pamphlets, and Cartoons, 1917–1922, University of Toronto Press 2020.
15.
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Die Kultur der Niederlage. Der amerikanische Süden 1865; Frankreich 1871; Deutschland 1918, Frankfurt a.M. 2003; Hausmann, Guido, Die Kultur der Niederlage. Der Erste Weltkrieg in der ukrainischen Erinnerung, in: Osteuropa 64 (2014), issues 2–4, pp. 127–140.
16.
Classical and still relevant: Alexander J. Motyl, The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929, New York 1980. For the reorientation of the formerly Sovietophile camp, see Christopher Gilley, The ‘Change of Signposts’ in the Ukrainian Emigration. A Contribution to the History of Sovietophilism in the 1920s. With a Foreword by Frank Golczewski, Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2009. Prisoner-of-war experiences and camp life, which affected both the Ukrainian Galician Army (in Czechoslovakia and Poland) and the troops of the UNR (especially in Poland), provide an important background for the formation of nationally oriented groups. This can only be addressed here briefly. For the East Galician prisoners of war in Poland, the dissertation by Wiktor Węglewicz (Jeńcy i internowani ukraińscy z Galicji Wschodniej w polskich obozach w latach 1918–1921, PhD. Diss. Kraków 2020) comes highly recommended.
17.
Martin Rohde, Nationale Wissenschaft zwischen zwei Imperien. Die Ševčenko-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1892–1918, Göttingen 2022, pp. 357–387.
18.
Trevor Erlacher, Ukrainian Nationalism in the Age of Extremes. An Intellectual Biography of Dmytro Dontsov, Cambridge, MA 2021.
19.
Oles‘ Babij, Kul’t peršoho lystopada, in: Nacional’na dumka II (1925), no. 5, pp. 1–9, here p. 9.
20.
Erlacher 2021; Motyl, The Turn to the Right. For the international connections of the OUN, see Magdalena Gibiec, Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists on Emigration: Its Formation and Transnational Connections in 1929–1934, Routledge 2024; Frank Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914–1939, Paderborn et al. 2010.
21.
Stephan, Stach, Nationalitätenpolitik aus der zweiten Reihe. Konzepte und Praktiken zur Einbindung nationaler Minderheiten in Piłsudskis Polen (1926–1939), Göttingen 2024; Olgierd Grott, Instytut Badań Spraw Narodowościowych i Komisja Naukowych Badań Ziem Wschodnich w planowaniu polityki II Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na Kresach Wschodnich, Kraków 2013.
22.
Zaur Gasimov, Warschau gegen Moskau. Prometheistische Aktivitäten zwischen Polen, Frankreich und der Türkei 1918-1939, Stuttgart 2022.
23.
Viatrovych 2006; see also Radchenko.
24.
Franziska Bruder, „Den ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder sterben!“ Die Organisation ukrainischer Nationalisten (OUN) 1929–1948, Berlin 2007, p. 47; Agnieszka Pufelska, Die "Judäo-Kommune" – Ein Feindbild in Polen. Das polnische Selbstverständnis im Schatten des Antisemitismus 1939–1948, Paderborn 2007; Johannes Rogalla von Bieberstein, „Jüdischer Bolschewismus“. Mythos
25.
Bruder 2007; Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera. Leben und Kult, Göttingen 2025; Marko Carynnyk, Foes of Our Rebirth. Ukrainian Nationalist Discussions about Jews, 1929–1947, in: Nationalities Papers 39 (2011), no. 3, pp. 315–352. doi:10.1080/00905992.2011.570327; Myroslav Shkandrij, Ukrainian Nationalism. Politics, Ideology, and Literature, 1929–1956, New Haven, Conn. 2015; Kai Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt. Der Sommer 1941 in der Westukraine, Berlin 2015.
26.
For the texts by Doncov, see Erlacher 2021; for the texts by Rudnyc’kyj, see Rohde, Nationale Wissenschaft, 2022; Martin Rohde, Ukrainian “National Science” in a Spatial Perspective, or How the Hutsul Lands Were Mapped, in: Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 23 (2022), no. 4, pp. 771–798.
Martin Rohde: Ukrainer im Polen der Zwischenkriegszeit. Repression, Experiments in Nationality Policy, and a Violent Search for Self-Determination. In: Copernico. History and Cultural Heritage in Eastern Europe. URL: https://www.copernico.eu/en/link/68a2c4376b1fd1.53526341 (2026-02-12)
