AN AMBASSADOR FOR TEN MONTHS: WORLD WAR II IN THE VOLODYMYR KOSYDLO’S FATE

Abstract

The scientific article traces the main pages of the biography of the Volyn ambassador to the Polish Sejm of the V convocation (1938–1939), Volodymyr Kosydlo (Kosidlo), a member of the Volyn Ukrainian Association (VUA), teacher, and burgomaster of Dubno town. Due to materials from his archival and criminal case stored in the Sectoral State Archives of the Security Service of Ukraine in Rivne, it was possible to find out the activities of the former ambassador during the «first Sovietization» of Western Ukraine, the Nazi occupation regime and the post-war period.Through the analysis of peculiarities of the 1938 parliamentary elections in Volyn Voivodeship, which took place under the April Constitution of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the 1935 Election Law, it was proved that legislative changes limited public choice within political forces loyal to the Polish government. It is noteworthy that V. Kosydlo, like other Ukrainian ambassadors elected to the Polish Sejm of the 5th convo- cation from Volyn, belonged to the regional pro-government Ukrainian party VUA which ran together with the pro-government bloc – Oboz Zjednoczenia Narodowego (OZN). In the conditions of a de facto mono-party parliament, the voice of the Volyn elected officials sounded unconvincing, although they tried to actualize the issues of the Ukrainian language, education, and church.The work of V. Kosydlo in school institutions of Rivne region in 1939–1941 was considered, and his activity during the Nazi occupation regime was analyzed. It was empha- sized that as the burgomaster of Dubno town, he helped locals, Soviet prisoners of war, and Jews. After the war, he and his family left for Poland, where he was arrested by the MGB’s counterintelligence department (Ministry of State Security (Soviet Union)) and convicted in 1948. Seven years later, the Soviet judiciary reconsidered his case, reducing his sentence to what he had already served. In 1993 V. Kosydlo was rehabilitated, and two years later his rehabilitation was canceled due to «betrayal of the Soviet homeland».