THE IMAGE OF POLAND AND POLES IN UKRAINIAN HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT OF THE INTERWAR PERIOD (1918–1939)

Abstract

Based on archival sources and literature, the authors reproduce in historical retrospect the vision of Poland and Poles, which developed among leading Ukrainian scholars who belonged during the interwar period to three different areas of Ukrainian historical and political thought: populism, conservatism, and nationalism. Using their own methodology, tested in a number of previous studies, the authors compare the views of representatives of different directions on three main issues: 1) common and different pages of the history of both peoples and their importance for coexistence; 2) attitude to Poland in the context of conceptual doctrines of Ukrainian historical and political thought; 3) the existence in Ukrainian political thought of the idea of   orientation toward Poland. Analyzing the most significant works of the leading Ukrainian intellectuals selected for analysis, the authors state that Ukrainian scholars focused on reflecting on quite different events in Ukrainian-Polish history. Another difference made by the authors of the article concerns the existing differentiation of views on Poland and Poles, which was caused by fundamental differences between the theoretical doctrines of Ukrainian researchers. Therefore, the role of Poland in the history of the Ukrainian people was assessed negatively by populists, while by conservatives and nationalists - in two ways, distinguishing both positive and negative influences. General doctrines in Ukrainian historical and political thought also determined the different attitudes of its representatives toward Poland. The populists opposed the democracy of the Ukrainians to the aristocracy of the Poles, the conservatives determined the role of Poland in the formation of the Ukrainian hetman’s elite, and the nationalists accused the Poles of polonizing the Ukrainian aristocracy. The populists denied the orientation toward Poland in the formation of the Ukrainian state due to historical scores between both nations. Conservatives, on the other hand, focused on the internal organization of monarchists in Poland to be possible, consisting of Poles and Ukrainians, while nationalists considered the possibility of the orientation toward Poland because both nations were the last European outpost on the continent to resist Moscow’s constant aggression.