The text of the Polish Sejm’s July 15, 2009, resolution on the assessment of the tragic 1943 events in Volhynia, which groundlessly alleges that “the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army carried out an anti-Polish action in the eastern frontiers — mass-scale massacres that had the nature of an ethnic cleansing and the signs of genocide,” has as yet been ignored by the mass media.
Moreover, this event went unnoticed by not only the Polish but also the Ukrainian media. Only Ukrainian historians are expressing preoccupation in their narrow circles: what about the strenuous and meticulous efforts to reach reciprocal forgiveness that the two sides have been making for years? According to Yaroslav Isayevych, member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, director of the Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies, and chairman of the Ukrainian National Committee of Historians, the resolution of Poland’s highest legislative body is whipping up anti-Ukrainian hysteria and hurting the national dignity of the Ukrainians who have resided in Volhynia since times immemorial.
The fact that the document uses the term “eastern frontiers” shows that certain circles in Poland are still harboring hostile plans about some ethnic Ukrainian territories, including Volhynia. It is sad that these intentions are receiving support at the highest political level in Ukraine’s closest western neighbor. Who needs this statement of the Polish Sejm? Will the Poles really benefit from a confrontation with the Ukrainians? Or, maybe, it is not the Poles who need it? This is the subject of an interview with Yaroslav ISAYEVYCH.
“The resolution ‘On the Tragic Destiny of Poles in the Eastern Frontiers’ has been downloaded from the Polish Sejm’s website,” the well-known Ukrainian historian told The Day. “It is about the 66th anniversary of the so-called Volhynia events. The website also contains the minutes of that session, from which it is clear that the text was not voted on — it was approved by all the factions, all the political parties. Then the marshal, i.e., the speaker, of the Sejm read out the text to the MPs’ thunderous applause, which meant a unanimous approval.
“The resolution expresses pain over Ukrainian civilian deaths. It does not say, however, who is to blame for this massacre but does say that this tragedy of the Poles must be returned to the historical memory of modern-day generations. This is a task for all the branches of power.
“What worries me the most is that you can find this resolution on the Internet only. There were no reports in either the Polish or the Ukrainian press. This greatly surprised and outraged me: why is nobody protesting? I spoke to some Ukrainian MPs. The Ukrainian Embassy in Poland said they had not noticed the resolution because it was not published. I find it difficult to understand why the Polish Sejm passed this resolution if the general public was destined to be unaware of it. All I can say is that it is a sop to extremists.
“But one must not play with such things! We are not interested in rousing and whipping up these kinds of things. Nor is Poland interested. By all accounts, only Russia can be interested in this. Unfortunately, the noble Russians — I mean Russian professors — who used to back us, Ukrainians, in our academic pursuit have stepped aside. They also supported me personally when I was defending my dissertation and publishing my books — in the times of certain de-Ukrainization and censorship of anti-Soviet views.
“Regrettably, the Russian intelligentsia of this type has no voice in and no impact on the Russia of Medvedev and Putin. In Poland these kinds of intellectuals undoubtedly wield influence. They would have surely been resentful of this resolution. But I think the resolution did not reach them, for the Polish press did not report this.”
This mournful anniversary and those events, tragic for Ukrainians and Poles alike, were remembered more than once — in 1993 and 2003…
“At the time, both sixteen and six years ago, those mournful events were marked in such a way that Polish newspapers, including Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzecz Pospolita, held a lengthy debate in which they would give the floor to Polish chauvinists — they are marginal and there are no big-name academics among them. Likewise, there are no serious academics who work for, say, [Dmytro] Tabachnyk or others who publish anti-Ukrainian articles in the newspaper 2000.
“Moreover, these articles always carry an anti-Polish subtext as well. This looks like this: ‘We and Poland should be friends now. Poland used to bring Ukraine disasters and death, but Russia saved us every time.’ In other words, ‘Russia is the only savior from the Polish threat’ — this is the policy they pursue.
“But I would say that ordinary Russians and Poles, even those who consider the OUN—UPA criminals, still recognize Ukrainians as a separate nation and Ukraine as a state. Officials opine, however, that Ukrainians are an aberration of sorts. And very many Russians believe this, unfortunately.
“Now about Polish publications. Very many Poles were taking an unbiased stand at the time. Naturally, they did not condone any killings of innocent people. Neither did we. Whoever admires Taras Shevchenko’s poem Haidamaky cannot admire the murder of children and pregnant women. And, incidentally, there were Poles in the times of Shevchenko, who solidarized with the Ukrainian people in their fight against Poland.
“Regarding the so-called Volhynia events, our institute published a book, Volhynia and the Kholm Region, 1938–1947: Polish-Ukrainian Conflict and Its Repercussions, back in 2003. It includes eyewitness reports of the Poles who took part in those events and analytical articles. The latter said that the 1943 tragedy was triggered by a very unwise and in fact criminal policy of the Polish government [in exile] which ignored the behests of J zef Pi sudski. This is why they began to destroy Orthodox churches in the Kholm Region and pursue a harsh anti-Ukrainian policy on the Poland’s western border in 1938, thus in fact paving the way for anti-Polish sentiments.”
Last year you published an article titled “Stop Adding Fuel to the Dying Fire.” What made you write it?
“I wrote about the ‘Volhynia monument’ in Warsaw. The unveiling of a monument in honor of the victims of the ‘tragedy of Polish Volhynia and south-eastern frontiers in 1943—1944,’ to quote President Lech Kachy ski of Poland, against the background of all the positive actions carried out by the governments and the public of Ukraine and Poland sounded like an extremely harmful and totally unprovoked dissonance.
“In contrast to the 2003 ceremony, only Polish victims were mentioned last year. Moreover, the term ‘Polish Volhynia’ was used. This is incorrect because the Volhynian region was formed in Kyivan Rus and the Galician-Volhynian Principality and, in spite of centuries of denationalization and Russification in the tsarist empire and the USSR and Polonization in the interwar Polish state, it managed to keep its Ukrainian nature intact. According to the 1931 official Polish census, 70.4 percent of the residents were Ukrainians, 15.2 percent Poles and Ukrainian-speaking Roman Catholics, 9.8 percent Jews, 1.1 percent Russians, 2.2 percent Germans, and 1.1 percent Czechs.
“By no means can such elements of the memorial as candle-shaped pylons with the names of all the districts of ‘Polish Volhynia’ symbolize Polish status of the Volhynian lands. I can agree that the term ‘Polish Volhynia’ may be a metaphor. We might as well use the word combination ‘Ukrainian Canada’ with respect to Canada’s Ukrainian population. But those who read this name, ‘Polish Volhynia,’ will interpret it in earnest, in the literal meaning of the word.
“I wonder what kind of attitude the Polish society would take if, for example, Germany began to erect monuments to the victims of ‘German Silesia,’ ‘German Pomerania,’ and ‘German Eastern Prussia’ with the names of these regions’ cities and lands that became part of the Polish People’s Republic after the war. I mean their old names, such as Breslau, Opeln, Danzig, Elbing, etc. These regions could lay greater claim to being called German because ethnic Germans had accounted for about 95 percent of the local population before they fell victim to mass-scale forcible deportations or chose to flee.
“So, getting back to the Warsaw monument, I must say this should not have been done. Somebody might have ventured to do this on a private initiative, but the government ought not to have taken part in this overtly revenge-seeking act. The only thing we can accept is that ‘Polish Volhynia’ can be regarded as a national culture that developed on the Ukrainian lands. But if the term ‘Polish Volhynia’ is to be applied to the part of Volhynia that belonged to the Polish state between 1919 and 1939, this raises the question if it was ‘Russian Volhynia’ before 1919, for it belonged to the Russian Empire at the time. Or should we understand this figuratively, as a reflection of the contribution the Polish population made to the historical development and culture of the Volhynian region?”
How can we sum up the aforesaid?
“Ukraine can see a gradual but steady increase in the awareness that the Polish example is having a positive effect on this country and that the very existence of a sovereign Polish state is a favorable factor for Ukrainian statehood.
“Unfortunately, very few Ukrainians and Poles know about some isolated, but very important in principle, joint actions of the UPA and the Polish Armia Krajowa underground in the last years of their activities. The experience of their cooperation, now forgotten or maligned by communist and chauvinist propaganda, is worthy of attention, for it is part of the history of Ukrainian-Polish relations that served the interests of both peoples.
“A mourning ceremony was held on July 11, 2003, in the Volyn village of Pavlivka (formerly Porivsk). Ukrainians and Poles came together to honor the memory of the local civilians who were killed, tortured to death, and forcibly deported during World War II and in the first postwar years. They condemned heinous crimes and said words of remembrance for those who saved people, risking their own life. The presidents of Ukraine and Poland unveiled a commemorative cross with the following inscription on the pedestal: ‘We are bowing our heads to the blessed memory of the Poles and Ukrainians who fell victim to an interethnic conflict.’
“The slogan ‘We apologize and forgive’ was the leitmotif of the speeches of church hierachs, cultural figures, and politicians. Six years ago extremist forces did not succeed in using the 60th anniversary of the Volhynian tragedy as a pretext for manifestations that could impair good relations between our peoples and states and give rise to reciprocal accusations.
“A considerable part of what seemed to be eternal negative stereotypes was overcome. The neighbors learned to take steps towards a lasting mutual understanding, also by way of reconsidering positive aspects in their historical legacy. An important role in this process was played by joint conferences, including the international workshops “Ukraine—Poland: Difficult Questions.”
“Academics are aware, better than anyone else, of the complexity and traumatic nature of such an issue as interethnic conflicts, which makes it extremely difficult to see the causes and nature of the confrontation: each side is trying to express its own pain only. To avoid a biased approach to this kind of historical events, one must take into account the aspirations and interests of the other side. Instead of giving in to emotions, historians who work with documents prefer to analyze past events in all their diversity.
“Common sense says that one must make further efforts toward mutual understanding and educate society in such a way that politicization of reminiscences about the past will not hinder cooperation. But whenever isolated episodes are wrested from the overall context of events, this always creates the danger and temptation of a biased interpretation of the past and using it as a political instrument.”
P.S. When this article was going to press, there appeared the first comment on the Polish Sejm’s Internet-published resolution — a statement of the Lviv-based regional socio-cultural society Nadsiannia. It says, among other things, that Nadsiannia strongly condemns the Polish Sejm’s resolution on the tragic events in the modern history of Ukrainian-Polish relations.
“Unfortunately, instead of making a thorough analysis and a balanced assessment of tragic events in the modern history of Ukrainian-Polish relations, the Sejm’s resolution asserts without proof that the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army carried out an anti-Polish action in the so-called eastern frontiers — mass-scale massacres that had the nature of an ethnic cleansing and the elements of human extermination, i.e., genocide,” the society chairman Volodymyr Sereda said in an interview to The Day.
Here is the full text of the statement:
“On July 15, 2009, the Polish Republic’s Sejm speaker read out a draft resolution on the tragic destiny of Poles in the so-called eastern frontiers, i.e., Western Ukrainian lands, to the standing ovation of the present MPs.
“The anti-Ukrainian hysteria, which was whipped up last year by all kinds of frontier and combatant (veteran) organizations and the indefatigable priest Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski on the pretext of marking on the highest national level the 65th anniversary of the ‘slaughter’ and ‘genocide’ of the Poles in Volhynia, has reached, regrettably, the Polish parliament’s assembly hall.
“We are thoroughly convinced that every impartial individual will agree that in the years of Nazi occupation Volhynia saw a bitter fratricidal struggle for its national and political future between the oppressed local Ukrainian population, units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and the armed Polish underground of all political attitudes, including the Polish police which loyally served the Nazi occupiers from the spring of 1943 onwards. What was also supposed to emphasize the ‘Polishness’ of this territory were several thousand well-armed and trained soldiers and officers of the Armia Krajowa’s 27th Volhynian Infantry Division.
“Much to our regret, the local Polish peasants and colonists were hostage to the political games of their leaders and, as a result, many of them suffered. Yet we should not conceal the fact that at the same time thousands of Ukrainians were also killed with Polish weapons in Volhynia, the land of their forefathers.
“If we really want mutual reconciliation and forgiveness, let us tell the present-day generations of Polish and Ukrainian citizens that, apart from tragic events in Volhynia and some localities of Eastern Galicia, Ukrainians also suffered in the 1940s a bloody tragedy in Zakerzonie (area west of the Curzon Line – Ed.).
“The hundreds of defenseless Ukrainians massacred in Pavlokom-on-Sian or in Sahryn, Kholm Region, are in no way the only victims of accidental crimes perpetrated by Polish fighters.
“Nobody has the right to forget and, moreover, deliberately ignore thousands of Ukrainian peasants, women, children, and elderly persons slaughtered in Berest, Verkhovyny, Novosilky, Vereshyn, Laskiv, Shykhovychi, and Miahky in the Kholm Region, Pyskorovychi, Horaiets, Malkovychi, Berizka, and Bakhiv in Nadsiannia and dozens of other localities in the south-eastern regions of today’s Poland. Their only fault was being Ukrainian.
“Remembering our past, we still consider it a duty for all of us to honor properly, in a Christian spirit, the memory of the innocent Ukrainians and Poles who fell victim to those fratricidal conflicts.
“Polish Sejm members have been reluctant for years to give an official, political, and legal assessment of the Operation Vistula deportations carried out by the Polish communist regime in 1947. The operation was criminal in its essence and methods. Its main goal was, as envisaged by its planners and perpetrators, ‘the final solution of the Ukrainian problem in Poland.’ Doesn’t this call for an analysis and assessment by the Sejm of today’s democratic Poland?
“However, instead of making a thorough analysis and giving a balanced assessment of tragic events in the modern history of Ukrainian-Polish relations, the Sejm’s resolution unfortunately asserts without proof that the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army carried out an anti-Polish action in the so-called eastern frontiers — mass-scale massacres that had the nature of an ethnic cleansing and the elements of human extermination, i.e., genocide.
“Instead of taking a long-awaited step toward a true reconciliation and unity between our peoples, the Sejm passed a resolution that did grave damage to this noble cause.
“Approved by the delegates of the report-and-election convention of the Lviv socio-cultural society Nadsiannia in Lviv on July 26, 2009.”
COMMENTARIES
“WHY SHOULD WE ‘RE-FORMAT’ WHAT WAS ACHIEVED WITH SUCH A GREAT EFFORT?”
Leonid KRAVCHUK, first president of Ukraine:
“This page of history is, naturally, painful for the Polish people. There are close relatives of the present-day citizens of Poland among those who were killed. Those events keep springing up in human memory, albums, books, etc. The legacy of the past is being interpreted in this very complicate day from the viewpoint of one political force or another.
“I personally took part in the solution of this problem at the Kuchma — Kwa niewski level. We forgave each other, repented, and unveiled monuments, and I thought it was the end of this sorrowful story and the debate — at least on a high governmental level. As citizens, ordinary people can and perhaps must have different opinions on this matter. But the page has been turned on the level of presidents, parliaments, and governments. I wish this problem would not be broached again, as far as assessments and conclusions are concerned.
“I will say frankly that I do not understand why the Sejm needed this resolution on the assessment of the Volhynia events. If it is about marking those events, I have no objections. But it was not necessary to reword and re-format what was achieved with such a great effort. They might have just said: ‘We are honoring this tragic date in the history of Poland and Ukraine. It is not we who unleashed this war; it was unleashed outside these two countries, and now we should seek a settlement of the acute contradictions entrenched in human memory.’ This would be easy to understand. But speaking of genocide as extermination of one people by another… I would caution my Polish colleagues against this. Such a definition can result in everybody interpreting things to their own taste. And I would not like to get back to this issue again, for there will be people in and outside Ukraine, who will take advantage of these differences in Ukrainian-Polish relations. It is very easy to raise a delicate problem in politics, but it is extremely difficult to resolve it.”
“UNFORTUNATELY, WE ARE TAKING SERIOUS STEPS BACK”
Marek SIWIEC, Vice-President, European Parliament:
“This resolution is the result of a process that concerns not only Poland and Ukraine. Each European country is now trying to form its own vision of history, and this vision often differs from one that was common just a few years ago. Germany has now formed an entirely new approach to assessing World War II and its victims. In Ukraine, too, there have been a few instances of honoring UPA fighters as national heroes. A proper understanding of history is impossible without reconsideration. And there may be all kinds of curves on the road to reconsideration.
“This is perhaps the reason why the Sejm’s latest resolution is fuller of radical rhetoric than it was in 2003. I do not approve of this decision. I prefer the language of mutual understanding, which Ukrainians and Poles have been trying so hard to find. But there are new people around who are trying to use history for achieving their own goals. I have already cited the example of Germany. Very recently, we also witnessed an alarming incident in Hungary, where semi-fascist organizations are on the rise and have a lot of followers. Unfortunately, we are all taking serious steps back, as far as understanding history is concerned.”
“WE MUST REACT IN A CERTAIN WAY…”
Leonid ZASHKILNIAK, Professor, Doctor of Sciences (History); Deputy Director, Ivan Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies:
“Now that I am looking at the text of the above-mentioned resolution I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the resolution is written in a rather tolerant spirit: it honors the memory of the Poles who died during World War II, including those killed in the Ukrainian-Polish conflict. It is the right of Poles to honor their dead.
“In its resolution, which is dedicated to the 66th anniversary of the horrible events in Volhynia, the Sejm underlines very subtly that those massacres had the NATURE of an ethnic cleansing and the ELEMENTS of genocide. Let me emphasize this: not genocide but its elements.
“At the same time, the Poles are saying they remember the Ukrainian victims with pain. They say nothing about the conflict itself, though. The last paragraph expresses gratitude to the Ukrainians who provided refuge to their neighbors. The Poles stress that this tragedy must be remembered in the name of understanding among the nations of Eastern Europe, especially between Poles and Ukrainians. From this perspective, the resolution looks like honoring the memory of victims.
“On the other hand, I personally, as a historian, do not like the term ‘kresy wschodnie,’ i.e., eastern regions of the Polish Republic. This term, which means the borderland, is abusive for Ukrainians. Yet this Polish resolution cannot prevent us from passing a resolution on honoring the memory of the Ukrainians killed in the Ukrainian-Polish conflict.
“One more point to note: we, contemporaries, should remember that any goal, including that of liberation, must be based on humanist principles. The unwarranted actions for cleansing Ukrainian lands of the Polish civilian population left a bleak imprint on the history of Ukrainian-Polish relations.
“I know the Polish attitude to this because, after all, I am a direct participant in Ukrainian-Polish talks and conferences on these matters. I think this is the last resolution of this kind (there have been some before). It is based on historical research and does not say about genocide.
“There is an interesting nuance. I have a verbatim record of the Sejm session that passed this resolution. It took two to three minutes at most to discuss it, and it was not put to a vote. After the resolution was read out, it was passed by way of a standing ovation. Nobody was for or against. It seems to me this document puts an end to this lengthy story. Yet, there is no end on our part. We ought to react in a certain way — not to this resolution but to the historic events that occurred at the end of World War II. This is important to us, too.
“The new resolution of July 15, 2009, does not run counter to the documents of reconciliation, which the Polish Sejm and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed in 2003.”
