The Volyn Tragedy in the Context of Genocide Studies

Abstract

The purpose is to analyse attempts to apply the practices of genocide studies to characterise the Volyn events. The controversial nature of the definition of the Ukrainian-Polish confrontation as genocide and the tendency to assert it and apply approaches typical of other historical events defined as genocide attracts the attention of researchers.

The task of the author is to investigate, based on the study of scientific works, whether the qualification of the Ukrainian-Polish confrontation during the World War II as genocide and its various interpretations is justified.

The methodological basis of the research is the principles of scientificity, historical objectivity, comparative procedures, and interdisciplinary approaches. The scientific novelty lies in the comprehensiveness of the study of topical issues of recognition or non-recognition of events as genocide and the analysis of controversial issues of responsibility for this crime through the prism of the use of existing practice.

Conclusions. It is stated that establishing the facts of genocide is a complex task. The article explains the key issues of legal assessment of the Volyn tragedy. At the same time, the author emphasises the use of the concept of genocide outside the legal context by scholars, politicians, and public figures. The key disciplines that form the basis for the study of the Volyn events are sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and history, which allow us to understand the mechanisms of collective behaviour and interaction in social groups. The author identifies the key postulates of the “genocidal interpretation” of the Volyn events, with special attention paid to its extreme interpretation proposed by R. Szawłowski. The author comes to the conclusion that the main element of recognising events as genocide today is the participation of state bodies in their implementation. Attention is drawn to comparative studies of genocides as the second generation of genocide studies that have been developing for more than a decade, which can be found in studies on Volyn’43 (the Serbo-Croatian conflict during the World War II, the events in Rwanda). Prospects for further research are to overcome the “closedness” in the source and historiographical approach to the “Volyn problem” by expanding the sociocultural context and methodological perspective in an interdisciplinary direction.