Poland / Poles in Ukrainian History: Images of Ukrainian Soviet Historical Writing

Abstract

The purpose is to show the content and essence of the images of Poland / Poles in the Ukrainian past, which were conceptualized in Ukrainian Soviet historical writing.

The research methodology is based on the methods of intellectual history, means of specific historiographic analysis, and methods of historiographic synthesis.

Scientific novelty. For the first time, the question of the correlation of political, ideological, and intellectual factors in the interpretations by Ukrainian Soviet historians of the role of the Polish factor in the history of Ukraine has been systematically highlighted.

Main results of the study. The interpretation of the historical role of Poland / Poles in the past of the Ukrainian people was determined primarily by the direction of the Kremlin’s national policy, unchanged since the 1930s, towards glorifying Russia and Russians as saviors of Ukrainians from all sorts of disasters inflicted on them by their malevolent neighbors. Among them, Poland and the Poles looked like an ideal enemy — convenient and understandable. On the other hand, the changing political situation also played a signifi cant role, which forced either to infl ame anti-Polish rhetoric even more (in particular, to justify the Soviet annexations of 1939—1945), or to silence it (the most important factor here was the creation of the Polish People’s Republic). Thus, the interpretation of the Polish factor in the history of Ukraine in Ukrainian Soviet historiography changed: from what can be described as the image of a “weak enemy” (1920s — early 1930s) to the image of a “fierce enemy” (mid-1930s — early 1940s), and soon to the image of a “fierce friend” (mid-1940s — 1980s). The role of intellectual and ideological infl uences in this process (scientific understanding of the real history of Ukrainian-Polish relations, the legacy of Ukrainian national historiography, and Soviet “Marxist” historiography of the 1920s and early 1930s) appears to be less significant.