The historical and sociological determinants of Polish-Ukrainian political dialogue

The presence of over a million Ukrainian immigrants in Poland has inspired various analyses and studies. They seek to answer the question of how this largest group of immigrants, living in Poland mainly for economic and educational purposes,will influence the course of discussions on the social, political, cultural and, finally, economic consequences of migration. Yet another question, which the author of this article is attempting to answer, concerns how historical events such as the “Volhynia slaughter” and the forced displacement of Polish and Ukrainian people from 1939 to 1952 will affect the content and intensity of Polish-Ukrainian political dialogue and the content of political history. The author formulates the thesis that both Poles and Ukrainians can use these events to achieve short-term political goals. Overcoming historical burdens is a process that will take many years and last for generations. Politics, however, is more short-term and its vectors frequently change. This observation should encourage taking up the challenges related to Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation, which is a necessary condition for good neighbourly relations between the Republic of Poland and Ukraine, and more broadly, between Poles and Ukrainians, both in Poland and in Ukraine.


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immigrants. The authors of immigration policy state "that an important element of assimilation programmes will involve their in-depth axiological aspect and secondary socialisation, meaning the ability of a foreigner to accept and adopt as their own the values sought in Poland, including ideological, religious, political and cultural values, etc. and to become a fully formed member of Polish society (if a foreigner lacks such an ability they should be refused Polish citizenship)" (Polityka migracyjna Polski).
An introduction to this fragment of the discussion on Polish migration policy is necessary to identify the most important determinants of Polish-Ukrainian political dialogue, one of them being the influx and presence of immigrants from Ukraine in Poland. From the very beginning, when economic immigrants began to arrive in Poland in great numbers, there emerged the opinion that the authorities should take into account the criterion of cultural affinity in their immigration policy. This should help Polish society accept the presence of Ukrainian immigrants in Poland, and help immigrants become part of the socio-cultural structures in Poland (Trosiak, 2016;Trosiak, 2019). This is a prerequisite for successful integration and potential future assimilation. It is beyond doubt that immigrants from Ukraine meet these criteria. However, the cultural proximity, resulting from the centuries-long history of Poland and Ukraine which the two countries shared for a long time, may be a source of threats to this process. The purpose of this article is to highlight these threats.
Polish-Ukrainian dialogue was particularly marked by events at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, namely by Poland regaining full sovereignty in 1989 and Ukraine gaining full independence in 1991 in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Importantly, Poland was one of the first countries to recognise Ukrainian independence. One more event in Ukraine deserves to be mentioned, namely the Orange Revolution, which is considered to mark the beginning of Ukraine's pursuit of pro-European aspirations. Initially, Poland was a natural ambassador of these aspirations. To some extent, Poland aimed to play the same role that a reunified Germany played in introducing Poland and other countries in the region to the European Union at the beginning of the 1990s. Unfortunately, for various reasons, Poland has not played this role for several years, and is not expected by Ukraine to do so. Nevertheless, despite the pandemic, and despite Germany's partial opening of its labour market to Ukrainians, the number of Ukrainian immigrants on the Polish labour market has not suddenly dropped. What is more, the Polish labour market has the capacity to absorb even more people. Another interesting tendency is the fact that many Ukrainians have declared their intention to stay in Poland. This is primarily true for Ukrainian graduates from Polish universities. In light of the results of research conducted by the Institute of Public Affairs, published in 2018, nearly 30% of Ukrainians studying in Poland were considering the option of remaining in Poland after their studies. 2 This is very good news for the 2 "The plans of Ukrainian students are particularly important for employers on the Polish labour market. The answers [of the former] vary considerably. A similar percentage of respondents are planning to move to another EU country (29%) and stay in Poland (28%) after graduating from a Polish University. The number of those who do not yet know whether they will leave is similar (26%), and only 9% are planning to move to a country outside the European Union. Returning to their homeland does not seem to be an interesting option and is chosen by a mere 8% of respondents" (Łada, 2018, p. 34).
Polish labour market, but the problem remains of the extent to which these plans will be feasible in the context of the Polish-Ukrainian political dialogue. This will determine whether Poles and Ukrainians will have to live in Poland "with each other" or "next to each other." The nature of mutual relations will depend, among other things, on how they handle the burden of a shared history.

The historical determinants of Polish-Ukrainian dialogue
This article was inspired by work on a publication by the Institute for Western Affairs which was put together to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the incorporation of the Western and Northern Territories into Poland (Bukiel, Sakson, Trosiak, 2020). Communist propaganda presented the shifting of the Polish state's borders to the west as a return to "ever Polish" territories. One of the most important consequences of this shift, which was significant from the point of view of the topic of this article, was the migrations, primarily of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and the surviving Jewish population who had lived in pre-war Poland. Approximately 25 million Europeans are estimated to have been forced (by evacuation, fleeing, expulsions, forced resettlement, re-emigration, or repatriation) to leave their homelands in the area between the Oder and the Lusatian Niesse in the west and the eastern border of pre-war Poland between 1936 (the expulsion of the Polish population from the Belarusian-Polish and Ukrainian-Polish border area) and 1958 (the last wave of the resettlement of Poles from the Soviet Union). The socio-cultural consequences of these processes have long influenced the integration processes taking place in Germany, Poland and Ukraine.
Massive relocations, both voluntary and forced, in the area between the eastern border of pre-war Poland and the line along the Oder and Niesse rivers started during World War II and primarily concerned Germans, Poles and Ukrainians. One group of forced migrants included Germans. The process of the German population's resettlement has been very well researched and described by Polish and German sociologists (Trosiak, 1999, pp. 79-85). Poles were the second largest group of displaced persons, whose migration took various forms. Some of them fled the pre-war Polish provinces of Volhynia, Ternopil, Stanisławów and Lviv, and so areas embroiled in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict from 1943 to 1947. Another group of Polish migrants, dubbed repatriates by Communist propaganda, were Polish citizens, including Jews who had lived in the eastern provinces of pre-war Poland before the war. The persons displaced from the Eastern Borderlands (Polish Kresy) are particularly important from the point of view of the topic of this article. Another group of displaced Poles were the inhabitants of Central Poland and Wielkopolska. Importantly, they made their resettlement decisions voluntarily, except for those who sought refuge in the Western and Northern Territories from repressions by the Communist security services. The last group of mostly voluntarily relocated Poles involved the returnees, mainly from France, and the actual repatriates from the Soviet Union (Trosiak, 1999, pp. 85-105). The third group of forced migrants was composed of Ukrainian, Lemko, Boyko and Hutsul people. These populations are mentioned in this part of the article because in 1947 some of their members were subject to forced displacement to the Western and Northern Territories as part of Operation Vistula. As a re-PP 3 '21 sult, this population found itself in the same territories as Poles who had previously been resettled to the Western and Northern Territories from the areas of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict of 1943-1947. Initially, the relations between the two groups were marked by pronounced reluctance or even hostility. In a sense, they lived side by side. The situation was similar to that of Poles who found themselves in the areas inhabited by the indigenous populations of Górny Śląsk, Warmia, Mazowsze, Kaszuby and the pre-war Polish-German borderlands (Trosiak, 2009). There have only been a few studies on the mutual relations between the newcomers from Eastern Borderlands and Ukrainians in the Western and Northern Territories. Therefore, the monograph by Andrzej Kwilecki deserves special attention, in which he states that "The Lemkos were not voluntary settlers. Therefore, we cannot talk about any motives for migration on their part, and these, as we know, can provide important grounds for adaptation and assimilation. The moment of forced relocation always has a negative effect on the psychological attitude of the displaced groups and their approach to the new land, which prevents social and economic activity" (Kwilecki, 1974, p. 34). Kwilecki emphasises the relationship between migration, and whether it is voluntary or forced, and the chances of integration and assimilation processes succeeding in their destination. This monograph was published in the early 1970s, when the official version was still promulgated that the resettlements were voluntary, allowing the Polish nation to pursue its aspirations of returning to Poland's former Piast territories. Another interesting property of Kwilecki's study is that its title announces an analysis of the influence of migration processes on the formation of social identity using the example of the Lemkos, but the results of his research can be extended to all displaced persons who found themselves in the Western and Northern Territories as part of Operation Vistula.

The main areas of research on the socio-political processes in the Western and Northern Territories after 1989
The socio-political changes which followed Poland's regaining full sovereignty in 1989 also made it possible to study topics that had been frowned upon before. This applied to researching socio-cultural processes in the Western and Northern Territories. The research question formulated then was whether or not the Western and Northern territories actually existed (Kwaśniewicz, 1991;Lisiecki, 1997;Szyfer, 1998;Trosiak, 2008;Trosiak, 2009). The answer to the question has been sought by the researchers dealing with the topic of social changes in Górny and Dolny Śląsk, Lubuskie, Pomorskie and Zachodniopomorskie, Kaszuby, Warmia and Mazury. This was the topic of conference discussions, research projects and publications summarising the results of research. The leaders of social and cultural organisations and, most importantly, political parties operating in these regions, began to define "their" identity, both in the socio-cultural and political dimensions. One of the manifestations of this process, which is particularly important from the point of view of this article, involved reconstructing the past of the Eastern Borderlands. This phenomenon occurred with varying intensity throughout the whole of the Western and Northern Territories. Large numbers of Poles visited the Eastern Borderlands as part of this process. These were not only people whose grandparents or parents were forced to leave their homeland, but also those who were "told about" Vilnius, Polesia, Podolia, Volhynia or the eastern Galicia regions through film, literature and by family members from the Borderlands. In these descriptions, the Eastern Borderlands were most often presented as a kind of Arcadia, where neither nature nor the people were threatened by modernity, in the form of industry, nationalism and their consequences. These images clashed with the harsh reality. Przemysław Czaplicki observes that the clash of these two narratives produced two myths of the Borderlands which existed side by side. "The bright myth. The Borderlands -an Arcadia of tolerance, a homeland of differences coexisting in unison, a space of harmony on the margins of Europe, a victim of modernity. This is the myth created by the émigré literature" (Czaplicki, 2015). The dark myth is associated with the loss (annihilation) of the Borderlands. "Whenever the topic of the annihilation of Kresy appeared in books [...], their plots led towards a clash with modernity. Nationalism came from the outside, because nobody thought in terms of nationality in their little homeland. Modern forces suddenly invaded, sweeping it from the face of the earth -the territory came under the rule of a single nation, and yesterday's inhabitants woke up [...] as strangers in their own homeland, which they had to leave hurriedly. After their exile, their homeland exists only in the wounded memory of the displaced" (Ibid.). An interesting question for sociologists and political scientists is to what extent these myths may affect the attitude of Polish society towards immigrants from Ukraine.
Ukrainian researchers should find it interesting to study, together with Polish sociologists and political scientists, the social processes taking place in the Western and Northern Territories, and the outcomes of the "old" immigrants of Ukrainian origin (Operation Vistula) coming into contact with the "new" ones, especially after 2014. The research could address the question of "what role will [...] Polish citizens of Ukrainian origin play in relation to contemporary Ukrainian immigration? It seems obvious that they should act as intermediaries between Polish society and Ukrainian immigrants, introducing them into the Polish cultural framework. What seems obvious, however, does not have to translate into practical activities. The history of the encounters of the representatives of the 'old' and 'new' emigration abounds in examples demonstrating that they resulted in indifference, if not in conflict, as was the case of the meeting of the 'old' and 'new' Polish emigrants in Germany in the 1980s" (Bukiel, Sakson, Trosiak, 2020, pp. 90-91).
The organisers of the "Minorities -Migrations -Multiculturalism" conference series, together with their Ukrainian participants, launched preparations for a research project. Polish and Ukrainian scientists, mainly sociologists and political scientists, meet at various conferences during which they discuss, often even argue about the burden that Polish-Ukrainian historical experiences, especially those from the first half of the 20th century, place on establishing mutual relations. Unfortunately, there have been only PP 3 '21 a few examples of joint research, especially in sociology, so far. One gets the impression that the parties are currently at the stage of reviewing their achievements, which is a necessary condition for such projects to be implemented in the future.

Migrations of the Ukrainian population from 1944 to 1951
Studies by Polish sociologists on the process of populating the Western and Northern Territories and integrating them into the remaining Polish regions are rather unique in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Being aware of the conditions of the political limitations and propaganda in which Polish sociologists conducted their research from 1945 to 1989, it should be emphasised that their findings are a source of knowledge making it possible to understand the course of contemporary processes in these areas and study the formation of regional identities, and the emancipation of linguistic, ethnic and national minorities. Only German sociologists have researched the inclusion (Ger. eingliederung) of the displaced (Ger. Vertriebenen) on a similar scale. Polish sociologists have been intensively cooperating with them since 1989. As a result of this cooperation, a dialogue with the organisations representing the circles of former inhabitants of eastern German territories (Ger. ehemalige deutsche Ostgebiete) has been established. This has made it possible to include the German component into a discussion on the cultural identity of the Western and Northern Territories. This experience can be used in the Polish-Ukrainian dialogue, which should ultimately lead to the trauma related to resettlement being worked through.
Unlike in Poland, Ukrainian researchers of the social processes after World War II in the area of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), which incorporated the pre-war Polish provinces of Volhynia, Stanisławów and Ternopil as well as the eastern districts of the Lviv province, could not freely conduct their scientific research. There were at least two reasons for that. One was the position of social sciences in the Soviet Union, which were dominated by a paradigm dictated by historical materialism and its influence on science. Another reason, which is of the utmost importance from the point of view of this article, is that any research on social processes would concern the territories displaying strong nationalist sentiments, which were ruthlessly put down by the authorities of the Ukrainian SSR. The situation changed after 1991. Today, there are many circles in Western Ukraine whose representatives glorify nationalist organisations and their leaders in the discussion on this period in Ukrainian history. In their opinion, the most important one was the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which operated from 1929 to the beginning of the 1950s. In 1940, this organisation split into two factions, Andriy Melnyk's Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-M) and Stepan Bandera's Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B). In 1942, the latter faction started an armed formation called the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which fought against Polish and Soviet partisans during the war; after the war it mainly fought against the Polish army and militia, as well as against Ukrainians suspected of cooperating with Poles and with Soviet authorities. In Poland, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army is known primarily for the extermination of the Polish population, known in Poland as the Volhynia Slaughter, perpetrated in pursuit of its vision of an independent Ukrainian state inhabited exclusively by Ukrainians.
At this point, it seems useful to briefly describe the course and directions of the deportations of the Ukrainian population, examined by Ukrainian researchers. It should be noted that they could not take up these issues until 1991 (Гонтар, Депортація...). Importantly, in the opinion of the authorities of Soviet Ukraine, the resettlement was a form of punishment (Макарчук, 2012, p. 107) for all who supported the nationalists. Due to the fact that many participants of these events have died, their studies are most often retrospective.
All the displacements of the Ukrainian population both from the pre-war regions of Poland and the western side of the newly created Polish-Ukrainian (Soviet) border were aimed to break up the nationalist movement. Ukrainians were moved in three directions. One was eastern Ukraine and deep into the Soviet Union (1944)(1945)(1946)(1947)(1948)(1949)(1950)(1951)(1952). The second one involved the Ukrainians from the territory of Poland, who were resettled mainly to western oblasts of the Ukrainian SSR. Persons who were strongly involved in or supported the activities of the nationalist underground were relocated to eastern and southern Ukraine (1944Ukraine ( -1947. The third destination was related to Operation Vistula, whereby Ukrainians from the Lublin, Rzeszów and Krakow regions were moved to the Western and Northern Territories (1947).
It is estimated that 87,830 (Sienkiewicz, Hryciuk, 2008, p. 210) people were deported from western oblasts of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic to Western and Eastern Siberia. Only a small number of them were sent to eastern oblasts of the Ukrainian SSR.
The Ukrainian population was deported from the Trans-Curzonia 4 territories on the basis of the agreement signed on 9 September 1944 between the Polish authorities, represented by the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN), and the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on the mutual evacuation (resettlement) of the Polish and Jewish populations (citizens of the Second Polish Republic) from the areas incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian and Ruthenian populations from the territory of Poland to the other side of the border designated by the victorious powers. The deportations began in November 1944. Initially, they were more or less voluntary. The Polish and Ukrainian authorities encouraged resettlement, promising that the situation of the displaced persons would improve. However, having discovered the actual conditions in the territory of the Ukrainian SSR the displaced would often decide to return to their homeland, which meant a return to Poland. After April 1945, the resettlement campaign clearly slowed down, which was why the Polish and Soviet authorities took steps to accelerate it. "Starting in September 1945, the deportation of the Ukrainian population from Poland became fully compulsory as military units were increasingly involved in 'securing' the evacuation and fighting the Ukrainian nationalist underground. The main stage of the evacuation of the Ukrainian population was completed on 1 August 1946.

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The last stage of forced resettlement of the Ukrainian population was organised within the above-mentioned Operation Vistula. Although the authorities claimed that after the "evacuation" 5 carried out under the above-mentioned agreement of 9 September 1944 some 15,000-20,000 Ukrainians remained in Poland, as many as 140,662 people were resettled under Operation Vistula (Sienkiewicz, Hryciuk, 2008, p. 213). "The most displaced persons were deployed in the provinces of 089,465,237,042,.
Ukrainian assessments of the motives, forms and consequences of the forced resettlement of the Ukrainian, Lemko, Boyko and Dolinian populations formulated today are clearly negative. The deportations are interpreted in terms of an extermination policy implemented by the authorities of Poland, which by this token joined the list of countries using forced resettlement as a form of political repression. In 2018, an international academic conference was organised in Lviv by the central and local authorities of the Lviv region, the World Federation of Ukrainian Lemko Associations, the Ukrainian Catholic University Centre for Research on the Ukrainian-Polish-Slovak Borderland UCU, and the human rights organisation Memorial. The subject of the conference was "Socio-historical and politico-legal assessment of the displacement of Ukrainians from the ethnic territories of Lemkovyna, Kholmshchyna, Podlachia, the Liubachiv Region and Western Boyko Land in 1944-1951" and it was attended by academics from Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia and Canada. Yaroslava Halik, President of the World Federation of Ukrainian Lemko Associations (Ukrainian Світової федерацїї українських лемківських об'єднань), opened the conference with her paper titled "The total expulsion of indigenous Ukrainians from their ethnic lands in Poland in 1944Poland in -1951: the need to condemn this crime and restore historical truth." In the opinion of the speaker, both the Soviet authorities and Communist Poland were responsible for this crime: "One of the terrible chapters in modern Ukrainian history was the tragedy of the total expulsion of indigenous Ukrainians from their ethnic lands in Poland in 1944Poland in -1951. This sinister action was carefully planned in advance and brutally carried out by the Bolshevik-Communist regimes of Poland and the USSR in Central Europe in the mid-twentieth century. As a result of this action, from 1944 to 1951, all the indigenous inhabitants of these regions, a total of 750,000 people, were forcibly displaced from the Ukrainian lands of Lemkovyna, Nadsanie, Kholmshchyna, Podlachia, the Liubachiv Region and Western Boyko Land, where Ukrainians had lived in compact settlements. They were all ruthlessly driven out of their homes and homeland only because they were Ukrainian, that is, for ethnic reasons" (Галик, 2018, p. 9). Reading this paper allows the reader to conclude that its author accurately identifies the causes, course and consequences of the displacements experienced by Ukrainian population. Additionally, her findings are, in principle, consistent with the conclusions reached by Polish scholars in their research. However, the question to be asked on this occasion is whether the number of people who were forced to leave their homelands can be estimated in the first place. It should be remembered that these processes took place initially during the war, and then in the postwar chaos of the movement of Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish people, as well as Russian "settlers," and, most importantly, in the conditions of a severe Polish-Ukrainian ethnic conflict. A civil war raged in these areas until the beginning of the 1950s on both sides of the Polish-Ukrainian border. Its main goal was to prevent the consolidation of the Communist authorities. The situation was extremely complicated, as Polish and Ukrainian nationalists were fighting primarily against the new government, but also against each other. While Halik is unequivocally critical of those events, in the conclusions of her speech she somewhat mitigates the message of her paper when she states that "the crimes of totalitarianisms, that is the deportation of Ukrainians in Transcarpathia in 1944-1951, cannot be used to politicise these tragic chapters of our history through confrontation, but should be used to assess these sad events in a constructive and balanced manner, in order to establish historical justice and honour the victims of these repressions. This is necessary to strengthen the Ukrainian state, protect Ukrainians, build dignified, modern and European relations between Ukraine and Poland, consolidate partnership in a democratic Europe based on European values, and confirm the ideas of humanism and the rule of law" (Ibid., p. 18).
When analysing Ukrainian academic literature, journalistic publications and the results of research on the Polish-Ukrainian ethnic conflict in the first half of the 20th century, it is worth noting that the authors of the studies barely notice the impact of these events, and if they do, they downplay their influence on how Poles and Ukrainians see each other. What is most important in Poland, on the other hand, is determining the causes of this conflict, namely the events of 1943-1944, referred to as the Volhynia Slaughter. 6 The papers from the Lviv conference in 2018 and the report by the Polish Institute of International Affairs "The Image of Poland in the Historical Policy of Ukraine" published in 2017, both demonstrate the challenges facing Polish and Ukrainian scholars, politicians and societies when it comes to overcoming the pitfalls of a shared history.

In lieu of a conclusion
The "dark myth" depicted in the film "Hatred" (Polish: "Wołyń"), was a vivid presentation of the process of the annihilation of the Borderland Arcadia. It seems, however, that this has not translated into an increase in aggressive behaviour towards Ukrainians residing in Poland. This does not mean, of course, that there is no such danger. There is a possibility that Poles, Ukrainians and Germans working together on how they lost their homelands could lead to joint research and activities aimed at working through the trauma of the "separation phase." 7 Undoubtedly, German researchers are the furthest ahead in this process. This is because the Vertriebene (displaced persons) have had the most time for this. It seems that studies on the socio-cultural processes taking place after 1989 in the Western and Northern Territories, inhabited by the representatives of all these groups, could and PP 3 '21 should be conducted jointly by historians, sociologists, political scientists, and Polish, German and Ukrainian culture experts. Trauma, or maybe a shared experience, could become an element of the discussion on the identity of Polish, German and Ukrainian inhabitants of Warmia and Mazury, Zachodniopomorskie, Lubuskie, Dolny and Górny Śląsk. Until now, the representatives of all these groups have been working through the painful experiences of the "separation phase" separately (Боднар, 2007;Wylęgała, 2014).
An additional difficulty that researchers will encounter (have encountered) is the current status quo of political relations between Poland and Ukraine, which has a direct impact on the Polish and Ukrainian politics of history. Poland's "rising from its knees" or rejecting "the policy of shame," as well as the Ukrainian stigmatisation of "the crimes of the Polish occupiers in Carpathian Ukraine" (Ukrainian злочин польських окупантів у Карпатській Україні) define the contemporary political contexts. Overcoming historical burdens is a process that will take many years and last for generations. Politics, however, is more short-term and its vectors frequently change. This observation should encourage taking up the challenges related to Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation, which is a necessary condition for good neighbourly relations between the Republic of Poland and Ukraine, and more broadly, between Poles and Ukrainians, both in Poland and in Ukraine; between Ukrainians and Poles as national minorities and Ukrainian immigrants, who are the largest group of immigrants in Poland. The models for how this can be done are available. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Treaty of Good Neighbourship and Friendly Cooperation between the Republic of Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany signed on 17 June 1991.