In 1918, Ukrainian statehood held out, but then fell after just a couple of years. On one side, the Bolsheviks pushed through (experts say it was about a million bayonets). On the other side, the Poles. The Allies supplied them with weapons to fight the Bolsheviks, but those weapons were used to occupy the Ukrainian-inhabited territories of Galicia and Volhynia. There was no international mandate for a military occupation of Ukrainian lands, Ukrainian historian, journalist, and TV host Oleksandr Zinchenko writes.
And there were also the Romanians, the Denikinists, and Ukraine’s own ataman rule… Ukraine fell in 1921. It was divided between Poland of Piłsudski and Lenin’s russia. Some scraps the Ukrainian “pie” ended up with Romania and Czechoslovakia.
Then the USSR used subjugated Ukrainians as a mobilization resource. In 1939, Poland capitulated in 28 days. In 1945, Poland received Soviet tanks across its entire territory. Maybe this is a lesson? Maybe it’s better to have kremlin tanks in Bakhmut, not in Wrocław?
That lesson was very well learned by the generation that survived that war – the generation of Jacek Kuroń, Anna Valentynovich, the Solidarity generation. They clearly understood the connection between causes and consequences: Piłsudski’s Poland’s mistakes cost them the loss of statehood, the loss of sovereignty, and turned them into a satellite of the Evil Empire. They understood that Poland’s independence in 1918 happened at the cost of Ukrainian independence. And that this debt must be repaid.
Jacek Kuroń wrote: “Poland twice stood in the way of Ukraine’s independence in the 20th century. First – in the wake of victory in 1918 over the Ukrainian Galician Army, and second – because of the Treaty of Riga.” Ukraine never had this debt to Poland – Ukrainians have never blocked the path to Poland’s independence.
That is why this generation was so quick to be among the first to recognize Ukraine’s independence in 1991. It was a symbolic repayment of an old debt to Ukrainians. But now the time has come to pay not only symbolically. The loss of statehood cost Ukrainians millions of lives.
Among the many reasons for that was also what Kuroń wrote about: Poland twice stood in the way of Ukrainian independence. And this, too, requires more than words – actions. Of course, only if the Poles don’t wish to have russian tanks under Wrocław again.
The pre-election madness that has already taken hold of Poland is dangerous. Don’t experiment: will Poland capitulate again in 28 days, or even sooner? Because after Ukraine, Poland was always next.
The fact that today Polish politicians – regardless of political spectrum, right and left and those in between – resort to the language of blackmail is disgusting and potentially dangerous. Stop it!
