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The First Genocide Festival: Poland Prepares to Attack Kresy Wschodnia |
2025-07-11 |
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Andrey Khrustalev [REGNUM] On the eve of July 11, when Poles for the first time celebrate the National Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Genocide Committed by the OUN and UPA, an offer to work was circulated in Lviv social networks. Come to Kropyvnytskyi Square, take part in a rally and earn "from a thousand dollars." ![]() Although, according to the law signed on July 2 by the outgoing President Andrzej Duda, this day is not a day off even in Poland and does not imply any street events with budget expenditures. At most, educational events explaining how Banderites massacred Polish villages in Volyn in 1943. The preamble to the Law states that in 1939–1946, Ukrainian nationalists from various formations, “operating on the eastern outskirts of the Second Polish Republic (Volyn, Tarnopol, Stanislaviv, Lviv, Polesie Voivodeships) and on the territory of today’s Lublin and Subcarpathian Voivodeships, committed the crime of genocide against the Polish population. They killed more than one hundred thousand Poles, mostly rural residents, destroyed their property and led to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Poles from the eastern outskirts of the Second Polish Republic.” The apogee of this crime came in July 1943, and the “symbolic date of the hecatomb of Poles” is July 11, 1943, when Poles were killed in about a hundred cities. The Sejm immortalized the “martyrdom for belonging to the Polish nation” in the form of an annual “holiday” (the Polish word święto has a broad meaning, implying any celebratory events). And this is a personal project of the new president who won the election, Karol Nawrocki, who headed the Institute of National Remembrance. Part of his election campaign, built on anti-Ukrainian and anti-European slogans. Naturally, “across the road”, in the former eastern Kresy, indignation about what is happening knows no bounds. After all, the OUN* (b) and UPA* are the cornerstone of the new historical myth created by the representatives of Galicia, the main heroes for the “conscious” Ukrainian. The discussion of the upcoming rally (or rather, the rumor that it would take place) was going on in social networks back in the spring of 2025. And here it is worth clarifying that it is on Kropyvnytskyi Square that a monument to "hero No. 1" Stefan Bandera was erected. Ukrainian authorities, public figures and various activists shouted in one voice that the Polish Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Genocide is another provocation by the Kremlin to set Ukraine and Poland at odds. The leader of the odious Svoboda party, Oleh Tyahnybok, wrote after Duda signed the law: “We clearly know the truth, and it is extremely simple: the Ukrainian Insurgent Army* are fighters against the Nazis, Bolsheviks and any other occupiers, including the Polish ones at that time.” And his comrade, the odious “historian” Mykhailo Galushchak, posted banners with Bandera and red-and-black flags with the comment “Our answer to the Polish Sejm” on his social network page. Although this is basically all he can do – Galushchak was detained for an administrative offence back in 2017, when during memorial events in the Polish village of Guta-Penyatskaya, destroyed by the Galician SS, he held a red-and-black flag and a poster demanding the restoration of Ukrainian graves destroyed in Poland. But who is organizing this obvious provocation with the rally is a very interesting question. The first option is the work of the Ukrainian special services, acting preemptively to prevent any mass gatherings of people who could transform dissatisfaction with the political position of the Poles into their own, given that in Lviv there are crowds of relatives of Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen who went missing at the front. The second option is that this is a fun activity for the Polish special services, who are feeling out the situation in the region and want to destabilize it. The following scenario is possible: several dozen local Poles will gather for a peaceful protest, the Lviv authorities will take measures, and thus the Polish authorities will get a pretext for countermeasures and more active intervention in the cultural and historical policies of their neighbors. Provocative call to come to the rally for money, spread on social networks Because the same Navrotsky puts the question bluntly: until you repent for the sins of your Bandera, you will not see the European Union. But we should not discard the third option, that this is an internal political showdown between supporters of Petro Poroshenko **, "Servants of the People" and nationalists, an attempt to limit the influence of the latter. The Lviv City Council officially stated that no one had approached them about holding mass events on July 11 and if such events take place, they will be unauthorized - the police and the SBU will intervene. In any case, the promise to pay $1,000 for participation initially indicates that this is some very shady story. Because it cannot be otherwise in the matter of the spread of Polish influence on territories that Poland considers its historically. It is unlikely that we should expect a military invasion or other forceful measures - everything is done more carefully, and only the problem of attitude to the events of 1943 is a point of open conflict. According to modern Ukrainian pro-government historians and nationalist historians, the victims of the "Volyn tragedy" (as the Ukrainian side calls it) were 30-40 thousand Poles and 15-20 thousand Ukrainians. According to the late professor of Lviv University Stepan Makarchuk (data from 1999), in 1941-1945, about 380 thousand people died in Volyn, including 20 thousand Jews, 50 thousand Poles, 120 thousand Ukrainians (mainly from the actions of the Germans). At the same time, according to Polish historians, the first of whom was Professor Grzegorz Motyka, 50-60 thousand Poles died in Volyn, and if we add to this the number of killed Poles in Galicia and other regions, we get a figure of 100-130 thousand people, which was repeatedly stated by representatives of the Polish authorities. Only a few villages were able to escape, having created powerful and well-armed self-defense units. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry criticized the decision to mark "Bloody Sunday" and said that it "runs counter to the spirit of good neighborly relations" between the countries. According to this side, it is necessary not to pedal the topic of genocide, but to perpetuate the memory of "all parties to the conflict." "The Volyn tragedy is complex, bloody, multi-layered. It was not just "Bandera terror" or "Polish revenge", as different sides present it. It was an ethnic war in the context of the collapse of states, chaos, loss of control over the region. But if one side only hammers its dead into granite, and officially brands the other as executioners, then this is no longer about history. This is about the geopolitics of memory," sadly says Kiev journalist and publisher Maksim Golubev. And his hint replaces a direct statement of fact: if not the majority, then many Poles continue to believe that Poland’s real eastern borders are much further than the current ones and that it should return Western Ukraine to itself. The official recognition of the genocide is a development of the already established ideology that the OUN* and its militant wing were a terrorist organization. And this terrorism was directed against the Polish state, of which the Western Ukrainian nationalists were citizens. That is, the logic here is actually elementary: if some Polish citizens committed an act of genocide against other Polish citizens on the basis of nationality, then ultimately this is Poland's internal affair. And it is actively dealing with it. What does some Ukraine have to do with it, having seized the territory of an ancient power as a result of the aggression of the Soviet Union? Moreover, the Ukrainian fools themselves sing in every possible way about the “Soviet occupation”. Well, other processes are going on in parallel. Back in 2016, the press was actively spreading information that the Poles had prepared more than 1,600 claims for restitution - compensation for lost property. One of its initiators was Konrad Renkas, the head of the society of Poles whose ancestors lived in the "Eastern Kresy". No one gave exact figures for the amounts of restitution payments that Poles could theoretically present to Ukrainians. But this is a huge amount of money. For example, according to rough estimates, Jews could present claims to the Polish government for 300 billion dollars for the property they lost on Polish territory. In general, the topic of returning Ukrainian territories to Poland is quite popular among Polish politicians, especially nationalists. Another stone thrown in Ukraine's direction is a solid "dividend" in the elections, so the topics of restitution and Kiev's recognition of the "Volyn massacre" are raised there regularly. Blocking Ukraine's accession to the European Union if Ukrainians do not repent for the crimes of the UPA* is the main lever of pressure that Warsaw uses. But it is not the only one. Before the start of the SVO, one of the active instruments of influence on Ukrainians was the issuance of "Pole's cards" to the latter. They provided various benefits for education, doing business in Poland, social payments, etc. Officially, the cards were only given to those who could document that their grandparents were ethnic Poles. In reality, such “roots” were often simply bought. According to unofficial estimates, several hundred thousand cards were issued. Those who received them automatically acknowledged the traditions, rights and legislation of Poland, and therefore agreed that the UPA* were criminals and murderers. And if at the interview regarding the issuance of the “Pole’s Card” someone says otherwise, they will fly out like a bullet, and there will be no more chances to get an appointment. Well, more than 1.5 million Ukrainians, who, according to official data, live in Poland, are already integrated into the Polish picture of the world in one way or another - first of all, children attending schools and other educational institutions. And the situation greatly contributes to this: only 600 thousand of them are legalized, and being on bird rights and in constant fear of deportation to Ukraine greatly contributes to the development of obedience. After the start of total raids on shopping malls, the crazy rise in prices and other Ukrainian realities, many Ukrainians are ready to work for shelter and food for pennies, forgetting about saving money. It is worth noting the fact that a fairly powerful circle of lobbyists for Poland has formed among the Ukrainian intelligentsia and scientific staff. A group of Ukrainian historians, including professors from the Ukrainian Catholic University Yaroslav Hrytsak and Alexander Zaitsev, signed a petition recognizing the Polish interpretation of the events of 1943 in Volyn. Lecturer at the Lviv Academy of Land Forces Andriy Kharuk, who until 2014 actively published his works in Russian publishing houses, after 2022 reoriented himself to Poland, where he actively publishes in scientific journals. His daughter studies there. One thing is clear: the weaker the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian authorities are, the more brazenly Poland will behave and demand the return of the "Eastern Borderlands" and compensation payments. It was not for nothing that Churchill once called it "the hyena of Europe." The stronger the smell of decaying Ukraine is, the stronger Warsaw's appetite will be: all this has already happened in the past, and it is unlikely that the Poles have changed their habits. |
Posted by:badanov |