POLAND’S FOREIGN POLICY CONCEPTS TRADITIONS AND INNOVATIONS REGARDING UKRAINE (the XXth – theBEGINNING OF the XXIst CENTURY)

Abstract

In the modern world, the state’s foreign policy is one of the supporting foundations of statehood, and therefore the study of the foreign policy concepts formation and implementation experience is relevant and necessary for the development of the modern interstate and good neighborly relations between Ukraine and Poland. The Polish political elite, in different historical periods, distinguished visions about Ukraine clearly, its role and significance for Rzeczpospolita (Commonwealth), and these visions remained constant, actualized over time, or, conversely, acquired new shapes and coloring. The Piast and the Jagiellonian concepts have been the main Poland’s foreign policy concepts since the beginning of the XXth century, and continue to be of utmost importance and that new or existing foreign policy doctrines have been created or developed based on them. The article depicts Poland’s foreign policy concepts evolution regarding Ukraine, in particular, and the eastern vector of Polish politics in general. The purpose of the research is to analyze and compare Poland’s foreign policy concepts evolution towards Ukraine and to study the factors that influenced the transformation of these concepts. The methodology of the research is based on the principles of historicism in the unity of all its components, systematization and scientificity. The interdisciplinary research is focused on the involvement of historical comparative and historical systemic methods, methods of microhistorical analysis. The scientific novelty is that there is the continuation of studies, which were initiated by domestic, Polish and other foreign researchers, in particular on Poland’s foreign policy concepts formation and implementation in the eastern direction and on Ukraine in particular. The Conclusions. The historical traditions of Poland’s eastern foreign policy vector are obvious, and although the Polish eastern policy forms may have changed, its content has balanced between two established concepts: the Jagiellonian and the Piast. The Republic of Poland having used the positive experience of the past and striving to have a reliable ally on its eastern border, builds a modern eastern policy vector in which Ukraine is given one of the leading roles in the best traditions of the Jagiellonian foreign policy doctrine.

Key words: Poland, Ukraine, foreign policy, Jagiellonian concept, Piast concept, Prometheanism, incorporation, eastern policy.