THE UKRAINIAN ISSUE IN POST-WAR POLAND AS A SPECIAL INDICATOR OF UNDERSTANDING THE COMPLEX SOCIO-POLITICAL CHALLENGES OF TODAY

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to show that a set of issues that summarizes the term “Ukrainian Issue in Poland” can be a tool for understanding the universal problems of today. The article refers to the ways of understanding history, recepted in such a delineated level of emotionality that it changes over time. From the XIXth century history became the basis of national legitimacy in modern states. Despite the changes that took place in the world over the past two centuries, the matrix of thinking of the Polish society is based on the national idea. This also applies to the Polish historical thinking. This factor plays a key role for the Ukrainians, citizens of Poland, who are mainly descendants of migrants from the Vistula campaign. And although there is an opinion in this community about their difference from the Polish majority, in their approaches to the past, the Ukrainians in Poland are similar to the majority. The article is based on hermeneutic methodology. The scientific novelty consists in an attempt to universalize the experience of the diaspora. The article ends in several practical conclusions. The Conclusions. The universalization of the experience of the Ukrainians in post-war Poland can replace unpromising accentuation. That is, writing it into the common code. We need to understand the other person’s emotions for this to happen. Empathy is needed for the second person. It takes work to measure the criteria by which we evaluate the world. At the same time, we also need a mature consciousness of possible manipulations to which we may be subjected. Universal in the experience of the Ukrainians in post-war Poland is loss, patience, fear, nostalgia, chance, but also stubbornness, sacrifice, or on the other hand curiosity, insignificance, naivety. Universal destinies of the Ukrainian partisans, underground fighters, prisoners, peasants and burghers, women, activists, priests, poets, engineers. A universal story about the road: from place to place, from time to time. A universal story of change. There is something to replace 1947, to stop fearfully thinking that we may indeed be “the last Ukrainians in Poland”.

Key words: historical thinking, the Poles, the Ukrainians, worldview, national idea.