THE UKRAINIAN QUESTION IN THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE SECOND POLISH REPUBLIC AT THE TURN OF 1938 – 1939

Abstract

The purpose of the proposed article is to elucidate the role and place of the Ukrainian issue in the foreign policy of the Second Polish Republic at the turn of 1938 – 1939, in particular its relations with Germany, the USSR, and Romania. The study of Poland’s foreign policy in 1938 – 1939 is central to understanding the dynamics of international processes in East-Central Europe on the eve of World War II. After all, the fate of peace on the continent ultimately hinged upon Warsaw’s relations with Berlin, Moscow, London, and Paris. The background of these relations was the Ukrainian issue, which entered a new stage of its internationalization in the wake of the “Czechoslovak crisis” and the emergence of Carpatho-Ukraine as a factor in international politics. The formation of Ukrainian autonomy south of the Carpathians in October of 1938 exposed the Ukrainian issue on a global scale as the largest unresolved national issue in interwar Europe. In 1938 – 1939, Subcarpathian Rus’/Carpatho-Ukraine turned into a geopolitical frontier, a zone of conflict of interests of key European players (Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the USSR, Great Britain, France, Italy). The research methodology is based on the approach of “histoire croisée”, “entangled history” and “connected history”, as subspecies of global history. This approach, in our opinion, serves as an effective means of integrating the Ukrainian history into a global historical context, giving the national metanarrative features of inclusiveness. The scientific novelty consists in the fact that the author tried, based on a wide range of published and unpublished archival documents, to comprehensively reveal the role of the Ukrainian issue in the foreign policy of the Second Polish Republic against the background of international relations during the turning point in the history of interwar Europe. The Conclusions. It has been established that the post-Munich period of international relations was marked by the actualization of the Ukrainian issue in European politics, the impetus for which gave the formation of Carpathian Ukraine as an autonomous unit within the Second Czecho-Slovak Republic. At the turn of 1938 – 1939, the Ukrainian issue became a central topic on the agenda of the Polish diplomacy, which was an important factor in its relations with Germany, the USSR, Romania, and Czecho-Slovakia. The balance of power in the east of the continent, the state of relations between them, and ultimately the fate of peace and war in Europe depended largely on the attitude of the key subjects of international relations to the Ukrainian issue. The period of 1938 – 1939 was marked by the active rapprochement of Poland and Germany against the background of the dismemberment of Czecho-Slovakia and Berlin’s determined efforts to draw Warsaw into its orbit of influence in order to form a military and political alliance against the USSR. In the bilateral German-Polish negotiations, the Ukrainian issue appeared as a certain “bait” and “bargaining chip” that the Nazis actively traded, hoping to attract Poland to their side to realize their long-term goals in the East. Despite the existence of a pro-German wing among the Polish ruling camp, which advocated cooperation with the Third Reich in solving the Ukrainian issue and a joint campaign against the USSR in the spirit of the concept of Prometheism, the Polish diplomacy led by Józef Beck at the beginning of 1939 rejected German demands and gradually took a course towards resumption of cooperation with Western democracies – Great Britain and France. At the same time, at least until the end of March 1939, there was still room for the German-Polish negotiations, in which the Ukrainian issue ceased to play a leading role.