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Western Ukraine in the Interwar period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

John-Paul Himka
John-Paul Himka*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Extract

The concept of “Western Ukraine” is not entirely a static one. As a valid unit of historical analysis it first appears in the late eighteenth century, when the Habsburg monarchy added Galicia (1772) and Bukovina (occupied 1774, annexed 1787) to its collection of territories; already part of the collection was the Ukrainian-inhabited region of Transcarpathia (depending on how one counts, it had been Habsburg since as early as 1526 or as late as the early eighteenth century). Of course, one can also read back certain features unifying Western Ukraine prior to the 1770s, such as the culturally formative influence on all three regions of the medieval Rus’ principality, later kingdom, of Galicia and Volhynia, as well as the presence of the Carpathian mountains, which was much more than a matter of mere geology (hence the Russophiles’ preferred name for Western Ukraine—Carpathian Rus'). Still, in the centuries prior to their incorporation into the Habsburg monarchy, the three regions had experienced such disparate political histories—Galicia as part of Poland, Bukovina of Moldavia, and Transcarpathia of Hungary—that there is little validity in treating them then as a historical unit.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , Fall 1994 , pp. 347 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe and ex-USSR 

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References

Notes

1. On the state of the Ukrainian national movement in the Russian empire and in Galicia, see Ivan L. Rudnytsky, “The Ukrainian Movement on the Eve of the First World War,” in Essays in Modern Ukrainian History (Edmonton, 1987): 375–88. On Transcarpathia, see Ivan Zeguc, Die nationalpolitischen Bestrebungen der Karpato-Ruthenen 1848–1914, Veröffentlichungen des Osteuropa-Institut, München, 28 (Wiesbaden, 1965).Google Scholar

2. This problem forms the centerpiece of Paul Robert Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1848–1948 (Cambridge, Mass., 1978). See also Ivan L. Rudnytsky, “Carpatho-Ukraine: A People In Search of Their Identity,” in Essays, 353–73, and John-Paul Himka, “The Formation of National Identity in Subcarpathian Rus': Some Questions of Methodology,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 2, no. 3 (September 1978): 374–80.Google Scholar

3. Roman Szporluk, “West Ukraine and West Belorussia: Historical Tradition, Social Communication, and Linguistic Assimilation,” Soviet Studies 31, No. 1 (January 1979): 76–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe between the Two World Wars (Seattle, 1974): 36.Google Scholar

5. Volodymyr Kubiiovyc [Kubiiovych] estimated 5,902,000 Ukrainians in Poland in 1931. Zakhidni ukrains'ki zemli v mezhakh Pol'shchi 1920–1939 (Etnohrafichni vidnoshennia) (Chicago, 1963): 27. In a recent monograph, a prominent Polish scholar estimated that there were about 5.1 or 5.2 million Ukrainians in Poland in 1929. Ryszard Torzecki, Kwestia ukrainska w Polsce w latach 1923–1929 (Cracow, 1989): 11.Google Scholar

6. Miroslawa Papierzynska-Turek, Sprawa ukrainska w Drugiei Rzeczypospolitej 1922–1926 (Cracow, 1979): 20.Google Scholar

7. Rothschild, East Central Europe: 284.Google Scholar

8. D. Pruts'kyi, “Ukraintsi u ‘Velykii Rumunii', “Nova hromada (Vienna) 1, No. 3–4 (October-November 1923): 16, estimated that there were 900,000 Ukrainians in Romania in 1923.Google Scholar

9. Rothschild, East Central Europe: 89.Google Scholar

10. Magocsi, Shaping of a National Identity: 354.Google Scholar

11. ohdan Krawchenko, Social Change and National Consciousness in Twentieth-Century Ukraine (London, 1985): 48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Rothschild, East Central Europe: 44, 285, 92.Google Scholar

13. The voivode left interesting memoirs: Henryk Jozewski, “Zamiast Pamietnika,” Zeszyty Histoczne 59 (1982): 3–163; 60 (1982): 65–157; 63 (1983): 3–75. There is a recent Polish monograph on the Volhynian Palatinate: Wlodzimierz Medrzecki, Wojewodztwo Wolynskie, 1921–1939. Elementy Przemian cywilizacynych, spolecznych i Politycznych (Wroclaw, 1988).Google Scholar

14. Ivan Kedryn, Zhyttia—odii—liudy. Spomyny i komentari (New York, 1976): 126–27.Google Scholar

15. Torzecki, Kwestia ukrainska w Polsce: 319–22.Google Scholar

16. Two useful and complementary surveys of national minorities in interwar Poland are: Stephan Horak, Poland and Her National Minorities, 1919–39. A Case Study (New York, 1961); Jerzy Tomaszewski, Rzeczpospolita wielu narodow (Warsaw, 1985). For an excellent brief survey of the Ukrainian question in particular, see Bohdan Budurowycz, “Poland and the Ukrainian Problem, 1921–1939,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 25, No. 4 (December 1983): 473–500.Google Scholar

17. For a well researched, exceptionally balanced study of the nationality policies of the various Polish governments, see Andrzej Chojnowski, Koncepcje polityki narodowosciowej rzadow polskich w latach 1921–1939 (Wroclaw, 1979).Google Scholar

18. See Stepan Ripetskyj, Ukrainian-Polish Diplomatic Struggle 1918–1923 (Chicago, 1963).Google Scholar

19. Papierzynska-Turek, Sprawa ukrainska: 20.Google Scholar

20. Bukovyna Ii mynule i suchasne, ed. D. Kvitkovs'kyi, T. Bryndzan, A. Zhukovs'kyi (Paris, 1956): 331–34.Google Scholar

21. On Bukovina, see H. Piddubnyi, Bukovyna Ii mynule i suchasne (Suspil'no-politychnyi narys…) ([Kharkiv], 1928): 141–57.Google Scholar

22. For a contemporary Communist critique of the Romanian land reform, see H. Piddubnyi [Gregori Grigorovich], Bukovyns'ke selianstvo v iarmi (Vienna, 1925): 18–24.Google Scholar

23. Bukovyna, ed. Kvitkovs'kyi: 741–53.Google Scholar

24. The most comprehensive survey of Orthodoxy in the Polish sector of Western Ukraine is Ivan Vlasovs'kyi, Narys istorii Ukrains'koi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy, Vol. 4: (XX st.), Part 2 (New York, 1966): 5–177. A recent Polish monograph concerns Polish government policy towards Orthodoxy between the wars: Miroslawa Papierzynska-Turek, Miedzy, tradycja a rzeczywistoscia. Panstwo wobec prawoslawia 1918–1939 (Warsaw, 1989).Google Scholar

25. Emil Revyuk, Polish Atrocities in Ukraine (New York, 1931). V. J. Kushnir, Polish Atrocities in the West Ukraine: An Appeal to the League for the Rights of Man and Citizen (Vienna, 1931).Google Scholar

26. See Peter G. Stercho, Diplomacy of Double Morality: Europe's Crossroads in Carpatho-Ukraine 1919–1939 (New York, 1971).Google Scholar

27. Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak, “The Ukrainian University in Galicia: A Pervasive Issue,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 5, No. 4 (December 1981): 497–545.Google Scholar

28. In Subcarpathian Rus’ 239,000 ha became subject to distribution in 1920. By the end of 1934, however, only 57,000 ha had actually been distributed, with the local Ukrainian peasantry forming the overwhelming majority of recipients (86 percent). (Another 36,000 ha were left in the possession of the original owners.) Jos. Jirkovsky, “Pozemkov reforma na Podkarpatsksá Rusi,” in Podkarpatské Rus, ed. Jaroslav Zatloukal (Bratislava, 1936): 147–48.Google Scholar

29. Antony Polonsky, The Little Dictators: The History of Eastern Europe Since 1918 (London, 1975): 175, 178.Google Scholar

30. On the cooperative movement in Western Ukraine between the wars, see Istoriia ukrains'koho kooperatyvnoho rukhu (New York, 1964): 315–496.Google Scholar

31. Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak, Feminists Despite Themselves: Women in Ukrainian Community Life, 1884–1939 (Edmonton, 1988): 149–280.Google Scholar

32. Programmatic political documents from interwar Western Ukraine can be found in Ukrains'ka suspil'no-politychna dumka v 20 stolitti, ed. Taras Hunczak [Hunchak] and Roman Solchanyk [Sol'chanyk], Vol. 2 ([Munich, 1983). Ukrainian political parties in interwar Poland are surveyed in Jerzy Holzer, Mozaika polityczna Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej (Warsaw, 1974): 241–53, 531–51.Google Scholar

33. Janusz Radzieiowski, The Communist Party of Western Ukraine, 1919–1929 (Edmonton, 1983). Roman Solchanyk, “The Foundation of the Communist Movement in Eastern Galicia, 1919–1921,” Slavic Review 30, No. 4 (December 1971): 774–94. Roman Solchanyk, “The Comintern and the Communist Party of Western Ukraine, 1919–1928,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 23, No. 2 (June 1981): 181–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. Janusz Radziejowski, “Roman Rosdolsky: Man, Activist and Scholar,” Science & Society 42, No. 2 (Summer 1978): 198–210.Google Scholar

35. See the memoirs of an interwar radical activist: Ivan Makukh, Na narodnii sluzhbi (Detroit, 1958).Google Scholar

36. The memoirs of an interwar Galician social democrat: Antin Chernets'kyi, Spomyny z moho zhyttia (London, 1964).Google Scholar

37. See the special monograph devoted to this problem: Alexander J. Motyl, The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (Boulder, 1980).Google Scholar

38. Mykhailo Sosnovs'kyi, Dmytro Dontsov. Politychnyi portret. Z istorii rozvytku ideolohii ukrains'koho natsionalizmu (New York, 1974).Google Scholar

39. The Political and Social Ideas of Viaceslav Lypyns ‘kyj, ed. Jaroslaw Pelenski, Harvard Ukrainian Studies 9, No. 3–4 (Cambridge, Mass., 1985).Google Scholar

40. Ivan Lysiak-Rudnyts'kyi, “Nazaruk i Lypyns'kyi: Istoriia ikhn'oi druzhby ta konfliktu,” in Vacheslav Lypyns'kyi Arkhiv, Vol. 7: Lysty Osypa Nazaruka do Viacheslava. Lypyns'koho, ed. Ivan Lysiak-Rudnyts'kyi (Philadelphia, 1976): xv-xcvii.Google Scholar

41. See the many publications (in Ukrainian) on the UVO by Zynovii Knysh.Google Scholar

42. For a collection of official OUN documents, see OUN v svitli postanov velykykh. zboriv, konferentsii ta inshykh dokumentiv z borot'by 1929–1955 r., Biblioteka ukrains'koho pidpil'nyka, 1 (N.p., 1955).Google Scholar