https://cius-archives.ca/items/browse?tags=Poland&output=atom2024-03-29T02:43:12-06:00Omekahttps://cius-archives.ca/items/show/2117 This year’s lecture, held on 6 December 2012, was given by Marco Carynnyk, who spoke on the topic, “Ministers of Righteousness? Greek Catholic Clergymen and Poles and Jews during World War II.”
Description: Each year, the Program on Religion and Culture.hosts the Bohdan Bociurkiw Memorial Lecture.
This year’s lecture, held on 6 December 2012, was given by Marco Carynnyk, who spoke on the topic, “Ministers of Righteousness? Greek Catholic Clergymen and Poles and Jews during World War II.”
]]>https://cius-archives.ca/items/show/2052 In his lecture Dr. Potichnyj addressed some of the key controversies surrounding the UPA. The first concerns the common practice of conflating the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), especially the faction led by Stepan Bandera (OUN-B), with the UPA, giving rise to the joint acronym OUN-UPA. Professor Potichnyj pointed out that this hyphenated designation was first used by Soviet security organs to discredit the UPA by linking it with the OUNs integral-nationalist ideology of the 1930s. While acknowledging the important role played by OUN members in the UPA, Dr. Potichnyj stressed that the latter was subordinate to the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council (Ukrains'ka Holovna Vyzvol'na Rada), an underground governing body more broadly based than the OUN-B. The second controversy concerns estimates of the number of people involved in the UPA and underground activities generally. The Soviet-sponsored image of the UPA as a collection of undisciplined bands of gangsters has fuelled the third controversy. Here, Professor Potichnyj stressed the UPAs resemblance to a regular army, noting Soviet efforts to create armed groups that looked like UPA units and imitated them. Professor Potichnyj also discussed controversies related to ideology, concluding that the ideology of the UPA was based largely on the democratic wartime writings of Osyp Diakiv (Hornovy), P. Poltava (Fedun), and others, not on the integral nationalist ideas of Dmytro Dontsov, who came to prominence between the wars. Professor Potichnyj also discussed the Polish-Ukrainian conflict, stressing its long history and suggesting that land hunger was partly to blame for the ferocity of the struggle and the involvement of peasants in the Volhynian tragedy of 1943, when many Polish civilians were slaughtered. Other factors included plans to incorporate Volhynia into Poland, German and Soviet meddling, and the inability of Polish and Ukrainian underground leaders to reach an understanding. With regard to the Holocaust, Dr. Potichnyj noted that although the Ukrainian populace was aware of the mass murder of Jews in Ukraine, there is no documentary evidence to support the assumption that the UPA welcomed or supported it. The greatest failure of the Ukrainian underground leadership, however, was that it did not issue condemnations or proclamations of concern. Dr. Potichnyj also pointed out that he knew of no instance of Jewish leaders attempting to contact the Ukrainian underground leadership.
During the lecture and in the question period, the guest speaker drew on his own wartime experiences. Dr. Potichnyj, who comes from the village of Pawlokoma (Pavlokoma) near Przemysl (Peremyshl), now in Poland, became a guerrilla soldier at the age of fourteen after the mass killing of his fellow villagers by Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) soldiers in March 1945. Dr. Potichnyj served in the UPA until 10 September 1947, when the remnant of his company (36 soldiers), led by Mykhailo Duda (Hromenko), crossed from Soviet-occupied Austria to the US-controlled zone of Germany. He earned his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1966 and began his academic career that year as professor of political science at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He retired in 1995.
Throughout his career, Dr. Potichnyj has had a particular interest in relations between Ukrainians and their neighbours. He organized scholarly conferences on this subject that resulted in the publication of the following books by CIUS Press, which he edited or co-edited: Poland and Ukraine: Past and Present (1980); Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective (1988); and Ukraine and Russia in Their Historical Encounter (1992).
Since 1975 Dr. Potichnyj has served as editor-in-chief of the documentary series Litopys UPA, of which 61 volumes have been published to date. He is co-editor of Political Thought of the Ukrainian Underground: 1943-1951 (Edmonton, 1986), published by CIUS Press. He is also the author of a documentary history of his native village, Pavlokoma, 1441-1945: istoriiasela (Lviv and Toronto, 2001.
Description: The 41st annual Shevchenko Lecture, co-sponsored by CIUS and the Ukrainian Professional and Business Club of Edmonton, was delivered on 30 March 2007 by Dr. Peter J. Potichnyj, a leading authority on Ukrainian wartime insurgency, who spoke on “The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA): What Have We Learned 65 Years after Its Founding?”
In his lecture Dr. Potichnyj addressed some of the key controversies surrounding the UPA. The first concerns the common practice of conflating the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), especially the faction led by Stepan Bandera (OUN-B), with the UPA, giving rise to the joint acronym OUN-UPA. Professor Potichnyj pointed out that this hyphenated designation was first used by Soviet security organs to discredit the UPA by linking it with the OUNs integral-nationalist ideology of the 1930s. While acknowledging the important role played by OUN members in the UPA, Dr. Potichnyj stressed that the latter was subordinate to the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council (Ukrains'ka Holovna Vyzvol'na Rada), an underground governing body more broadly based than the OUN-B. The second controversy concerns estimates of the number of people involved in the UPA and underground activities generally. The Soviet-sponsored image of the UPA as a collection of undisciplined bands of gangsters has fuelled the third controversy. Here, Professor Potichnyj stressed the UPAs resemblance to a regular army, noting Soviet efforts to create armed groups that looked like UPA units and imitated them. Professor Potichnyj also discussed controversies related to ideology, concluding that the ideology of the UPA was based largely on the democratic wartime writings of Osyp Diakiv (Hornovy), P. Poltava (Fedun), and others, not on the integral nationalist ideas of Dmytro Dontsov, who came to prominence between the wars. Professor Potichnyj also discussed the Polish-Ukrainian conflict, stressing its long history and suggesting that land hunger was partly to blame for the ferocity of the struggle and the involvement of peasants in the Volhynian tragedy of 1943, when many Polish civilians were slaughtered. Other factors included plans to incorporate Volhynia into Poland, German and Soviet meddling, and the inability of Polish and Ukrainian underground leaders to reach an understanding. With regard to the Holocaust, Dr. Potichnyj noted that although the Ukrainian populace was aware of the mass murder of Jews in Ukraine, there is no documentary evidence to support the assumption that the UPA welcomed or supported it. The greatest failure of the Ukrainian underground leadership, however, was that it did not issue condemnations or proclamations of concern. Dr. Potichnyj also pointed out that he knew of no instance of Jewish leaders attempting to contact the Ukrainian underground leadership.
During the lecture and in the question period, the guest speaker drew on his own wartime experiences. Dr. Potichnyj, who comes from the village of Pawlokoma (Pavlokoma) near Przemysl (Peremyshl), now in Poland, became a guerrilla soldier at the age of fourteen after the mass killing of his fellow villagers by Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) soldiers in March 1945. Dr. Potichnyj served in the UPA until 10 September 1947, when the remnant of his company (36 soldiers), led by Mykhailo Duda (Hromenko), crossed from Soviet-occupied Austria to the US-controlled zone of Germany. He earned his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1966 and began his academic career that year as professor of political science at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He retired in 1995.
Throughout his career, Dr. Potichnyj has had a particular interest in relations between Ukrainians and their neighbours. He organized scholarly conferences on this subject that resulted in the publication of the following books by CIUS Press, which he edited or co-edited: Poland and Ukraine: Past and Present (1980); Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective (1988); and Ukraine and Russia in Their Historical Encounter (1992).
Since 1975 Dr. Potichnyj has served as editor-in-chief of the documentary series Litopys UPA, of which 61 volumes have been published to date. He is co-editor of Political Thought of the Ukrainian Underground: 1943-1951 (Edmonton, 1986), published by CIUS Press. He is also the author of a documentary history of his native village, Pavlokoma, 1441-1945: istoriiasela (Lviv and Toronto, 2001.
]]>https://cius-archives.ca/items/show/2035 On 6-8 September 1991, CIUS marked the Ukrainian Canadian centenary with a conference on selected aspects of Ukrainian life in Canada in the years between 1924 and 1951. Coinciding with the release of Orest Martynowych's landmark monograph, Ukrainians in Canada: The Formative Years, 1891-1924, the conference was designed as a first step toward creating a research base for writing the interwar history of Ukrainians in Canada. This period, in contrast to the well-studied pioneer immigration and prairie settlement experience, has received relatively little scholarly attention, despite it being so critical to both the crystallizing Ukrainian Canadian community and ongoing integration into Canadian life. Accordingly, it was CIUS’s plan to attract papers on as wide an array of topics as possible, avoiding broad generalities in favour of more limited but illuminating profiles and case studies.
Rather than take the Ukrainian community itself as the starting point, Anna Reczvriska of the Polonia Research Institute at Jagiellonian University, Cracow, used interwar Polish consular and other records to examine the ‘'Ukrainian problem” in the opinion of Poles in Canada.
On 6-8 September 1991, CIUS marked the Ukrainian Canadian centenary with a conference on selected aspects of Ukrainian life in Canada in the years between 1924 and 1951. Coinciding with the release of Orest Martynowych's landmark monograph, Ukrainians in Canada: The Formative Years, 1891-1924, the conference was designed as a first step toward creating a research base for writing the interwar history of Ukrainians in Canada. This period, in contrast to the well-studied pioneer immigration and prairie settlement experience, has received relatively little scholarly attention, despite it being so critical to both the crystallizing Ukrainian Canadian community and ongoing integration into Canadian life. Accordingly, it was CIUS’s plan to attract papers on as wide an array of topics as possible, avoiding broad generalities in favour of more limited but illuminating profiles and case studies.
Rather than take the Ukrainian community itself as the starting point, Anna Reczvriska of the Polonia Research Institute at Jagiellonian University, Cracow, used interwar Polish consular and other records to examine the ‘'Ukrainian problem” in the opinion of Poles in Canada.
]]>https://cius-archives.ca/items/show/2009 The seventh Institute seminar at the University of Alberta was presented on 15 January 1980 by Karol Adamowicz, a graduate student in the Department of Educational Foundations. He spoke on "Ukrainian Education in Interwar Poland," focusing on the elementary level. The so-called utraquization of Ukrainian schools, their conversion from a single language of instruction (Ukrainian) to two (Ukrainian and Polish) , tended to poison Polish-Ukrainian relations in the interwar era. The originator of the programme, the National Democrat Stanislaw Grabski, claimed that utraquization would improve these relations. In reality utraquist schools were instruments of Polonization. Ukrainian-language schools were systematically phased out at a rate very nearly proportional to the rate of increase in utraquist schools. As a result, by 1939 very little remained of the Ukrainian educational system that had been established in Galicia under Austrian rule.
The seventh Institute seminar at the University of Alberta was presented on 15 January 1980 by Karol Adamowicz, a graduate student in the Department of Educational Foundations. He spoke on "Ukrainian Education in Interwar Poland," focusing on the elementary level. The so-called utraquization of Ukrainian schools, their conversion from a single language of instruction (Ukrainian) to two (Ukrainian and Polish) , tended to poison Polish-Ukrainian relations in the interwar era. The originator of the programme, the National Democrat Stanislaw Grabski, claimed that utraquization would improve these relations. In reality utraquist schools were instruments of Polonization. Ukrainian-language schools were systematically phased out at a rate very nearly proportional to the rate of increase in utraquist schools. As a result, by 1939 very little remained of the Ukrainian educational system that had been established in Galicia under Austrian rule.
]]>https://cius-archives.ca/items/show/2006 Dr. Ivan L. Rudnytsky, professor of history, presented the fifth Institute seminar on 20 November. His talk was entitled "F. Duchinski: His Impact on Ukrainian Political Thought." Franciszek Duchiffeki (1817-93) was a native of the province of Kyiv. A patriotic Pole, he also possessed a strong sense of allegiance to his Ukrainian homeland. As an expatriate since 1846, he settled in Paris and became a prolific writer in Polish and French. Duchifiski advocated the idea of a perennial racial conflict between the Aryans or Indo-Europeans and the "Turanians" J he classified the Poles and the Ukrainians with the former, and Russians (whose Slavic character he denied) with the latter. Duchinski cannot be considered a sound scholar, although at times he displayed flashes of historical intuition. In the 1860s he had followers among French publicists, but this influence waned with the fall of the Second Empire and the rise of critical Slavic studies. In the early 1870s Duchinski contributed to the Galician Ukrainian press. Duchifiski 's ideas were opposed by Mykola Kostomarov and Mykhailo Drahomanov on scholarly as well as political grounds. In spite of this, the concept of a fundamental ethnic incompatibility of the Ukrainian and the Russian peoples, first formulated by Duchinski, was accepted by the Galician narodovtsi and became a permanent feature of the ideology of modern Ukrainian nationalism. A forgotten figure today, Duchinski may serve as an example of the impact which Ukrainophile Poles had in directing the Ukrainian national movement into militantly anti-Russian channels. This impact has not been sufficiently appreciated by historians.
Dr. Ivan L. Rudnytsky, professor of history, presented the fifth Institute seminar on 20 November. His talk was entitled "F. Duchinski: His Impact on Ukrainian Political Thought." Franciszek Duchiffeki (1817-93) was a native of the province of Kyiv. A patriotic Pole, he also possessed a strong sense of allegiance to his Ukrainian homeland. As an expatriate since 1846, he settled in Paris and became a prolific writer in Polish and French. Duchifiski advocated the idea of a perennial racial conflict between the Aryans or Indo-Europeans and the "Turanians" J he classified the Poles and the Ukrainians with the former, and Russians (whose Slavic character he denied) with the latter. Duchinski cannot be considered a sound scholar, although at times he displayed flashes of historical intuition. In the 1860s he had followers among French publicists, but this influence waned with the fall of the Second Empire and the rise of critical Slavic studies. In the early 1870s Duchinski contributed to the Galician Ukrainian press. Duchifiski 's ideas were opposed by Mykola Kostomarov and Mykhailo Drahomanov on scholarly as well as political grounds. In spite of this, the concept of a fundamental ethnic incompatibility of the Ukrainian and the Russian peoples, first formulated by Duchinski, was accepted by the Galician narodovtsi and became a permanent feature of the ideology of modern Ukrainian nationalism. A forgotten figure today, Duchinski may serve as an example of the impact which Ukrainophile Poles had in directing the Ukrainian national movement into militantly anti-Russian channels. This impact has not been sufficiently appreciated by historians.
]]>https://cius-archives.ca/items/show/2004 On 4 December Nestor Makuch, recent recipient of an honours B.A. in history at the University of Alberta, presented the sixth Institute seminar, "Dmytro Dontsov and Interwar Ukrainian Nationalism." In 1929 several integral nationalist groups in Western Ukraine and adjacent areas of Eastern Europe banded together to form the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (O.U.N.). The groups themselves had arisen during the 1920s in response to internal and external factors that, they felt, were threatening the very survival of the Ukrainian nation. Externally, the postwar settlements had left many European countries with dissatisfied national minorities, such as the Ukrainians in Poland. Polish aggression was a major factor contributing to the Ukrainians' perceived threat of their elimination as a national group. This aggravated the hostility Ukrainians felt toward the Western democracies for allowing Ukrainian territory to be incorporated into Poland. Coupled with a decline of parliamentarianism in the West and Poland and the rise of authoritarian regimes, this resentment aided in the development of the methods by which Ukrainians would attempt to redress their grievances. Internally, the failure of the Ukrainian revolution convinced nationalists that the existing strategy and programmes of the Ukrainian leadership were ineffectual. Therefore, they looked for a "new way" to achieve national self-determination. The "new way" was supplied by Dontsov who fanned the discontent the younger generation through his voluminous publicistic work and, though never formally a member of the party, created the psychological milieu that facilitated O.U.N. recruitment.
On 4 December Nestor Makuch, recent recipient of an honours B.A. in history at the University of Alberta, presented the sixth Institute seminar, "Dmytro Dontsov and Interwar Ukrainian Nationalism." In 1929 several integral nationalist groups in Western Ukraine and adjacent areas of Eastern Europe banded together to form the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (O.U.N.). The groups themselves had arisen during the 1920s in response to internal and external factors that, they felt, were threatening the very survival of the Ukrainian nation. Externally, the postwar settlements had left many European countries with dissatisfied national minorities, such as the Ukrainians in Poland. Polish aggression was a major factor contributing to the Ukrainians' perceived threat of their elimination as a national group. This aggravated the hostility Ukrainians felt toward the Western democracies for allowing Ukrainian territory to be incorporated into Poland. Coupled with a decline of parliamentarianism in the West and Poland and the rise of authoritarian regimes, this resentment aided in the development of the methods by which Ukrainians would attempt to redress their grievances. Internally, the failure of the Ukrainian revolution convinced nationalists that the existing strategy and programmes of the Ukrainian leadership were ineffectual. Therefore, they looked for a "new way" to achieve national self-determination. The "new way" was supplied by Dontsov who fanned the discontent the younger generation through his voluminous publicistic work and, though never formally a member of the party, created the psychological milieu that facilitated O.U.N. recruitment.
]]>https://cius-archives.ca/items/show/1995 Dr. Roman Serbyn, of the history department at Universite du Quebec a Montreal, presented this year's last seminar which was entitled, "The National Awakening in Ukraine, 1859–1863: Students in Kharkiv and Kiev Universities."
Heightened student activism emerging in post- Crimean Russia took on a specific, national coloring in the two universities situated in Ukraine. During this first "movement to the people", student activists drew closer to the common folk and, through the Ukrainian peasantry and the still un-Russified nascent working class, rediscovered Ukrainian language and culture. As "khlopophilism" blended with "Ukrainophilism" student activism found intellectual reinforcement in the Romantic literary tradition of the popular works of Taras Shevchenko and Marko Vovchok, as well as in the Ukrainian schools of Polish and Russian literature. A desire to promote the Ukrainian language, as well as a feeling of social debt, prompted students to set up Ukrainian language Sunday schools.
More radical students organized in clandestine groups such as the revolutionary-minded Kharkiv Secret Political Society and the more moderate, or at least more heterogenous, Kyiv Student Hromada. Ukrainian student radicalism, leaning towards an eventually autonomous if not completely independent Ukraine, was acquiring a national consciousness and beginning to assert itself as a movement allied to, but independent of, Polish and Russian movements. The Ukrainian movement was also winning a grudging recognition, from Poles and Russians, as a partner in the common struggle against the tsarist regime. This development was cut short by the aborted Polish insurrection and renewed repression against Ukrainians. From then on, Ukrainophilism fell back into political moderation while the Russian radical movements siphoned off Ukrainian radicals into their own increasingly centralist organizations.
Dr. Roman Serbyn, of the history department at Universite du Quebec a Montreal, presented this year's last seminar which was entitled, "The National Awakening in Ukraine, 1859–1863: Students in Kharkiv and Kiev Universities."
Heightened student activism emerging in post- Crimean Russia took on a specific, national coloring in the two universities situated in Ukraine. During this first "movement to the people", student activists drew closer to the common folk and, through the Ukrainian peasantry and the still un-Russified nascent working class, rediscovered Ukrainian language and culture. As "khlopophilism" blended with "Ukrainophilism" student activism found intellectual reinforcement in the Romantic literary tradition of the popular works of Taras Shevchenko and Marko Vovchok, as well as in the Ukrainian schools of Polish and Russian literature. A desire to promote the Ukrainian language, as well as a feeling of social debt, prompted students to set up Ukrainian language Sunday schools.
More radical students organized in clandestine groups such as the revolutionary-minded Kharkiv Secret Political Society and the more moderate, or at least more heterogenous, Kyiv Student Hromada. Ukrainian student radicalism, leaning towards an eventually autonomous if not completely independent Ukraine, was acquiring a national consciousness and beginning to assert itself as a movement allied to, but independent of, Polish and Russian movements. The Ukrainian movement was also winning a grudging recognition, from Poles and Russians, as a partner in the common struggle against the tsarist regime. This development was cut short by the aborted Polish insurrection and renewed repression against Ukrainians. From then on, Ukrainophilism fell back into political moderation while the Russian radical movements siphoned off Ukrainian radicals into their own increasingly centralist organizations.
]]>https://cius-archives.ca/items/show/1987 Ivan Jaworsky, who is currently completing his M.A. in political science at Carleton University, spoke on "Ukrainians in Eastern Europe after World War II'' on February 26. His talk surveyed the situation of Ukrainian minorities in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia.
Although the number of Ukrainians in Eastern Europe has decreased greatly since the war as a result of boundary changes, by which Galicia, Bukovyna and Carpatho-Ukraine were transferred to Soviet Ukraine, small Ukrainian minorities remain in the countries reviewed.
In his presentation the speaker gave an overview of the situation of each Ukrainian minority, commenting on their demographic, social, economic, cultural, organizational, and religious life. An emphasis was put on the factors influencing the development and survival of these minorities, such as: increasing assimilation due to out-migration from depressed rural areas where most Ukrainians live; the effect of Soviet foreign policy; attitudes of dominant nationalities toward Ukrainian minorities; state influence in official Ukrainian organizations (i.e., USKT in Poland, KSUT in Czechoslavakia) ; and the poorly developed sense of national identity in some areas where people still identify themselves as "Rusyn" or "Hutsul”
Ivan Jaworsky, who is currently completing his M.A. in political science at Carleton University, spoke on "Ukrainians in Eastern Europe after World War II'' on February 26. His talk surveyed the situation of Ukrainian minorities in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia.
Although the number of Ukrainians in Eastern Europe has decreased greatly since the war as a result of boundary changes, by which Galicia, Bukovyna and Carpatho-Ukraine were transferred to Soviet Ukraine, small Ukrainian minorities remain in the countries reviewed.
In his presentation the speaker gave an overview of the situation of each Ukrainian minority, commenting on their demographic, social, economic, cultural, organizational, and religious life. An emphasis was put on the factors influencing the development and survival of these minorities, such as: increasing assimilation due to out-migration from depressed rural areas where most Ukrainians live; the effect of Soviet foreign policy; attitudes of dominant nationalities toward Ukrainian minorities; state influence in official Ukrainian organizations (i.e., USKT in Poland, KSUT in Czechoslavakia) ; and the poorly developed sense of national identity in some areas where people still identify themselves as "Rusyn" or "Hutsul”