39 Ukrainian Lands in Interwar Poland
Ukrainian lands within interwar Poland consisted of two separate territories that differed depending on which country they had belonged to before World War I as well as on when and under what conditions they were annexed to the restored state of Poland.
The first Ukrainian lands to be formally annexed were so-called northern lands awarded to Poland from the former Russian Empire by the Treaty of Riga (March 1921), which brought to a formal close the Polish-Soviet War of 1920. The northern lands included the former tsarist Russian provinces of Volhynia and Kholm/Chelm and southern Grodno and Minsk (i.e., historic Polissia and Podlachia). The East Slavic population in these territories was Orthodox or, in the case of the Kholm/Chelm region, Roman Catholic, having transferred to the Roman rite after the destruction of the last Greek Catholic eparchy in the Russian Empire in 1875. In the case of Polissia and Podlachia, they spoke a transitional Belarusan-Ukrainian dialect, lacked a Ukrainian national consciousness, and usually called themselves “locals” (tuteishi) or Orthodox (pravoslavni).The second of the Ukrainian lands incorporated into Poland was in the former Austrian Habsburg province of Galicia generally east of the San River. That part of Galicia was the home of the West Ukrainian National Republic and the site of the Polish-Ukrainian war, which lasted from November 1918 to June 1919 (see above Chapter 33). After the collapse of Austria-Hungary, all of Galicia was formally under the jurisdiction of the victorious Allied and Associated Powers, but in March 1923 the allies recognized Polish sovereignty over the territory. The East Slavic inhabitants of Galicia were primarily Greek Catholics, although in terms of national identity they continued to define themselves in different ways—Rusyn, Ukrainian, Russian, and Old Ruthenian were among the options.
Ukrainian identity was among the strongest options already during the pre-World War I Habsburg era, and it grew in importance during the West Ukrainian National Republic’s struggle for independence. It was, however, not until the two decades of Polish rule between 1919 and 1939 that Ukrainian national identity became firmly implanted among the vast majority of historic Galicia’s East Slavs. Somewhat different was the situation in that part of Galicia farther west, or “beyond the San River,” which included the Lemko Region. Aside from the presence of many Orthodox adherents, a large portion of the local East Slavic inhabitants who called themselves Lemkos did not identify as Ukrainians but as Russians or as a distinct Lemko-Rusyn people.MAP 39 UKRAINIAN LANDS IN POLAND, circa 1930
Poland was set up as a centralized state administratively divided into palatinates (wojewodztwa), which were subdivided into districts (powiaty), and they in turn subdivided into communes (gminy). None of postwar Poland’s palatinates coincided with those that had existed in the historic, pre-Partition Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The northern lands where Ukrainians lived were divided into the palatinates of Polissia, Volhynia, and parts of Lublin and southern Bialystok. Even before eastern Galicia was formally recognized as part of Poland, it was divided into the palatinates of Eviv (Polish: Lwow), Stanyslaviv (Stanislawow), and Ternopil’ (Tarnopol). Together these three were referred to as Malopolska Wschodnia, or Eastern Little Poland, and there was even a parliamentary proposal (1922) to provide each of the palatinates in former eastern Galicia with self-government. But nothing of the sort was ever realized. In the end, no palatinate had any special status and the Ukrainian-inhabited ones, like all those along Poland’s eastern border, were referred to in general terms as the kresy, or the eastern “peripheral” regions of the country.
According to Poland’s 1931 census, there were five million Ukrainians, who represented 16 percent of the country’s population. Of these, 3.5 million lived in former Galicia (L’viv, Ternopil’, and Stanyslaviv palatinates) and the rest in the northern lands (Volhynia and Polissia palatinates). Even in those areas where Ukrainians predominated, they were far from the only inhabitants. Such demographic changes had begun already during Austrian times, when Poles were settled in increasing numbers in eastern Galicia (see Map 39). This eastward migration continued at a more intense pace during the interwar years of the twentieth century. By the 1930s the number of ethnic Poles living in eastern Galicia had increased by 300,000, so that they comprised 40 percent of the rural population.
39.1 Dairy cooperative run by recent Polish settlers in the village of Zhukiv (Polish: Żukow), Volhynian palatinate, 1920s.
It was in the cities and towns where the Polish presence was most markedly felt. The Polish language became the lingua franca for all urban dwellers, regardless whether they were of Polish, Ukrainian, Jewish, or other ethnic background. The largest and most important of eastern Galicia’s “Polish” cities was still Lwow (Ukrainian: L’viv), with its numerous Polish Roman Catholic churches, civic and cultural institutions, secondary schools, and the Jan Casimir University. Smaller cities, among them “Polish” Przemyśl (Ukrainian: Peremyshl’), Tarnopol (Ukrainian: Ternopil’), and Stanislawow (Ukrainian: Stanyslaviv, today Ivano-Fran-kivs’k), were also important centers of Polish cultural and civic activity. Poles moved as well into the northern “Ukrainian” territories, where by the late 1930s they formed 29 percent of the urban population (in places like Chelm/Kholm, Luck/Luts’k, and Rowne/Rivne) and 20 percent of the rural population.
39.2 The patriarch of Galician-Ukrainian life in interwar Poland, Greek Catholic Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts’kyi, followed here on the streets of the town of Stryi by adoring admirers.
Urban areas of eastern Galicia, western Volhynia, and the Kholm region were also home to large numbers of Jews. Although their overall number declined after World War I (e.g., in eastern Galicia from 660,000 in 1901 to 535,000 in 1921), Jews still made up a significant proportion of the inhabitants in L’viv, Zhovkva, Chelm, Drohobych, Stanyslaviv, Ternopil, and Kolomyia, and between half and three-quarters of the inhabitants of what were virtually the “Jewish” towns of Brody (Yiddish: Brod), Belz (Yiddish: Beltz), Buchach (Yiddish: Butchatch), Rohatyn (Yiddish: Rotin), and Sokal’ (Yiddish: Skol) among others. Three-quarters of the Jewish population were engaged in commerce (especially as small retail shop owners), in industry, or as artisans. They were also disproportionately represented in the liberal professions (physicians, lawyers, professors, and journalists), although in the 1930s the Polish government placed restrictions (a numerus clausus) on the number of Jews who could enter universities to pursue such careers. Jewish cultural, political, and religious life continued to flourish in eastern Galicia during the interwar years and was marked by an ongoing struggle dating from the prewar Habsburg era among those who favored assimilation (now to Polish instead of Austro-German culture), or the maintenance of traditional Orthodox culture (epitomized by the inner-directed world of the shtetl), or the Zionist movement that urged Jews to emigrate to Palestine.
39.3 Jewish rabbis on their way to synagogue in a Galician village shtetl.
With regard to Ukrainians—the majority population of interwar Polish-ruled western Volhynia and eastern Galicia—their socioeconomic status did not change all that much from what it had been in prewar times. Both Galicia and Volhynia remained underdeveloped regions with little industry. Even the oil-rich areas of Galicia produced at best one-third of what they had done before the war.
The Polish government did introduce land reform, but most of the land that was redistributed following the break-up of large estates went to the new Polish settlers. At a time when it was calculated that twelve acres (five hectares) was the minimum needed to sustain a single family, as high as 79 percent of landholdings in eastern Galicia (1931) had less than the minimum size. This is one of the reasons that prompted a new wave of Galician-Ukrainian emigration abroad, especially during the 1920s, although this time to Canada, Argentina, and France instead of, as before, to the United States.
39.4 The main offices and retail store in L’viv of the Maslosoiuz (Dairy Union), founded in 1905 and reorganized in 1924; with its 136 dairies and 83 stores it was the largest Ukrainian cooperative in interwar Poland.
Ukrainian national life, especially in eastern Galicia, fared much worse under Polish rule as compared to pre-World War I Habsburg Austria. The number of Ukrainian cultural organizations decreased substantially, nine of the ten Ukrainian departments at the University of L’viv were abolished, and after 1924 the school system was changed from one in which Ukrainian was the basic language of instruction to one in which Polish and Ukrainian bi-lingual instruction became the norm. By contrast, the Greek Catholic Church under the leadership of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts’kyi was allowed to flourish, and it operated the only Ukrainian-language institution of higher learning in Poland—the Greek Catholic Theological Academy in L’viv (established in 1928).
Ukrainians reacted to their changed circumstances in a variety of ways. The cooperative movement, which was started in Austrian times, was aimed at making more effective the region’s predominantly small landholdings in order to improve the economic status of Ukrainians and, therefore, their eventual ability to achieve civic and political goals.
The number of agricultural cooperatives and credit unions increased dramatically from 579 in 1921 to 3,455 in 1939. In response to the decline in the number of state supported Ukrainian-language schools, the Ridna Shkola Pedagogical Society, founded in pre-World War I Habsburg days, set up a network of privately run elementary, secondary, and technical schools. Ukrainians also took part in Poland’s political system, founding legal parties and electing representatives to both houses of the Polish parliament (Sejm).An entirely different approach was adopted by demobilized soldiers, who were subsequently joined by discontented and unemployed university students and other youth in Galicia itself or in Ukrainian emigre communities in neighboring central European countries. They entered the ranks of two clandestine bodies: the Ukrainian Military Organization—UVO (established in 1920), and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists—OUN (established in 1929). Both were headed by Ievhen Konovalets’, the former commander of the Sich Riflemen unit of the Ukrainian National Republic’s Army. Under his direction from exile in central and western Europe, both organizations carried out an underground guerilla campaign in Galicia that included the bombing of Polish government buildings, sabotage against railroad and telegraph installations, and assassination of political leaders. Poland’s efforts to stop such activity (notably in a “pacification” campaign during a few weeks in 1930) were basically unsuccessful.
39.5 Students in a radio class of a private school in L’viv run by the Ukrainian Ridna Shkola Pedagogical Society.
OUN activity also undermined the efforts of the cooperative movement, legal political parties, and the Greek Catholic Church to reach and maintain some kind of accommodation with Poland. The OUN was decidedly opposed to any accommodation and was bent on creating an environment of political destabilization that would, it surmised, help achieve the organization’s ultimate goal: the overthrow of Polish, Romanian, and, eventually, Soviet rule on Ukrainian territories. When destabilization did eventually occur throughout the entire region, it was not because of the activity of the OUN, but rather because of the outbreak of World War II in September 1939.
39.6 Ievhen Konovalets’ (1891-1938), from 1921 head of Ukrainian Military Organization and from 1929 head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, both directed from emigre centers in western Europe.
39.7 Dmytro Dontsov (1883-1973), political theorist and editor in interwar Polish-ruled Galicia, provided the idealistic and nationalist ideology that motivated supporters of an independent, non-Soviet Ukrainian state.
MAP 40 UKRAINIAN/RUSYN LANDS IN ROMANIA AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA, ca. 1930
