Deportation of Ukrainians from Ethnic Areas in Poland and Contemplation of the International Community in 1944-1946

Abstract

In the article, the author attempts to consider the nature of contemplation of the international community on the deportation of Ukrainians from ethnic lands in Poland during 1944-1946. The author implements this task through archival documentation, which to some extent justifies extensive quotations. Today, the subject of post-war resettlement for Ukrainians and Poles is ambiguous, both in interpretation and in the politics of memory. The deportation of Ukrainians of the borderlands is a conflict of the historical memory of both peoples: Ukrainians want to remember the history which Poles prefer to forget. We learn about the terrible conditions of social adaptation of Polish deportees in the USSR from the epistolary of deportees, which they had been sending abroad in hope that relatives would read the letters. However, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR had been intercepting those letters. In this sense, a conscious part of the local intelligentsia of the region was aware of the passive position of international politicians and the public on the unjustified eviction of autochthonous Ukrainians, but sincerely sought and expected its help. The analysis of The Open Letter of Ukrainians living behind the Curzon line entitled “To the whole civilized world” written in October 1945 convincingly evidences it. Losing hope of voluntary eviction, this letter was a kind of mouthpiece of Ukrainians in the region to the international community, hoping to be heard and supported. The author concludes that the international community did not live up to the hopes and expectations of Ukrainians who found themselves in a “war after war” and gradually lost their native lands, where they were indigenous.

The deportation of 1944-1946, the local population from Lemkovschina, became a tragic ethno-political experiment of the USSR and Poland, which Lemkos had to survive in modern times.