White Eagle and Trident  at the University of Toronto

Consuls, historians and academics meet to discuss Polish-Ukrainian relations

By Thomas M. Prymak

On Friday, September 23, the Polish White Eagle and the Ukrainian Trident metaphorically flew over the University of Toronto’s University College where a seminar took place on the topic of “Polish-Ukrainian Relations in a Changing Europe.” The keynote speaker was political scientist and contemporary historian, Professor Timothy Snyder, of Yale Uni-versity.  The discussants were historians Orest Subtelny of York Uni-
versity, who represented the Ukrainian side, and Professor Piotr Wrobel of the University of Toronto, who represented the Polish.  Professor Snyder’s main address was prefaced by brief remarks by local diplomats, Igor Lossovsky, Consul General of Ukraine in Toronto, and Piotr Konowrocki, Consul General of Poland in Toronto.

About 50 people from various universities and the Ukrainian and Polish communities attended the seminar, which was sponsored by the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine, Institute of European Studies, University of Toronto, and the Consulate General of Ukraine.

Consul Lossovsky was the first to speak.  He briefly outlined the present state of Ukrainian-Polish relations, stressing current Ukrainian investments in Poland.  Consul Konowrocki of Poland followed and spoke on history as well as current politics.  Both diplomats had positive assessments of the current Ukrainian-Polish relations; Konowrocki even stated that he had attended a rally in support of the recent Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

The main address by Professor Snyder was similarly optimistic.  He began by pointing out how quickly events in this sphere were unfolding. He noted that in the intervening time since the invitation to speak at U of T had been extended to him, a revolution had occurred in Ukraine, a new government had been installed and then dismissed, and an election in Poland announced, which would most certainly see a new government installed in that country as well.

The out-going left-of-centre Kwasniewski government in Poland had supported Ukraine in its desire to enter the European Union, but the new government might have a different policy.  Thus, Professor Snyder stressed that the present favourable situation for Ukraine’s entry into Europe might not last and that every opportunity offered by the present situation should be taken.

Professor Snyder then outlined the two main traditions of Polish policy towards Ukraine, both of which still existed in Poland and would probably influence Ukrainian-Polish relations in the future.  The first of these, the “nationalist” position, was unsympathetic to Ukrainian national aspirations and saw Moscow as Poland’s main ally, Germany as Poland’s main enemy, and the Ukrainians as nothing more than ethnic “raw material” to be absorbed either by Russia or Poland.  This nationalist tradition could be traced back as far as the Polish National Democrats (Endeks) of the pre-1914 era; it gained control of Polish policy in the early 1920s and, to some degree, in the late 1930s, and still had some supporters on the extreme right of the Polish political spectrum today.

The second position, the so-called “federalist” position, was more favourable to Ukrainian national aspirations.  Polish federalists, led by the imposing figure of Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, generally saw Russia as Poland’s main enemy, Germany as the lesser danger, and wished to use the non-Russian peoples of old imperial Russia to weaken their former Russian masters.  This tradition peaked in 1920 during the Soviet-Polish War when the Ukrainian leader, Symon Petliura and the Ukrainian People’s Republic, was actually allied with Poland against Lenin’s Soviet Russia.  This policy of alliance with the Ukrainians was abandoned in the early 1920s by various Polish nationalist governments, but enjoyed a resurgence after 1926 when Pilsudski returned to power.  Professor Snyder remarked that recently discovered materials in Polish archives reveal that at this time the Polish government supported the Ukrainian People’s Republic so strongly that an entire Ukrainian underground army was organized on Polish soil, ready for use in case of a new Polish-Soviet War.  During the later 1920s, Pilsudski’s network of secret agents was also very active in the USSR.

During the Cold War, Professor Snyder continued, Jerzy Giedroyc of the Paris migr journal Kultura resurrected this pro-Ukrainian tradition and argued that Poland’s post-war losses of Ukrainian, Belarusan, and Lithuanian territories should be accepted as a fait accompli and new alliances with these peoples built upon this new foundation.  In the 1980s and 1990s, Professor Snyder concluded, it was this policy that won out and formed the basis of Polish support for Ukrainian independence in the years after 1991.  Professor Snyder concluded that the Polish government, Polish intellectuals, and Polish society as a whole strongly supported the Orange Revolution in Ukraine but that, at present, the expected swing to the right in Polish politics brought many unknowns into the equation, including, perhaps, the former “nationalist” anti-Ukrainian sentiment.  In general, however, Professor Snyder remained optimistic about the present state of Ukrainian-Polish relations and stressed the advantages of Ukraine’s possible entry into the European Union with the aid of Poland.  The Polish Republic remained, in fact, Ukraine’s strongest lobbyist within this organization and during the Orange Revolution had clearly influenced EU policy towards it.

Professor Subtelny was first to comment on Professor Snyder’s talk.  He began by pointing out that in the Polish-Ukrainian conferences held before the collapse of communism, there had been rather a lot of mutual accusations about “who did what to whom.”  It was surprising, he thought, how quickly and completely these historical grievances had been put aside for the sake of geopolitics and current political cooperation.  He then went on to say that Ukraine did not necessarily need the European Union to modernize and enter the global economic community.  General processes of globalization might be able to do this on their own.  Thus, Professor Subtelny appeared to be a Eurosceptic, though still somewhat of an optimist.

Professor Wrobel then spoke. He directly contradicted Professor Subtelny on the question of reconciliation and stated that while intergovernmental relations between the two former communists, Presidents Kuchma and Kwasniewski might have been good, their societies often saw things differently.  For example, in Peremyshl, Polish nationalists destroyed the old Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church with its great dome while in Lviv Ukrainian extremists stomped on Polish flags.  Thus, Professor Wrobel remained somewhat of a pessimist.

Questions from the floor then followed. Dr Frank Sysyn of the Petro Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research opened by pointing out that very little had been said about Russia, which remained the third important corner of this fateful triangle and that the very important role of Pope John Paul II had been ignored.  Professor Jurij Darewycz of York University then asked about the roles in all of this of the Ukrainian minority in Poland and the Polish minority in Ukraine. Several other members of the audience made one point or another.  In particular, the question of Ukrainian immigrants in contemporary Poland was raised.

Professor Snyder and his colleagues addressed most of these points with Professor Wrobel taking an especially active part.  In reply to Professor Subtelny, Professor Snyder reiterated the enormous economic benefits that had already accrued to Poland as a new member of the EU and this was, in his opinion, an obvious model for Ukraine. With regard to the Pope, it was observed that even Pope John Paul’s influence was unable to convince the Polish nationalists in Peremyshl to return the Ukrainian church to the Ukrainians. With regard to national minorities, Professor Snyder noted that Polish foreign policy took very little notice of the Polish minorities in the countries to the east of Poland.  Interstate relations and geopolitics were more important.  Professor Wrobel ended by noting that the Ukrainian economic immigrants in contemporary Poland – Ukrainian domestic help (Pani Ukrainka as he put it) and the small-scale traders who were flocking across the Ukrainian-Polish border – added a humane touch to the contemporary Polish image of Ukrainians, which still too often descended into negative stereotypes inherited from the past.

Many other topics were raised during the discussion, which retained an atmosphere of restrained excitement, was quite lively and, on the whole, quite optimistic. Of course, several important themes were ignored. There was no discussion of President Yushchenko’s European policy or  traditional Ukrainian views and policies towards the Poles; and the role of the USA and, in particular, of the influential Polish American advisor to presidents of the Democratic Party, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was generally passed over in silence. Only Dr. Sysyn noting that during the 1970s and the 1980s professors Pritsak and Shevchenko of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute had made a point of inviting various Polish scholars visiting the United States to come to Harvard and collaborate with the Ukrainians.  Thus, the Paris Pole, Giedroyc, had not been without his Ukrainian counterparts in North America. 

In general, it can be concluded that the current Ukrainian-Polish understanding, which remained the background to the entire discussion, has many deep roots and, in spite of the swiftness of current developments, did not come out of nowhere.

Thomas M. Prymak, a historian by profession, is Research Associate, Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, University of Toronto. He is the author of Mykhailo Hrushevsky: The Politics of Nationa