НАПІВЗАБУТИЙ ЄЖИ ГЄДРОЙЦЬ

Abstract

For more than 50 years Jerzy Giedroyc has been the head of Culture, a magazine that played a historical role in shaping the views of Polish emigration (at least part of it), but also of the emigration of Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Russian, other Slavic and not only Slavic peoples - and not just their emigration. Giedroyc was the author of the concept of solidarity cooperation between representatives of Eastern European emigration - as a prototype of future coexistence and political and cultural dialogue freed from the totalitarianism of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe. This concept was also created by other prominent Polish personalities who were brought together and inspired by Giedroyc. Because the concept was based on a pressing historical need: to abandon long-standing mutual claims and antagonisms, to agree on reasonable compromises for the sake of a common neighborly future, it was confronted with the deaf or outright resistance of the conservative part of each of the diasporas. In this context, Jerzy Giedroyc attached particular importance to the Polish-Ukrainian understanding that he regarded as a fundamental prerequisite for the stability and development of the whole of Central and Eastern Europe. From the 20’s to 30’s, Giedroyc maintained contacts with a wide and diverse circle of Ukrainian figures, including Bishop Hryhori Khomyshyn, the leaders of the UNDO, Dilo editor Ivan Kedrin-Rudnytsky, nationalist ideologist Dmitry Dontsov and the emigrant from “Greater Ukraine” poet Yevgeny Malaniuk. Such prominent Ukrainian intellectuals as Ivan Lysyak-Rudnitsky, Yuri Sherekh (Shevelyov), Igor Kostetsky were associated with Culture. In France, Jerzy Giedroyc, according to his testimony, had contacts with the publisher of the Ukrainian encyclopedia Volodymyr Kubiyovych. Boris Levitsky and the extremely active Bogdan Osadchuk also cooperated with the circle of “Culture”.