Akcja „Wisła”: przyczyny i sprawcy, rezonans i konsekwencje

Abstract

Operation ‘Vistula’: Causes and Perpetrators, Resonance and ConsequencesOperation ‘Vistula’, conducted in Poland under Communist rule in 1947, was undertaken to displace a population, defined by the authorities as Ukrainian, from the south-eastern region, where it had lived for centuries, to the north and west. The author argues that the main reason for that was not the desire of Polish communists to assimilate this population and create a nationally homogeneous state, but the terrorist activity of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the armed forces of Western Ukrainian nationalists, who wanted to demonstrate Ukraine’s rights to own these lands. The decision to undertake resettlement as the most effective way to resolve the bloody conflict was announced by the authorities in Warsaw, but it was made in Moscow. Lemkos are considered the main victim of the Operation. For them, resettlement meant the loss of the entire native territory, which was one of the most important factors in shaping their identity. The communist regime not only identified them with Ukrainians in 1947, but even after withdrawing repression of Ukrainian cultural life in 1952-1956, refused to grant them national rights and imposed the status of a regional movement within the Ukrainian minority.