International relations in a regional context: Poland and its eastern Neighbours—Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine

Abstract

FROM THE 14TH TO THE MID-20TH CENTURY Poland shared perhaps the most significant aspects of its history with Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Beginning in 1944, the communist regime in Poland cooperated with the Soviet regime to sever the historical bonds between Poland and its eastern neighbours. These links remained broken until the late 1980s, when Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus began to move at varying speeds to assert their sovereignty against Moscow. By late 1991 all three had declared their independence from the Soviet Union. In rather short order, Poland was faced with the need to develop relations with countries where so much of Polish history-for good and for ill-has been played out.' The long history of Poland's ties to the East colours contemporary Polish images of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Some Poles look back to the Jagiellonian period and the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and see an opportunity for Poland to extend its influence into the territories that stretch between the Baltic and the Black seas. Just as from the 14th till the end of the 18th centuries Poland transmitted Western culture to the East, so today Polish observers believe that Poland can again play the role of bridge between West and East.2 Others go even further to suggest that Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine might explore the reconstruction of the Commonwealth on a contemporary foundation.3 Still others portray the independence of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine as resolving an old Polish security problem by blocking the extension of Russian influence into Central Europe.4 But the history of Polish relations with Lithuanians, Belarusians and Ukrainians in the late 19th and 20th centuries, particularly from 1918 to 1945, is one of conflict. Evoking this more recent historical experience, some Polish observers draw attention to the threats emanating from the East. Stanislaw Bieleni wrote that, at best, independent Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania will be averse to a Polish orientation in their foreign policies and, at worst, will press territorial claims against Poland.5 Others believe that Poland's eastern neighbours might pursue a condominium with Germany that would be detrimental to Poland's interests. Perhaps the greatest fear is that political instability and economic chaos in the East will provoke a mass migration across Poland's borders that would doom Poland's fragile economic and political reforms.