Peculiarities of the development of Ukrainian political and legal thought of the nationalist direction in Galicia in the interwar period (1919-1939) of the 20th century

Abstract

The article examines the peculiarities of the development of Ukrainian political and legal thought of the nationalist direction in Galicia during the interwar period. The ideas and specifics of the views of Ukrainian thinkers who formed and developed Ukrainian nationalist thought are considered. It is shown that the struggle of Ukrainian nationalists was aimed at realizing the natural right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination. It is emphasized that it was extremely difficult for Ukrainians to achieve this in practice, because the process of annexation of Western Ukrainian lands was accompanied by a violation of fundamental international obligations of Poland and its current legislation, which were a prerequisite for the consent of the victorious states to temporary (1919) and permanent, with the rights of autonomy (1923) inclusion of Western Ukrainian lands into the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It is emphasized that in the 20s, the occupation government began mass polonization in Galicia, which consisted in the artificial colonization of Ukrainian ethnic lands by the Polish population, significant restrictions on Ukrainians in obtaining school education in their native language, persecution of organized public life, etc. The apogee was the so-called pacification, a punitive action to "pacify” Ukrainians, which was carried out from September 16 to November 30, 1930. It was established that repression and mass terror caused acute forms of confrontation in society, which should be considered as an adequate response of Ukrainian nationalists to the efforts of the authorities to oppress the Ukrainian population with violent methods. It is argued that a new stage in the development of Ukrainian political and legal thought of a nationalist direction is largely connected with the figure of Dmytro Dontsov, who formed the basic principles of education of the national elite, defense of national interests and development of national ideology. It has been proven that in the interwar period, nationalist ideas in Galicia penetrated into the popular masses, mastered them and thus significantly changed the character of the Ukrainian people.