The Problem of Ukrainian-Polish Coexistence in the Ukrainian Conservative Political Thought of the Interwar Period: Lypynskyi Versus Tomashivskyi in the Framework of Epoch

Abstract

While studying Polish-Ukrainian relations, outstanding Ukrainian conservative thinkers, namely Vjacheslav Lypynskyi and Stepan Tomashivskyi, focused mainly on the problem of distinguishing the role of Poland in the history of the Ukrainian people and on the issue of orientation towards Poland as a factor in the emergence of the Ukrainian state. The role of Poland in the history of the Ukrainian people, according to conservatives, was twofold. On the one hand, it was Poland that paved the way for Ukraine to Europeanization, providing examples of state-style literature and culture. This constructive role of Poland was especially fruitful in comparison with the Asian influences of Moscow. In this context, the conservatives emphasized that these were the Poles who played a key role in the process of separating Ukrainians from Russia, promoting the rise and establishment of the Cossacks and the Hetmanate, as well as creating the very name “Ukraine”. Conversely, the conservatives negatively assessed the Treaty of Hadiach for Ukraine, which, in their opinion, was very rational, on the one hand, and contributed, on the other hand, to the extermination of the elite and aristocratic democracy, and which disorganized the nobility and made it republican by eliminating its chivalrous essence and adding destructive anarchism instead. The conservatives also sharply assessed the Treaty of Warsaw between Petliura and Pilsudski. Simultaneously, Ukrainian monarchists did not consider Poland a force that could play a role in the creation of the Ukrainian state, although they considered the territorial autonomy of Halychyna under Poland as the first stage in educating the citizens of Western Ukraine in the spirit of the state monarchical idea. They took the position of mutual understanding between Ukrainian conservatives and Halychyna Poles in achieving the autonomy of Ukrainian lands under Poland, although they condemned the concept of a federation of Poland and Ukraine in Halychyna under the conditions put forward by Halychyna Ukrainian National Democrats. Conservatives considered such a strategy doomed to failure without the creation of a conservative territorial group in Halychyna composed of local Poles and Ukrainians. Relying heavily on local Poles not affiliated with metropolitan Warsaw, they placed the main emphasis on the internal organization of the monarchists rather than on external allies, including Poland