YULIIAN TARNOVYCH AS A RESEARCHER OF POLISH-UKRAINIAN RELATIONSHIPS

Abstract

Summary. The purpose of the study is to reconstruct the Polish-Ukrainian discourse of editorial and journalistic works of Yuliian Tarnovych. The methodology of the study is based on the interdisciplinary approach. The biographical method is a leading one, as it helped to focus on reconstruction of the events of the past through the prism of the biographies of its creators. Such methods as general scientific (first of all, historical, logical, analysis and synthesis methods), special historical (comparative, genetic, typological, etc.) were also applied as well. The scientific novelty of the article is the attempt to comprehensively analyse Polish-Ukrainian issues in the social-political journalism of Yuliian Tarnovych. Conclusions. The study showed the richness of Yu. Tarnovych’s creative heritage that covered the problems of Polish-Ukrainian relations. At the same time, it is obvious that a prominent publicist covers this difficult topic not only from a narrow national position, but from the standpoint of universal values. He showed that if the stronger ignores the human rights of the weaker, in the long run, it destroys the former, because barbarity towards one’s neighbour produces the energy of self-destruction. Recreating the tragedy of the Lemkos in the 1930s and 1940s, the researcher does not hide the actions of some Polish friends of the Ukrainian people, who saved their neighbours from the horror of the newest genocide at the cost of their lives. Even though such testimonies were not numerous, they are the ones, as Yu. Tarnovych claimed, that give hope for the Polish-Ukrainian consensus, restoration of historical justice and honouring the memory of innocent victims.