Yurii Lypa’s Black Sea Doctrine and Intermarium According to Bohdan Osadczuk

Abstract

The paper deals with the historical and typological analysis of integration projects in the journalism of Yurii Lypa (1900– 1944) – a public figure, physician, writer, ideologist of Ukrainian nationalism, and founder of the Ukrainian Chornomorskyi (Black Sea) Institute in Warsaw – and Bohdan Osadczuk (1920– 2011), an émigré, publicist, researcher of the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), regular contributor to the Parisian monthly Kultura, and supporter of Polish–Ukrainian reconciliation. These activists help us to trace the different geopolitical accents of, respectively, nationalist and liberal Ukrainian political thought. In addition, their journalistic activities took place either in the interwar/war period (Lypa) or after the war (Osadczuk). The debate in the Ukrainian–Polish press in 1947–1948 within the camps for displaced persons in Germany can be considered a conditional distinction between different stages in the understanding of regional integration projects. The current security threats caused by Russia’s aggression have revived discussions in CEE about regional integration, projects of which have both supporters and critics. From a discursive approach to the reactualization of the idea of the Baltic-Black Sea Union and Intermarium, we analyze the conceptualization of ideas relevant to the period of Lypa’s and Osadczuk’s life and work.