Polish-Soviet War Research Articles

THE POLISH-UKRAINIAN ALLIANCE OF 1920 IN CONTEMPORARY UKRAINIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

The article is devoted to the study of the development and main trends of modern Ukrainian historiography of the Polish-Ukrainian Alliance of 1920. The source base of the study are monographs, articles, and dissertations of Ukrainian historians in the period from 1991 to 2022. The methodological basis of the study is the principles of the Cambridge School of Intellectual History, which can be generally characterized as a contextualist method of interpretation, which places the main emphasis on historical conditions and the intellectual context of the discourse of a given historical era. These principles are especially relevant for the mentioned issue given its political sensitivity, which has not disappeared to this day. As a result, the political context at the time of the creation of the text can significantly influence the research questions and interpretations of the researchers. The author notes that since Ukraine regained its independence in 1991, Ukrainian scholars have rejected the Soviet paradigm of the history of the Polish-Soviet war and have largely adopted the interpretive schemes of emigration historiography. In this narrative, in contrast to the Soviet one, S. Petliura, when signing the agreement with Poland, was guided by Ukrainian national interests. However, Ukraine became a hostage to the selfish interests of Poland, which eventually betrayed its ally. However, as the author proves, the interpretive model that depicts the Polish-Ukrainian Alliance as the resultant force of Polish and Ukrainian interests and resources is beginning to dominate Ukrainian historiography. The aspect of uniting for the common struggle against Bolshevism began to come to the fore. A significant role in this process is played by the possibility of contacts between Ukrainian historians and Polish colleagues, the essential filling of many factual gaps and, not least, the geopolitical situation of Ukraine.

Heritage route as pilgrimage. Visiting the battlefield in Ossów

ABSTRACT Scholars have recently been paying more attention to the relationship between religion and heritage, which has brought a deeper focus to processes of ‘sacralisation of heritage’ and ‘heritagisation of religion’. I take this reflection in the direction of discerning how religious practice often underpins the creation of heritage. The case study I tackle here centres on the anniversary celebrations of the Battle of Warsaw fought during the Polish-Soviet war of 1920. Its heritage combines military and religious aspects with a pilgrimage on a section of the Camino de Santiago leading to the battlefield in Ossów to form one of the commemorative events. Drawing from the scholarship on pilgrimages to battlefields and dark heritage, I investigate how heritage is bodily performed during this pilgrimage. I organise my argument around the notion of ‘caminoisation’ to demonstrate how global heritage contexts can be transplanted onto local planes, and how religious and heritage-making processes are entangled. Perceiving pilgrimage through the lens of ‘sensational form’, I explore how heritage and religion are framed ‘on the way’. Placing an emphasis on the embodiment allows for an ethnographic description of participants’ interactions with heritage and religion and for research into how these categories are performed in practice.

Wartime Management of the Government of National Defense Headed by Wincenty Witos during the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920

Wincenty Witos is one of the undisputed Fathers of Independence of Poland, reborn in November 1918 after 123 years of partition. An outstanding statesman, leader of the people’s movement. Three-time Prime Minister of the Polish government in 1920–1921, 1923, 1926. During the Polish-Soviet War, Witos headed the Government of National Defense, which lasted 433 days, including 254 during the war. When analyzing his management as Prime Minister, two stages should be distinguished. In the first one, he was absorbed in matters of war. He was in favor of concluding peace as soon as possible, which he expressed in his exposé in 1920. In his second exposé, he worked on the reconstruction of the country after the war and the further development of the Republic of Poland as a democratic state. During the war, Witos’s role in mobilizing peasants to participate in the defense of threatened borders, as well as defending independence in the war with Bolshevik Russia in 1920, was particularly important. The article discusses the decisions made regarding management during the war: mobilizing society to rally around the authorities of the reborn Poland and defend the country’s independence, to reject Bolshevik propaganda and fight for the future of the Polish nation and state. The practice of war management was manifested in frequent field trips, organizing support and supplies for the population. Witos paid particular attention to the Borderlands. He emphasized that the presence of the head of the government and this direct contact made it possible to learn about many difficult problems of the reborn state, and at the same time, direct contact with the authorities was an element that bound the population to this state, and the people did not feel alone in solving these problems.

Polskie decyzje dotyczące działań wojennych na Froncie Północno-Wschodnim w lipcu 1920 r. i ich wpływ na dalszą karierę wojskową generała broni Stanisława Szeptyckiego. Przyczynek do biografii generała

General Stanisław Count Szeptycki belonged to a group of officers who began their military career in the Habsburg army during the partitions. He was born in Przyłbice in the Austro-Hungarian partition. He belonged to an aristocratic family with great patriotic and religious commitment. Many representatives of the family were bishops (Greek-Catholic rite) or devoted themselves to military service. He was the grandson of the famous Polish comedy writer Aleksander Fredro. In the Austro-Hungarian army, he reached the rank of major general. During World War I, he joined the Polish Legions, becoming their leader in 1916. In 1917, he became the general governor of the Austro-Hungarian occupation in Lublin. As a sign of protest after the provisions of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (February 19, 1918) omitting Poland, he resigned. After the war, he joined the Polish Army, taking the position of Chief of the General Staff. He fought in the Polish-Soviet war and was the commander of a division, the 4th Army, and the front of „Gen. Stanisław Szeptycki” and then the North-Eastern Front. After the July Soviet offensive by M. Tuchaczewski in 1920, due to illness, he was removed from command of the front. As a result of differences in the assessment of Polish military activities, he entered into a dispute with Józef Piłsudski. In 1921, he became the commander of the Inspectorate of the Army No. IV in Krakow, and then the minister of military affairs in the government of Wincenty Witos. Opponent of Józef Piłsudski. In 1926, after the coup, the state retired.

Представление о РОДИНЕ жителей белорусско- польско-литовского культурно-языкового пограничья (на материале польских периферийных говоров)

The article discusses the concept of HOMELAND based on the material of Polish peripheral dialects on the territory of Voronovo district, Belarus. As a context, the author used selected dictionaries of other researchers of the “Polish language of Borderlands” in the Belarusian-Polish-Lithuanian borderlands, narratives of the inhabitants of the Myadel region (Belarus), memories of emigrants from the Vilnius region (Lithuania), as well as residents of Podlasie, Warmia and Mazuria (Poland). The author collected the material as records of continuous texts on various topics, it was not a purposeful study of vocabulary and semantics on the topic of the homeland. The method of cognitive definition proposed by Jerzy Bartminski, which provides for the reconstruction of the “mental object”, i.e. the maximum set of characteristics fixed in the language, was used in the article. As a result of the analysis of the material, similar features, indicated earlier by the researchers of this borderland, were found. Among the components of the imagination of HOMELAND, in the first place there was a warm attitude to native places (the emotional connection of a person with the place of birth and the period of childhood) and ancestors (including the deceased, the cemetery). The importance of the place of residence and neighbours (their own, ours, etc. people with similar experience), as well as religion (their own and neighbouring parishes, the cult of the Virgin Mary) was also emphasized. Less often, but expressively accentuated cultural (for example, traditions and language) and everyday signs of the concept (stability; private property; homeland where you can live). At the same time, more expressive than in other works, sketching of the ideological homeland by local residents was noticed (for the older it is the Second Polish Republic, for the younger – Belarus). According to the author, this is explained by the fact that among the respondents were, among other things, the residents whose ancestors participated in the uprising of 1863, fought with the Bolsheviks in the Polish-Soviet war, as well as those associated with the Home Army. In addition to the traditional point of view of an ordinary peasant/ petty nobleman, the perspective of a patriot not only of a “small homeland”, but also of a non-existent state (Second Polish Republic) is also considered.

The Polish-Soviet War in the Norwegian Press of the Years 1920-1921

Summary: Observers of the Polish-Soviet war of the years 1919-1921 considered it the most significant conflict since the end of WWI. It was common knowledge then that the conflict in question had a considerable influence on the situation of the Mid- and West European states. It was expected that, should the Red Army have won, the Soviet revolution would have spread as far as the Marne; a reason why the conflict in question was of so much interest to the Norwegian press, considered a mirror of the stand the Norwegian public opinion took as regards the position of the then superpowers towards the said war, the meaning of the war for the Norwegian public opinion as well as Norwegians’s sympathy for or disfavour of the militant parties. This article aims both at presenting the above mentioned issues and juxtaposing them with the political, military, and social questions to date as they appeared in the then Norwegian press. For that purpose my article will also resort to the literature on the subject of the Polish-Bolshevist war.

Józef Jakubowski (1899–1984) – activist in scout, community, and émigré organisations in the light of Polish and French archival resources

The main purpose of this paper is to provide an insight into the life, activities, and preserved archival documents concerning Józef Jakubowski (1899–1984), whose work in support of Polish emigrants residing in France during the Second World War deserves highest recognition and respect. Jakubowski was born in Warsaw, where he spent his childhood, completed primary and secondary education, and began his studies at the Warsaw University of Technology in 1917. He was was actively involved in the scouting movement. His participation in the Polish–Soviet War forced him to leave the university . It was only in 1924 that he completed his higher education at another university, the Higher School of Commerce. His professional life also started in Warsaw, where he worked for the Association of Polish Merchants until 1939. His life was interrupted by the Second World War, and he decided to emigrate first to Switzerland and then to France. At that time of his life, he became involved with the Polish Red Cross. He was primarily involved in developing forms of aid and organising support for Poles in France. Once the Polish Red Cross was banned from further activities, he worked in the Welfare Society for the Poles in France. He cooperated with the Polish Resistance Movement in France and with military authorities on the evacuation of the Polish armed forces to England, as well as with many institutions, including the French Red Cross, the Department of Social Welfare for Foreigners, the International Refugee Organisation, and the Association of Polish Veterans. The archival documents concerning Jakubowski, surviving at the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw and at the Polish Library in Paris, make it possible to reconstruct not only the facts of his life but also the events related to the functioning of the institutions, organisations, and associations he worked for.

Przemyslaw Budzbon, illustrated by Paul Wright, The Polish Navy 1918-45. From the Polish-Soviet War to World War II by Chris Madsen

Przemyslaw Budzbon, illustrated by Paul Wright, The Polish Navy 1918-45. From the Polish-Soviet War to World War II by Chris Madsen

Underestimated Ally: Ukraine during the Polish–Soviet War of 1920 in Polish Underground Publications (1976–1989)

This article examines Polish underground publications (samizdat) interpreting Ukraine’s role in the Polish–Soviet war of 1920. The research analyzes a large number of underground journals, newspapers, and books. It shows the relationship between the political thought of Polish émigrés and the opposition within the Polish People’s Republic. The article argues that the Polish oppositionists considered rethinking the history of relations with Poland’s eastern neighbors an essential precondition for gaining its sovereignty. They regarded the Polish–Soviet war of 1920 as one of the most critical episodes in Polish–Ukrainian–Russian relations in recent history. A common feature of most opposition publications on the Polish–Soviet war was emphasizing the joint struggle of Ukrainians and Poles against the Bolsheviks. The authors often emphasized the combat value of Ukrainian units and stressed that Poland did not correctly appreciate their contribution to the common struggle. They also believe that the conditions of Polish aid were too painful for Ukraine. The defeat of the project for an independent Ukraine laid the foundations for the Soviet attack on Poland in 1939. The main conclusion from this historical episode, for most Polish oppositionists, was that supporting Ukraine’s independence was of strategic interest for Poland. In turn, Poland must abandon competition with Russia for Ukraine as a sphere of influence in the future. Only equal relations with its eastern neighbors will give Poland lasting security.

Erzwungene Neutralität? (Deutsch-)Österreichs Verhältnis zu Polen während des Polnisch-Sowjetischen Krieges 1919–1921

The article examines the political as well as economic relations of (Deutsch-) Österreich with Poland during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921. The economic relations of the two newly founded states began as early as November 1918 and were shaped by different needs of Poland and Deutsch-Österreich: While Poland needed weapons for its numerous border conflicts, (Deutsch-)Österreich had a massive supply crisis due to the lack of coal and food. Soon, Austrian countertrade in the form of military equipment from the former Austro-Hungarian Army in exchange for coal and food from Poland led to serious internal and external political conflicts. The article therefore shows not only how Austrian armaments found their way to Poland, but also how Austria pragmatically used its own neutrality before being forced by Soviet Russia to declare neutrality in the Polish-Soviet War. Finally, the article presents the contemporary perception of the Polish-Soviet War in Austria as an integral part of the “Greater War” that has been ongoing since 1914.

Labor Use of Polish Prisoners of War in the Camps of Central Russia,
 1920–1921

Based on the materials of the federal and regional archives of Central Russia, the article analyzes the practice of labor use of prisoners of war of the Polish-Soviet War in the camps of Central Russia in 1920–1921. The author examined the regulatory framework for the labor use of prisoners of war of the Polish army. The study showed the professional composition of Polish prisoners of war, as well as their level of education. In fact, Polish prisoners of war were a large group of educated special-
 ists whose work was used in various fields. The regions also requested the necessary number of Polish prisoners of war for certain labor tasks, partially covering the shortage of labor. An attempt to organize labor squads from captured Poles is considered. But, labor squads were formed in Moscow and in those provinces where there was a high concentration of prisoners of war of the Polish army. In the rest, for the most part, labor unions were never formed. With the beginning of the repatriation of Polish prisoners of war, they began to gradually remove from work and look for a replacement for them. Before repatriation, prisoners of war submitted applications
 to the sub-departments of forced labor to issue them salaries, funds earned from forced labor, which they were supposed to receive on the day of departure to their homeland. The labor of Polish prisoners of war was paid at local rates, and they
 were equated with Red Army soldiers in terms of supply.

Beliniak, ułan, dowódca, jeniec, emigrant. Generał bryg. Zygmunt Piasecki „Dublańczyk” (1893–1954)

General Brig. Zygmunt Piasecki (1893–1954) initially served with the 1st Uhlan Regiment of the Polish Legions, he went on to command the 7th Lublin Uhlan Regiment named after Gen. Kazimierz Sosnkowski, the 17th Cavalry Brigade and the Krakow Cavalry Brigade. He fought in the Polish-Soviet War, World War I and World War II. At the end of the Polish campaign of 1939, he was taken prisoner by the Germans. After the war he settled permanently in Nice, where he died in 1954.

Medical assistance to the population of Western Belarus in the context of the development of healthcare in the interwar Poland (1919–1939)

The article analyzes the formation of the health care system in the territory of Western Belarus during the interwar period. On the basis of a wide range of sources, the general trends in the development of medicine in the Polish state in the interwar period, as well as the characteristics that determined the aberrations in the construction of the healthcare structure in the Belarusian territory were identified. It was found that the negative humanitarian consequences of the First World War and the Polish-Soviet war, combined with the economic and economic difficulties of the post-war period, caused a chronic health crisis in Western Belarus throughout the interwar period. After the liquidation of the Polish Ministry of Health in 1923, the centralized management of the healthcare system was replaced by a decentralized model, with the allocation of the state, municipal, insurance and private sectors of medicine. The decentralized model of healthcare worked well in the proper Polish lands, but was not suitable for the conditions of Western Belarus, where the lack of medical personnel, health institutions and their concentration mainly in large cities in conditions of significant geographical remoteness of settlements with a predominance of rural areas, combined with the weak development of transport communications, predetermined a low degree of provision of medical care for most population. As a result, the healthcare of Western Belarus lagged significantly behind the general Polish level in development, and additional opportunities to expand medical care to the civilian population were drawn from the resources of charity, public associations and military medicine.

Polityka państwa wobec Kościoła prawosławnego w Polsce w latach 1918-1921

The Polish government aimed at finalizing the matter of autocephaly as soon as possible. Initially, he laid the foundations for a diplomatic mission in Moscow, which eventually led to negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate. The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Enlightenment sought to initially regulate the matter of the Orthodox Church within its competence, namely in the area of the Congress Kingdom, conducting talks with representatives of the Civil Administration of Eastern Territories in Vilnius and the Civil Administration of Volhynia and Podolia. Preliminary talks between the government and church hierarchs on autocephaly in the period from independence to the end of the Polish-Soviet war with the Treaty of Riga of March 18, 1921 were an important step in regulating the canonical and legal position of the Orthodox Church in Poland.

Belarus in Polish eastern policy during the Polish-Soviet War (1919–1920)

Abstract The late 19th century saw a national awakening of the Belarusian people. During World War I, under German occupation, the Catholic Belarusian national movement intended to create a sovereign Belarusian state (the Belarusian People;s Republic) or in union with Lithuania (a revived Grand Duchy of Lithuania). After the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia, Orthodox national activists wanted a sovereign Belarus within a federal and democratic Russia. The Belarusian People’s Republic, established in March 1918, was not recognized by any state. Poland, Lithuania and Soviet Russia intended to incorporate the Belarusian lands on an autonomous basis. As a result of the Riga Peace Treaty (1921), the Belarusian lands were divided between Poland and Soviet Russia.

Criminal offences as an element of anti-state activities in the eastern lands of the Second Polish Republic from 1921-1925

The purpose of this research is to illustrate the phenomenon of common crime in the eastern areas of Poland from 1921-1925. In the text, the author gives examples of this and its cause and effect on the functioning of the young Polish state. The timeline of the study covers the period from the signing of the Riga Treaty ending the Polish-Soviet War in 1921, to 1925 when the Bolsheviks temporarily gave up their aggressive attempts to spread communism in Europe. The author of the study focused on the most important type of crimes characteristic of the borderland such as robbery and smuggling, using the literature on the subject, source publications, and archival resources, mainly from the Central Military Archives, the Border Guard Archives in Szczecin, and Ukrainian archives in Lviv and Tarnopol. The research aims to show the characteristic types of common crimes, their connection with anti-Polish activities on the part of the USSR and Lithuania, and the intertwining of political crime with criminal offences. In the work, the author uses the critical analysis of sources, literary analysis, and the comparative method.

The Polish-Ukrainian Alliance of 1920 and “White” Russia

Abstract Relations in the Polish-Ukrainian-Russian triangle have never been simple. The history of the Polish-Soviet war of 1920 is one of the illustrative moments. Although the Polish offensive against the Bolsheviks in April 1920 was tactically beneficial to Petr Vrangel's Russian Army, the Russian white emigration was largely hostile to Józef Piłsudski's Ukrainian policy. The main reason for this hostility was the project of Poland's support for the independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Russian public opinion could not support either the Bolsheviks or the Poles with the Ukrainians in this war. The article examines a wide range of Russian non-Bolshevik political thought. Through the prism of Russian national identity, the article explains how a wide range of Russian anti-Bolshevik politicians and public figures, from monarchists to Mensheviks, perceived Polish policy toward Ukraine in 1920. This research is not a study of Vrangel's Ukrainian policy, although this is an important background, but rather a study of political thought and history of ideas.

O historii nie dla idiotów: Rozmowy i przypadki [History not for idiots: Interviews and cases

<i>O historii nie dla idiotów: Rozmowy i przypadki</i> [History not for idiots: Interviews and cases

Polish-Soviet War in Film and Cinema: A New Perspective Based on the Films For You, O Poland (1920) and Miracle on the Vistula (1921)

The Polish-Soviet War, particularly the Battle of Warsaw (13–25 August 1920), soon became a subject of legend and myth. Irrespective of its fundamental political significance, the defeat of the Red Army was glorified as salvation for both Poland and Europe in military, ideological and metaphysical terms. Conducted beyond academia, the narrative was forged mainly by veterans, the Catholic Church and various forms of literature and art. Due to government subsidies, documentary and feature films also conveyed a normative notion of these dramatic events and their participants.&#x0D; This article focuses on cinematic works like Dla Ciebie, Polsko [For You, o Poland, PL 1920], and Cud nad Wisłą [The Miracle on the Vistula, PL 1921] produced in order to commemorate the war between the Poles and the Bolsheviks. Taking the iconic turn, this article scrutinises the cinematic self-portrait of the Polish nation that had already been ‘imagined’ as a bulwark of European culture in the East by earlier literary works. Spotlighting protagonists who were given a place in the pantheon of national heroes, it also asks about those who were denigrated or marginalised like women and Jews. Finally, using quantitative methods and Geographical Information System (QGIS) as a tool, the article juxtaposes the maledominated, ethnically and confessional homogeneous ‘imagined nation’ with the film entrepreneurs and actual cinema audiences characterised by their diversity.

The Polish Army Ghetto: The Internship of Jewish Soldiers in Jabłonna in 1920

At the height of the Polish-Soviet War in August 1920, the Polish army interned thousands of its Jewish soldiers at Jabłonna near Warsaw. Although the internees were released after several weeks, the events gave rise to numerous domestic and foreign policy debates and shaped Polish-Jewish relations in the years to come. ‘Jabłonna’ stands pars pro toto for the problems of the Polish state and Polish society in dealing with a heterogeneous population at the beginning of the interwar period. In recent decades, the events surrounding the internment have been taken up and contextualised sporadically by historians and publicists, but usually without them having made recourse to the available archival sources.