FINDING A FORMULA FOR UNDERSTANDING AT THE VOLYN BORDER (20-30 YEARS OF THE ХХ CENTURY)

Abstract

In defining the principles of the policy of memory in Ukraine and Poland today, the problem of understanding the attempts at interethnic reconciliation in the interwar period is significant. In the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, they were associated with the ideas of members of the moderate part of the Polish intellectual elite, the political legacy of Marshal Józef Pilsudski and his supporters. The scientific article opens up the foundations of federalist policy and its specificity at the Volyn border. It has focused on the ideas of Polish intellectuals during the interwar period, their vision of the future of Ukraine, and Ukrainian-Polish relations. It was found that the practical implementation of the principles of Ukrainian-Polish cooperation and coexistence was embodied in the policy of Volyn governor Henryk Yuzevskyi. The ideas of prometheism, the «Volyn experiment» were shared by the Ukrainian political emigration leaders who consolidated around the figure of Symon Petliura. Some Polish intellectuals criticized the idea of the «Sokal border», an important component of «Volyn politics», noting that the separation of Galicia and Volynia only harms the interests of Poland. Despite the spread of ideas of interethnic tolerance among the representatives of the Polish moderate intellectual elite, the national policy of interwar Poland was marked by inconsistencies, contradictions, which ultimately led to deepening contradictions in society. Despite the spread of the ideas of the Polish-Ukrainian rapprochement, they have not been implemented in the Second Polish Republic.