THE INCIDENTS AND CONFLICTS THAT TOOK PLACE IN THE LIFE OF POLISH PARAMILITARY ORGANIZATIONS IN VOLYN, 1921–1939

Abstract

The article attempts to outline the incidents and conflicts that took place in the life of Polish paramilitary organizations in Volyn in 1921–1939. It was established that the most common form of resistance to Polish immigrants by the local population was attacks on colonists' farms. It was established that a large number of incidents and conflicts among Ukrainian youth fell on the Rifle Union. It is noted that the Polish military emigrants themselves were often aggressors in relation to the local population. From the very beginning, the resettlement of military settlers to a «foreign» territory was strongly opposed by the Ukrainian peasantry, which rightly did not want to share the land with former Polish soldiers. According to the documents of the State Archives of the Rivne and Volyn regions, in the period of the 20s – 30s of the 20th century. A large number of displaced persons turned to the police and the army with a request to provide weapons (pistols, rifles and even grenades) for self-defense of themselves and their families. It is worth noting that the squatters often appealed to the district elders with complaints about the local voyts and soltis, who insulted and even harassed the squatters and their work. This does not seem surprising, because almost most of the positions in the villages and towns were held by Ukrainians, who made up the majority, and whose attitude towards the Polish military and civilian immigrants was extremely negative. As a form of resistance, raids by local peasants of the settlement farms were extremely common in the Volyn Voivodeship. Polonization, the eradication of Ukrainian identity, multiplied by colonialist treatment, created the basis for the superior behavior of representatives of Polish paramilitary organizations.