POLISH VECTOR IN POLITICS OF UKRAINIAN NATIONAL- liberation MOVEMENT IN THE YEARS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Abstract

The article analyzes the attitude of the radical camp of the Ukrainian national liberation movement’s representatives, headed by the OUN and UPA, to Poland and the Poles on the eve and during the World War II. It is shown that the leaders of the Ukrainian movement sought to use the moment of the Versailles system results deconstruction the Central and Eastern Europe’s organization, which arose during the World War II and create an independent Ukrainian statehood on the lands with the Ukrainian population’s domination. At first they treated Poland and the Poles as occupants of the Western Ukrainian lands and wanted to liberate these lands from them. After the collapse of Poland, attempts were made to establish cooperation with the Polish resistance movement, which, however, resulted in failure due to the reluctance of the Polish side to recognize the Ukrainian national movement and its claims to Western Ukraine. The consequence of this was the Ukrainian-Polish conflict in Volhynia and Galicia, accompanied by mass casualties of civilians on both sides. The Polish vector of the Ukrainian national liberation camp policy changed during the war, depending on the circumstances, but in the end did not lead to success, because the Polish side did not want to make any concessions to the aspirations of the Ukrainians to create an independent united Ukrainian statehood.