Poland and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Asymmetric Memories

Andrii Portnov

Essays of the Forum Transregionale Studien, 2022

In February 2022, a German translation of Andrii Portnov‘s „Poland and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Asymmetric Memories” entitled „Polen und Ukraine: Verflochtene Geschichte, geteilte Erinnerung in Europa” has been published open access in the Essay series of the Forum Transregionale Studien. The study addresses the routes and disruptions of some basic historical stereotypes in Polish-Ukrainian relations. It argues that in modern times the Polish and Ukrainian national projects represented two competing political legitimacies: one based on historical borders and civilization, and the other based on the ethnographic composition of the population. This essay discusses the legacy of the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Cossack mythology, the Ukrainian-Polish war over Lviv/Lwów in 1918, the ethnic cleansing of Volhynian Poles in 1943, the activities of Jerzy Giedroyc’s “Kultura” and post-Soviet memory wars and reconciliation projects.

All issues of the the Essays series of the Forum Transregionale Studien are available open access. You can find the German issue (9/2022) and the English version (7/2020) open access via perspectivia.net.

Andrii Portnov is Principal Investigator in the „European Times“ project and Professor of the Entangled History of Ukraine at the European University Viadrina (Frankfurt/Oder). In 2015, he initiated and co-founded the Berlin-Brandenburg Ukraine Initiative, which, in 2016, continued as Prisma Ukraïna – Research Network Eastern Europe at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin.