There were several pivotal moments in history when Ukrainian nationalism could have become something altogether different than it is today with its state glorification of fascist OUN-UPA war criminals.
Ukrainians & Poles have seldom lived in peace with eact other. Today is no different. Ukrainians need to realize that Russia is their best friend. United thay are the biggest country in the World in territory,mineral wealth, oil & gas wealth, "black soil" wealth. They are both ORTHOOX , have the same alfabeth ,every day words are identical. That they are fighting the proxy war for America's benefit is unbelievable.
‘Ukraine’s Transformation Into An Anti-Polish State Wasn’t Inevitable’
No it was not. In fact it was critically important for Ukraine to keep the Polish alliance intact. It was the old ideological differences and extreme hostilities that captured the minds of the Ukrainian population. Considering the major military and humanitarian help Ukraine received from Poland this loss just might seriously influence the final outcome of the present war. If Poland takes a neutral stand like Slovakia and Hungary offering zero military assistance, suddenly everything will be different there. Romania and Moldova will be the last stronghold NATO can count on, the question is for how long. I heard Romania is raising taxes heavily to pay for the 32 F-35 fighters for the US but not all the taxpayers are happy about this. To add insult to injury, Bulgaria just told the US to stop using their airports for military purposes.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to not go back in history beyond WW2 to justify the hatreds between the ethnicities in Eastern Europe? Going beyond this complicates understanding these problems to the point of making them unsolvable. Most ethnic Americans do not carry the hatreds of their ethnicities from before their ancestors immigrated to the US. There are great advantages from this in the US. Even though much of the West's written history regarding the world wars has been falsified or omitted to protect the many guilty parties of those wars, there are some basics from WW2 that can be agreed upon.
Germany developed a master race mentality by the time the mustache took power. This type of mentality leads to genocide as exemplified by how the chosen treats Palestinians or how the exceptional nation treated its indigenous population and many others around the globe. Germany's attitude towards Slavs was one of inferiority, i.e. that they should be slaves or dead for Lebensraum. This is the reason why the Poles should be more cautious in embracing NATO which was established with a heavy participation of German Generals. US military doctrine is heavily influenced by German doctrine. It can be argued that Great Britain set Poland up to start WW2. Many Poles emigrated to the US and became prosperous so Poland has an affinity with the US, and its wealth is attractive.
Katyn happened. The Bolshevik movement was complicated. Why should the Poles side against the Slavic Russians like Ukrainians who embraced the not seas during WW2?
"They represented the culmination of the prior genocides that Ukrainians committed against Poles in the mid-17th century during Khmelnitsky’s Uprising and the mid-18th century during the “Koliszczyzna”." Not to justify the violence, but it is important to say that these "Poles" were actually former Orthodox Ruthenians/Rusyns/Ukrainians who were converted, many times forcefully, to Roman Catholicism and were seen by others as traitors. Good example of this behaviour was portraited in Nikolai Gogol's classic novella Taras Bulba, when Andriy Bulba, the younger son of the Cossack commander, completely renounces his Cossack heritage, his Orthodox Christian faith, his family and his homeland. Many prominent Polish noble families (szlachta) trace their lineages back to the Eastern Slavic, Eastern Orthodox aristocracy of the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland. Known historically as Ruthenian (gente Ruthenus, natione Polonus), these families gradually adopted the Polish language, culture, and Roman Catholicism (or Greek Catholicism) between the 15th and 18th centuries. The Great Magnate Houses (Princes) such as Ostrogski, Wiśniowiecki, Czartoryski, Sanguszko, Sapieha, Zasławski, Zbaraski, etc. are some famous/infamous examples.
Taras Bulba is as much of an historically romantic take as Henryk Sienkiewicz's "Trilogia" is, which I personally enjoyed and recommend that anyone even remotely interested in it at least read the first book.
The reality lies somewhere in between both extremes: there were (in my opinion misguided) restrictions placed upon the practice of Orthodox and also (once again in my opinion misguided) neglect of the local non-Catholic elite's interests, namely the Cossacks'.
On top of that, most magnates (oligarchs) and even some szlachta outsourced management of their estates to Jewish "arendators", who were sometimes -- obviously not in every case! -- very cruel to the peasants, "Old Rus"/"Ruthenian"/"Ukrainian" and Polish alike.
These factors explain, but of course don't excuse, the roots of rage that boiled over into a genocide of Poles and Jews. Nevertheless, the local Orthodox population's conversions to Catholicism were more the result of a coercion due to circumstances than force.
Of course, some horror stories exist, but most who converted did so either for personal career/economic advancement if they were relatively more educated and wealthy or for convenience in being able to pray in "Greek Catholic" churches instead of not at all.
The reference to many prominent Polish szlachta's "Old Rus" ancestry is correct, but that in no way means that their ancestors were forced to convert. In fact, many "Old Rus" locals refused and that was that. They weren't killed en masse, nor genocided, for that.
The closest that Poland came to genociding the "Old Rus" locals was Polish-loyal "fellow" "Old Rus" Jeremi Wisniowiecki's retaliatory campaign against them during Khemlnitsky's Uprising-turned-genocide. He fought fire with fire and Ukrainians will never forgive him.
My point is that the narrative of forced conversions on implied pain of death isn't true, it's a gross exaggeration, just like some Poles grossly exaggerate that "Old Rus" locals had no legitimate grievances whatsoever during the centuries that they lived in a single state.
I understand that it's practically political dogma for Orthodox Christians to lend credence to this narrative that was first pushed with gusto by Russia, the "Third Rome" as it's seen by them, but Russia isn't nor ever was a "god-state" that was infallible.
I accept that maybe some Orthodox Christians believe that, but my personal belief is that human beings make mistakes, and it's humans -- not God, though perhaps arguably under His inspiration depending on one's belief -- who manage countries on a daily basis.
What I'm trying to say is that it's not the first time that Russia has twisted history for its own interests, AS ALL COUNTRIES DO (!!!), but it's nevertheless an example of this that became wildly popular over the centuries and continues to proliferate today.
It's also important to clarify that nationalism as it's presently understood didn't exist during the first two iterations of a shared Polish-Ukrainian state (the Polish-Lithuanian Union and then Commonwealth).
Instead, peasants mostly described themselves based on faith (so Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim [there was an historic Tatar community], and Protestant), while szlachta and magnates of "Old Rus" ancestry tended to use this formulation:
Through these means, they preserved both their ethnic self-identification as "Old Rus" while reaffirming their loyalty to Poland, which is what the Union and Commonwealth eventually began to be casually referred to, although some still retained a regional Lithuanian identity.
The political and regional differences between "Old/Historic Lithuania" and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland under their single Commonwealth state weren't due to religion, however, as more Orthodox lived in the "Ukrainian" part of Poland than in Lithuania.
Anyhow, "educated" members of society back then were proud of their membership in either the economic and/or political community of the Commonwealth, offhandedly described by most simply as "Poland" even if they weren't ethnic Poles or Catholic.
In Polish historiography, reference is made to the "Old Rus" origins of the szlachta families that you enumerated, but they're still therefore considered Polish, which did not at the time refer to what became the eponymous West Slavic tribe nor Catholic believers.
In fact, it was Russian-backed "Lithuanian" and "Little Russian" historiography during the Partition period along with Austrian-backed "Ukrainian" historiography that began to "Balkanize" what had till then largely been a shared "Polish" civic identity among elites.
Lithuanian is purposely placed in quotation marks in reference to the dispute over that modern-day Baltic country's self-identification in the face of claims from modern-day Belarusians ("Litvinists") to be the true heirs of the Grand Duchy.
As you now see or at least others now see who might be less informed about this than you might be, post-Partition (and especially post-WWI) identity in the former Commonwealth is nowhere near as simple as your post made it seem, at all.
Take my family for example: my great-grandfather identified as Polish despite being Orthodox, wrote our surname in Cyrillic on his January 1920 Polish identification card, and that same surname is actually a Slavicized Lithuanian one as I explained here:
His family had a proud tradition of giving their children distinctly Polish first names so that everyone who they'd ever meet would know that they're Polish even though they became or always were (it's unclear) Orthodox East Slavic-speaking descendants from "Old Rus".
The branch that remained in the famous Polish fortress town of Kamieniec Podolski where our family comes from nowadays, according to a relative who contacted them some time ago while doing genealogical research, considers themselves to be Ukrainian.
My great-grandfather's branch, however, all considers ourselves to be Polish, but my dad always told me that his father told him that we have some Lithuanian connection, but it was unclear whether it was Historical Lithuania or what is nowadays ethnic Lithuania.
We now know from a separate anthroponomical study that I stumbled across some years ago that our surname is a Polish one of Lithuanian origin connected in somehow (it's unclear) to the medieval Lithuanian Prince Kaributas, the famous Jogaila's brother.
Our situation isn't unique by any stretch of the imagination: most well-known among many Poles is how the first interwar president described himself as Polish while his brother described himself as Lithuanian despite being siblings with the same parents.
Identity among contemporary Poles and especially how they describe historical figures from the centuries of their shared state with what since became Lithuanians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians as well as how the latter describe themselves too is thus a very complex subject.
Some of the last three's ancestors might have reasonably described themselves as "Polish" in some capacity or another, whether in reference to their (possibly now-former) Catholic faith or as a member of the economic and political Polish (Commonwealth) nation.
Over time, just like my great-grandfather's branch with which we have no contact (nor have I ever contacted them nor was interested in doing so), self-identifying Poles can turn into self-identifying Ukrainians, just like Ukrainians can become Russians, etc.
Thank you Andrew for your interesting reply. I agree that the local Orthodox population's conversions to Catholicism were more the result of a coercion, but Polish magnates aggressively expanded their estates into Ukrainian lands, forcing the local Orthodox peasants into harsh, virtual serfdom. Also, the Polish crown limited the number of officially registered Cossacks (who enjoyed military pay and freedom). Unregistered Cossacks were forced into serfdom, which caused widespread anger, while the magnates leased their lands out to tax-collectors and leaseholders, who extracted heavy tolls, taxes, and duties from the local populations. I can compare that to the similar situation which existed in Dalmatia, present day Croatia, where starvation, ruined harvests and coercion were the main causes of Orthodox to Catholic conversions. There is a famous 1901 short story, Pilipenda, by Serbian realist writer Simo Matavulj. Set in the Dalmatian village of Kričke in 1843, it highlights a starving peasant who defiantly chooses to endure extreme poverty rather than renounce his Orthodox faith for food and privileges.
You're right, the magnates -- the most significant of whom in what's nowadays modern-day Ukraine -- could be brutal, and I fully agree that there were legitimate grievances about that and other issues like religious restrictions.
I also understand that peasants during that time tended to rampage once in a while, and that's what happened back then too, but with genocidal effect since they practically wiped out all Poles (however one describes them) from there.
Jews, too, who were collectively punished due to how some arendators mistreated the locals. The whole thing was a bloodbath but I'm absolutely fascinated by it and the Polish-Bolshevik War among other historical Polish conflicts.
This article summarizes really quite well large portion of Polish-Ukrainian events over the past century. Yet, the conclusions are quite surprising to me. Ukraine today is definitely, and strongly, pro-Polish, which I as a Pole can confirm by numerous trips, several humanitarian projects and probably hundreds of conversations. In the current moment of history, due to Russia's invasion, there is more cooperation between Poles and Ukrainians than it ever was in the past. The part which you describe is also true, yes there is nationalism, fear and hatred (which I also describe in my stories) because in a nation of millions of people you will find all sides of the spectrum. But the average sentiment is, in my observation, definitely moving towards positive side. My last trip: https://nomadicmind.substack.com/p/all-the-warning-lights-were-on
Dark future is in store for Poland. Litany of mistakes will come home to roost.
Ukrainians & Poles have seldom lived in peace with eact other. Today is no different. Ukrainians need to realize that Russia is their best friend. United thay are the biggest country in the World in territory,mineral wealth, oil & gas wealth, "black soil" wealth. They are both ORTHOOX , have the same alfabeth ,every day words are identical. That they are fighting the proxy war for America's benefit is unbelievable.
‘Ukraine’s Transformation Into An Anti-Polish State Wasn’t Inevitable’
No it was not. In fact it was critically important for Ukraine to keep the Polish alliance intact. It was the old ideological differences and extreme hostilities that captured the minds of the Ukrainian population. Considering the major military and humanitarian help Ukraine received from Poland this loss just might seriously influence the final outcome of the present war. If Poland takes a neutral stand like Slovakia and Hungary offering zero military assistance, suddenly everything will be different there. Romania and Moldova will be the last stronghold NATO can count on, the question is for how long. I heard Romania is raising taxes heavily to pay for the 32 F-35 fighters for the US but not all the taxpayers are happy about this. To add insult to injury, Bulgaria just told the US to stop using their airports for military purposes.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to not go back in history beyond WW2 to justify the hatreds between the ethnicities in Eastern Europe? Going beyond this complicates understanding these problems to the point of making them unsolvable. Most ethnic Americans do not carry the hatreds of their ethnicities from before their ancestors immigrated to the US. There are great advantages from this in the US. Even though much of the West's written history regarding the world wars has been falsified or omitted to protect the many guilty parties of those wars, there are some basics from WW2 that can be agreed upon.
Germany developed a master race mentality by the time the mustache took power. This type of mentality leads to genocide as exemplified by how the chosen treats Palestinians or how the exceptional nation treated its indigenous population and many others around the globe. Germany's attitude towards Slavs was one of inferiority, i.e. that they should be slaves or dead for Lebensraum. This is the reason why the Poles should be more cautious in embracing NATO which was established with a heavy participation of German Generals. US military doctrine is heavily influenced by German doctrine. It can be argued that Great Britain set Poland up to start WW2. Many Poles emigrated to the US and became prosperous so Poland has an affinity with the US, and its wealth is attractive.
Katyn happened. The Bolshevik movement was complicated. Why should the Poles side against the Slavic Russians like Ukrainians who embraced the not seas during WW2?
"They represented the culmination of the prior genocides that Ukrainians committed against Poles in the mid-17th century during Khmelnitsky’s Uprising and the mid-18th century during the “Koliszczyzna”." Not to justify the violence, but it is important to say that these "Poles" were actually former Orthodox Ruthenians/Rusyns/Ukrainians who were converted, many times forcefully, to Roman Catholicism and were seen by others as traitors. Good example of this behaviour was portraited in Nikolai Gogol's classic novella Taras Bulba, when Andriy Bulba, the younger son of the Cossack commander, completely renounces his Cossack heritage, his Orthodox Christian faith, his family and his homeland. Many prominent Polish noble families (szlachta) trace their lineages back to the Eastern Slavic, Eastern Orthodox aristocracy of the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland. Known historically as Ruthenian (gente Ruthenus, natione Polonus), these families gradually adopted the Polish language, culture, and Roman Catholicism (or Greek Catholicism) between the 15th and 18th centuries. The Great Magnate Houses (Princes) such as Ostrogski, Wiśniowiecki, Czartoryski, Sanguszko, Sapieha, Zasławski, Zbaraski, etc. are some famous/infamous examples.
Taras Bulba is as much of an historically romantic take as Henryk Sienkiewicz's "Trilogia" is, which I personally enjoyed and recommend that anyone even remotely interested in it at least read the first book.
The reality lies somewhere in between both extremes: there were (in my opinion misguided) restrictions placed upon the practice of Orthodox and also (once again in my opinion misguided) neglect of the local non-Catholic elite's interests, namely the Cossacks'.
On top of that, most magnates (oligarchs) and even some szlachta outsourced management of their estates to Jewish "arendators", who were sometimes -- obviously not in every case! -- very cruel to the peasants, "Old Rus"/"Ruthenian"/"Ukrainian" and Polish alike.
These factors explain, but of course don't excuse, the roots of rage that boiled over into a genocide of Poles and Jews. Nevertheless, the local Orthodox population's conversions to Catholicism were more the result of a coercion due to circumstances than force.
Of course, some horror stories exist, but most who converted did so either for personal career/economic advancement if they were relatively more educated and wealthy or for convenience in being able to pray in "Greek Catholic" churches instead of not at all.
The reference to many prominent Polish szlachta's "Old Rus" ancestry is correct, but that in no way means that their ancestors were forced to convert. In fact, many "Old Rus" locals refused and that was that. They weren't killed en masse, nor genocided, for that.
The closest that Poland came to genociding the "Old Rus" locals was Polish-loyal "fellow" "Old Rus" Jeremi Wisniowiecki's retaliatory campaign against them during Khemlnitsky's Uprising-turned-genocide. He fought fire with fire and Ukrainians will never forgive him.
My point is that the narrative of forced conversions on implied pain of death isn't true, it's a gross exaggeration, just like some Poles grossly exaggerate that "Old Rus" locals had no legitimate grievances whatsoever during the centuries that they lived in a single state.
I understand that it's practically political dogma for Orthodox Christians to lend credence to this narrative that was first pushed with gusto by Russia, the "Third Rome" as it's seen by them, but Russia isn't nor ever was a "god-state" that was infallible.
I accept that maybe some Orthodox Christians believe that, but my personal belief is that human beings make mistakes, and it's humans -- not God, though perhaps arguably under His inspiration depending on one's belief -- who manage countries on a daily basis.
What I'm trying to say is that it's not the first time that Russia has twisted history for its own interests, AS ALL COUNTRIES DO (!!!), but it's nevertheless an example of this that became wildly popular over the centuries and continues to proliferate today.
It's also important to clarify that nationalism as it's presently understood didn't exist during the first two iterations of a shared Polish-Ukrainian state (the Polish-Lithuanian Union and then Commonwealth).
Instead, peasants mostly described themselves based on faith (so Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim [there was an historic Tatar community], and Protestant), while szlachta and magnates of "Old Rus" ancestry tended to use this formulation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gente_Ruthenus,_natione_Polonus
Through these means, they preserved both their ethnic self-identification as "Old Rus" while reaffirming their loyalty to Poland, which is what the Union and Commonwealth eventually began to be casually referred to, although some still retained a regional Lithuanian identity.
The political and regional differences between "Old/Historic Lithuania" and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland under their single Commonwealth state weren't due to religion, however, as more Orthodox lived in the "Ukrainian" part of Poland than in Lithuania.
Anyhow, "educated" members of society back then were proud of their membership in either the economic and/or political community of the Commonwealth, offhandedly described by most simply as "Poland" even if they weren't ethnic Poles or Catholic.
In Polish historiography, reference is made to the "Old Rus" origins of the szlachta families that you enumerated, but they're still therefore considered Polish, which did not at the time refer to what became the eponymous West Slavic tribe nor Catholic believers.
In fact, it was Russian-backed "Lithuanian" and "Little Russian" historiography during the Partition period along with Austrian-backed "Ukrainian" historiography that began to "Balkanize" what had till then largely been a shared "Polish" civic identity among elites.
Lithuanian is purposely placed in quotation marks in reference to the dispute over that modern-day Baltic country's self-identification in the face of claims from modern-day Belarusians ("Litvinists") to be the true heirs of the Grand Duchy.
As you now see or at least others now see who might be less informed about this than you might be, post-Partition (and especially post-WWI) identity in the former Commonwealth is nowhere near as simple as your post made it seem, at all.
Take my family for example: my great-grandfather identified as Polish despite being Orthodox, wrote our surname in Cyrillic on his January 1920 Polish identification card, and that same surname is actually a Slavicized Lithuanian one as I explained here:
https://korybko.substack.com/p/heres-why-im-a-proud-volhynia-genocide
His family had a proud tradition of giving their children distinctly Polish first names so that everyone who they'd ever meet would know that they're Polish even though they became or always were (it's unclear) Orthodox East Slavic-speaking descendants from "Old Rus".
The branch that remained in the famous Polish fortress town of Kamieniec Podolski where our family comes from nowadays, according to a relative who contacted them some time ago while doing genealogical research, considers themselves to be Ukrainian.
My great-grandfather's branch, however, all considers ourselves to be Polish, but my dad always told me that his father told him that we have some Lithuanian connection, but it was unclear whether it was Historical Lithuania or what is nowadays ethnic Lithuania.
We now know from a separate anthroponomical study that I stumbled across some years ago that our surname is a Polish one of Lithuanian origin connected in somehow (it's unclear) to the medieval Lithuanian Prince Kaributas, the famous Jogaila's brother.
Our situation isn't unique by any stretch of the imagination: most well-known among many Poles is how the first interwar president described himself as Polish while his brother described himself as Lithuanian despite being siblings with the same parents.
Identity among contemporary Poles and especially how they describe historical figures from the centuries of their shared state with what since became Lithuanians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians as well as how the latter describe themselves too is thus a very complex subject.
Some of the last three's ancestors might have reasonably described themselves as "Polish" in some capacity or another, whether in reference to their (possibly now-former) Catholic faith or as a member of the economic and political Polish (Commonwealth) nation.
Over time, just like my great-grandfather's branch with which we have no contact (nor have I ever contacted them nor was interested in doing so), self-identifying Poles can turn into self-identifying Ukrainians, just like Ukrainians can become Russians, etc.
Thank you Andrew for your interesting reply. I agree that the local Orthodox population's conversions to Catholicism were more the result of a coercion, but Polish magnates aggressively expanded their estates into Ukrainian lands, forcing the local Orthodox peasants into harsh, virtual serfdom. Also, the Polish crown limited the number of officially registered Cossacks (who enjoyed military pay and freedom). Unregistered Cossacks were forced into serfdom, which caused widespread anger, while the magnates leased their lands out to tax-collectors and leaseholders, who extracted heavy tolls, taxes, and duties from the local populations. I can compare that to the similar situation which existed in Dalmatia, present day Croatia, where starvation, ruined harvests and coercion were the main causes of Orthodox to Catholic conversions. There is a famous 1901 short story, Pilipenda, by Serbian realist writer Simo Matavulj. Set in the Dalmatian village of Kričke in 1843, it highlights a starving peasant who defiantly chooses to endure extreme poverty rather than renounce his Orthodox faith for food and privileges.
You're right, the magnates -- the most significant of whom in what's nowadays modern-day Ukraine -- could be brutal, and I fully agree that there were legitimate grievances about that and other issues like religious restrictions.
I also understand that peasants during that time tended to rampage once in a while, and that's what happened back then too, but with genocidal effect since they practically wiped out all Poles (however one describes them) from there.
Jews, too, who were collectively punished due to how some arendators mistreated the locals. The whole thing was a bloodbath but I'm absolutely fascinated by it and the Polish-Bolshevik War among other historical Polish conflicts.
This article summarizes really quite well large portion of Polish-Ukrainian events over the past century. Yet, the conclusions are quite surprising to me. Ukraine today is definitely, and strongly, pro-Polish, which I as a Pole can confirm by numerous trips, several humanitarian projects and probably hundreds of conversations. In the current moment of history, due to Russia's invasion, there is more cooperation between Poles and Ukrainians than it ever was in the past. The part which you describe is also true, yes there is nationalism, fear and hatred (which I also describe in my stories) because in a nation of millions of people you will find all sides of the spectrum. But the average sentiment is, in my observation, definitely moving towards positive side. My last trip: https://nomadicmind.substack.com/p/all-the-warning-lights-were-on