The Tragedy of the Volhynia Region 1943–1944: Its Causes, Course and Aftermath
Remembrance and Justice, Vol. 23 No. 1 (2014), pages: 391-399
Publication date: 2014-06-30
Abstract
An author focuses on the reasons of the creation by the Regional Unit of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Bandera followers) of the Ukrainian
Insurgent Army in Volhynia and Polesie and the anti-Polish ethnic cleansing
operation carried out in these territories. The article draws the conclusion that these
reasons were determined, first of all, by the war factors, which, in turn, defined the
time of carrying out of this operation as well as that of the Armia Krajowa [Home
Army] activists’ reaction actions. Describing the milestones of the confrontation
of the Ukrainian and Polish clandestine organizations in the territory of pre-war
Polish Volhynian Voivodeship in 1943–1944, the author specifies the principle
difference, which, according to the author, existed in the nature and ultimate goal
of the mutual armed actions carried out by the detachments of the UPA and the
AK. The article describes the polemics with some points of view on this problem,
widespread in the newest Polish and Ukrainian historiography.