Thousands of works have been written about the problems of reconciliation in global relations. Polish libraries are full of descriptions and analyses of standardisation processes primarily in relations with Germany.
Polish-German reconciliation has become a "model" solution, which is referred to on various occasions erstwhile the ability to cooperate peacefully is restored, after years of tragedy and trauma in relations between conflicted nations and countries. It is worth remembering that the concept of reconciliation or reconciliation is out of focus. It comes from Latin – ‘reconciliatio’ means restoring unity. The word includes the word "conciliare" – to unite, to regain, to reconcile with someone. The prefix ‘re’ is simply a renewal of the first unity, re-establishment of the consent and gathering of the disputed parties. Reconcilation attitudes so have a view to creating social, psychological, material conditions for genuine and effective reconciliation.
For some, reconciliation means a hard-to-achievable goal, for others it is simply a complex process that occurs at different levels of social life, between peoples and countries, and in intra-state life. It has an ethical dimension. It carries many meanings, specified as repairing human relationships, restoring broken ties, building consent. It refers to manifesting affirmation towards those who have injured, hurt or destroyed others. It gives them a chance to fix the wrong.
What does "reconciliation" mean?
Different forms of reconciliation can be made – from an apology at the authoritative and authoritative level, to compensation for individuals and the collective. The condition of the persistence and irreparability of this process is to cut off the authorities and societies charged with the guilt of their ancestors from shameful ideas and practices (wretches, crimes, genocide, Nazism, racism, apartheid). Only a clear condemnation of the manifestations of evil guarantees the recognition of the perpetrator and the victim, which is consistent on each side. This process cannot be carried out without honest confrontation with events that require reconstruction according to the criteria of truth.
In the name of the injured communities, governments tend to search to reconstruct assurance by translating them into acts of forgiveness, expiation, and redress. The victims of crime themselves can never forgive, so politicians and ecclesiastical institutions ask forgiveness, although nobody truly gave them that right. Forgiveness surely promotes reconciliation, but it touches spirituality, morality, and faith, so it is simply a very individual and intimate experience. They are usually left to priests and spiritual believers, individual descendants of victims.
Interstate reconciliation is instrumental and servile to the political interests of the parties. It may lead to the establishment of common organization mechanisms aimed at peaceful coexistence, the elimination of fear, distrust or anger, but it primarily involves political leaders and state structures alternatively than the full population. This is an elite, abstract reconciliation, frequently declarative, staged and fictional reconciliation.
It is so highly crucial to decision to psychosocial and individual levels (bottom-up and functional reconciliation). For the condition of reconciliation between people is to confess and show ourselves. The weakness of this reasoning lies in the fact that successive generations bear no collective work for the actions of their ancestors. They have the right to reject this version of history, which bears the blame of their predecessors, as they were formed in another consciousness and (not)remembered. This is what young generations of Ukrainians do today.
Against this background, there is simply a request for systematic and laborious work to change mentality – stereotypes, beliefs, attitudes and prejudices. The fresh horizons, however, cannot be built in 1 generation. The authorities can, of course, declare the success of reconciliation at political level. However, it will not destruct common distrust and hatred. Governments are incapable to force the descendants of the victims to reconcile with those who have made their heroes of the persecutors. Real recovery so requires at least respective generations. Its crucial component is besides getting utilized to negative memory, forgetting and releasing from trauma.
Appearance Game
So far, in Polish-Ukrainian relations specified acts have never happened, even in the symbolic sphere. Reconciliation has only become a verbal ritual and a political slogan that is actually intended to obscure the deficiency of political will on the part of Ukrainian politicians to account for tragic history. It is besides an excuse for the inability of Polish politicians, publicists, journalists and academic researchers, who, while blinded by Ukrainianization and Ukraine, placed Ukrainian national interests over the interests of their own country. A false story of “unity” was created, which led not only to the transfer of immense resources to Ukraine (estimated in mid-2026 that the full cost of the grant was about PLN 17 billion), but besides to the confrontation of conflicting historical policies and conflicts of interest.
So far, no Ukrainian government since the proclamation of independent Ukraine in 1991 could not afford to effort to account for the tragic past in relations with Poland. The russian political Camaryle of Kiev was first convinced that Ukrainian genocide was a substance of past statehood (ZSRR, 3rd Reich), and Ukrainians were only the subject of their policies. erstwhile informing signals appeared in independent Ukraine that in its western part the renaissance of the flag ideology was taking place, this was left to the Polish side with disregard and indifference. Over time, with the “orange” revolution in 2004, the fanatical “reconquist” began, expanding the influence of flagism across the state. In view of the denial by Ukrainian authorities of any sense of guilt and work for the disgraceful actions of their ancestors, no effective countermeasures were taken from the Polish side.
The tragedy of the situation is that both sides were influenced by rather opposing geopolitical philosophies. Ukrainian authorities, since the removal of president Viktor Yanukovych's coup in 2014, have been moving towards political realism, and in the utmost form of makiawelism. It was about adopting a pro-Western course, in which the political goal was not only to teardrop Ukraine out of Russian influence, but to cleverly usage the support of Western states to build its own strength. The past in the modern geopolitical game did not substance much. The West did not want the Ukrainian state to expiate for the actions of its ancestors. On the contrary, the Germans, the French and the Anglo-Soms wanted Ukrainian nationalism, regardless of historical sources, to strengthen Ukraine's motivation to fight imperial Russia. Poland besides answered this point of view. It was not realized that in the name of the fight against the common enemy, based on historical animosity, Poland could take a hand to make a fresh opponent and rival.
The Polish side was dominated primarily by the doctrine of sentiment, prometeism and messianism. The attitudes of them from above condemned Polish governments to failure. In history, idealistic ideas and naive beliefs seldom win with a hard realistic determination to accomplish extremist goals. Taking on moral commitments to give unconditional support to Ukraine for its course to build an “anti-Russia”, Poland fundamentally gave up defending its historical rations and found itself in a lost position. No forms of support, emotional demonstrations of solidarity and humiliating evidence of devotion prevented the escalation of affronts and humiliation. A policy geared towards the mythology of “partnership and friendships” that were never truly there had to be a disaster.
The expectations of the Polish side for reconciliation with Ukraine were not right from the beginning, due to the fact that the appropriate ground was not prepared for specified a process, especially in the sphere of consciousness. After all, there have never been any reassessments of a common history, no historical cognition of common fates in border areas. No 1 wanted to make historical reconstruction, showing cultural complexity and civilizational zones inhabited by various peoples since the mediate Ages. In the case of Poland and Ukraine, the formation of national states is only due to the last century, and even to Ukraine for the last decades. It is so hard to talk of any continuity of state interests, and even more coherent national identity.
Triumph of Ahistory
The modern map must so not be applied to long past of abrasion of Polish, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Russian and Turkish elements. Ukrainian allegations that the Polish side was a “colonizer” of the Russian lands are unfounded and deserve strong support. Poles on erstwhile east lands were not guests without roots. The economical processes during feudalism and cultural preponderance of the Polish nobility, which is an nonsubjective fact alternatively than an invention, decided to form various forms of interdependencies between them and the remainder of the community.
There is no “eternal” Ukraine, as in spite of over 1000 years of tradition of statehood there is no political and administrative continuity of Poland. No 1 on the Polish side has argued with the Ukrainian side that modern concepts must not be imposed on the old era, especially as tribal and dynastic rivalries continued throughout medieval Europe, resulting in occupying border areas not as colonies, but as forms of symbiotic management.
When we realise the complexity of the historical and geopolitical conditions of modern Ukraine, it will be easier for us to realize the difficulties of building its national identity. Ideologization of public life in russian times, uniformization of patterns of behaviour and dominance of imperial narrative, and especially traumatic experiences during the war and German occupation, all of this caused Ukraine to increase request for heroic past and build memory free of ancestral sins. This was supported by the increasing time distance, generational changes, fresh language of education, and above all tensions and conflicts in relations with Russia against the background of post-imperial schema division.
Many Ukrainians together with the construction of the state created their own biographies, trying to free themselves from moral burdens and accusations of complicity in regimes, first in russian and then Nazi, during the Nazi occupation. These individual attitudes were accompanied by “collective silence” which gave the Ukrainian state authorities any freedom to make a fresh identity.
Reconciliation between Poles and Ukrainians must so take place in the intellectual sphere, so that it can then translate into applicable behaviour. However, contrary to various political statements, there is simply a fundamental conflict between attribution Ukraine as it is today, a peculiar geopolitical function in dealing with the West with Russia and an honest settlement with the past. fewer people realise that in these conditions any reconcilation in Polish-Ukrainian relations is impossible. The reconciliation was consecrated on the altar of the interests of Western powers. If we insist on metaphorical rhetoric, this is proof of another “traitory of the West”.
A long way ahead
The process of normalising Polish-Ukrainian relations requires the improvement of a long-term strategy, based on intensive bilateral communication at different levels of communication. The condition for a fair approach of each organization is to clearly cut off from the "brown" agenda of Ukrainian nationalism. It is not adequate to make occasional and spectacular declarations that meet the silence or consternation of the another party. A discussion is needed for years utilizing the historical cognition gathered by experts to make recommendations for a wise reconciliation policy. Any effort to relativise the criminal activities of the CNS-UPA and the public cult of criminals must meet with appropriate resistance. There are presently many global and moral-political legal standards that restrict freedom in creating the composition of national pantheons. The unappealed criterion of the selection of candidates for national monuments and symbols is their non-contaminated by the sinister ideology of the 20th century, in the name of which the crimes of genocide were committed. There must not be any "double" standards, " rotten" compromises or relativisation of crimes in these cases.
Faced with exaggerated importance in the game of powers and awakened integration aspirations Ukraine with the West Poland should prepare solidly for accession negotiations of this country with the European Union, in which it is possible to foretell with large probability the instrumentalisation of past and action in bad faith. A large propaganda and education effort is needed to address Western societies and politicians in order to show the existing dissonance between "war solidarity" (guessment towards refugees, social support, financial and military donations, logistics, media sympathy) and the real tension against memory, identity and lied "historical policy".
If the Polish side was forced to usage past as a "veta instrument" in Ukraine's accession process to the European Union, then all its members must be prepared to realize the reasons for this position. Especially as there are no false voices in the country, that this reconciliation based on fact is the most important, but the very admission of Ukraine to the European Union. As if Ukraine was not a real threat to Poland's interests by entering this organization.
Eye for an eye
There is already a divided personality. The Ukrainian side uses cunning tactics that lead to weakening of Polish argument. In the verbal sphere, Ukrainian politicians express their willingness to reconcile, but actually show a strong attachment to their own anti-Polish imagination of history. They effort to symmetry and relativize the work of both parties for crimes of planet War II, gaining any applause in Poland itself. This importantly weakens Polish argumentation and demands on the conditions of reconciliation.
Another danger is the media and political offensive to accept the thesis that Ukraine's entry into the European Union will let for the "attachment" of Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation within the wider integration framework of the West. This is simply a mention to the analogy of the post-war "revolution" of Europe with Germany (RFN), charged with the crimes of the 3rd Reich. The integration of the "Bońsk Republic" into European and Atlantic structures has ensured its return to normality and forced bilateral reconciliation processes, especially in French-Western German relations. It is so expected that the affirmation of Ukraine at European level will modify its approach to heroising the perpetrators of the Volyn crime.
The tensions between the "rememory policy" and the "future policy" can be dulled due to Ukraine's self-sacrifice and designation of its merits in defence of European safety against Russia. The Kiev elites are certain of their successes in the accession process to the European Union, as their dedication and cost of war convince them that they are able to defend Europe from the demonized Putin. As long as this conviction can be maintained, Ukraine will proceed to play its “historical” Polish allied behaviour. Polish politicians so fell into a trap of their own expectations to win Ukraine in this tragic and prolonged war. Ukraine has the chance to build the identity of a “new foreground”, declaring itself “a defender of the West”, although its area with its inhabitants never belonged to Western civilization. In this light, the importance of Poland will be devaluation, and the objections to historical harm will go far.
Divisions and interior disputes on the Polish political phase do not facilitate the improvement of a long-term position of Polish-Ukrainian relations. Negotiating Russia in the long run is more harmful to Poland than to Ukraine. The second provides war fuel, and in the situation of ongoing armed actions designation of Polish claims for the purification of the tragic past has no chance of success. This situation will take as long as Polish politicians stay in the false belief that Ukrainians decide about Poland's security. There will be no real reconciliation with the current governments in Kiev.
Prof. Stanisław Bielen
Think Poland, No. 29-30 (19-26.07.2026)
