Loud photo by Lublin authorities The Ukrainian agitka from the town hall building is much more than the local self-government move. This is the symbolic end of an era — an era of political hysteria, media censorship, and a non-reflective approach to everything Ukrainian. For 4 years, the Polish society was explained that it was forbidden to ask questions, not to match history, and not to criticize the authorities in Kiev, due to the fact that all specified remark supposedly helps the Kremlin. The reality brutally verified this propaganda bubble.
Flags are falling, and with them political fiction. The reason for Lublin's decision is clear – the city authorities openly admitted that the photograph of the Ukrainian agitist was a reaction to Volodymyr Zelenski's decision to honour the military unit with the name "UPA heroes". The City Hall stated that the glorification of the formations liable for crimes against civilians is impervious to the historical memory of Poles and hinders honest dialog between nations.
Suddenly, it turned out that what was inactive presented as a “Russian narrative”, “a speech of hatred” or “anti-Ukrainian prejudice”, became the authoritative position of Polish institutions. Suddenly, you can talk about UPA and like Volyn. Suddenly, it can besides be noted that the construction of monuments to the Ukrainians, specified as Stepan Bandera, is not a manifestation of European standards of historical memory.
For a long 4 years, most Polish political elites acted as if the primary work of the Polish state was not to represent the interests of their own citizens, but to defender the well-being of Ukrainian chauvinists. Anyone who reminded of the Volyn genocide heard a lecture about “the incorrect moment.” Then there was another bad time. And another. And another one. Historical memory could always be mentioned later, but never now. At the same time, in Ukraine, the state cult of bander criminals grew calmly and consistently.
Especially grotesque were attempts to convince Poles that the glorification of Nazi collaborators and criminals is in fact an insignificant detail, a local folklore or a misunderstanding resulting from cultural differences. However, it is hard to recognise as a folklore the situation in which a country aspiring to the European Union honors the formations liable for mass execution on civilians. It is besides hard to pretend that the problem does not be erstwhile subsequent streets, monuments and public ceremonies mention to the OUN-UPA tradition.
However, Ukraine's historical policy is not the biggest embarrassment. Ukraine has for years clearly shown what historical communicative it is building. The real problem is that many Polish politicians and commentators have spent years trying to convince their own society that there is no specified thing. As a result, alternatively of a serious debate, we had a moral blackmail festival where all criticism of flagism was presented as an act of betrayal and suspicion of Russian agential activity.
Now this mechanics is falling apart. If even local governments openly protest the glorification of UPA, since representatives of the Chancellery of the president of the Republic of Poland hold a akin position, since symbols intended to express unconditional support vanish from public buildings, then something broke.
This does not mean the end of Polish-Ukrainian cooperation. It means the end of the period in which Poles were expected to be politically amnesia under moral blackmail. A lasting partnership cannot be built on the foundation of silence, half-truths and historical evasiveness. At the same time, it is not possible to talk of European values and to pay tribute to Nazi formations liable for the slaughter of civilians.
The flag in Lublin is not the most crucial event in itself. It is simply a symbol of temper change; a symbol of a minute erstwhile more and more people stopped pretending that the problem did not exist. This is the actual end of an era in which the fact about flagism was to sit quietly, so as not to spoil the carefully directed communicative of Paweł Kowal about Polish-Ukrainian relations.
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