Polish memory and Ukrainian reaction

The Polish Parliament passed on Wednesday that July 11 will become a fresh state holiday. The anniversary of the apogee of the criminal attacks of the Ukrainian Insurgency Army on Poles in Volyn became an authoritative state vacation – The Day of Memory of Poles – Victims of Genocide made by the CNS-UPA on east Lands of the Second Republic of Poland.

It took 36 years of alleged "free Poland" to formally introduce to the state calendar the memory of those who were denied it so long. In 1999 the local and central authorities boycotted the unveiling of the monument-mausoleum of victims of Ukrainian Nazis founded in Wrocław by the survivor's association, Stephen Siekierka. Following the intervention of the Embassy of Ukraine, which was followed by the intervention of the Council for the Protection of the Memory of Combat and Martyrdom and the president of the Parliamentary Commission of National Minorities from the mausoleum board, the word "genocide" was removed, leaving a general inscription on "murdered".

I hope that specified self-demeanor by Poles will go distant with the resolution of the Sejm to the past at last. This resolution triggered an immediate reaction of Ukraine, which declared the decision of the Polish Parliament to be "contrary to the spirit of good neighbourly relations between Ukraine and Poland", placing them in a number of activities that "do not contribute to achieving common knowing and reconciliation, which our countries have been working on for a long time". The Ministry of abroad Affairs of Ukraine stated that Kiev "refers to a technological and impartial survey of the complex pages of our common history", which in diplomatic language is simply a proposition that the decision of the Sejm is biased and incompatible with scientifically verifiable facts. Kiev challenged Polish historical policy and called on the “Polish side to refrain from steps that could lead to increased tensions in bilateral relations and undermine achievements achieved through constructive dialogue”.

In the further paragraph of the Ukrainian MFA declaration, there has already been an explicit message about "participation" and politicising the establishment of a vacation in honor of the victims of the "heroes" of the Ukrainian historical narrative. It has already been completed with a conventional scare of Russian ghosts, which Ukrainians display all time they want to get any concessions from Poles and which, thanks to the ideologicalization and impact of our elites, but besides parts of society, has been operating unfortunately for years. besides the pre-Russian invasion. I feel sorry for the keyboard to characterize the degree of diplomatic lie of specified a photograph, in which Poland is shown as a website of a "sucking relationship" demanding the burial of victims whose bones rot in the pits of death excavated by criminals to the degree of those who are already widely condemned in Europe. I do not anticipate a different reaction from the Ukrainian elite. What is important, however, is how we respond and what principles we want to adopt.

I have heard many times about Ukraine's sovereign attitude to the United States. That's not true. Ukraine is not an entirely independent actor. It is the carrot of the crinkler in the seams of the western block. Of course, the U.S. natural material agreement achieved much little than it initially imposed in Trump negotiations. And yet Washington received concessions and actual precedence for the extraction of fresh Ukrainian deposits, without giving Ukrainians what they wanted most and what they even started playing for, they put on the table their natural materials – safety guarantees.

W The Kievs inactive cannot be certain that the Americans will not retreat overnight from the Ukrainian swamp absorbing their attention and resources. It is actual that Ukraine presently needs basic weapons and ammunition to a lesser extent, and the dronization of the battlefield causes Ukrainians to become somewhat more self-sufficient. And yet the Ukrainian state is just an extension of the Western political and economical device in the sense that it persists through a permanent financial drip. All influences that the apparatus of the Ukrainian state is able to collect, including on the fields of a ruined and depopulated country, are allocated to military needs. All the remainder of this apparatus and state functions are maintained by Western financial injections.

The fact is, therefore, that we should remind the Ukrainians that, contrary to their narratives of "defence of Europe", they are dependent on us, not us. In practice, it is Europe, Poland, a weapon of Ukraine that would not have survived these 3 years without the political, diplomatic, material and operational assistance of the West. Poland can last and even make without belonging to Crimea, the Kherson region, Donetsk region, Lugansk region and Zaporosk region to Ukraine.

W The Kiev know that. Do we realize this ourselves? What works for Volodymyr Zelensk and his crew is to play Europe against the US and vice versa. It is easier to usage the former, which leads to a deficit of actual leadership and a new, adapted to changing geopolitical conditions, reasoning in the “Old World”. The Ukrainian play of Europe is effective mostly thanks to Poland – the leading, free lobbyist of Kiev's interests in the European Union with no conditions. In this respect, the change of government from the Law and Justice to the Law and Justice organization did not change anything.

Our government continues to function in the “services of the Ukrainian people” mode, as in the abrupt tide of sincerity described the position of the government of Mateusz Morawiecki spokesperson of the Ministry of abroad Affairs during his time. So, since subsequent governments place us in the position of servants, let us not be amazed that the Ukrainians treat us like this on all level, including historical politics. To anyone who wishes to send me and my expectations on this plane back to the lame, I can answer twice. First, instrumentally. Historical policy is another level on which Ukrainians want to establish a favourable order of pecking in the European flock. Order in which they can peck Poland at will and inactive receive grain. In fact, the 3rd countries who see us subject to this order are pushing themselves in front of us. Even a liliput to stick to a poultry convention like Lithuania.

On the day of publication of the message of the Ukrainian MFA they were reported by the state broadcaster Lithuanian – LRT. Referring to the genocide conducted about the CNS-UPA, he wrote about the "Volynian Tragedy". Showing civilian slaughter by armed gangs as any symmetrical conflict. LRT wrote: "Poland is silent about its function in the escalation of conflict: a discriminatory policy of the interwar period, pacifications and "retaliation actions" of the Home Army. This not only distorts history, but besides threatens contemporary relations, especially in the context of the war with Russia, where Ukraine and Poland are allies. alternatively of reconciliation through dialogue, Poland chooses populism at a very hard historical stage, which could undermine assurance and increase tensions in the region."

Such a completely repeating Ukrainian communicative flows from the state average of our second “strategic ally” within the “inter-sea”. Let us add – even weaker and equally strategically dependent. We have exaggerated our fear of Russia so much, we have indoctrinated ourselves with the view that Poland is dependent on Ukraine, not vice versa, that we forget how weak the Ukrainian position is in this matter. They are afraid, they are very afraid, that this cognition of what the “heroes” they have given them will spread throughout the world. They know well that in Europe, as it inactive is, these images, this cognition can do them large harm, in a situation where they gain political and material support by moralising the full planet from the position of knights without blemish.

Do we truly not know what to do in this situation? However, there is simply a subject shot, the most crucial 1 I wrote about here 2 years ago. all interest is preceded by the very existence of its entity – a nation whose community is being maintained, as in the family, by the memory of its ancestors and the worship of them. The disappearance of this memory, the cognition of the common past means the de facto disappearance of the nation in an organic sense. The nation is not a company that it keeps together but a financial balance sheet. Nation, if it is to last, is simply a community of moral bond. Therefore, no healthy nation allows its past to be marred and the bones of the murdered ancestors.

Krystian Kamiński

The author was a associate of the Polish Parliament, associate of the National Movement

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