The border as pain and remedy: commemorating the Polish–Ukrainian conflict of 1918–1919 in Lviv and Przemyśl

Abstract

The fight for Lwów/Lviv in 1918 was the first military conflict in the difficult twentieth-century history of Polish–Ukrainian relations. In the inter-war period, an impressive military memorial, the Eaglets Cemetery, was constructed in Lwów to honor the young defenders of the city. A monument to the Eaglets was also erected in the neighboring Przemyśl. In inter-war Poland, the Ukrainians, who had lost their cause for state independence, created their own cult of national heroes, the Sich Riflemen. Their graves in Lwów and Przemyśl, as well as in many smaller towns, became sites of public commemoration and national mobilization. This article traces the emergence, the development and the post-World War II decay of both competing memorial cults, focusing on their revival and political uses after 1989. It examines the trans-border aspects of memory politics in Lviv and Przemyśl and analyses the role of war memorials in (re-)establishing the link between ethnic communities and their homelands.

Keywords:

• Ukraine
• Poland
• war memorials
• commemorations
• border
• border minorities

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), grant number V75-G14. I appreciate the support of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe (Lviv), the South-Eastern Research Institute (Przemyśl) and the Polish Consulate in Lviv. Special thanks to Patrice Dabrowski, Hugo Lane, Agnieszka Pasieka, Ostap Sereda and Machteld Venken for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. The motto Semper fidelis (“Always faithful”) was granted to Lwów in 1658 in recognition of the city's key role in defending Europe from Muslim invasion and has often been referred to in the context of the Polish–Ukrainian war of 1918–1919.

2. Local historian Konieczny (1993, 95–98) gives a list of 47 Polish and 18 Ukrainian victims for the period of November to December 1918.

3. Roman Dmowski (1864–1939) was the founder and leader of National Democracy, a Polish right-wing nationalist movement. Opposing the federalist ideas of Józef Piłsudski, Dmowski advocated the project of a monoethnic Polish nation and insisted on the assimilation of minorities. His anti-Ukrainian position made him popular among Poles in eastern Galicia.

4. See the OUP Program on its official website www.oup.ukraina.com.pl

5. On the “Return” program see: Nashe Slovo, February 27, 2005.

6. A bicycle tour honoring Stepan Bandera was organized by Lviv activists from Ukrainian nationalist organizations in August 2010. The participants planned to visit Bandera's grave in Munich, Germany. However, the Polish Border Guard banned the Ukrainian bikers from entering Polish territory under the pretext that they had provided false information in their visa applications. The true reason was rather the controversial figure of Stepan Bandera himself, who was held responsible in Poland for the Volhynia massacre.