Liberation from the Empire: Ukraine, Poland and the Emergence of the New Europe, 1980-1991

When Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, Poland was the first country to recognise it. What is more, during the 1990s, Poland became, in many respects, an advocate for Ukraine in Europe. Given the conflict-ridden and at times violent history of Polish-Ukrainian relations, this development is anything but a matter of course. However, whilst Franco-German reconciliation is rightly regarded as a pillar of post-war European history, Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation is scarcely acknowledged. 

This project reconstructs the intellectual groundwork for the Polish-Ukrainian rapprochement in exile, as it subsequently took political effect in the 1980s through Solidarność and Perebudova (Ukrainian for Perestroika) in the 1980s, and analyses why a transformation succeeded in Polish-Ukrainian relations that failed in Russian-Ukrainian relations. The lecture will present selected aspects of this project for discussion.