Historical memory represents a kind of battery to store our national experience, be it positive or negative, that has a major impact on who we are today, and how we deal with our past. This experience derives, by way of illustration, from emigration that made Poles experience the feeling of "alienation". The author wonders what lessons stem from this experience, and whether living in a free and democratic state, we are capable of understanding and assisting the "strangers", uprooted from their ancestral land by the vortex of history, and forced to seek a new place of settlement and to "build up their life" in the more and more complicated international reality.
For a few decades, Polish foreign policy was determined by the geographic location and a difficult to classify complex, at one time German, at another Soviet and, at times, by the both of them simultaneously. It was particularly apparent during the interwar period and it unquestionably affected Poland’s relations with its neighbours. Throughout the interwar period, they had an “increased temperature,” with the exception of Romania, whose border was considered as peaceful. Another problem of similar importance was the domestic situation of the country which maintained clumsy policy towards many national minorities. The author has drawn attention to some aspects of Polish-Ukrainian relations and has attempted to seek answers to one crucial question: why did Polish-Ukrainian border become an area of ethnic conflict that turned out to be so dramatic for both sides. The author believes that the present situation in Ukraine and Poland’s involvement in resolving it are not the reason why the his-torical truth about the massacres of Poles from Eastern Borderlands should suffer. There are reasons to believe that both sides contributed to the surge of nationalism, but the measures which were adopted were inadequate and had all the signs of organised genocide and ethnic cleansing. Ukraine has a sovereign right to honour its heroes. Similarly, Poland has a sovereign right to judge this tragic chapter in the history of both nations and to promote its own perspective.
JavaScript jest wyłączony w Twojej przeglądarce internetowej. Włącz go, a następnie odśwież stronę, aby móc w pełni z niej korzystać.