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Operation "VISTULA": Its presentation in the People's Republic of Polanď s propaganda and contemporary interpretation
Veselý, Luboš ; Vykoukal, Jiří (advisor) ; Zilynskyj, Bohdan (referee)
This thesis deals with expulsions of (ethnic) Ukrainians from their homeland in post- war Poland in 1944-1947 and the presentation of these in communist Poland's propaganda. It also analyses different interpretations of these events after the political changes in Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s. Post-war changes of Poland's eastern boarder, where the Soviet Union could keep the territories it had occupied in 1939, led to a situation where only 0,5 to 0,7 million Ukrainians out of a pre-war population of 5 million remained in their original homeland in Poland's south-eastern region. After the end of World War II, the Ukrainian insurgent army (UPA) continued fighting for Ukrainian independence against the governments on both sides of the new border, which they felt transected Ukrainian territory. The Polish pro-soviet communist government, which had only very little support in Polish society, made use of extreme nationalism, anti-German and also anti- Ukrainian sentiments in order to gain legitimacy. The Polish and Ukrainian societies regarded each other as enemies since pre-war times and especially after WW II, when around 20 thousand Ukrainians and more than 90 thousand Poles were murdered in mutual killings. After the war, Ukrainians became the target of Polish revenge. Based on an...
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