THE POLICY OF POLAND AND ROMANIA ON THE INTERNED ARMY OF THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC (1921–1924): UKRAINIAN FOREIGN HISTORIOGRAPHY

Abstract

The article analyzes the historiographical achievements of Ukrainian foreign historians on the policy of the leadership of Poland and Romania during 1921–1924 regarding the Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic interned in the camps of these countries. General scientific and special research methods were used in solving the set tasks: historiographical analysis and synthesis, generalization, quantitative, historical-comparative, etc. The conceptual approaches and techniques used by Ukrainian foreign experts to scientifically reconstruct this policy were clarified. It is shown that Ukrainian foreign historians rejected the ideologically biased conclusions of Soviet historiography regarding the policy of the Polish and Romanian leadership towards the interned Army of the UPR, preparing a number of works in which this problem was covered at a higher scientific level. It is noted that not all works covered the research problem to the same extent. A characteristic feature of these works in the interwar period was the simple statement of more or less favorable attitude of the governments of Poland and Romania to interned soldiers, emphasizing that Poles and Romanians helped the interned Army of the UPR, pursuing their own political goals. At the same time, this problem was considered by the authors of the publications not directly, but in the context of a wider palette of camp issues. The analytical component of such publications was low. It is emphasized that Ukrainian foreign historians of the postwar period departed from a simple and concise statement of well-known facts on the researched problem, at a higher analytical level analyzed the policy of Polish leaders regarding the interned Army of the UPR. However, the attitude of the Romanian authorities towards interned Ukrainian soldiers generally fell out of sight of Ukrainian foreign researchers of the postwar period. A general conclusion is made that in the works of Ukrainian foreign historians the policy of Polish and Romanian government circles regarding the interned Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic on their territory was not considered a complete scientific problem. As a rule, the desire of the politicians of these countries to use the military potential of the Ukrainian army to solve their own problems in relations with Soviet Russia was stated, but without a sufficient analysis of the circumstances that determined the direction of such a policy. In addition, the analysis of the research topic showed a clear bias towards the coverage of the policy of the Polish leadership towards Ukrainian soldiers interned on its territory. Romania's position on this issue was covered only in isolated works, which significantly impoverished the historiography of the problem as a whole.