Poland – Ukraine Relations: Memory Conflicts and Ways to Reconciliation 3700-AL-PURMC-QSP

The purpose of the course is providing students with a broad overview of the past and present relations between Poland and Ukraine in the context of memory policy-making in both countries. We would look at the factors, which have shaped the attitude towards history, as well as the attitude towards each other during common history and the last few decades.

We would discuss how Poles and Ukrainians perceive the darkest pages of common history today and why their approaches to history significantly differ. What are the main mutual stereotypes, why they appeared and how evolved during the last few decades. We would explore how Polish and Ukrainian historians deal with the issue of the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia and will look at how memory of the Volhynia massacre function in today’s Ukraine. We will also discuss the issue of controversies around national heroes in Ukraine, the role and place of the UPA in the national tradition, and Polish claims in this regard. We would analyze the current process of decommunization in Ukraine and its wartime historical policy.

During the course we would also discuss what ordinary citizens think about common pages of Polish-Ukrainian history in both countries and what role do intellectual elites in Poland and Ukraine play in historical debates. In what ways history is presented and learned in both countries? What are the biggest challenges towards the Polish-Ukrainian dialogue nowadays and how Ukrainian revolutions and Russian aggression, as well as changes of power in Poland and Ukraine, have influenced the historical dialogue? We will also discuss how concepts of nationalism and patriotism differ in both countries? Students will have a chance to work on their own by conducting their own research on Ukraine-Polish relations in different displays depending on their interests.