Viatrovych: Poland and Ukraine are divided not by UPA, but by a myth about it
Historian Volodymyr Viatrovych argues that the main obstacle in Polish-Ukrainian relations is not the actual Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), but a politically constructed image rooted in Soviet and Russian propaganda.
Volodymyr Viatrovych, a Ukrainian historian and former director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, states in his opinion piece that the current tensions between Poland and Ukraine are not caused by the real Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), but by a myth about it. According to him, the dominant image of UPA in Polish society has been shaped over the past two decades, based on Soviet propaganda and later Russian information campaigns.
The author notes that in the 1990s, when Poland and Ukraine established a strategic partnership, the UPA issue was not central. This was facilitated by their common struggle against the Soviet empire. The situation changed in the early 2000s, when Polish society began debating the Jedwabne massacre, creating a need for a "comfortable" victim narrative. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin started a policy aimed at weakening Polish-Ukrainian rapprochement.
Viatrovych emphasizes that in 2003, Presidents Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Leonid Kuchma attempted reconciliation, but after 2010, when Viktor Yanukovych came to power in Ukraine, anti-UPA narratives gained support even within Ukraine. In 2013, Yanukovych's party called on the Polish Sejm to recognize UPA actions as genocide.
According to the author, the real UPA was not an anti-Polish movement. Its goal was an independent Ukrainian state, and the conflict with the Polish underground arose from territorial claims. Even during the war, there was cooperation between the UPA and the Polish Home Army, proving that UPA was not xenophobic.
The myth of a xenophobic UPA has its roots in Soviet propaganda and is now used by the Russian narrative of "denazification." Viatrovych calls for deconstructing this myth to preserve Polish-Ukrainian mutual understanding and European security.
