Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation and its contribution to Ukraine’s independence. A Memoir

The Polish discussion on Ukraine and the “Eastern Question” filled the pages of many of the underground publications that existed in the 1980s in communist Poland. Similar to Kultura since the late 1940s, they called for reconciliation between former enemies and mutual forgiveness for past crimes committed by all sides.

Growing up in northern England I was surrounded by nationalisms of different kinds. Irish nationalists seeking a united Ireland were at war in Ulster and had brought their terrorist campaign to the British mainland. Eastern European refugees from the communist bloc had brought their nationalisms with them to Great Britain and these continued to open old wounds in the émigré ghettos. The two biggest of these nationalisms were Ukrainian and Polish. Most members of the Ukrainian community in Britain were members of the three wings of the OUN (Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists) with the Stepan Bandera wing by far the largest. Their primary enemy though was the Russians and the Soviet empire – not Poles or Poland.