THE MEMORY OF THE UKRAINIAN-POLISH INTERETHNIC CONFLICT IN VOLHYNIA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN MODERN POLISH SOCIETY (ON THE EXAMPLE OF CINEMA)

Abstract

In the modern world, more and more attention is paid to the concept of "historical memory", it is studied by historians, philosophers, journalists. Historical memory is associated with the existence of socio-historical stereotypes, the formation of a national mentality, identification with the history and culture of the people. In fact, by "historical memory" we mean the ability of the human mind to preserve the individual and collective experience of interpersonal relationships and to form on its basis the idea of history as such and its place in it. In fact, it is available information for the social identification of the individual and the community. Historical memory – individual and collective – is the result of the interaction of the individual and the social environment. Without such interaction, there is no historical memory. Ukrainians and Poles are two neighboring peoples who are historically closely linked, each with their own historical memory of a common past. The problems of historical memory are especially acute in bilateral relations with the recent past. In particular, this can be clearly seen in the example of the interethnic Ukrainian-Polish conflict that took place in Volyn during the Second World War. The proposed article traces the peculiarities of the formation and evolution of sociohistorical stereotypes of Poles about Ukrainians on the example of modern Polish cinema, in particular V. Smazhovsky’s film "Volyn". It is on the example of this film that the evolution of the aggravation of negative historical stereotypes about Ukrainians in Polish society and the transformation of the historical memory of Poles about the common Ukrainian- Polish history can be traced. It has been proved that cinema is a very effective means of forming the historical memory of society and can have an extremely negative impact on modern interethnic Polish-Ukrainian relations.