PARISIAN “CULTURE” OF THE 1950–1980S: THE UKRAINIAN QUESTION IN THE CONTEXT OF EUROPEAN POLITICS

Abstract

The presented article analyzes the concepts of Polish oppositionists Jerzy Giedroyc and Juliusz Meroshewski, who were in exile after the Second World War and represented their vision of post-war Europe, in general, and Ukraine, in particular, through the pages of the magazine “Culture”. The ideological founder and chief editor of the magazine “Culture” was a Polish émigré activist: journalist and publicist Jerzy Giedroyc, whose worldview was formed under the influence of the “Promethean idea”, which was the basis of the interwar political doctrine of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which aimed to fight for the creation of independent Soviet republics, which fell under the control of the Bolsheviks in the period 1918–1921. Having formed a circle of like-minded people around him, E. Gedroyc created, in fact, an institute of Polish oppositional thought, offering a completely new vision of international relations after the Second World War, which envisaged the independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. Discussions about the Ukrainian issue that took place in the columns of the Parisian “Culture” during the second half of the 20th century had a significant impact on the Polish political elite, contributing to changes in the main trends in the relations of Poles with their neighbors already in the early 90s of the 20th century. Among the questions that the editorial board of the Parisian “Culture” posed to itself was the review of the common historical heritage of Poles and Ukrainians, the issue of inter-ethnic reconciliation and the absence of mutual territorial claims. In the 50s and 60s of the 20th century, such views were a bold Novatros position, which was at absolute odds with the contemporary opinion of Polish émigré political figures in the USA and Great Britain.