VOLHYNIA IN POLISH INFORMATION WARFARE ACTIVITIES

Abstract

The article deals with the issue of how the memory of Polish civilians killed by Ukrainian nationalist guerilla in Volhynia during World War Two is used by the Polish governments for the state’s political agenda in “history policy” and “historical diplomacy”. Thus, the goal of the article is to discern whether the Volhynian tragedy revisionist agenda actually exists in the Polish government, what are its aims, whom is it masterminded by, and what are the currently known results of the Polish “historical diplomacy” and “history policy” on Volhynia. The study is based on research of media materials, particularly concentrating on messaging from the Polish government actors, affiliated agents, and on reaction to the messaging inside the country and abroad, while also using the materials from previous literature on Polish-Ukrainian relations, such as results of surveys, analytical reports for the Ukrainian government, interviews of Polish and Ukrainian political science and history researchers. The results of the study allow us to note that, firstly, there exists the specific issue of the Polish government agents seeing Volhynian tragedy as a relevant topic for disseminating information about, making a revision of European historical memory into a victory of the Polish government; secondly, the Volhynian topics have been pursued by various Polish governments in the 21st century, not just the right-wing parties (the study challenges the misaimed blame for the current Polish government as the one that started politicizing the Volhynian tragedy, as the previous government already started the trend of lionizing Polish nationalists’ actions in the “Eastern Borderlands” at the Ukrainians’ expense, with the only differences being the terms of ethnic cleansing vs. genocide and the caveat for sadness over peaceful Ukrainians’ losses in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict during World War II); thirdly, the effectiveness of said Polish historical policy on Volhynia is dubious (in terms of influencing both the internal audience, per 2013 survey, and the foreign response to Polish historical diplomacy). Despite deliberate actions from Polish governments to engage in information warfare on the topic, the Volhynian issue’s influence on the actual partnership, on matters of war or peace, is limited.