There have lengthy been tensions, political, financial and cultural, between Poland and Ukraine. However that hasn’t avoided Poland from being the largest supporter of its neighbour, taking in tens of millions of Ukrainians fleeing the battle, about 1 million of whom have remained.
And in 2023, Poland conferred its best possible honour, the Order of the White Eagle, on Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky. On the time, then-president Andrzej Duda instructed the Ukrainian president: “It is difficult to hide the tears of emotion watching your service to your homeland.”
However on June 19, the present president, Karol Nawrocki, introduced he used to be rescinding the order and stripping Zelensky of the glory. He did so after Zelensky awarded the honorary name “Heroes of the UPA” to an elite unit of Ukraine’s particular forces. Zelensky mentioned he had awarded the glory on the unit’s request. He mentioned it used to be his accountability as commander-in-chief, who “must provide them with everything they need to protect our people and our land”. He added: “And if they are motivated by our heroes … and if this is very important to them, I must do whatever they tell me.”
Political spats between the 2 nations over historic reminiscence are not anything new. However that is the primary since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine to escalate to this stage. And the reality is that it has extra to do with home Polish politics than any long-term rift between Poland and Ukraine.
First, some background. The Ukrainian Rebel Military (UPA) used to be a Ukrainian nationalist formation that fought towards the Soviets throughout the second one international battle. After harsh Soviet rule in Ukraine many within the UPA noticed the German army invasion as freeing them from Soviet repression.
Nevertheless it became out that the Nazis had been even worse than the Soviets. For the Poles, although, recollections of the bloodbath of ethnic Poles in Volhynia, now Volyn, in Ukraine, through contributors of the UPA, stay uncooked.
As American historian Timothy Snyder has written: “Ukrainians think about the UPA mainly through … the struggle against the Red Army after 1945. Poles remember … 1943, when the UPA killed tens of thousands of Poles in Volhynia.”
Those recollections result in other interpretations that are used to serve incessantly divergent home political functions within the two nations. In spite of the UPA’s historical past, Ukraine continues to award UPA-related honours since the nationalist motion has turn into an emblem of resistance to Soviet and Russian rule, which works with the wider post-2014 marketing campaign to rid Ukraine of vestiges of its communist previous.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has bolstered this pattern, making such honours much less about revisiting the previous than about mobilising recent symbols of nationwide resistance in Ukraine – even though they continue to be deeply debatable in Poland.
Nawrocki claims he revoked Zelensky’s award as a result of “his countrymen’s pain threshold has been crossed”. It’s a powerful response, which vastly contrasts with Nawrocki’s personal earlier place as head of the Institute of Nationwide Remembrance in 2023, when he mentioned that Ukraine used to be loose to honour its personal historic figures, together with the UPA’s leaders.
The Polish high minister, Donald Tusk, used to be extra restrained, urging each nations to prevent quarrelling in regards to the previous for the sake of the longer term. His deputy Radosław Sikorski, who may be Poland’s minister of overseas affairs, identified that whilst Zelensky’s decree used to be beside the point, that Nawrocki’s response used to be disproportionate and were welcomed in Moscow.
Jockeying for political merit
This distinction between the responses of Nawrocki, a rightwing populist, and the centre-left executive means that the dispute can’t be defined through historical past by myself. It illustrates the friction between the right-leaning president and the left-leaning executive. Nawrocki has unofficially began a marketing campaign for subsequent yr’s parliamentary election and is rallying for his Legislation and Justice birthday celebration (PiS) through taking part in up anti-Ukrainian sentiment.
Electioneering: the Polish president, Karol Nawrocki, is in marketing campaign mode on behalf of his Legislation and Justice birthday celebration for parliamentary elections in 2027.
EPA/Piotr Polak
Ahead of being elected, Nawrocki promised to dam Ukraine’s accession to Nato. He has additionally been towards Ukraine’s club of the EU. Zelensky has given him a chance to capitalise on anti-Ukrainian narratives that play neatly to Poles disaffected through the battle.
Moreover, through revoking Zelensky’s honour, Nawrocki has laid down a problem to Tusk. The high minister’s countersignature is needed to validate the verdict – and this could put him in a hard political scenario locally.
Whilst anti-Ukrainian rhetoric falls on fertile soil in Poland because of in style fatigue at supporting such a lot of refugees, there may be nonetheless sturdy toughen for Ukraine.
Jerzy Wójcik, a distinguished Polish journalist and media govt, who has led main humanitarian campaigns like Heat from Poland for Kyiv, initiated a petition to give Zelenskyy with Citizen’s Order of the Long term award. He mentioned that “the Polish right wing has launched a campaign ahead of the parliamentary elections and is ruthlessly exploiting the Volhynia tragedy for political gain”.
UPA’s previous hyperlinks to genocide are felt through maximum Poles. However there may be nonetheless a powerful pressure in relation to Nawrocki’s revocation of Zelensky’s order. This, at the side of Polish public toughen for Ukraine, means that the dispute is extra advanced than the political rhetoric implies.
The dispute isn’t essentially in regards to the UPA – neither is it proof of a elementary shift in Polish overseas coverage. Whilst it has the possible to turn into a larger diplomatic problem for the 2 nations, it illustrates a broader phenomenon: political leaders mobilising contested historical past to resolve present-day home political issues.
Identical dynamics can also be noticed in family members between Serbia and Kosovo. Their political leaders continuously invoke competing historic narratives surrounding the 14th-century Fight of Kosovo to support their home political status, incessantly on the expense of debate between the 2 facets.
Those methods would possibly generate temporary home political positive factors. However they possibility undermining strategically vital relationships.
