Reflections on the Ukrainian Maidan Ukrainian memory and identity
Reflections on the Ukrainian Maidan Ukrainian memory and identity

Summary/Abstract: The 2013–2014 events in Ukraine have been eagerly observed by Poles in western Poland in particular. Many of them have roots in present-day Ukraine, in Podolia and Volhynia, the territories from which their ancestors were expelled by the decision of the Great Powers after the Second World War. In Kudowa Zdrój, the resort town on the Polish-Czech border where I live, there are many Polish “Volhynians.” Across the border there are Czech “Volynians.” The Maidan events in Kyiv in spring 2014 made them all pay attention. A romantic undertone to the Maidan gathering provided additional stimulus. Where else in Europe would people be able to stay put in spite of minus twenty degrees Celsius? And in such numbers? Nowhere. This brings back the echoes of the traditional Ukrainian Cossack endurance. In spring 2014 pictures from Kyiv resemble the description of Ukraine by Eric Lassota in 1594 or, half a century later, by Wilhelm de Beauplan, or finally by Władysław A. Serczyk in The Faraway Ukraine written in the late seventeenth century.

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