Pamięć polityczna a pamięć społeczna w kształtowaniu się relacji polsko – ukraińskich po 1991 r.
Political Memory versus Social Memory in the Shaping of Polish-Ukrainian Relations after 1991

Summary/Abstract: A common past is the greatest ‘‘bone of contention’’ between Poland and Ukraine, being also an internal divisive issue in the societies of both countries. This pertains especially to the interpretation of events in the years 1939-1947, their evaluation and impact on current politics. The main thesis of the article is to show that in the case of Polish-Ukrainian relations after 1991 three types of memory are to be considered: political, social and oblivion. The first of them is linked to the historical and symbolic policy pursued by the organs of administration of the Republic of Poland. Due to a pro-Ukrainian trend in Poland’s foreign policy, many debatable points which had been ‘‘frozen’’ during the Cold War are belittled or said to be a closed past. Social memory is a bottom-up attempt to reconstruct national awareness and traditions disrupted by the Soviet Union. This process includes endeavors to preserve the memory of Poles murdered by the Ukrainian nationalists grouped in the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN–UPA). Those two different narrations compete for this part of the Polish society which lacks knowledge on Polish-Ukrainian history or is undecided in its opinion on the subject.

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