In BBC Radio 4\u2019s The Invention Of Poland<\/em>, recorded shortly before Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine<\/a>, Misha Glenny and his producer, Miles Warde, trace Poland\u2019s history, a story that also takes in Ukraine because of the countries\u2019 shared histories.<\/p>\n Here, in conversation with Jonathan Wright, Misha offers his thoughts on how the past feeds present relations between Poland and Ukraine.<\/p>\n It\u2019s fascinating that Poland is today a large European country and yet it disappeared for a while.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a pivotal moment when Poland ceases to exist in 1795. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had been whittled down for 22 years prior to that, in particular by Russia and Prussia, and then Austria decided to join in as well. Austria took southern Poland, including Krak\u00f3w, and what is now Lviv in modern Ukraine, which we know from recent news reports. Poland then disappeared until the end of the First World War<\/a>.<\/p>\n But until the middle of the 18th century, Poland, or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as it was known, was one of the biggest territories in Europe. And it was politically anomalous in that it was liberal. There was limited democracy and the nobility the szlachta<\/em> \u2013 were able to vote for their monarch.<\/p>\n Why is Ukraine being invaded, and what might Russia want from its neighbouring country? Professor Serhy Yekelchyk, an expert in Ukrainian history and Russian-Ukrainian relations, explains nine milestone moments in the history of Ukraine and Russia |<\/strong> Read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> This was a powerful and militarily successful territory, which went from the Baltic Sea right down to the Black Sea, including almost all of present-day Ukraine. One thing that means is, when we hear from Vladimir Putin that essentially Russians and Ukrainians are the same people, that\u2019s at the very least arguable because Ukrainians have lived under a variety of tutelages, whether Turkish or Russian or Polish. Ukraine means \u2018on the edge\u2019, and it\u2019s on the edge of several empires, not just one.<\/p>\n Although there were several rebellions in territories where Polish was spoken, there was no state associated with Polish nationalism if you discount the Napoleonic satellite, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.<\/p>\n What Poland did have was a significant \u00e9migr\u00e9 community, in places as diverse as Istanbul (or Constantinople, as it was then), Chicago, Paris and London. A lot of them were wealthy and well educated, and they kept the flame of Polish identity alive.<\/p>\n 1917 |<\/strong> Establishment of the short-lived Ukrainian People\u2019s Republic<\/p>\n 1918 |<\/strong> Establishment of the Second Polish Republic<\/p>\n 1918\u20131919 |<\/strong> The Polish-Ukrainian War results in the Second Polish Republic controlling territory in western Ukraine<\/p>\n 1919 |<\/strong> Establishment of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, from 1922 one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union<\/p>\n 1939 |<\/strong> Nazi Germany and the USSR invade Poland and divide the country, including territory that\u2019s now part of Ukraine<\/p>\n 1941 |<\/strong> Germany invades the USSR. Total losses suffered by the Ukrainian population are estimated at 6six million, including 1.4 million troops, at least 40% of all Soviet losses.<\/p>\n 1947 |<\/strong> Establishment of the Polish People\u2019s Republic, part of the Eastern Bloc<\/p>\n 1989 |<\/strong> Establishment of the Third Polish Republic<\/p>\n 1991 |<\/strong> Ukraine declares its independence from the Soviet Union<\/p>\n 2014 |<\/strong> The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine ousts the government of Viktor Yanukovych, who had pursued closer ties with Russia<\/p>\n 2022 |<\/strong> Following earlier incursions, including the annexation of the Crimea, Russia invades Ukraine<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> When I first visited Warsaw in 1973, one thing that struck me was that there was a self-confidence about Polish national identity. If you were to talk to Czechs in the 1970s or 1980s about eastern Europe, they would look at what was going on in East Germany, Poland or Hungary and how it was relevant to the wider picture, and how it impacted on Czechs. But if you talked to Poles, they were only interested in Poland.<\/p>\n This was partly because it\u2019s a large country and partly because, from the Second World War<\/a> onwards, they had this intense tradition, which had echoes of earlier traditions, of resistance to the Soviets. They had understood for a long time that they were in the middle of what the historian Timothy Snyder calls the \u2018bloodlands\u2019, the flat territory of eastern Europe that Russia and Germany have contested at many points.<\/p>\n Poles resisted the Soviet-backed communist regime in 1956, in 1970\u201371 and then, most spectacularly, in 1980 with the rise of [Polish trade union] Solidarity, which mainly protested against Poland\u2019s own communist government.<\/p>\n It was the Poles who fired the starting gun for the revolutions of 1989.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> There\u2019s a close linguistic connection between the countries, so that mutual intelligibility is very rapid. Since Poland joined the European Union and Poles have left to work in western Europe, the country\u2019s labour market has been filled up largely by Ukrainians, particularly in south-eastern Poland where you will see things written in Ukrainian Cyrillic script.<\/p>\n There is a clear division between the west of Ukraine and the east and centre of Ukraine. For part of the early 20th century, what is now Lviv and the west was still part of either the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Poland. And the centre and the east was part of the Soviet Union, although Ukraine gained its own identity as the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic and had elements of statehood.<\/p>\n One of the most important events in the 1930s was the Holodomor<\/a>, which is a state-engineered famine that killed millions in one of the world\u2019s greatest bread baskets when food production was requisitioned by Josef Stalin in order to pay for industrial goods imported from the US and Europe. A sense of being sacrificed on the altar of imperial aspirations, be it German, Polish or Russian, is something that\u2019s all too familiar for Ukrainians.<\/p>\n Yes, it does. And not just Ukraine. Of course, there are some people who argue that spheres of influence really emerge during the 19th century. The US, with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, is one of the first to carve out a sphere of influence. This idea becomes a sort of codification of the imperial interests of European powers as well, both outside of Europe, but also within territories inside Europe, such as Poland.<\/p>\nCan you introduce us to Poland\u2019s history?<\/h3>\n
Russia-Ukraine crisis<\/strong><\/a><\/h4>\n
![\""Russian\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/01\/GettyImages-515208036-d3479ea.jpg?quality=45&resize=556,556"\" "\\"\"An\\"")
<\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section>How did Polish aspirations to nationhood survive post-1795?<\/h3>\n
Poland and Ukraine: from the First World War to the present day<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Is there a sense that all this means Poland thinks of itself as a big country, yet the rest of the world doesn\u2019t to the same degree?<\/h3>\n
Russia-Ukraine war: events in context<\/h4>\n
What are the contrasts and similarities between Ukrainian history and Polish history?<\/h3>\n
Have we sometimes been too accepting of a particular Russian view of eastern European history in, for example, the idea of a Russian sphere of influence? This arguably has a big impact on Ukraine\u2019s history.<\/h3>\n
![\""BBC\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/04\/BBC-Radio-4-600x600-5710424.jpg?quality=45&resize=556,556"\" "\\"\"BBC\\"\/")
<\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section>