Od mitu do geopolityki: polski wiek XIX i Ukraina

Abstract

The paper proposes a hypothesis on phases in the development of Polish-Ukrainian relations between 1795 and 1918, being a period of non-existence of the Polish state. The task of representing the “spirit of the nation” was then largely assumed by literature and art. Referring to those fields, the author indicates four key milestones (phases) in the development of the image of Ukraine and the Ukrainians in Polish literature: 1. the period following the 3rd partition in 1795, with a predominant mythical vision of Ukraine, initially classicist, then romantic; 2. the pre-January period covering the years 1848–1863, when the existence of a separate Ukrainian – national and cultural – idiom was recognized by certain representatives of Polish elite; 3. the post-January period beginning with the January Insurrection that failed in 1864, ending with the 1905 Revolution: that period was characterized by upholding the vision of the renewed Commonwealth of Three Nations (Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian), but also by a modification in the attitude towards the Ukrainians who emerged as an autonomous actor in culture and politics; 4. the period of 1905–1918, when the Ukrainian cause continued to be discussed in Polish literature, and became the subject of a scientific and geopolitical, wartime analysis.