UKRAINIAN CIVIL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS IN VOLYN UNDER TOTALITARIAN REGIMES BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS

Abstract

The article examines the historical aspects of the development and formation of socio-political and public organizations in Volhynia, which after the end of World War I was under the rule of two totalitarian states – the Soviet Union and the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. The policies of the governments of these states led to the unfolding of a national movement in Volhynia.The main political and intellectual Ukrainian forces were concentrated among immigrants in Volhynia and Galicia and in Western European countries. They were based on military personnel, soldiers, and officers of the Ukrainian Army who had been hardened in battles for the Ukrainian People's Republic. It was in the territories occupied by Poland that Ukrainian social, cultural, and political centers began to form, which had ties to Soviet Ukraine and sought optimal ways to solve national problems. The 1920s and 1930s saw the intensive development of the ideology of Ukrainian nationalism. Alongside the old Dnieper intelligentsia, a new generation emerged among the immigrants – young people who were oriented towards the idea of Ukrainian independence. The role of Ukrainian immigration in the creation of Ukrainian social, cultural, and political centers that sought optimal ways to solve national problems is examined. It has been found that in the Volhynia region, which was part of Soviet Ukraine, the Ukrainian national movement was unable to manifest itself in its usual organizational forms and apply the same tactics as in the western Volhynia lands. However, it was primarily realized in national and cultural life in the 1920s and early 1930s. This was primarily the activity of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which, through its mass publications and organization, influenced a significant part of the Ukrainian population from the standpoint of national and church sovereignty. These facts give reason to assert that the ideas of national independence were a pan-Ukrainian phenomenon. The example of the Volhynian lands shows that, despite all the differences in the social and political systems that prevailed in both the western and eastern territories of Volhynia, and despite the different circumstances created by the political regimes, the process of forming a national idea represented an organic unity across all Ukrainian lands.