Tadeusz Ludwik Hołówko (September 17, 1889 – August 29, 1931), codename ''Kirgiz'', was an interwar Polish politician, diplomat and author of many articles and books. He was most notable for his moderate stance on the "Ukrainian problem" faced by the

Polish government The Government of Poland takes the form of a Unitary state, unitary Parliamentary republic, parliamentary Representative democracy, representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Poland, President is the head of state and the Prime ...

, which due to its nationalist policies in Poland's largely

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

- and Belarusian-populated eastern territories, faced increasing tensions there. Despite, or perhaps because of, being a relative moderate in policies toward the Ukrainian population, and a supporter of peaceful cooperation, he was

assassinated Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have a ...

in 1931 by two members of the radical

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists ( uk, Організація українських націоналістів, Orhanizatsiya ukrayins'kykh natsionalistiv, abbreviated OUN) was a Ukrainian ultranationalist political organization estab ...

Life

Born on September 17, 1889, in Semipalatinsk,

Governor-Generalship of the Steppes Governor-Generalship of the Steppes, or General Government of the Steppes (Степное генерал-губернаторство in Russian), was a portion of Imperial Russian Central Asia which included both much of modern Eastern and Cent ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

(now

Semey Semey ( kk, Семей, Semei, سەمەي; cyrl, Семей ), until 2007 known as Semipalatinsk (russian: Семипала́тинск) and in 1917–1920 as Alash-kala ( kk, Алаш-қала, ''Alaş-qala''), is a city in eastern Kazakhst ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

), Hołówko became a close collaborator of

Józef Piłsudski ), Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire (now Lithuania) , death_date = , death_place = Warsaw, Poland , constituency = , party = None (formerly PPS) , spouse = , children = Wan ...

,Pracownia Literatury Ukraińskiej. Instytut Slawistyki PAN
(Department of Ukrainian Literature. Institute of Slavistics,

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of ...

. Last accessed on 30 September 2006 first in the

Polish Socialist Party The Polish Socialist Party ( pl, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS) is a socialist political party in Poland. It was one of the most important parties in Poland from its inception in 1892 until its merger with the communist Polish Workers' P ...

(''PPS''), later in the

Polish Military Organization The Polish Military Organisation, PMO ( pl, Polska Organizacja Wojskowa, POW) was a secret military organization which formed during World War I (1914-1918). Józef Piłsudski founded the group in August 1914; it adopted the name ''POW'' in Novem ...

(''POW'') and finally in the pro-

Sanation Sanation ( pl, Sanacja, ) was a Polish political movement that was created in the interwar period, prior to Józef Piłsudski's May 1926 ''Coup d'État'', and came to power in the wake of that coup. In 1928 its political activists would go on ...

Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government The Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government ( pl, Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem, ; abbreviated ''BBWR'') was a "non-political" organization in the interwar Second Polish Republic, in 1928–35. It was closely affiliated with ...

(''BBWR'') party and the Polish government (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). In 1918 he became a vice-minister in the first government of the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...

led by

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Ignacy Daszyński Ignacy Ewaryst Daszyński (; 26 October 1866 – 31 October 1936) was a Polish socialist politician, journalist, and very briefly Prime Minister of the Second Polish Republic's first government, formed in Lublin in 1918. In October 1892 he cofo ...

.w dziejach i kulturze Polski
(Lublin in history and culture of Poland). Last accessed on 30 September 2006 One of the organizers of the ''POW'' and the ''BBWR'', he was the ''BBWR''s vice president and chief ideologist. From 1930 he was a deputy to the Polish parliament (''

Sejm The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of t ...

''); he advocated increasing the presidential and executive powers and decreasing the powers of the Sejm. He is credited by many English and Polish authors for advocating and improving relations with Poland's ethnic minorities, chiefly the Ukrainians and Belarusians.

Orest Subtelny Orest Subtelny ( uk, О́рест Субте́льний, 17 May 1941 – 24 July 2016) was a Ukrainian-Canadian historian. Born in Kraków, Poland, he received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1973. From 1982 to 2015, he was a Professor ...

, ''Ukraine: A History'', University of Toronto Press, 2005,
Google Print, p. 428Google Print, p.445
/ref>

Timothy Snyder Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute f ...

, ''Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine'', Yale University Press, 2005,
Google Print, p.33p.41p.75
/ref>

Marian Siemakowicz Marian may refer to: People * Mari people, a Finno-Ugric ethnic group in Russia * Marian (given name), a list of people with the given name * Marian (surname), a list of people so named Places * Marian, Iran (disambiguation) * Marian, Queenslan ...

Założenia programowe głównych obozów politycznych wobec szkolnictwa dla ludności białoruskiej w II Rzeczypospolitej
(Plans of main Polish political camps towards education of Belarusian minority in the Second Republic). Last accessed on 30 September 2006

Włodzimierz Kalicki Włodzimierz Kalicki (born 1955) is a Polish writer and journalist. He published his first articles in the underground '' bibuła'' papers in the 1970s in the People's Republic of Poland. He received an underground award during martial law in Po ...

Gazeta Wyborcza ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of "real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the g ...

, 2002-08-29
29 VIII 1931: Morderstwo podczas burzy
(29.8.1931: Murder during the storm). Last accessed on 30 September 2006 However, certain Ukrainian authors Petro Mirchuk.
Narys istoriï Orhanizatsiï ukraïnskyh natsionalistiv.
" Section "Vbyvstvo polskogo posla Tadeusha Holufka" i

/ref> Zynoviy Knysh.
V sutinkah zrady (Ubuvstvo Tadeusha Holufka na tli zrady Romana Baranovskoho)
, consider otherwise pointing out his opposition to granting the autonomy to Ukrainian regions and even to creation of the Ukrainian university in Galicia''"Peace to his sole, Holowko was absolutely against any autonomy thoughts, wherever they came from. More than that. He was against the creation of the Ukrainian university anywhere in Galicia. He, and for very good reasons, considered that in the current state of affairs, when the painful for us problem is yet always presented as the political one, giving to the Ukrainian population any kind of autonomy or University is only to preserve and aggregate this political issue, and by this, separatism, and as such to make the realization of the program impossible..."''
'' Słowo Polskie'', October 5, 1931, as quoted by Petro Mirchuk. and to his efforts aimed at convincing the Ukrainian leaders to recall their complaints about

pacification Pacification may refer to: The restoration of peace through a declaration or peace treaty: *Pacification of Ghent, an alliance of several provinces of the Netherlands signed on November 8, 1576 *Treaty of Berwick (1639), or ''Pacification of Berwi ...

submitted to the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...

.''"His government activity consisted in conducting negotiations... His main task were negotiations with UA politicians to convince them to recall from Geneva their complaints on Pacification."'', ''Nashpud'', October 2, 1931 Modern research however notes he was supportive of giving wide autonomy to the minorities and supported their cultural development,Eugeniusz Mironowicz, Oleg Łatyszonek
Historia Białorusi
Last accessed on 30 September 2006. for example, by advocating for using

Belarusian language Belarusian ( be, беларуская мова, biełaruskaja mova, link=no, ) is an East Slavic language. It is the native language of many Belarusians and one of the two official state languages in Belarus. Additionally, it is spoken in some p ...

in schools, but not Ukrainian. Considered one of the ideologists and activists of the " Prometheist" policies

, ''Covert Polish missions across the Soviet Ukrainian border, 1928-1933'' in ''Cofini'', Silvia Salvatici (a cura di), Rubbettino, 2005,
p.1p.2p.3p.4p.5
. that sought to destabilize the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

by encouraging national uprisings among the non-Russian nations that had been conquered by the Soviet Union, particularly the

Ukrainians Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian. The majority ...

and the peoples of the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...

, Hołówko took an active part in preparing the 1929 Soviet-Polish treaty, called the Litvinov's Pact after the Soviet diplomat

Maxim Litvinov Maxim Maximovich Litvinov (; born Meir Henoch Wallach; 17 July 1876 – 31 December 1951) was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet statesman and diplomat. A strong advocate of diplomatic agreements leading towards disarmament, Litvinov wa ...

. In his published comments to the Treaty, Hołówko stated apparently contrary to the "Prometheian" ideas that the Soviet control over

Dnieper Ukraine The term Dnieper Ukraine (: "over Dnieper land"), usually refers to territory on either side of the middle course of the Dnieper River. The Ukrainian name derives from ''nad‑'' (prefix: "above, over") + ''Dnipró'' ("Dnieper") + ''‑shchyna'' ...

is the most beneficial condition for the Polish "solution of the Ukrainian problem" as any genuinely Ukrainian government would have likely raised territorial claims towards Polish state. On the other hand, he was frequently cited as an advocate for independence of Ukraine, Belarus and other countries. His controversial stance towards the Ukrainian problem made him a target for Ukrainian extremists. Approximately 1/3 of population of the

was formed of ethnic minorities,

Norman Davies Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a Welsh-Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Professor at ...

God's Playground ''God's Playground: A History of Poland'' is a history book in two volumes written by Norman Davies, covering a 1000-year history of Poland. Volume 1: ''The origins to 1795'', and Volume 2: ''1795 to the present'' first appeared as the Oxford Cla ...

, Columbia University Press, 2005,
Google Print, p.299
/ref> but their problems were marginalized by the Polish government, whose heavy-handed policies were only serving to antagonize the Ukrainian population.

, ''The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999'', Yale University Press,
Google Books, p.144
/ref>Davies, God's Playground, op.cit.
/ref> Eventually the extremists among Ukrainians started sabotage and

assassination campaigns Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have a ...

, and the Polish government responded with further repressions. Hołówko was one of the few who tried to deal with that problem with negotiations and compromise; he mediated between willing Polish and Ukrainian politicians and proposed various plans to solve the tensions, from releasing Ukrainians prisoners and granting the minorities more rights, up to giving the

Kresy Eastern Borderlands ( pl, Kresy Wschodnie) or simply Borderlands ( pl, Kresy, ) was a term coined for the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic, it ...

regions, inhabited by those minorities, substantial

autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...

. However, such pro-Polish Ukrainian politicians were viewed as collaborators by the radical

, and Hołówko's stance made him enemies among extremist politicians on both sides, who saw profit in further inter-ethnic conflict. He died in ''Truskawiec'' (

Truskavets Truskavets ( uk, Трускавець, romanized: ''Truskavets''; pl, Truskawiec) is a city in Drohobych Raion, western Ukraine's Lviv Oblast (region), near the border with Poland. It hosts the administration of Truskavets urban hromada, one of t ...

) on August 29, 1931, one of the first victims of an

assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...

campaign carried out by militants of the

(''OUN''). Having experienced heart-related illness, and unable to go to abroad due to financial constraints, he had decided to stay at the health

resort A resort (North American English) is a self-contained commercial establishment that tries to provide most of a vacationer's wants, such as food, drink, swimming, lodging, sports, entertainment, and shopping, on the premises. The term ''resort ...

of Truskawiec in eastern Poland's ''

'', an area with a largely Ukrainian population. He had, moreover, chosen to stay at a guest house run by

Greek-Catholic The term Greek Catholic Church can refer to a number of Eastern Catholic Churches following the Byzantine (Greek) liturgy, considered collectively or individually. The terms Greek Catholic, Greek Catholic church or Byzantine Catholic, Byzantine Ca ...

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

s of

Basil of Caesarea Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great ( grc, Ἅγιος Βασίλειος ὁ Μέγας, ''Hágios Basíleios ho Mégas''; cop, Ⲡⲓⲁⲅⲓⲟⲥ Ⲃⲁⲥⲓⲗⲓⲟⲥ; 330 – January 1 or 2, 379), was a bishop of Ca ...

(''Sorores Basyliae''), partly as a declaration of his pro-Ukrainian stance, and partly because it was less expensive. At the news that he had chosen Truskawiec to spend his vacation, the local police commissioner, unable to change Hołówko's mind, assigned a man to shadow him as a bodyguard. August 29 was Hołówko's last day in Truskawiec; unable to leave as planned because he was waiting for a cash transfer to pay for his stay, he was further delayed by a storm. Then in his room he was met by two OUN activists, Vasyl Bilas and Dmytro Danylyshyn, who shot him and left the scene. His death, widely discussed in the Polish press, and mentioned in the international press and even at a

session, Wojciech Kujawabr>Ukraińcy w międzywojennej Polsce
(Ukrainians in the pre-war Poland). Last accessed on 30 September 2006. was part of a

vicious circle A vicious circle (or cycle) is a complex chain of events that reinforces itself through a feedback loop, with detrimental results. It is a system with no tendency toward equilibrium (social, economic, ecological, etc.), at least in the short r ...

involving the Polish government's brutal repression of ethnically-Ukrainian citizens (the Polish government's "

" campaign) and the OUN's campaign of terror. Some time later, the Polish police

commissioner A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something). In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to in ...

in charge of investigating Hołówko's death,

Emilian Czechowski Emilian or Emiliano may refer to: *Emilia (region of Italy), a region of northern Italy *Emilian of Cogolla, a Visigothic saint *Emilian dialects, spoken in Emilia, northern Italy *A Romanian male given name: **Emilian Bratu (1904–1991), chemic ...

, himself became an OUN assassination victim.

Works

*''O demokracji, polityce i moralności życia publicznego'' *
Kwestia narodowościowa w Polsce
' (1922).

Quotes

*"Influence of communism diminishes with progress... n a wealthy, educated village a communist agitator has nothing to do. Thus two things are needed do combat influences of communism: objective, independent and just administration, and cultural work."

Andrzej Chojnowski Andrzej is the Polish form of the given name Andrew. Notable individuals with the given name Andrzej * Andrzej Bartkowiak (born 1950), Polish film director and cinematographer * Andrzej Bobola, S.J. (1591–1657), Polish saint, missionary and ma ...

br> - Piłsudczycy wobec komunizmu
(Piłsudskiites and communism). Last accessed on 30 September 2006. *"Independence of Poland is inconceivable without independent Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Ukraine and Belarus. Independence of Poland is only one of many examples of a process seen throughout modern Europe - freeing of nations from political slavery. If Poland is alone, if other countries created on the ruins of Russian Empire will fall - dark will be Poland's future." *..."such policies eeds to be usedthat ethnic minorities would feel good in Poland, not attempting to break away from Polish state, but on the opposite, they would see such a break away as a defeat. ..

hus Hus or HUS may refer to: Medicine * Hemolytic-uremic syndrome, a disease characterized by haemolytic anemia, kidney problems and a low platelet count People * Hus (surname) * Hus family, an 18th-century French dynasty of ballet dancers and ac ...

those national movements must be supported ..Therefore that population which would have complete freedom within borders of the Republic would not be loured by Russia."

Life

Works

Quotes

See also

References

Further reading