Wiktor Poliszczuk (10 October 1925 in

Dubno Dubno ( uk, Ду́бно) is a city and municipality located on the Ikva River in Rivne Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Dubno Raion (district). The city is located on intersection of two major Eu ...

near

Rivne Rivne (; uk, Рівне ),) also known as Rovno (Russian: Ровно; Polish: Równe; Yiddish: ראָוונע), is a city in western Ukraine. The city is the administrative center of Rivne Oblast (province), as well as the surrounding Rivne Raio ...

– 17 November 2008 in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

) was a Polish-Ukrainian-Canadian (a Canadian citizen of Polish-Ukrainian descent) politologist specialising in the history of political thought, who wrote about the Polish-Ukrainian relations during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and issues relating to the emergence of

Ukrainian nationalism Ukrainian nationalism refers to the promotion of the unity of Ukrainians as a people and it also refers to the promotion of the identity of Ukraine as a nation state. The nation building that arose as nationalism grew following the French Revol ...

in the 20th century resulting in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Poliszczuk's work has been praised by several Ukrainian, Polish, Canadian, American,

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 ...

. (2001)
“To Resolve the Ukrainian Question Once and For All”: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943-1947
and Ukrainian historians, but also acknowledged for his Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation effort.Magdalena Mazajczyk, Mateusz Raj-Chirowski
"Wiktor Poliszczuk pośmiertnie udekorowany."
Wiktor Poliszczuk posthumously awarded the medal of ''Polonia Mater Nostra Est''. Including photograph of award ceremony at the Warsaw Friendship House, April 16, 2009. ''Światowy Kongres Kresowian'', 2009-05-08.

Biography

Poliszczuk was born in

(then in 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 ...

), into a family of Ukrainian father and Polish mother. He was raised as an

Eastern Orthodox Christian Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...

. When he was a child Wiktor, his mother and two sisters were deported to

Kazakh SSR ; kk, Қазақ Советтік Социалистік Республикасы) *1991: Republic of Kazakhstan (russian: Республика Казахстан; kk, Қазақстан Республикасы) , linking_name = the ...

by the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

authorities (in April 1940). His father (an ethnic Ukrainian who had served as government official in interwar Poland) was executed by the Soviets. After World War II his family resettled in

Dnipropetrovsk Dnipro, previously called Dnipropetrovsk from 1926 until May 2016, is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper Rive ...

and in 1946 moved to Poland following Polish-Soviet repatriation agreement, to re-unite with the family of his aunt. In Poland Poliszczuk graduated from the Pedagogical Liceum and worked as a teacher. Later he studied law at the

Wrocław University Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, ro ...

, and

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

at the

University of Silesia in Katowice The University of Silesia in Katowice ( pl, Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach, UŚ) is an autonomous state-run university in Silesia Province, Katowice, Poland. The university offers higher education and research facilities. It offers undergrad ...

, where he obtained a PhD (his doctoral thesis was about the ideology of

). He worked as an attorney in the

People's Republic of Poland The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million nea ...

. In 1981 during the time of martial law in Poland he emigrated to Canada. He lived in

until his death in November 2008.

Work

Poliszczuk's research and his extensive writing were devoted to the anatomy of

bolshevism Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, fo ...

, theory and practice of national rights in the former

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 ...

as well as the theory and practice of the

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 ...

and the

Ukrainian Insurgent Army The Ukrainian Insurgent Army ( uk, Українська повстанська армія, УПА, translit=Ukrayins'ka povstans'ka armiia, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and later partisan formation. During World ...

activities. His on-line biography does not list any affiliations with a Canadian university. His two books, translated into English-language, were

self-published Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pri ...

in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, including: ''Legal and political assessment of the OUN and UPA'', as well as ''Bitter truth : the criminality of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)''. Wiktor Poliszczuk was the author of over 200 papers, books and scientific publications, scientific articles, polemics, reviews, and press releases written in English, Ukrainian and Polish, including five large volumes bearing the title ''Integral Ukrainian nationalism as a variant of fascism'' (Toronto, 2003). His two books were translated into English-language. In his writing, Poliszczuk clearly separates the issues of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Ukrainian nation, stating that the

was based on terror. He explores the sources of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists' actions as based on the theories of

Dmytro Dontsov Dmytro Ivanovych Dontsov ( ua, Дмитро Іванович Донцов) (August 29, 1883 – March 30, 1973) was a Ukrainian nationalist writer, publisher, journalist and political thinker whose radical ideas, known as integral nationalism, we ...

. On April 16, 2009, Wiktor Poliszczuk received posthumously the "Polonia Mater Nostra Est" award.

Analysis

Poliszczuk's main argument in his work on the history of Ukrainian nationalism was that it began only in the period following World War I. Poliszczuk postulated that the earlier political beliefs held by Ukrainian writers such as Mykola Mikhnovsky were oriented toward independence and did not have the same radical character of

's ideology which served as inspiration for the World War II atrocities committed by the

. According to Poliszczuk – wrote Dr Anna Dziduszko-Rościszewska of the

Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University (Polish: ''Uniwersytet Jagielloński'', UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in ...

– the main difference among the ideas of Mikhnovsky and Dontsov was the actual definition of a nation. For Mikhnovsky, the reform of the existing social order did not preclude the commitment to the ideal of tolerance, wrote Poliszczuk. For Dontsov, on the other hand, violence and intolerance became the necessary ingredients of the new Ukrainian nationalism providing the vocabulary of motive for the

massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia The massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia ( pl, rzeź wołyńska, lit=Volhynian slaughter; uk, Волинська трагедія, lit=Volyn tragedy, translit=Volynska trahediia), were carried out in German-occupied Poland by th ...

in the following years.

Criticism

Wiktor Poliszczuk was criticised as biased against

OUN-UPA The Ukrainian Insurgent Army ( uk, Українська повстанська армія, УПА, translit=Ukrayins'ka povstans'ka armiia, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and later partisan formation. During World ...

and nonscientific by several historians. Polish historian

Rafał Wnuk Rafał Wnuk (born 22 May 1967, in Zamość) is a Polish historian, editor of several historical periodicals, employee of the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences and of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). Wnuk wa ...

of the

Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...

in Lublin categorized Poliszczuk's work as belonging to the "para-scientific" tradition. Although Poliszczuk was described by Wnuk as a "left-wing democrat" (quotes provided by Wnuk), he was said by Wnuk to have used the same jargon and to have reached the same conclusions as the Polish national nonscientific writers. Ukrainian academic Yaroslav Isayevich of the

National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU; uk, Національна академія наук України, ''Natsional’na akademiya nauk Ukrayiny'', abbr: NAN Ukraine) is a self-governing state-funded organization in Ukraine th ...

called Poliszczuk an "expert practitioner of anti-Ukrainian hysteria." Canadian historian David Marples described Poliszczuk's work as detailed, although taking the form of a polemic similar to the views regarding UPA from the Soviet perspective to which Poliszczuk's work can be added.David R. Marples (2007), ''Heroes and villains: creating national history in contemporary Ukraine'', Central European University Press, pp. 207-208. In an interview published in translation by the Warsaw-based Ukrainian newspaper ''Our Word'' (Нашe Слово), Polish historian

Ryszard Torzecki Ryszard Torzecki (20 March 1925 in Łódź – 20 August 2003 in Konstancin) was a Polish historian, specializing in the Polish-Ukrainian relations. He was a member of the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences and in the 1990s he ...

dismissed Poliszczuk as an "NKVD prosecutor" (which he was not) and one of the named writers unworthy of discussion.Svoboda">Interview in translation reprinted in Svoboda (newspaper), Svoboda
2001, issue 12, pg. 9Torzecki: " Немає сенсу говорити про Пруса. Це совєтський аґент. Подібно як прокурор НКВД Віктор Поліщук. Це люди, на тему яких не дискутується." Ukrainian nationalist historians also condemned Poliszczuk's works. For example, Volodomyr Serhiichuk of Ukraine published an entire book in response to his writing, defending OUN-UPA and claiming the Polish community's alleged collaboration with the Germans and with the Bolsheviks. However, the aforementioned book also "denigrates the Poles at every opportunity; it is thus a diatribe – wrote Marples – rather than an academic work..." (''Heroes and Villains''). Poliszczuk was a "left-wing democrat" who fully supported Operation Vistula, wrote Rafal Wnuk (referring to the forced deportation of the Ukrainian community from eastern Poland after the assassination of Communist minister

Karol Świerczewski Karol Wacław Świerczewski (; callsign ''Walter''; 10 February 1897 – 28 March 1947) was a Polish and Soviet Red Army general and statesman. He was a Bolshevik Party member during the Russian Civil War and a Soviet officer in the wars foug ...

there); however, any attempts at his work's classification "using a national key" (suggested by Motyka) would be the least convincing. Historian of Ukraine

from Yale wrote that Poliszczuk's argument about the purpose of resettlement was his "blatant" mistake, because this action was undertaken in order to disperse Ukrainian communities so they "could never arise again in Poland" according to him. The purported removal of the civilian base from the

after the war was only a pretext used by the authorities in Operation "Wisla" wrote Snyder. Nevertheless, the UPA pacification actions have also ceased permanently as shown through historical data. Akcja Wisła. Pertinent Data and Cumulative statistics
''Bieszczady Semper.pl'' 2005, Internet Archive.

Publications

* Viktor Polishchuk, ''Legal and political assessment of the OUN and UPA'', Toronto, 1997, 173 pages, * Viktor Polishchuk, ''Bitter truth: The criminality of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the testimony of a Ukrainian'', 403 pages, * ''Dowody zbrodni OUN i UPA'' (''Proofs of OUN and UPA's crimes'') * ''Gorzka prawda'' (''Bitter truth'') * ''Ideologia nacjonalizmu ukraińskiego'' (''Ideology of Ukrainian nationalism'') * ''Apokalipsa według Wiktora Ukrainca'' (''Apocalipse according to a greater Ukrainian'') * ''Fałszowanie historii najnowszej Ukrainy'' (''Falsifying of the modern history of Ukraine'') * ''Ocena polityczna i prawna OUN i UPA'' (''Political and legal judgement of OUN and UPA'') * ''Akcja Wisła - próba oceny'' (''Action Vistula - an attempt to evaluate'') * ''Zginęli z rąk ukraińskich'' (''They died from Ukrainian hands'') * ''Pojęcie integralnego nacjonalizmu ukraińskiego'' (''Notion of the integral Ukrainian nationalism'') * ''Ukraińskie ofiary OUN-UPA'' (''Ukrainian victims of OUN-UPA''

* ''Integralny nacjonalizm ukraiński jako odmiana faszyzmu'' (''Integral Ukrainian nationalism as a variety of fascism'') * ''Działalność ukraińskich struktur nacjonalistycznych w latach 1920-1999''

References

External links

*

by Wiktor Poliszczuk {{DEFAULTSORT:Poliszczuk, Wiktor 1925 births Canadian political writers Polish political writers 2008 deaths 20th-century Polish lawyers 20th-century Polish historians Polish male non-fiction writers Ukrainian male writers Ukrainian Insurgent Army Soviet emigrants to Poland Polish emigrants to Canada