The Bug River property ( pl, Mienie zabużańskie, lit. ''property beyond the Bug Rver'') is a property which was within the territory of

interbellum In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relative ...

Poland ( Second Polish Republic) and was forcibly vacated by the evicted Polish landowners ( Bug River Poles) after 1945 when the territory ceased to be inside

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. The name refers to the

Bug River uk, Західний Буг be, Захо́дні Буг , name_etymology = , image = Wyszkow_Bug.jpg , image_size = 250 , image_caption = Bug River in the vicinity of Wyszków, Poland , map = Vi ...

because the Bug forms a major part of the new eastern boundary of Poland largely based on the

Curzon Line The Curzon Line was a proposed demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and the Soviet Union, two new states emerging after World War I. It was first proposed by The 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston, the British Foreign Secretary, to ...

, separating the so-called

Eastern Borderlands 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 ...

from the rest of the current Polish territory. The Bug River land is today distributed between the states of

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

, Lithuania, and

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

."Bug River claims"
, Ministry of Treasury of the Republic of Poland (retrieved April 19, 2015) The claims for compensation for this sequestered land are known as the Bug River claims ( pl, sprawy zabużańskie).Sprawy zabużańskie
/ref> Agreements made between the

USSR 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 nationa ...

and the interim Polish government,

Government of National Unity A national unity government, government of national unity (GNU), or national union government is a broad coalition government consisting of all parties (or all major parties) in the legislature, usually formed during a time of war or other nati ...

mostly concerned the evacuation of the population and did not set out any detailed rules for compensating owners of vacated property. The laws of

Communist 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 ...

had a limited number of provisions concerning issues related to ownership of agricultural land and estates. In modern Poland, a legislative provision was made on December 12, 2003, to form the basis of state compensation for Polish citizens against the value of their vacated property abroad, by offsetting the value of that vacated property, against an assessed sale price or rent arising from perpetual use. As of February 29, 2003, 82,000 applications for compensation were submitted, with a total estimated value of over 10,500 million PLN. Due to the unsatisfactory handling of matter it was raised before the Polish Constitutional Court in 2002. In 2004 the matter came before the European Court for Human Rights in the test case: ''Broniowski v. Poland''.) The Court found

:A systemic problem connected with the malfunctioning of domestic legislation and practice caused by the failure to set up an effective mechanism to implement the "right to credit" of Bug River claimants ... with the consequence that not only the applicant in this particular case but also a whole class of individuals had been or were still denied the peaceful enjoyment of their possessions.

The Court noted that the matter was not satisfactorily resolved for some 80,000 claimants. Further decrees on the implementation of the right to compensation include: *Decree of July 8, 2005 - "O realizacji prawa do rekompensaty z tytułu pozostawienia nieruchomości poza obecnymi granicami Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej" (Dz. U. z 2005r. Nr 169 poz. 1418). *Decree of September 8, 2006 - "O zmianie ustawy o realizacji prawa do rekompensaty z tytułu pozostawienia nieruchomości poza obecnymi granicami Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej oraz niektórych innych ustaw" (Dz. U. 2006r.Nr 195 poz. 1437). In February 2014 President

Bronisław Komorowski Bronisław Maria Komorowski (; born 4 June 1952) is a Polish politician and historian who served as President of Poland from 2010 to 2015. Komorowski served as Minister of Defence from 2000 to 2001. As Marshal of the Sejm, Komorowski exercis ...

signed a decree to update further the regulations relating to compensation for Bug River landowners. In particular, the decree removed a number of restrictions on the right to compensation."Prezydent podpisał ustawę ws. rekompensat za mienie zabużańskie"
/ref> In so doing, it addressed the issues raised before the Constitutional Court and the ECHR on the subject. Due to the recent aspiration of Ukraine to join the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

, a discussion has arisen in Poland about whether Ukraine would be willing to share the burden of compensation. Reportedly, Lithuania has only reluctantly addressed the claims of Poles for compensation/restitution."Nic co polskie Polakom na Litwie"
("Nothing Polish to be Returned to Poles in Lithuania"), '' Kurier Wilenski''

References

Further reading