Jerzy Giedroć by many Polish politicians is recalled as an authority to justify the east politics of the 3rd Republic after 1989.
Although a long-standing co-worker and the most crucial political commentator of Culture Juliusz Mieroszewski is regarded as the main creator of the doctrine, it is crucial to realize its perfect background that the attitude to Polish-Ukrainian relations and what can be called a political view of the planet of Giedroycia itself is very important.
Given the current situation, the attitude of Giedroyć to Ukraine is peculiarly worth reminding, but not following, on the contrary; it is simply a dangerous memento. As shortly as you look more closely at the views and actions of the creators of Parisian Culture in this field, you can see how incorrect he was, and how incorrect and admirable he was with the weaker, little independent spirits and assurance he was in error. In relation to the Ukrainian issue, we can see the beginnings of all the terrible mistakes we are witnessing in the decades after his death and at present.
Correspondence with Osadczuk
An excellent illustration of this phenomenon and the dangerous heritage which we have left in this substance is the correspondence conducted in 2018 with a polonophile Ukrainian writer and student Bohdan Osadczuk, as well as Giedroć emigrant, only that surviving and operating mainly in Germany and in the German language area. The basis for this discussion will besides be developed by Krzysztof Pomania "Autobiography on 4 Hands" and excerpts from texts by J. Giedroycia from years after the turn of 1989 collected in the volume "Gedroycia Tissues".
Giedroycia's interest in the Ukrainian issue dates back to the interwar period when, as a law student, he decided to attend a seminar on the past of Ukraine with the prof. Myrona Korduba, he wrote: “It is by spite. But besides due to the fact that I met priest Rzewuszski, a basilian who was a close man of Archbishop Szeptycki at that time. This character was rather amazing as from Dostoevsky: the combination of abnormality with genius – it had a beautiful large impact on me.”
The second, more rational motive for interest in the Ukrainian issue was clear political views. And from his convictions, he was the later creator of Parisian State Culture. Before the war, he supported the quasi dictatorship of Józef Piłsudski, and even after years he was able to justify the Brest process and Bereza, although excluding the bandit practices of its admin Kostek – Biernacki. At the same time, erstwhile asked in 1996 about “what are the most crucial values of the nation and the state, he replied: “(after long thought) Democracy and tolerance! Yes, democracy and tolerance!” This prostateism besides manifested itself in the request of strong suppression of agricultural and mining protests which took place in Poland in the days of the alleged systemic transformation, at the same time proposed the introduction of ad hoc courts for afers under the supervision of specified persons as Zbigniew Romaszewski and “the typical of Mrs. Łetowska”.
He besides resented besides low judgement for Andrzej Lepper. Of the politicians of the transformation period, he valued the highest Aleksandra Kwasniewski, whose views he considered close to "social democracy". He considered nationalism and clericalism as the biggest political threat to Poland, warned against Polish anti-Semitism. The word endek utilized as a synonym for a political pest, of which harm no 1 needs to be convinced. The future of Europe was seen as a federation. Already this set of opinions should rise skepticism about the infallibility of the political assessments of Jerzy Giedroyć, at least in a camp widely understood by the Polish right.
Doctrine of Giedroycia – Mieroszewski...
It is considered prophetic by many due to the fact that it took seriously the emergence of independent states between Russia and Poland as a political goal respective decades before the collapse and dissolution of the USSR, which truly proves the boldness and aptness of thinking. On the another hand, the attitude towards the nations of the erstwhile Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the reasoning of Giedroyć until his death was more akin to the planet that both intellectuals remembered before the outbreak of the Second planet War than to the reality after 1945, and after the emergence of fresh states east of Poland after 1989. He referred to the situation of inter-war Poland, in which national minorities constituted 1/3 of the population and were mostly hostile to both the Polish majority and the Polish state, which was confirmed during the successive russian business of Kresów, erstwhile part of the judaic population cooperated with the NKVD in exports to the east of the Polish elite and during the German occupation, erstwhile Ukrainians committed genocide of Polish neighbours.
Jerzy Giedroć
In the national realities of Poland, inter-war nationalism or chauvinism as a means of mobilization against the threat of its own group had to lead to de facto civilian war, and Ukrainian terrorism and Polish pacifications were already very close to this border. In this situation, seeking an agreement with the peoples of the common state was a sensible, pro-state alternative. However, the fact that Poland became a monoethnic state after 1945, thus having another interests, facing completely fresh threats and tasks to solve, as if it had escaped the attention of emigration intellectuals. As Krzysztof Pomian wrote about Jerzy Giedroyć: “a monoethnic state is not within his imagination.” A large breakthrough in thinking, but besides a shock to emigration in a large part of the erstwhile inhabitants of Kres, who had emigrated with Anders' army from "inhuman land", was the clear declaration by the ellipse of Giedroycia already in the early 1950s of designation of the east borders and the renunciation of specified crucial for the Polish past of cultural and civilization centers as Vilnius and Lviv. partially for relationship with the peoples of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania (UBL), and partially as victims of Poles and Polish contributions to the future alliance for the fight against the USSR. The moods that were at that time evidenced by J. Mieroszewski's proposal to make an “International Central and east European Brigade (...), which would represent countries in the European Army behind an iron curtain”. From the very beginning, it did not take into account a different situation, a diverse cultural background and frequently conflicting interests and sympathy of individual nations. In specified a way, the UBL nations were to gain much from Poland, but much little clear was what Poland could gain from specified a community.
This political asymmetry besides hits George Giedroycia's correspondence and Bohdana Osadczuk throughout its duration. According to her reading, Giedroć devoted his Polish memory to the future alliance, closed his eyes to the affronts and falsification of past on the another side, ignored the Ukrainian threat after 1989, in order to be yet humiliated by the authorities of the independent Ukraine.
While Osadczuk criticized political rivals on both sides of the national dispute, and over time more and more space was devoted to attacks on Polish memory guards, in Giedroyć's letters criticism of anti-Polish Ukrainian behaviour is found much little often. The genocide of Poles in Volyn and Malopolska called Giedroć: “Volyński accidents during the German occupation” and the substance was treated marginally by him until the end of his activity, in turn Bohdan Osadczuk devoted much space to the actual bleaching of his compatriots. The Ukrainians' participation in, as he writes, the “Warsaw slaughter” he described as “renunciations” and the other conviction he called “insinuations”. Giedroć allowed to print in the pages of Culture article Boris Łevycki in line with Osadczuk's opinion, which includes the following summary: “The legend of Ukrainian participation in this Uprising is simply a symptom of the cowardly mentality existing in any Polish circles and deficiency of courage to look at east issues in a factual way.”
It is besides crucial for their common relations that the situation occurred in the late 1960s erstwhile Jerzy Giedroić addressed Bohdan Osadczuk with a proposal to be issued by the Greek Catholic Church chief Josif Slipya An appeal to Ukrainians to organize the Orląt cemetery and aid save the Polish church in Lviv. Osadczuk did not consider it appropriate to respond to Giedroyc’s request at all, and the second lamented his words: “By judging from your silence, nothing worked out with the Cardinal. That's besides bad. The deficiency of imagination on both sides is losing our nations.” However, there was not so much imagination as there was a will on the Ukrainian side, it is not clear whether Osadczuk himself made any efforts in this matter.
Forget Volyn
While the issue of the genocide of Poles by Ukrainians does not exist, not to mention the exhumation of victims both in the letters of Giedroycia and Osadczuk, both of them, and especially Giedroć a immense amount of space devoted to the action “Wisła”. 1 might even hazard thesis that, after the turn of 1989, this was, according to Giedroyci, 1 of the most crucial matters to regulate. In his letter of 26 September 1990, he mentioned the conversation with Senator prof. Jerzy Kłoczowski and his proposal to issue a White Paper on that event and compensation for Lemków. In 1997, on the 50th anniversary of the action on the pages of Culture, he printed the appeal with the following sentences: “The Vistula Action” was the consequence of the Stalinist strategy and the expression of totalitarian ideology and politics. We condemn her unequivocally and with all our power. We honor the memory of its victims, we express compassion to all those who bear painful memory of the harm of their families and their community, and we express our hope that the Polish Sejm will make efforts to make amends to the degree of the current possibilities." However, he never raised the issue of compensation to Poland for Ukrainian crimes in Poles or for the Ukrainians' acquisition of Lviv and the vastness of Polish heritage, including this tangible one.
Bohdan Osadczuk
Only the Ossolineum issue and any monuments were curious in Giedroycia, but he immediately pointed out that “the substance is delicate and can be arranged amicably”, and a fewer years later passed and in this substance writing: “I say that the most crucial writings, purely Polish in character, should be given, things belonging to the Royal Castle in Warsaw like a library, etc., and the remainder should stay in Ukraine. I realize that they want to decorate their past in this way.”
A separate chapter in Giedroycia's correspondence with Osadczuk was the ideology of flagism and alleged integral nationalism. "He maintained relations with UNDO (Ukrainian National-Democratic Union – O.S.) ... and with Doncov, (...) a leading nationalist ideology and publicist." Dmytro Doncov's work, based on extremist political Darwinism, was then utilized as an ideological and moral support for the genocide of the bandiers, which did not prevent Giedroyci from maintaining with Doncov until his death and conducting correspondence. On the another hand, Bohdan Osadczuk presented himself at all times to Giedroyci as a declared Democrat, attacked by the flag circles on emigration. However, erstwhile it came to what, then he tried to whitewash Doncov and UPA, and their increasingly dominant function first on emigration and then on the recently formed Ukraine he attributed – from where we know it – Russian provocations and activities of the KGB. Another minute erstwhile Osadczuk discovered any of his emotions and views occurred in May 1980. The April issue “Culture” then published an article Benedict Heydenkorn disputing with the lies of past by the band's publicist Petr Terescue. Tereszczuk, in a publication for the Canadian-American market, besides stated that there was an order of the UPA Command prohibiting the attack on the Polish population, and that common slaughters were painful and regrettable with blind acts of vengeance. In his opinion, attempts were made to agree on a political platform and armed actions with the Polish underground, but this did not produce a result".
Tereszczuk's article in turn referred to the first monograph in the Polish People's Republic, published by MON on the past of the CNS – UPA entitled "The Road to Nowhere", by Antoni P. Jęczniak and Wiesław Z. Szota. Osadczuk considered Heydenkorn's polemic to be “strange” due to the fact that “the authors of this book are KGB plus Security”. Interestingly, this monograph was withdrawn from the booksellers almost immediately after its appearance at the request of the russian embassy in Warsaw. This line of argument will be repeated many times – reminding about flagism and harming Poles is almost always something “harmful” or “the work of Moscow”.
When, after the half-century silence of the fact about Polish-Ukrainian relations in the Polish People's Republic and falsification by a very dynamic Ukrainian diaspora in the West, more and more publications began to appear in the 1980s, revealing the fact of the appalling genocide in Poles in their cruelty, then attacks intensified. The settler no longer on content, but increasingly on authors. In 1984 Osadczuk stated that “even Turowicz does not want to claim Ukrainians” – it was about demanding defence Professor Jerzy Tomaszewski"Nurt" stated that "AK in the Borderlands slaughtered Ukrainians, women, children and old people". In the same letter Osadczuk criticized sharply Bishop of Ignacy Tokarczuk Writing that in Przemyśl: “All historical souvenirs of Ukrainian Poles there destruct or pollute. Bishop Tokarczuk unfortunately helps in this.” Osadczuk did not even like “the full series about the Lviv AK in Kraków’s “Literary Life” and the book Wachlarz”.
Publications Jack E. Wilczur on UPA's actions in the "Week Week Review" he called "unconscious anti-Ukrainian attacks". The usage of the word "Eastlands" was besides worse. He asked that he not be angry and that he not be emotional. Another attack on the alleged chauvinism and barbarism of Poles was in a letter dated 1 January 1990, in which he outraged in the form of a museum in Sanok and described it as "a large anti-scientific scandal that even a sanitation Poland could not afford". Polish priests who hosted him in the bishop's palace in Przemyśl called him priests. The letter besides included false information about the tv program "Open Studio" devoted to national minorities, in which according to Osadczuk, "the endecids ate at Ukrainians in a fierce and unconcerned manner".
A fewer years later, Osadczuk accused Anna Strońska, the author of the study “Nad Smotrycz, for Zbrucz” published in Culture about giving the untruths which he suggested that Ukrainians themselves murdered Jews. According to Osadczuk, these are “old communist lies. Ukrainian police never shot themselves.” In 1992, Osadczuk defended the SS Galizien Division (Halyczyn) against the accusations of Vladimir Odojewski, writing: “A series of lawsuits about defamation of the Halyczyn Division, which was never counted among criminal organizations... I hear from Warsaw that Odojewski is getting along with nationalists.” Odojewski was besides the mark of attacks for recalling and criticizing Doncov's ideology. A characteristic of Osadczuk’s speech towards Giedroyć erstwhile he wrote: “If so, Odojewski is either an idiot or a villain. I have noticed his transformations in the spirit of chauvinism since he took the lead in the Sienkiewicz Committee. I think you should scold him.” The intent of the subsequent attacks was mentioned Anna Strońska (especially for her book “Until Ukraine Silences”) and, above all, Ukrainian historian Viktor Liszczuk, author of the book: “The bitter truth: the shadow of Bandera over the crime of genocide.” These attacks co-operated with the activities of Mirosław Czech, Grzegorz Motyka and Piotr Tyma, the second wrote a letter to the editor of Culture attacking Anna Strońska. However, he allowed Stroński's answer to be printed and defended her against the attacks of Osadczuk.
Banderism is nothing.
In addition to the assault on honest historians Osadczuk complained constantly about the influence of flagism among Ukrainian emigration and then on independent Ukraine. In February 1992, he wrote that in Ukraine, "Bandera is famous, not officially, but almost there." In March 1993: “I returned from Kiev in a insignificant mood. (...) The Banders push where they can, and any youth believe them.” Giedroć did not see the danger, however, in his letters there is no mention of utilizing his authority and influence among Polish politicians to point them to a threat, or even to convince them to deal with the problem or put force on the Ukrainians.
On the contrary, he was inactive in a communicative that reminds us of “being servants of the Ukrainian people” and silence towards the return of flagism, “because Ukrainians have nothing else.” He was worried about the deficiency of an independent Ukrainian list for the Polish Sejm in 1993, so he advocated "that 1 of the large parties take a Ukrainian candidate on their list, due to the fact that the self-serving list is most likely unrealistic due to the dispersal of the Ukrainians," he felt that filming according to "Fire and Sword": "In the current (1997 – O.S.) geopolitical situation is highly damaging". He was curious in promoting Ukraine as a tourist destination and sought to build the Odessa – Brody pipeline.
Russian Zadra
Only at 1 point did he defy Osadczuk's communicative more strongly. This was erstwhile the second attacked Russia and the Russians unparadoxed. They argued about the political writings of Solzenicin, Giedroic disagreed with the besides harsh attacks on Michael Heller and aligning the USSR with Russia. In these passages of their correspondence we can see how crucial a vector is in Ukrainian politics to combat any effort to normalize Polish-Russian relations. This is evidenced by both the speech and content of Osadczuk's attacks, which he called rusophiles successively Gustav Herling-Grudziński, Jerzy Marek Nowakowski, and even Stanisław Stomma. For not adequate anti-Russian policy of reproach and resentment he directed to the Ministers of Skubiszewski and Geremek. He was outraged at the arrest of Ukrainian spies by UOP.
Giedroć as if he did not announcement that Osadczuk did not fight for Polish – Ukrainian reconciliation after 1989, but conducted a friendly activity for Ukraine, but a dangerous activity for Poland to fight our country with Russia, and Giedroycia wanted to make it a tool. However, he saw the deficiency of good morals in the writings of the Ukrainian number in Poland erstwhile he wrote: “Speaks, specified as the editor of “Our Word”, are an example of not discussing, but of throwing themselves at the laity. I regret to say that Polish-Russian discussions and controversy look much better, just more culturally."
This was written after the event that took place on 3 April 1998. On that day, the president of Ukraine granted the Order to Jerzy Giedroyci for Grade III Merit, a Ukrainian equivalent of the Polish Bronze Cross of Merit. The highest Ukrainian award was awarded during the same period by Jacek Kuroń after erstwhile refusal to accept the award with a lower rank. On 3 May 2001, Aleksander Kwasniewski awarded the Order of the White Eagle Bohdan Osadczuk. Together, it is simply a symbolic summary of the full defeat suffered in this field by the large prince of Maisons-Laffitte.
Olaf Swolkień
Mr Jerzy Giedroic accepted the Ukrainian award, as he stated with advanced indifference in his letter to the P. Ambassador of Ukraine in France, he did so due to the mistake in the decree on its assignment, in which it was written that he was a citizen of the French Republic, and that was not true.
Think Poland, No. 23-24 (8-15.06.2025)
