Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the relationships between the government of the Second Polish Republic, the Ukrainian minority in Volhynia, and the Entente powers during the interwar period. After World War II ended, the Entente required the Polish government to sign a Minority Rights Treaty to ensure the protection of the state’s minorities. Poland signed the treaty and even incorporated its tenets into the 1921 Constitution. However, government officials did not follow the treaty’s stipulations, which provided for protection of religion, language, education, voting privileges, and private property – all the rights accorded to a citizen of a modern state. The Ukrainians in Volhynia, a territory annexed by Poland with the Treaty of Riga (1921), experienced a great deal of discrimination and disregard for the rights allotted to them in the Minority Rights Treaty. During World War II, Volhynia was the location of an ethnic cleansing of 40,000-60,000 Poles committed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukraïns’ka Povstans’ka Armiia, or UPA).
If the Entente powers had enforced the Minority Rights Treaty and investigated claims as they were required to do, World War II and post-World War II Volhynia possibly could have been different. This thesis explores Polish-Ukrainian relations in Volhynia during the interwar period in hopes of shedding some light on the reasons behind UPA’s attacks.
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