FACES AND PLACES: Marta's Christmas card (01/23/05)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Marta's Christmas card

As a third grade teacher many years ago, I often had foreign students in my class. Most were from Mexico, but occasionally students from Russia and even from the People's Republic of China would appear.

One foreign student I remember most fondly is Marta, a charming little girl from Poznan, Poland. Her father was completing his studies at Northern Illinois University, and Marta and her mother were in America for his final year.

Third graders are delightful creatures: eager, enthusiastic, sponges for knowledge, a joy to teach. I often tell my classes at NIU that when teachers die and go to heaven, God assigns them a third grade class.

If ever there was a perfect third grade student, it was Marta. At the beginning of the school year she barely spoke English. By the end of May, she was fluent. An engaged learner, Marta memorized the names of all the U.S. presidents, all on her own, just for the fun of it, because she could. She was happy to recite the list in front of the class. My American-born students, who instinctively liked Marta, were impressed and enthusiastically applauded her performance. Third graders are like that.

Marta returned to Poland at the end of the year. Just before she left, I told her I expected her to be the president of Poland someday. "In your inaugural address," I advised her, "I would like you to say that you owe all of your success to your Ukrainian third grade teacher in America." She laughed and promised she would. Every year since then, she and I have exchanged Christmas cards. And every year I asked her how her presidential campaign was coming along.

This year's card from Marta was extra special. As I opened to read it, an orange ribbon fell out. Marta wrote: "I have enclosed an orange ribbon I have recently been wearing, like numerous other Poles, in support of the democratic transformation that we are now witnessing in Ukraine." Lesia and I were moved to tears.

Unlike Russians, many of whom still seem unable to accept Ukraine's independence, Poles have welcomed Ukraine's newfound freedom. They want a strong Ukraine, if for no other reason than to serve as a bulwark against Russian imperialism, an ever-present threat. A new rapprochement is emerging between Ukraine and Poland, and that is good for both nations.

This year, Wprost, a leading Polish news magazine, had "Wiktor Juszczenko" as their "Czlowiek Roku." The multi-page lead article, titled "Hetman of Freedom," was devoted to Mr. Yuschenko's life and accomplishments. Included were pictures of his family (wife, children and grandchildren), his birthplace and family home, as well as laudatory commentary from past person-of-the-year honorees such as Lech Walesa, Leszek Miller, Hanna Suchocka, Jerzy Buzek, Leszek Balcerowicz, Jan Rokita, other distinguished Poles, Americans, Europeans and Ukrainians such as Jurij Pawlenko, Julia Tymoshenko and Oleh Rybachuk. The entire Polish issue was a fitting tribute to an extraordinary Ukrainian. Amazing!

Ukrainian-Polish relations have never been good. Galicia and Volynia were once part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish king and the "shliakhta" exploited the land, enslaving, for all practical purposes, the Ukrainian peasant. Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky secured Ukraine's independence for a brief period in 1648 by defeating the Poles at the battles of Zhovti Vody and Kherson. He lost it all in an ill-advised alliance with Muscovy in 1654. The Treaty of Pereiaslav led, ultimately, to Ukraine's incorporation into the Russian empire. In 1667, Russia concluded a separate treaty with Poland at Andrusiv, formalizing the partition of Ukraine along the Dnipro - left-bank to Muscovy, right-bank to Poland.

Poland was later partitioned and much of right-bank Ukraine became part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. When the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed in 1918, Ukrainian Galicia (Halychyna) declared its independence and hostilities broke out between a newly constituted Polish government and Ukraine for control of Ukrainian territory.

Eastern Ukraine declared its independence in 1918, and by 1920 was under the control of Symon Petliura's Directory. A treaty with Warsaw recognized Ukraine's independence. Soon after the Bolsheviks captured Kyiv, a combined Ukrainian-Polish military force drove the Red Army out of Ukraine's capital. The victory, however, was short-lived. The Reds regrouped, drove the Ukrainian-Polish armies out of Kyiv and rolled into Poland, finally stopping at the gates of Warsaw. In a treaty concluded with the Bolsheviks at Riga in 1921, Poland scrapped the earlier treaty with Ukraine and recognized the Ukrainian SSR as the legitimate government of the Ukrainian people.

The Council of Ambassadors in Paris awarded Ukrainian Galicia to Poland in 1923. The Polish government initiated a program of structural Polonization, resulting in blatant discrimination against Ukrainians and their organizations. When non-violent Ukrainian protests were ignored, a group of Ukrainian war veterans established the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1929 and initiated military action. The Polish response was the brutal "pacification" of the Ukrainian people. Ukrainian schools were closed, co-ops destroyed and OUN leaders hanged or imprisoned. When the Nazis invaded Poland, few Ukrainians wept.

During the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Halychyna and Volyn, both the Poles and Ukrainians formed guerrilla units which not only fought their oppressors but each other. The Polish side of this conflict has been recorded by Tadeusz Piotrowski in his monumental study, "Poland's Holocaust." Dr. Piotrowski accuses OUN and UPA of "ethnic cleansing." Ukrainians make similar claims by pointing to the 1947 Akcja Wisla, when some 150,000 Ukrainian residents of Poland were forcibly deported to Soviet Ukraine.

Despite a horrific shared history, atrocities and mutual condemnations, Poles and Ukrainians in Europe appear content, for now at least, to move on. And that, dear reader, is a reason for optimism.

Back to Marta. She ended her letter as follows: "As for my presidential campaign, it is now going to be deferred until a later period, as I will probably soon be coming back to the United States, having been admitted to Harvard University." Sto lat, Marta!

Myron Kuropas's e-mail address is: [email protected].

| Home Page |