UKRAINIAN STUDIES IN THE CONTEXT OF POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION IN POLAND AND UKRAINE AND THEIR MEANING FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLISH-UKRAINIAN RELATIONS

Abstract

The paper is based on the author’s personal observations regarding the development of Ukrainian studies in Poland. Social and political processes that took place in Poland and Ukraine at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s resulted in the reorganisation of general Russian studies into university entities of East Slavonic orientation. In this way, many Polish higher education institutions founded divisions and chairs of Ukrainian studies, which since the very beginning tried to follow their own path of development, independent of Russian studies but equal in terms of the quality of student education. Ever since, Ukrainian studies have had mostly the same or similar curricula as any other foreign language studies at Polish higher education institutions. Also, they started off within a structure typical for Polish universities, i.e., based on three parallel directions: educational, scientific and publishing-oriented. Each one of these is carefully analysed in the paper. The author claims that, looking back, those studies have played a positive role in the Polish-Ukrainian dialogue and have, directly or indirectly, been facilitating Poles’ familiarity with Ukraine, its history, culture and language. They also help draw their attention to Ukraine’s present.