The Culmination of Conflict - by Stephen Rapawy (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

As Germany fought the Soviet Union during World War II, a much smaller but equally vicious struggle was unfolding in southeastern Poland, fueled by longstanding ethnic and territorial conflicts between Poles and Ukrainians. Both sides organized large partisan armies and sought control over territory each deemed integral to their postwar national visions. The violence reached a fever pitch in the years immediately following the war. This comprehensive study surveys Polish-Ukrainian relations dating back to the tenth century. Rapawy follows centuries of ethnic strife, population shifts, and the formation of national states after the First World War on multi-ethnic territories, illuminating the long-term historical processes that informed later events.

Review Quotes

Stephen Rapawy provides the first balanced academic study of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict in modern times without the subjective biases that have afflicted earlier histories in the communist and post-communist eras. Rapaway steps away from traditional accounts that place the Volyn massacres out of context, placing instead the Polish-Ukrainian conflict within a recent historical framework that traces back to the end of World War I when both nations fought for control of Lwów/Lviv and eastern Galicia through to Operation Wisla when Ukrainians in south-eastern Poland were ethnically cleansed. As Rapawy writes, the massacres by nationalists on both sides and the deportations to the USSR and within communist Poland are a product of a 'longstanding and deeply entrenched conflict between Polish and Ukrainian interests.' Drawing on previously published work and the extensive use of archives, Rapawy succinctly elucidates a balanced study of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict that is placed within historical, regional, wartime, and imperial totalitarian legacies.--Taras Kuzio, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta

About the Author

Stephen Rapawy holds a Ph.D in Russian area studies from Georgetown University.