Ilustrowany Przewodnik Po Zabytkach Na Wolyniu I Podolu (Polish Edition)
by Zbigniew Hauser
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Book Summary Information
Author: Zbigniew HauserEdition: Hardcover
Audio: Polish (Unknown); Polish (Published)
Published: 2006-01
ISBN: 8387654272
Number of pages: 335
Publisher: Burchard Edition
Book Reviews of Ilustrowany Przewodnik Po Zabytkach Na Wolyniu I Podolu (Polish Edition)
Book Review: The Kresy Revisited: A Catalogue of the Beautiful Polish Architecture of Volhynia and Podolia
Summary: 5 Stars
This works consists of an alphabetical list of cities and towns in the Ukrainian portion of the Kresy, plus eastern Podolia (Kamieniec Podolski). It doesn't, however, include the eastern portion of the prewar Lwow Voivodship, nor the Stanislawow Viovodship. Each entry includes the Ukrainian (Cyrillic) spelling of the locality, a brief (and often extensive) Polish history of the locality, and sometimes the postwar developments. The main focus is on Polish architecture, although synagogues are also discussed.
The Kamieniec Podolski region had not been part of Poland since the late 18th-century Partitions. It underwent severe de-Polonization at the hands of Stalin in the 1930's. The Kresy were conquered by the Soviets as part of the Nazi-Communist alliance against Poland in 1939, and retained by the Soviet Union as a result of the Churchill-Roosevelt betrayal of Poland, and giveaway of eastern Poland at Teheran in 1943. The Kresy was ethnically cleansed of Poles.
Decades after the faintest glimmer of possibility of the Kresy returning to Poland had faded, the Soviets continued to de-Polonize the Kresy. They blew up, or otherwise destroyed, the churches at several known locations. (p.39,68,113,118,262,291,298).
Most of the Polish architecture, however, was destroyed by passive neglect. Even today, one can find ruins and roof-less walls. A small fraction of the churches were converted into secular buildings or Museums of Atheism. After the fall of the USSR, these buildings were re-converted into churches--Ukrainian ones.
Disappointingly little information is given about the remaining Polish population of these territories. One learns, however, that about 200 Poles still live in the city of Krzemieniec (p. 122), and about 2,000 Poles still live in the city of Tarnopol (p. 262). The latter were denied return of their church after the fall of the Soviet Union. It was, instead, converted into a Ukrainian church, despite the fact that several Ukrainian churches already existed in the city.
The catalogue lists numerous locations where the fascist-separatist OUN-UPA had engaged in the genocidal slaughter of Poles during WWII. (p.47,55,111,137,140,157,163,171,184,185,230,250,277,279,287,303). Some of these occurred well after the second Soviet occupation of the Kresy. (p. 274,281). There is a memorial at Poryck (Volhynia)(p. 216). A number of successful Polish defended villages (samoobrony) are also listed. (p.18,53,130-131,196,227).
Various geographical details of the region are given. One learns that Brzezany was the "Kresy Switzerland" (p. 24), and that there is a 16-meter waterfall at Czerwonogrod (p. 46). The latter is named after the red sandstone in the area. If this is synonymous with Czerwien, then eastern Galicia was Polish before it was Ukrainian, and the Ukrainians had taken these lands from the Poles and colonized them--not the other way around as usually supposed.
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