The Polish Government in exile and the Émigré Ukrainian People’s Republic Government (February 1940 - November 1942)

On the threshold of Poland’s regaining independence, the Lublin Region was an exceptional area. The developed political structures of left-wing parties and the Polish Military Organisation, the Austrian occupation which was less severe in political terms than the German occupation, and the administrative centre of which was Lublin. All these created favourable conditions for the establishment of Ignacy Daszyński’s government in Lublin. The subject of this article is the staffing of starosts, i.e. officials at the head of poviats. While reflecting on the criteria for appointing people to this office in 1918– 1921, the author shows that during the left-wing governments (Ignacy Daszyński and Jędrzej Moraczewski), starosts were usually appointed by activists from left-wing and independence organisations. Some political activists, unprepared for official functions, resigned from their posts, which opened the way to a relative stabilisation of the staff of the office in question in the Lublin area, which took place after 1921.

Renewed in the autumn of 1939, contacts between the Polish Government-in-Exile and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) centre in exile became more intense in the first months of the following year. That was facilitated by a short-lived update of Promethean concepts in which Great Britain and France were interested. On the Polish side, the most active personality was Olgierd Górka, head of the newly-created Nationalities Department in the Information and Documentation Ce. He supported the idea of creating a Ukrainian Legion and arranging a political agreement with the USSR Government, which was marred by the questionable problem of post-war demarcation. The Polish authorities continued to support Petlura activists financially even after the fall of France in June 1940. Cooperation with them was continued by unofficial Polish representatives in the unoccupied zone, under the control of the Vichy Government. Then, the idea emerged to bring the President of the USSR and his associates to the British Isles or Canada. However, these plans failed to materialise, and contacts with the Petlura centre finally ceased in the autumn of 1942, after Germany had occupied the entire French territory.