The Polish community of Kharkiv in the grip of the stalin’s regime (30th years XX century)

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15421/272107

Abstract

The article analyzes the state policy towards the Polish population in the 1930s. It has been revealed that since the early 1930s. Its purpose is to study the national policy of Stalin’s regime, the methods of its implementation in the largest city of Ukraine. The main sources were documents of archives, which contain information about the activities of Polish public organizations in the 1930s, as well as the case of the liquidation of the «Polish Military Organization» in 1937, which includes biographies of convicted Poles, investigative materials, interrogation, sentencing and further rehabilitation of innocent convicts. To process these sources used methods of analysis and synthesis, as well as special historical methods – historical-chronological, historicaltypological. In the early 1930s, Kharkiv had several Polish social and cultural organizations aimed at integrating the Polish population of the city to support the national culture – the Polish Club, school, theater. Since the early 1930s, the persecution of activists of these organizations began, which ended with public criticism and public condemnation, exclusion from the party, deprivation of jobs. The reason was the improper execution of the party’s tasks. In 1937, the Persecution turned into a large-scale repression, the purpose of which was to massacre the Polish population. As a result of the case of the «Polish Military Organization» in Kharkiv, many figures of the Polish club, teachers of the Polish school, ordinary Polish workers were killed. Their fault was only to be of Polish nationality, and counter-revolutionary activities, which they were attributed to, only the pretext for the use of the death penalty. The perpetrators of this operation were obedient to the regime, ordinary employees of internal organs. Thus, the state dealt with unreliable citizens, seeking to turn society into an obedient silent mass. The materials of the investigation show the endurance and heroism of the convicts, the support of their others. In 1957, the case of the «Polish Military Organization» was reviewed and the convicts were rehabilitated due to the «absence of the crime in their actions». Only today, with the opening of the archives, it is possible to establish the details of this massacre and restore historical justice. The novelty of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of the regime’s repressive policy towards individual national groups.

Published

2021-06-01