Military and political outcomes of the Soviet Union’s establishment of control over Western Ukraine and the emergence of polish armed resistance (september–november 1939): the ukrainian historiographical context

Abstract

The article summarizes and critically evaluates the findings of Ukrainian historical scholarship in the first quarter of the 21st century concerning the preconditions, nature, and forms of activity of individual Polish underground resistance structures against the establishment of Soviet control in Eastern Galicia and Western Volhynia in the autumn of 1939.

The analysis focuses on domestic historiography related to Polish underground structures in Western Ukraine during the operations of the Red Army’s Ukrainian Front and the expansion of Soviet state security agencies. It assesses the military-political situation in the southeastern voivodeships on the eve of and during the undeclared Soviet-Polish war of September 1939. The study examines the nature, forms, and methods of activity of the initial Polish underground armed structures in Western Ukraine under the conditions of the establishment of Soviet repressive and punitive bodies. Furthermore, it highlights the organizational development of Polish underground structures in Stalinist-controlled territories of Eastern Galicia and Western Volhynia, with a significant presence of ethnic Poles.

The methodology of this study is based on the application of general philosophical and scientific methods, as well as historical research methods rooted in the principles of scientific rigor, objectivity, systematicity, and comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis. These approaches are applied to examine the Polish armed underground in the former southeastern voivodeships of the Polish state, which were occupied by the troops of the Red Army’s Ukrainian Front in September 1939 with the support of Soviet totalitarian repressive structures.

The scientific novelty lies in identifying the initial stage of the emergence and development of the Polish armed underground during the undeclared Soviet-Polish war of September 1939 and the early post-war period leading to the establishment of total control by the Stalinist regime in the newly formed western regions of the Ukrainian SSR.