Migration Processes of the Ukrainian People in the First Period of World War II

Author

Serhiychuk Volodymyr – a Doctor of History, a professor, a head of History of World Ukrainians  Department at the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University

Migration Processes of the Ukrainian PeopleMigration Processes of the Ukrainian Peoplein the First Period of World War II

Abstract

With the onset of the Second World War, Ukrainians were forced to emigrate from their native lands once again under the influence of political circumstances. Due to Hungary’s aggression in Transcarpathia, many of the latter’s inhabitants went to Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and other European countries due to repression and persecution.

From September 1939, a new migration stream of Ukrainian refugees was sent to the territory of pre-war Poland’s western territories. The main wave of Ukrainian refugees, primarily political prisoners, was heading to Cracow. Many cultural, educational, political, and public figures from Halychyna and Volyn gathered here, who were threatened by the Bolshevik repression for their national-patriotic activities.

From there, the OUN movement was also managed for all Ukrainian ethnic lands, first of all, the OUN network was rapidly developing in Lemkivshchyna, Nadsiannia, Kholmshchyna, and Pidliashshia. It was the place from where leading OUN members began preparations for armed rebellion against Bolshevik authorities in Halychyna and Volyn. Already in the winter of 1940, OUN Bandera fraction members carried out personnel training for the Ukrainian administration for the territories occupied by the Bolsheviks.

After the transition of the Dniester by the Red Army in late June 1940, a new Ukrainian emigration wave rose from Bukovyna and the Ukrainian territories of Moldova. At that time, the Ukrainian Public Aid Committee was set up under the steerage of Professor Kostantyn Matsiyevych.

From the late autumn of 1939 until the early summer of 1940, Ukrainian students began to arrive more and more in the German high schools of Vienna, Berlin, Danzig, Graz, Breslau, and many Ukrainian students found themselves in the territory of the General Government. Of these students, in 1940–1941, 319 studied in the German high schools, and about 600 in a year. For material support of educational youth, the Ukrainian Central Committee established, in November 1940, the Commission for Assistance to Ukrainian Students, which was to enable it to study at European universities.

Along with the migratory wave of political Ukrainians heading from Beresteyshchyna, Volyn, and Halychyna to the West, a counter flow to the East was organized from our most western autochthonous lands. Finally, about 9,000 Ukrainians who wanted to live under the Bolsheviks left for the USSR.

The arrival of the Red Army to Halychyna, Volyn, and Beresteyshchyna resulted in deportations from these Ukrainian regions to Siberia and Kazakhstan. As of November 27, 1939, 5,972 persons were arrested in Western Ukraine (182 in Lviv Region, 580 in Ternopil Region, 2,372 in Stanislav Region, and 1,538 in Lutsk Region), and by February 1941, 54,304 persons were arrested.

Keywords

World War II, forced migration of Ukrainians to the West, forced deportation to the USSR eastern regions.

References

1. Security Service of Ukraine’s Branch-Wise State Archives.
2. State Archives of Ternopil Region: f. P-1, inv. 1, dossier 3.
3. Central State Historical Archives of Public Associations of Ukraine: f. 1.
4. National Archives of Canada: MG 31, D. 203, vol. 26.
5. BUCHATSKYY, Volodymyr. Muscovitophilia in Lemkivshchyna. New York, 1955 [in Ukrainian].
6. KNYSH, Zynoviy. Before Marching Eastwards: Memories and Materials for the Activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1939–1941. Toronto: Silver Trumpet, 1959, pt. 2 [in Ukrainian].
7. KONONEVYCH, B. Preparing the Statehood Restoration. The Herald of the Organization for Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine, 1953, no. 2 [in Ukrainian].
8. KOSTYK, Petro. The Tragic Fate of Kholmshchyna and Pidliashshia. Lviv, 1997 [in Ukrainian].
9. The Cracovian Bulletin, 1943, April 13 [in Ukrainian].
10. KUBIYOVYCH, Volodymyr. Ukrainians in the General Government. 1939–1941: A Monograph. Chicago, 1974 [in Ukrainian].
11. KULHAVETS, Khrystyna. Soviet Internal Affairs Government Bodies in Countering the Ukrainian Armed Underground(1944–1950). Lviv, 2016 [in Ukrainian].
12. MUSHYNKA, Mykola. A Knight of Freedom. Life and Political and Social Activities of Stepan Klochurak. Uzhhorod, 1995 [in Ukrainian].
13. YAMPOLSKIY, V. (head of compilers’ group). USSR’s National Security Government Bodies in the Great Patriotic War. Collection of Documents. Moscow, 1995, vol. 1, bk. 1 [in Russian].
14. Breaking Through. Prague, 1941, no. 12 [in Ukrainian].
15. SERHIUCHUK, Volodymyr. Deportation of Ukrainians to Kazakhastan. Vyshhorod, 2017 [in Ukrainian].
16. LOZYTSKYI, Volodymyr (head of compilers’ group). Ukrainian Political Émigrés. 1919–1945. Documents and Materials. Kyiv: Parliamentary Publishing House: 2008.
17. KHYMYNETS, Yulian. My Observations from Transcarpathia. New York, 1984 [in Ukrainian].