Soviet annexation of Western Ukraine, 1939–1940
Encyclopedia
On the basis of a secret clause of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany
and the Soviet Union
(USSR), the Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17, 1939
, capturing the eastern regions of Poland
(Kresy
), with Galicia and Volhynia
, facing little Polish opposition and occupying the principal city of the ethnic region Western Ukraine
, Lviv
, on September 22 of that year. On June 26, 1940 Moscow issued an ultimatum
to the kingdom of Romania
demanding ceding of the territories in the region of northern Bukovina
(where Ukrainians were the ethnic majority), which was occupied by the Red Army
on August 2 of that year. As a result of these annexations the territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic gained 50600 square miles (131,053.4 km²) of territory and increased its population by over 7 million people.
On September 17, 1939 the Red Army entered Polish territory
, acting on the basis of a secret clause of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany
. Soviet Union would later deny the existence of this secret protocol, claiming that it was never allied with Nazi Germany, and acted independently to "protect" the Ukrainian and Belorusan minorities in the disintegrating Polish state. Composed of mostly ethnic Ukrainian Soviet troops under the command of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko
, the Soviet forces occupied Western Ukraine within 12 days, capturing the regions of Galicia and Volhynia
with little Polish opposition and occupying the principal city, Lviv
, on September 22 of that year.
Due to Polish government's discrimination against the Ukrainian minority
during the interbellum, these troops were sometimes greeted with genuine joy by Ukrainian villagers, In other cases, support demonstrations were staged by pro-Soviet militia. Not all Ukrainians, however, trusted the Soviet regime responsible for the Ukrainian Famine of 1932–1933
. In practice, the poor generally welcomed the Soviets, while the elites tended to join the opposition, despite supporting the unification of Ukraine.
Immediately after entering Poland's territory, the Soviet army helped to set up "provisional administrations" in the cities and "peasant committees" in the villages in order to organize one-list elections to the People's Assembly of Western Ukraine. The elections
were designed to give the annexation an appearance of validity, but were far from free or fair. The voters had a choice of only one candidate, often a local communist or someone sent to western Ukraine from Sоviet Ukraine for each position of deputy; the communist party commissars then provided the assembly with resolutions that would push through nationalization of banks and heavy industry and transfers of land to peasant communities. Elections took place on October 22, 1939; the official numbers reported participation of 93 percent of the electorate, 91 percent of whom supported the appointed candidates. Based on these results, the People's Assembly of Western Ukraine, headed by Kyryl Studynsky
(a prominent academic and figure in the Christian Social Movement
), consisted of 1,484 deputies. They met in Lviv
on October 26–28, where they were addressed by Nikita Khrushchev
and other representatives of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The assembly voted unanimously to thank Stalin for liberation and sent a delegation headed by Studynsky to Moscow to ask for formal inclusion of the territories into the Ukrainian SSR. The Supreme Soviet voted to do so on November 1, 1939 and on November 15 a law was passed making Western Ukraine a part of the Ukrainian SSR.
presented an ultimatum
note to Gheorghe Davidescu, Romanian ambassador to Moscow, in which the Soviet Union
demanded the evacuation of the Romanian military and administration from Bessarabia and from the northern part of Bukovina within 24 hours, The Soviet government demanded the northern part of Bukovina
as a "minor reparation for the great loss inflicted to the Soviet Union and Bessarabia's population by 22 years of Romanian domination of Bessarabia
", and because its "[...] fate is linked mainly with the Soviet Ukraine by the community of its historical fate, and by the community of language and ethnic composition". Northern Bukovina has had some historical connections with Galicia, which was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939, in the sense that both were part of Austria-Hungary
from the second part of the 18th century until 1918. Also, unlike Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina had a Ukrainian majority. Romania promptly agreed to withdraw from the territories, to avoid a full scale military conflict. Majority of the territories were turned into the Moldavian SSR
, a constituent republic of the USSR
.
s similar to those in the rest of the Soviet Union (Drohobych Oblast
, Lviv Oblast
, Rivne Oblast
, Stanislav (later known as Ivano-Frankivsk) Oblast
, Tarnopil Oblast
and Volyn Oblast
). The civilian administration in those regions annexed from Poland was organized by December 1939 and was drawn mostly from newcomers from eastern Ukraine and Russia; only 20% of government employees were from the local population. It was falsely assumed by many Ukrainians that a disproportionate number of people working for the Soviet administration came from within the Jewish community. The reason for this belief was that most of the previous Polish administrators were deported, and the local Ukrainian intelligentsia who could have taken their place were generally deemed to be too nationalistic for such work by the Soviets. In reality, most positions were staffed by ethnic Ukrainians from the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, in the eyes of many Ukrainians the Jews came to be associated with Soviet rule, which contributed to rising anti-Jewish sentiments.
The Polish language
was eliminated from public life, and Ukrainian
became the language of the government and the courts. All Polish institutions were abolished, and all Polish officials, civil servants, and police were deported
to Siberia
or Central Asia
.
Ukrainian organizations not controlled by the Soviets were limited or abolished. Hundreds of credit unions and cooperatives
that had served the Ukrainian people between the wars were shut down. All local Ukrainian political parties were abolished, and between 20,000 to 30,000 Ukrainian activists, fled to German-occupied territory; most of those who did not escape were arrested. For example, Dr. Dmytro Levitsky, former head of the moderate Ukrainian political party Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance
(UNDO) that had dominated Ukrainian political life between the world wars, and chief of the Ukrainian delegation in the pre-war Polish parliament, was arrested alongside many of his colleagues, deported to Moscow, and never heard from again. The elimination of the individuals, organizations and parties that represented moderate or liberal political tendencies left the extremist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
, which operated in the underground, as the only political party with a significant organizational presence left in western Ukraine.
Due to the sensitive location of western Ukraine along the border with German-held territory, the Soviet administration made attempts, initially, to gain the loyalty and respect of the Ukrainian population. Healthcare, especially in the villages, was improved dramatically. Between the two world wars Poland had drastically reduced the number of Ukrainian-language schools while Romania had eliminated them completely. These were now reopened and, although the Russian language became a mandatory foreign-language course, the schools were taught in Ukrainian. Ukrainian was reintroduced in the University of Lviv (where the Polish government had banished it during the interwar years), which became thoroughly Ukrainized
and renamed after Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko
. The Soviet authorities established a branch of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Lviv, and some leading non-Communist Ukrainian scholars were invited to staff these institutions. University students from Eastern Ukraine were brought to Lviv and western Ukrainian students, professors, and other cultural figures were sent on Soviet-funded trips to Kiev. An unintended result of such exchanges was that the Galician youth were disagreeably surprised by the material poverty and widespread use of the Russian language in Soviet Ukraine, while the incoming students to western Ukraine became exposed to and sometimes came to adopt western Ukrainian nationalism
. In contrast to the dramatic expansion of educational opportunities within the Soviet system, non-Soviet controlled educational institutions such as the popular Prosvita
society reading rooms, the Shevchenko Scientific Society
, libraries and community theaters, and the Russophile Stauropegion Institute
were closed or abolished.
had approximately 2,190 parishes, three theological seminaries, 29 monasteries, 120 convents and 3.5 million faithful. Its leader, Andrey Sheptytsky
, was seen as a "father figure" by most Western Ukrainians. The married Western Ukrainian Clergy
and their children formed a caste that had a high degree of influence within Ukrainian society. Using his moral influence, Sheptytsky persuaded all but approximately 100 of the Ukrainian Catholic priests in western Ukrainian to stay with their flock in western Ukraine rather than flee from the Soviet regime. Due to its immense popularity, as well as that of Sheptytsky, among the western Ukrainian people, the Soviet Union did not attempt to abolish the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
nor persecute its leader at that time. Instead, it sought to limit the Church's influence by banishing its presence from schools, preventing it from printing (20 Ukrainian
Catholic journals or newspapers were shut down), confiscating lands from which it derived income, closing monasteries and seminaries, levying high taxes, and introducing anti-religious propaganda into schools and the media. The Soviets also attempted to undermine the Church from within. A prominent Lviv priest and close confidante of Andrey Sheptytsky
, Havriil Kostelnyk, who had been the principle critic of the Vatican's Latinization policies and spokesperson for the "Easternizing" trend within the Ukrainian Catholic Church, was asked to organize a "National" Greek Catholic Church, with Soviet support, that would be independent of the Vatican and which would split the faithful in western Ukraine. At this time, he refused to cooperate, even after the autumn of 1940 when the Soviets arrested his youngest son in order to blackmail him. (After Sheptytksy's death Kostelnyk would play a significant role in the destruction of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church). Arrests, though not of a mass nature, were used in order to terrify the religious leaders. For example, in June 1940 the superior of the Studite
convent in Lviv, Olena Viter, was imprisoned and tortured in order to "confess" that Sheptytsky was a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
and that she was supplying him with weapons. She refused to do so. By the summer of 1941, in Western Ukraine 11 or 12 Greek Catholic priests were murdered or missing, and fifty-three were imprisoned or deported.
Despite the various restrictions, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
was left as the only remaining independent Ukrainian institution that operated openly in Ukrainian territory. Church attendance soared, and contemporary accounts described churches never having been as full as they became under Soviet rule, with long lines forming in front of confessional booths. The western Ukrainian people attempted to protect their Church from Soviet restrictions. Peasants, even among the poorest ones, were reluctant to accept land taken from the Church and offered to them, and as late as May 1940 some villages had not yet expropriated church lands, while others distributed much of it to priests' families. Priests made homeless were taken in by parishioners. Children, who no longer learned religion in school, obtained religious instruction privately.
The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
in Volhynia faced similar restrictions to those of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church; moreover it underwent pressure to subordinate itself to the Moscow Patriarch. Many Orthodox priests fled the Soviet regime, resulting in a large number of newly consecrated priests who were not necessarily fit for their duties, weakening and demoralizing the Church somewhat. The Orthodox hierarchs in western Ukraine were left alone, however.
was repatriated. The German consul also evacuated many local Ukrainian leaders and Orthodox priests, many of whom subsequently joined the Melnyk
branch of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
abroad. Tens of thousands of German-speaking people from Volhynia were also moved to German-controlled territory.
In April 1940 the Soviet authorities in the annexed territories began to extend their repressive measures towards the general Ukrainian population. This coincided with the removal of Soviet troops of ethnic Ukrainian origin, who had become too friendly with local Ukrainians, and their replacement by soldiers from Central Asia. The Soviet authorities began arresting and deporting anyone suspected of disloyalty to the Soviet regime. In villages, people were denounced by their neighbors, some of whom were Communist sympathizers while others were opportunists. Deportations became indiscriminate, and people and their families were deported for "crimes" such as having relatives or visiting abroad, or visiting friends while the friends were arrested. Because many of those making denounciations were perceived to be Jews, anti-Jewish sentiments among the Ukrainian population increased. Ultimately, between 1939 and the beginning of World War II approximately 500,000 Ukrainians would be deported to Siberia and central Asia.
In addition to the loss of much of the native population, western Ukraine experienced an influx of other settlers. The population of Lviv
increased from 318,000 to 450,000 during the Soviet administration, largely due to the influx of Polish refugees fleeing German territory and Soviet officials and their families. The latter group was estimated to number 100,000 people in Lviv. In Stanislaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk
) the population grew by 40,000, 1,000 of whom were estimated to have been NKVD officers. In addition, 100,000s of Jews fleeing Nazi terror in German-occupied Poland arrived in the territories newly annexed by the USSR.
On June 22, 1941 Operation Barbarossa
began, and western Ukraine was captured within weeks. Prior to retreating, the Soviet authorities, unwilling to evacuate prisoners, chose to kill all inmates whether or not they had committed major or minor crimes and whether or not they were held for political reasons. Estimates of the number of people killed vary from 15,000 to 40,000. Due to the brutality of the Soviet administration, many Ukrainians initially welcomed the German invasion. On June 30, 1941, Ukrainian nationalist commandos
under German command captured Lviv
which had been evacuated by Soviet forces and declared an independent state allied with Nazi Germany. This movement was quashed by the Germans, who split up western Ukraine. Northern Bukovina was returned to Germany's ally, Romania. Galicia, which had once been part of Austria, was made part of the General Government
together with occupied Poland, while Volhynia was split off and attached to the Reichskommissariat Ukraine
. All of these regions would be captured and reintegrated into Soviet Ukraine in 1944.
, because it brought within one republic most of Ukrainian ethnic territories and unified previously separated Ukrainian populations. Thus the unified during this time Ukrainian SSR eventually achieved independence in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
(USSR), the Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17, 1939
Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)
The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II. Sixteen days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Union did so from the east...
, capturing the eastern regions of Poland
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
(Kresy
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...
), with Galicia and Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
, facing little Polish opposition and occupying the principal city of the ethnic region Western Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
, on September 22 of that year. On June 26, 1940 Moscow issued an ultimatum
Ultimatum
An ultimatum is a demand whose fulfillment is requested in a specified period of time and which is backed up by a threat to be followed through in case of noncompliance. An ultimatum is generally the final demand in a series of requests...
to the kingdom of Romania
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
demanding ceding of the territories in the region of northern Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
(where Ukrainians were the ethnic majority), which was occupied by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
on August 2 of that year. As a result of these annexations the territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic gained 50600 square miles (131,053.4 km²) of territory and increased its population by over 7 million people.
Annexation of Polish territory
Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)
The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II. Sixteen days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Union did so from the east...
, acting on the basis of a secret clause of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. Soviet Union would later deny the existence of this secret protocol, claiming that it was never allied with Nazi Germany, and acted independently to "protect" the Ukrainian and Belorusan minorities in the disintegrating Polish state. Composed of mostly ethnic Ukrainian Soviet troops under the command of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko
Semyon Timoshenko
Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko was a Soviet military commander and senior professional officer of the Red Army at the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.-Early life:...
, the Soviet forces occupied Western Ukraine within 12 days, capturing the regions of Galicia and Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
with little Polish opposition and occupying the principal city, Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
, on September 22 of that year.
Ukrainian minority in Poland
The Ukrainian minority in Poland is composed of 27,172 people according to the Polish census of 2002. Most of them live in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship , followed by West Pomeranian , Podkarpackie and Pomeranian Voivodeship ....
during the interbellum, these troops were sometimes greeted with genuine joy by Ukrainian villagers, In other cases, support demonstrations were staged by pro-Soviet militia. Not all Ukrainians, however, trusted the Soviet regime responsible for the Ukrainian Famine of 1932–1933
Holodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
. In practice, the poor generally welcomed the Soviets, while the elites tended to join the opposition, despite supporting the unification of Ukraine.
Immediately after entering Poland's territory, the Soviet army helped to set up "provisional administrations" in the cities and "peasant committees" in the villages in order to organize one-list elections to the People's Assembly of Western Ukraine. The elections
Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus
Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which took place on October 22, 1939, were an attempt to legitimate territorial gains of the Soviet Union, at the expense of the Second Polish Republic...
were designed to give the annexation an appearance of validity, but were far from free or fair. The voters had a choice of only one candidate, often a local communist or someone sent to western Ukraine from Sоviet Ukraine for each position of deputy; the communist party commissars then provided the assembly with resolutions that would push through nationalization of banks and heavy industry and transfers of land to peasant communities. Elections took place on October 22, 1939; the official numbers reported participation of 93 percent of the electorate, 91 percent of whom supported the appointed candidates. Based on these results, the People's Assembly of Western Ukraine, headed by Kyryl Studynsky
Kyryl Studynsky
Kyryl Studynsky , was a western Ukrainian political and cultural figure from the late-19th to the mid-20th century. One of the principal figures within the Christian Social Movement in Ukraine, in 1939 Studynsky became head of the People's Assembly of Western Ukraine following the Soviet...
(a prominent academic and figure in the Christian Social Movement
Christian Social Movement in Ukraine
The Christian Social Movement in Ukraine was a political movement that existed in Western Ukraine from the end of the 19th century until the 1930s.-Ideals:...
), consisted of 1,484 deputies. They met in Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
on October 26–28, where they were addressed by Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
and other representatives of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The assembly voted unanimously to thank Stalin for liberation and sent a delegation headed by Studynsky to Moscow to ask for formal inclusion of the territories into the Ukrainian SSR. The Supreme Soviet voted to do so on November 1, 1939 and on November 15 a law was passed making Western Ukraine a part of the Ukrainian SSR.
Annexation of Romanian territory
On June 26, 1940, Soviet People's Commissar Vyacheslav MolotovVyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
presented an ultimatum
Ultimatum
An ultimatum is a demand whose fulfillment is requested in a specified period of time and which is backed up by a threat to be followed through in case of noncompliance. An ultimatum is generally the final demand in a series of requests...
note to Gheorghe Davidescu, Romanian ambassador to Moscow, in which the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
demanded the evacuation of the Romanian military and administration from Bessarabia and from the northern part of Bukovina within 24 hours, The Soviet government demanded the northern part of Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
as a "minor reparation for the great loss inflicted to the Soviet Union and Bessarabia's population by 22 years of Romanian domination of Bessarabia
Union of Bessarabia with Romania
On , the Sfatul Ţării, or National Council, of Bessarabia proclaimed union with the Kingdom of Romania.-Governorate of Bessarabia:The 1812 Treaty of Bucharest between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empires provided for Russian annexation of the eastern half of the territory of the Principality...
", and because its "[...] fate is linked mainly with the Soviet Ukraine by the community of its historical fate, and by the community of language and ethnic composition". Northern Bukovina has had some historical connections with Galicia, which was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939, in the sense that both were part of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
from the second part of the 18th century until 1918. Also, unlike Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina had a Ukrainian majority. Romania promptly agreed to withdraw from the territories, to avoid a full scale military conflict. Majority of the territories were turned into the Moldavian SSR
Moldavian SSR
The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union...
, a constituent republic of the USSR
Republics of the Soviet Union
The Republics of the Soviet Union or the Union Republics of the Soviet Union were ethnically-based administrative units that were subordinated directly to the Government of the Soviet Union...
.
Government and administration
The lands annexed by the Soviet Union were administratively reorganized into six oblastOblast
Oblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
s similar to those in the rest of the Soviet Union (Drohobych Oblast
Drohobych Oblast
Drohobych Oblast , was an oblast in the Ukrainian SSR. It had a territory of 9.6 thousands of km³, and population of 853 thousand .-History:...
, Lviv Oblast
Lviv Oblast
Lviv Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Lviv.-History:The oblast was created as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on December 4, 1939...
, Rivne Oblast
Rivne Oblast
Rivne Oblast is an oblast of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Rivne. The area of the region is 20,100 km²; its population is 1.2 million...
, Stanislav (later known as Ivano-Frankivsk) Oblast
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine. Its administrative center is the city of Ivano-Frankivsk. As is the case with most other oblasts of Ukraine this region has the same name as its administrative center – which was renamed by the Soviets after the Ukrainian writer, nationalist...
, Tarnopil Oblast
Ternopil Oblast
Ternopil Oblast is an oblast' of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Ternopil, through which flows the Seret River, a tributary of the Dnister.-Geography:...
and Volyn Oblast
Volyn Oblast
Volyn Oblast is an oblast in north-western Ukraine. Its administrative center is Lutsk. Kovel is the westernmost town and the last station in Ukraine of the rail line running from Kiev to Warsaw.-History:...
). The civilian administration in those regions annexed from Poland was organized by December 1939 and was drawn mostly from newcomers from eastern Ukraine and Russia; only 20% of government employees were from the local population. It was falsely assumed by many Ukrainians that a disproportionate number of people working for the Soviet administration came from within the Jewish community. The reason for this belief was that most of the previous Polish administrators were deported, and the local Ukrainian intelligentsia who could have taken their place were generally deemed to be too nationalistic for such work by the Soviets. In reality, most positions were staffed by ethnic Ukrainians from the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, in the eyes of many Ukrainians the Jews came to be associated with Soviet rule, which contributed to rising anti-Jewish sentiments.
The Polish language
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
was eliminated from public life, and Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
became the language of the government and the courts. All Polish institutions were abolished, and all Polish officials, civil servants, and police were deported
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
to Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
or Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
.
Ukrainian organizations not controlled by the Soviets were limited or abolished. Hundreds of credit unions and cooperatives
Ukrainian cooperative movement
The Ukrainian Cooperative Movement was a movement based primarily in Western Ukraine that addressed the economic plight of the western Ukrainian people through the creation of financial, agricultural and trade cooperatives that enabled western Ukrainians to pool their resources, to obtain less...
that had served the Ukrainian people between the wars were shut down. All local Ukrainian political parties were abolished, and between 20,000 to 30,000 Ukrainian activists, fled to German-occupied territory; most of those who did not escape were arrested. For example, Dr. Dmytro Levitsky, former head of the moderate Ukrainian political party Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance
Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance
The Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, was the largest Ukrainian political party in the Second Polish Republic, active in territory that is currently Western Ukraine. It dominated the mainstream political life of the Ukrainian minority in Poland, which with almost 14% of Poland's population...
(UNDO) that had dominated Ukrainian political life between the world wars, and chief of the Ukrainian delegation in the pre-war Polish parliament, was arrested alongside many of his colleagues, deported to Moscow, and never heard from again. The elimination of the individuals, organizations and parties that represented moderate or liberal political tendencies left the extremist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...
, which operated in the underground, as the only political party with a significant organizational presence left in western Ukraine.
Education and healthcare
Ukrainization
Ukrainization is a policy of increasing the usage and facilitating the development of the Ukrainian language and promoting other elements of Ukrainian culture, in various spheres of public life such as education, publishing, government and religion.The term is used, most prominently, for the...
and renamed after Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko
Ivan Franko
Ivan Yakovych Franko was a Ukrainian poet, writer, social and literary critic, journalist, interpreter, economist, political activist, doctor of philosophy, the author of the first detective novels and modern poetry in the Ukrainian language....
. The Soviet authorities established a branch of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Lviv, and some leading non-Communist Ukrainian scholars were invited to staff these institutions. University students from Eastern Ukraine were brought to Lviv and western Ukrainian students, professors, and other cultural figures were sent on Soviet-funded trips to Kiev. An unintended result of such exchanges was that the Galician youth were disagreeably surprised by the material poverty and widespread use of the Russian language in Soviet Ukraine, while the incoming students to western Ukraine became exposed to and sometimes came to adopt western Ukrainian nationalism
Ukrainian nationalism
Ukrainian nationalism refers to the Ukrainian version of nationalism.Although the current Ukrainian state emerged fairly recently, some historians, such as Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Orest Subtelny and Paul Magosci have cited the medieval state of Kievan Rus' as an early precedents of specifically...
. In contrast to the dramatic expansion of educational opportunities within the Soviet system, non-Soviet controlled educational institutions such as the popular Prosvita
Prosvita
Prosvita is a society created in the nineteenth century in Ukrainian Galicia for preserving and developing Ukrainian culture and education among population....
society reading rooms, the Shevchenko Scientific Society
Shevchenko Scientific Society
The Shevchenko Scientific Society is a Ukrainian scientific society devoted to the promotion of scholarly research and publication. Unlike the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine the society is a public organization that was reestablished in Ukraine in 1989 after almost 50 years of exile...
, libraries and community theaters, and the Russophile Stauropegion Institute
Stauropegion Institute
The Stauropegion Institute was one of the most important cultural and educational institutions in western Ukraine from the end of the 18th century until World War II...
were closed or abolished.
Land reform
In the annexed territories, over 50 percent of the land had belonged to Polish or Romanian landlords while approximately 75% of the Ukrainian peasants owned less than two hectares of land per household. Starting in 1939 lands not owned by the peasants were seized and slightly less than half of them were distributed to landless peasants free of charge; the rest were given to new collective farms. The Soviet authorities then began taking land from the peasants themselves and turning it over to collective farms, which affected 13% of western Ukrainian farmland by 1941. This caused the peasants to turn against the Soviet regime.Religious persecution
At the time of the Soviet annexation of western Ukraine the Ukrainian Greek Catholic ChurchUkrainian Greek Catholic Church
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , Ukrainska Hreko-Katolytska Tserkva), is the largest Eastern Rite Catholic sui juris particular church in full communion with the Holy See, and is directly subject to the Pope...
had approximately 2,190 parishes, three theological seminaries, 29 monasteries, 120 convents and 3.5 million faithful. Its leader, Andrey Sheptytsky
Andrey Sheptytsky
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky was the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church from 1901 until his death. During his tenure, he led the Church through two world wars and seven political regimes: Austrian, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Soviet, German National Socialist , and...
, was seen as a "father figure" by most Western Ukrainians. The married Western Ukrainian Clergy
Western Ukrainian Clergy
The Western Ukrainian clergy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church were a hereditary tight-knit social caste that dominated western Ukrainian society from the late eighteenth until the mid twentieth centuries, following the reforms instituted by Joseph II, Emperor of Austria...
and their children formed a caste that had a high degree of influence within Ukrainian society. Using his moral influence, Sheptytsky persuaded all but approximately 100 of the Ukrainian Catholic priests in western Ukrainian to stay with their flock in western Ukraine rather than flee from the Soviet regime. Due to its immense popularity, as well as that of Sheptytsky, among the western Ukrainian people, the Soviet Union did not attempt to abolish the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , Ukrainska Hreko-Katolytska Tserkva), is the largest Eastern Rite Catholic sui juris particular church in full communion with the Holy See, and is directly subject to the Pope...
nor persecute its leader at that time. Instead, it sought to limit the Church's influence by banishing its presence from schools, preventing it from printing (20 Ukrainian
Catholic journals or newspapers were shut down), confiscating lands from which it derived income, closing monasteries and seminaries, levying high taxes, and introducing anti-religious propaganda into schools and the media. The Soviets also attempted to undermine the Church from within. A prominent Lviv priest and close confidante of Andrey Sheptytsky
Andrey Sheptytsky
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky was the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church from 1901 until his death. During his tenure, he led the Church through two world wars and seven political regimes: Austrian, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Soviet, German National Socialist , and...
, Havriil Kostelnyk, who had been the principle critic of the Vatican's Latinization policies and spokesperson for the "Easternizing" trend within the Ukrainian Catholic Church, was asked to organize a "National" Greek Catholic Church, with Soviet support, that would be independent of the Vatican and which would split the faithful in western Ukraine. At this time, he refused to cooperate, even after the autumn of 1940 when the Soviets arrested his youngest son in order to blackmail him. (After Sheptytksy's death Kostelnyk would play a significant role in the destruction of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church). Arrests, though not of a mass nature, were used in order to terrify the religious leaders. For example, in June 1940 the superior of the Studite
Studite Brethren
Studite Brethren are a religious society of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.The Studite rule was developed at the Stoudios monastery of Constantinople, from the 5th century onward, especially by Saint Theodore the Studite . The rule was brought to Kievan Rus in the 11th century by Saint...
convent in Lviv, Olena Viter, was imprisoned and tortured in order to "confess" that Sheptytsky was a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...
and that she was supplying him with weapons. She refused to do so. By the summer of 1941, in Western Ukraine 11 or 12 Greek Catholic priests were murdered or missing, and fifty-three were imprisoned or deported.
Despite the various restrictions, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , Ukrainska Hreko-Katolytska Tserkva), is the largest Eastern Rite Catholic sui juris particular church in full communion with the Holy See, and is directly subject to the Pope...
was left as the only remaining independent Ukrainian institution that operated openly in Ukrainian territory. Church attendance soared, and contemporary accounts described churches never having been as full as they became under Soviet rule, with long lines forming in front of confessional booths. The western Ukrainian people attempted to protect their Church from Soviet restrictions. Peasants, even among the poorest ones, were reluctant to accept land taken from the Church and offered to them, and as late as May 1940 some villages had not yet expropriated church lands, while others distributed much of it to priests' families. Priests made homeless were taken in by parishioners. Children, who no longer learned religion in school, obtained religious instruction privately.
The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church is one of the three major Orthodox Churches in Ukraine. Close to ten percent of the Christian population claim to be members of the UAOC. The other Churches are the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Russophile Orthodox...
in Volhynia faced similar restrictions to those of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church; moreover it underwent pressure to subordinate itself to the Moscow Patriarch. Many Orthodox priests fled the Soviet regime, resulting in a large number of newly consecrated priests who were not necessarily fit for their duties, weakening and demoralizing the Church somewhat. The Orthodox hierarchs in western Ukraine were left alone, however.
Deportations and Demographic changes
Initially, the Soviet authorities deported primarily political figures as well as all Polish officials, civil servants, police, and Polish citizens who had fled from the Germans. The exact number of Poles deported to Siberia or Central Asia between 1939 and 1941 remains unknown, and has been estimated at from under 500,000 to over 1,500,000; about 350,000 of whom died. In Bukovina, in accordance with the agreement between the Soviet Union and Germany, most of the region's large German minorityBukovina Germans
The Bukovina Germans were a German ethnic group that mainly lived from about 1780 to the 1940s in Bukovina, part of present-day western Ukraine and northern Romania...
was repatriated. The German consul also evacuated many local Ukrainian leaders and Orthodox priests, many of whom subsequently joined the Melnyk
Andriy Melnyk
Andriy Melnyk , Ukrainian military and political leader.-Life:Born near Drohobych, Galicia into a peasant family. Between 1912 and 1914 he studied at the Higher School of Agriculture in Vienna...
branch of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...
abroad. Tens of thousands of German-speaking people from Volhynia were also moved to German-controlled territory.
In April 1940 the Soviet authorities in the annexed territories began to extend their repressive measures towards the general Ukrainian population. This coincided with the removal of Soviet troops of ethnic Ukrainian origin, who had become too friendly with local Ukrainians, and their replacement by soldiers from Central Asia. The Soviet authorities began arresting and deporting anyone suspected of disloyalty to the Soviet regime. In villages, people were denounced by their neighbors, some of whom were Communist sympathizers while others were opportunists. Deportations became indiscriminate, and people and their families were deported for "crimes" such as having relatives or visiting abroad, or visiting friends while the friends were arrested. Because many of those making denounciations were perceived to be Jews, anti-Jewish sentiments among the Ukrainian population increased. Ultimately, between 1939 and the beginning of World War II approximately 500,000 Ukrainians would be deported to Siberia and central Asia.
In addition to the loss of much of the native population, western Ukraine experienced an influx of other settlers. The population of Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
increased from 318,000 to 450,000 during the Soviet administration, largely due to the influx of Polish refugees fleeing German territory and Soviet officials and their families. The latter group was estimated to number 100,000 people in Lviv. In Stanislaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk
Ivano-Frankivsk
Ivano-Frankivsk is a historic city located in the western Ukraine. It is the administrative centre of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast , and is designated as its own separate raion within the oblast, municipality....
) the population grew by 40,000, 1,000 of whom were estimated to have been NKVD officers. In addition, 100,000s of Jews fleeing Nazi terror in German-occupied Poland arrived in the territories newly annexed by the USSR.
Aftermath
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
began, and western Ukraine was captured within weeks. Prior to retreating, the Soviet authorities, unwilling to evacuate prisoners, chose to kill all inmates whether or not they had committed major or minor crimes and whether or not they were held for political reasons. Estimates of the number of people killed vary from 15,000 to 40,000. Due to the brutality of the Soviet administration, many Ukrainians initially welcomed the German invasion. On June 30, 1941, Ukrainian nationalist commandos
Nachtigall Battalion
The Nachtigall Battalion , officially known as Special Group Nachtigall, was the subunit under command of the Abwehr special operation unit Lehrregiment "Brandenburg" z.b.V. 800...
under German command captured Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
which had been evacuated by Soviet forces and declared an independent state allied with Nazi Germany. This movement was quashed by the Germans, who split up western Ukraine. Northern Bukovina was returned to Germany's ally, Romania. Galicia, which had once been part of Austria, was made part of the General Government
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
together with occupied Poland, while Volhynia was split off and attached to the Reichskommissariat Ukraine
Reichskommissariat Ukraine
Reichskommissariat Ukraine , literally "Reich Commissariat of Ukraine", was the civilian occupation regime of much of German-occupied Ukraine during World War II. Between September 1941 and March 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Reichskommissar Erich Koch as a colony...
. All of these regions would be captured and reintegrated into Soviet Ukraine in 1944.
Importance for the Ukrainian statehood
The annexation of 1939 was an important event in the history of UkraineUkraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, because it brought within one republic most of Ukrainian ethnic territories and unified previously separated Ukrainian populations. Thus the unified during this time Ukrainian SSR eventually achieved independence in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union.