209 Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Volodymyr Kubiiovych fond (VKF), MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 4, Pochatky Orhanizatsiї Ukraїns’koї Emihratsiї v H.H., n.d.
210 Karol Grünberg and Bolesław Sprengel, Trudne sąsiedztwo. Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie w X-XX wieku (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 2005), 535.
211 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 4, Protokol shyrshykh skhodyn ukraїns’koї emihratsiї v Krakovi, October 15, 1939.
212 Ibid.
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A figure of growing importance in the development of Ukrainian welfare and life in the GG was Volodymyr Kubiiovych. Born on September 23, 1900 in the Austrian Galician town of Neu Sandez – currently the Polish town of Nowy Sącz – he was raised in an ethnically-mixed family. His Ruthenian father Mykhailo was of the Greek Catholic rite while his Polish mother Maria Dobrowolska was Roman Catholic. In such cases, sons were traditionally raised in the Greek Catholic rite. According to Golczewski, Kubiiovych identifying himself in that way was an example of subjective self-identification – an unclear feature of national self-analysis and categorization yet something which offered him several options.213
During the Polish-Ukrainian War, Kubiiovych briefly served in the Galician Ukrainian Army. He saw combat, participating in the Czortków offensive before being routed east to the Zbruch River. He was discharged after contracting typhus.214 Kubiiovych returned home and soon attended the Jagiellonian University in Kraków where he earned his doctorate (1923) in geography with a dissertation focusing on the anthropological geography of the Gorgany range of the eastern Carpathian Mountains.215 In 1928 he wrote and defended his habilitation concerning population displacement of peoples in the European portion of the Soviet Union. Once again, his work received high praise from his reviewers and advisor while his habilitation lecture was positively evaluated by the philosophy faculty’s administrators.216 Socially, he was said to be a pleasant and interesting.217
Kubiiovych put his titles to work in two purely educational, academic ways. In between earning his doctorate and working on his habilitation, he worked part-time as a teacher in Kraków. After his habilitation, he began working as an associate professor of anthropological geography at the Jagiellonian University’s philosophy faculty. In 1939, while working at the university, he also became a permanent teacher at the combined middle and high school.218
213 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 948.
214 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 38. Much of this sub-chapter is based on my previous article. See Paweł Markiewicz,
“Volodymyr Kubijovych’s Ethnographic Ukraine: Theory into Practice on the Western Okraїny.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas vol. 64 no. 2 (2016).
215 Archiwum Uniwersytetu Jagiellingońskiego (AUJ), Teczki akt doktorskich podania o dopuszczenie do egzaminów ścisłych, ocena pracy, załączniki 1860-1945 – W. Kubijowycz, sygn. WF II 504, p. 9-13;
Kubijovych, Meni 85, 42-43. In his memoir, Kubijovych described that the inspiration for analyzing his dissertation topic came after participating in a week-long field geographic field excursion led by Professor Sawicki through the Gorgany range. As he mentioned, much of his research included field excursions in and around this range, documenting village life, speaking with villagers and local priests. This research also allowed him to be Eastern Galician, Ukrainian territory.
216 AUJ, Teczki akt habilitacyjnych z lat 1862-1945 – W. Kubijowycz, sygn. WF II 121, Jagiellonian University Faulty of Philosophy Protocol of Colloquium regarding Habilitation of dr. Włodzimierz Kubijowicz, 9 May 1928.
217 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, MIiD Biuro Geograficzne: uwagi dotyczące Włodzimierza Kubijowicza, October 6, 1943.
218 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 1, folder 4, Kurator Okręgu Szkolnego Krakowskiego, May 16, 1939;
volume 1 folder 4, Poświadczenie przynależności, May 24, 1924; AUJ, sygn. WF II 121, Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment, (MWRiOP) document, August 16, 1928; LAC, MG 31 D 203,
“Biographical Notes and Materials” series, volume 1 folder 4, Kurator Okręgu Szkolnego Krakowskiego, 16 May 1939.
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In Kraków, Kubiiovych regularly met with Ukrainian professors, including the literary specialist Bohdan Lepkyi. He engaged with Ukrainian geography students and oversaw their club. In 1930, he edited a journal compiled by those students at the Institute of Geography.
He later described it as the first such geographic collection on western Ukrainian territory and the second in the world.219 The publication raised the ire of institute director Jerzy Smoleński who wrote that the essays presented in the “Rusyn brochure” were published without his prior knowledge and without the institute’s consent. In a letter to the university rector, Kubiiovych explained: “None of the published texts had in mind introducing political, Polish or anti-state tendencies… In publishing the Zbirnyk, neither I nor any of the authors had in mind any disloyalty toward the Jagiellonian University or Polishness.”220 As punishment, he was
“discretely” removed from his position as secretary of the Polish Geographic Society’s Kraków branch. In his memoirs, he recalled the incident which caused him to minimize contacts with Smoleński and other Polish geographers.221
The result of Kubiiovych’s publication incident had a rather positive effect on his academic development as he began forming a closer relationship with the Shevchenko Society in Lwów, begun in 1927 (he became a member in 1932), and other Ukrainian academic centers, especially, beginning in 1932, in Germany. This was a logical transition as his most recent experience showed the difficulties of publishing Ukrainian topics among Polish scholars – “the majority of Polish geographers were of an anti-Ukrainian mindset” – especially if the arguments or data presented contested accepted research or official state positions.222 From 1930 to 1939, he devoted himself to lecturing at the Jagiellonian University and fieldwork on an anthropological geographic survey of the Carpathian Mountains. For his research and work, he received not only time off from his university duties but also financial scholarships from the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment for travel to Czechoslovakia and Romania.223
He also began research into the question of Ukrainian ethnographic territory. Here, his work took on a strong Ukrainian tone as he strove to compile maps and diagrams depicting population data independent of official state records. The goal of his research not only had academic but also political implementations. He intended to prove that the Polish state was neither ethnically nor territorially homogenous by showing the existence of Ukrainians. Whether he intended to or not, such scholarship could also prove ideologically
219 The edited students work was entitled Naukovyi Zbirnyk Heohrafichnoii Sektsiї pri Ukraїnskii Studentskii Hromadi w Krakovi.
220 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 1, folder 7, Kubiiovych letter to UJ rektor, January 20, 1931.
221 Marek Radomski, “Sprawa pozbawienia prawa wykładu docenta UJ, dra Włodzimierza Kubijowicza w czerwcu 1939 roku,” Zeszyty Historyczne, nr. 123 (1998), 30-31; Oleh Shablii, Volodymyr Kubijovych:
Entsyklopediia zhyttia i tvorennia (Paryzh – L’viv 1996), 91-92.
222 Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia…, 54-56; 78-88; 93-94. This runs contrary to his memoirs in which Kubiiovych stated his Ukrainian mindset did not pose any problems during his career.
223 AUJ, “Kubijowicz, Włodzimierz” fond, sygn. S II 619, MWRiOP document January 7, 1930, MWRiOP document 22 May 1930, MWRiOP document October 20, 1930; LAC, MG 31 D 203, volume 1 folder 8, Passport – Poland (1936).
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useful. Presenting Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians within a geographic and statistical scope on territories they inhabited could serve as an educational piece for Ukrainian awareness by defining to a new generation of nationalists what exactly Ukrainian ethnographic territory meant and looked like.224
Unfortunately for Kubiiovych, his determination to present what he considered an objective geographic and ethnographic profile of Ukrainian territory was a topic which directly contested recent state census records. He admitted this in his memoirs: “when my academic work began – in the sense of the majority of Poles – it was harmful to Polish matters…”225 In challenging official state records, ones he believed falsified the true Ukrainian composition of the eastern territories, he fell into conflict with “the then Polish top, which stood on the evident line of destroying Ukrainianess.”226
Conscious of the ramifications his work could have on him, Kubiiovych continued to search for an outlet for his research and findings. In 1935 he wrote to Dmytro Dontsov, the editor of Visnyk, with the idea of publishing his conclusions for the Polesia, Chełm and Podlasie regions, all which refuted official census records. He lamented to Dontsov about difficulties he had with the publication of his Atlas Ukraїny i sumezhnykh kraїv in Poland:
“…because it was difficult to get along with countrymen [Poles], even more difficult was corresponding with them. The distance between Honolulu and Kraków was shorter than that between Lwów and Kraków.”227 His geographic atlas of Ukraine (Atlas Ukraїny i sumezhnykh kraїv) was eventually published but in Lwów under the patronage of the Shevchenko Society. Such incidents of completing research formally as a worker at the Jagiellonian University yet publishing under the patronage of the Shevchenko Scientific Society raised the indignation of university administrators who questioned his loyalty – either to the university or to the scientific society or, read differently, to Poland or to Ukraine.
Kubiiovych presented his atlas maps and diagrams during scientific conferences in Lwów, Berlin, Prague and Sofia. In Sofia, he spoke in Ukrainian, causing Polish listeners to leave the room. During other conferences, he “proudly disseminated” his newest map depicting Ukrainian ethnographic territory and inhabitance; all this, as one report noted, while
224 Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia…, 56-57.
225 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 37.
226 Radomski, “Sprawa pozbawienia prawa wykładu...,” 32-33. In contrast to Kubiiovych, Prof. Bohdan Lepkyi and Prof. Ivan Zilynskyi, 2 full-blooded Ukrainians, both worked at the Jagiellonian University without any major problems primarily because their interests and work did not touch upon the political aspects of Poland’s Ukrainian minority. Many ethnic Poles perceived Kubiiovych, who was raised in a mixed Polish-Ukrainian family, who was raised in a Polish environment and in Polish schools and universities, as ungrateful, acting contrary to Polish interests. In his wartime diary, Edward Kubalski, noting the death of Lepkyi on July 21, 1941, wrote of him as someone who “belonged to those Ruthenians with whom one could get along with and cooperate.” Edward Kubalski, Niemcy w Krakowie. Dziennik 1 IX 1939 – 18 I 1945, (eds) Jan Grabowski and Zbigniew R. Grabowski (Kraków-Budapest: Wydawnictwo Austeria, 2010), 147.
227 Oleh Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych. Memuary, Rozdumy, Vybrani lysty vol. 2 (L’viv: Naukove tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 2000), 677-678.
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acting as a Polish geographer.228 In 1936, he presented his maps and diagrams of “Ukrainian ethnographic territory” at the Geography Institute at Berlin University, organized in concert with the Ukrainian Scientific Institute (Ukrainisches Wissenschaftliches Institut, UWI).
During his lecture, he estimated that some 400 people (mostly Germans) attended. Included in the audience were Hetman Pavlo Skoropads’kyi and Professor Albrecht Penck. His lecture on Polish-Ukrainian relations at the German Society for the Study of Eastern Europe was also attended by a Polish intelligence agent who reported that Kubiiovych understood his research repudiated the unreliable Polish census of 1931 and that only his scientific methods reflected the true population image.229
Polish criticism of Kubiiovych and his scholarship was very harsh during the mid-1930s especially since the Poles saw him, a state worker of a Polish university, as using his position to promote Ukrainian institutions and ideas. To them, these were signs of nationalism and anti-state sympathies. In attempting to organize a showing of his maps and diagrams in Warsaw, he received a note from the prime minister’s press bureau dissuading him from this.
It stated he can only research Ukrainian territory east of the Zbruch River; his maps claimed of showing ethnic territory west of it. His rationale for organizing the display in Warsaw was threefold: so the Shevchenko Society could “show itself” and its work in the capital, to show
“Ukrainian propaganda” and to assuage Polish accusations of conducting trips to Berlin and not Warsaw. Described as the “creator of largely scientific justifications for the political aspirations of his people,” he was seen as forgetting about the principle of objectivity in academia; instead allowing himself to be swept up in a political, nationalist temperament.230
Kubiiovych’s work was discussed in the press. An article in the nationalist Warszawski Dziennik Narodowy criticized him for attending a conference as representing the Jagiellonian University while at the same time claiming to represent the Shevchenko Society and displaying his maps. The author questioned whether Kubiiovych’s main goal was to be a professor at a Polish university or a Ukrainian agitator; if the latter, then the author suggested he resign from the university.231 Polska Zbrojna, the official organ of the Ministry of Defense, questioned how he could still be a university worker after presenting his theories. The article suggested that he used his title and position only to add greater credibility to his theses which expressed a “clear political-propaganda character.” His atlas was seen as ammunition for
228 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, MIiD Biuro Geograficzne: uwagi dotyczące Włodzimierza Kubijowicza, October 6, 1943; Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia…, 82. Based on his November 1932 lecture at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Berlin, an article appeared in the second volume of the Beiträge zur Ukrainekunde journal series. Wladimir Kubijowitsch, Die Verteilung der Bevölkerung in der Ukraine (Berlin:
Ukrainischen Wissenschaftlichen Institut, 1934).
229 Oleh Shablii, Mandrivky Volodymyra Kubiiovycha (L’viv: Feniks, 2000), 57-58; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer…, 721. After the war, Kubiiovych was convinced only the Gestapo knew of his lecture and not Polish circles. Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 180.
230 Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia…, 81-82; Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych. Memuary, Rozdumy, Vybrani lysty vol. 2, 682; Radomski, “Sprawa pozbawienia prawa wykładu...,” 41.
231 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, MIiD Biuro Geograficzne: uwagi dotyczące Włodzimierza Kubijowicza, October 6, 1943.
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foreign propaganda which doubted Poland’s claims of being a nation-state.232 An article in the February 22, 1939 edition of the Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny mentioned that French theorists were consulting his works in relation to gaining an understanding of the Ukrainian issue in East-Central Europe. A hand-written comment on the archival version of the newspaper read: “This is how Kubiiovych is showing off on anti-Polish brochures, as if the Jagiellonian University was giving them out officially. Is there no authority to either discipline or terminate him?”233
Such criticism caused university authorities to debate and consider suspending him from his duties. During three council sessions of the Faculty of Philosophy, Kubiiovych’s fate was decided. On June 16, 1939 he received a formal statement from the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment suspending him from lecture duties at the Jagiellonian University indefinitely.234 A wartime report by the exile government in London noted that Kubiiovych concealed his anti-Polish attitude in fear of it preventing him from gaining financial support for his research. It also noted: “However, during sincere conversations or in confidential talks, he revealed his negative position toward the Polish state. Also, he always added how he as an enemy of the USSR.”235
Losing his jobs as university lecturer and high school teacher, Kubiiovych fell into a state of melancholy. Taking to pen and paper, he wrote Zenon Kuzelia looking for other options. He expressed his desire to leave Poland as “for now, I have nothing to do here and I want to get away.” He looked to Berlin, to the contacts he made during his lectures and presentations at the UWI and to his positive relations among German scholars. He was open to work in various academic institutions yet was unfamiliar about the influence of Nazi policy on academia. As a professional geographer and one who specialized on Polish territorial ethnography, demography and statistical research, he was even open to working for the German civil administration [Zivilverwaltung] “which needs a certain academic-practical”
worker.236 He later described considering illegally crossing the border to flee Poland so as to save himself from Polish repressions.237
In his postwar memoirs, Kubiiovych recalled his feelings just prior to the outbreak of war. He believed his termination from university work was the first step toward government
232 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 949; Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia…, 95-99. In his memoirs, Kubiiovych proudly wrote that he indeed used his title and position at the Jagiellonian University for Ukrainian work. Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 62.
233 AUJ, sygn. S II 619, Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny nr. 53, February 22, 1939; Radomski, “Sprawa pozbawienia prawa wykładu...,” 42-44.
234 AUJ, „Protokoły posiedzeń Rady Wydziału z lat akademickich 1925/26-1938/39” fond, sygn. WF II 49, Protocol 830/39: VI zwyczajne posiedzenie Rady Wydziału Filozoficznego U.J., May 5, 1939, p. 432; AUJ, sygn. S II 619, MWRiOP document June 16, 1939. During a vote at the final Philosophy Faculty council session, out of 36 votes, 24 were in favor of suspending Kubijovych; 10 were against and 2 abstained.
235 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, MIiD Biuro Geograficzne: uwagi dotyczące Włodzimierza Kubijowicza, October 6, 1943.
236 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 950; Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych. Memuary, Rozdumy, Vybrani lysty vol. 2, 704-705.
237 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 64.
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persecution – detention, internment, arrest or imprisonment – as was the case with many suspected Ukrainians between 1938 and 1939. Certainly the danger struck him as unexpected especially in a country which at least in theory upheld the freedom of scholarship and academia, hitherto only causing informal inconveniences.238 During the summer of 1939, while living in Myślenice – some 40 kilometers south of Kraków, he recalled this was where he was when war broke out: “This was lucky because on September 1 the police came to my apartment [in Kraków] and wanted to send me to Bereza Kartuska.” Polish reports indicate a different reason for the police knocking on his door. Possible police interest in him may have stemmed from the fact that he failed to report to his designated military barracks after the general mobilization was issued; becoming, in the eyes of the state, a draft dodger.239 Laying low in Myślenice, he arrived in Kraków at an opportune time – before the arrival of the Germans but immediately after the evacuation of the Polish civil administration and, more importantly, the police.