Timothy Snyder on Volhynia: Why History Must Not Become a Weapon

timothy_snyder_800.jpg, medium, Timothy Snyder, 2011, photo: Magda Starowieyska / Fotorzepa / Forum

‘Now that eastern Ukraine has become a theatre of war, with Russian troops present, it is better to separate politics from history as far as the Volhynia massacre is concerned,’ says Professor Timothy Snyder, a historian of Central and Eastern Europe at Yale University.

Editor’s note: This interview was originally conducted in 2016, following the release of Wojciech Smarzowski’s film ‘Volhynia’. It is being republished in 2026 in the context of Russia’s ongoing full-scale war against Ukraine and renewed Polish-Ukrainian debates over memory, exhumations and the legacy of the Volhynia massacre. Since the interview took place, Poland and Ukraine have announced new steps towards searches, exhumations and commemorating victims. Snyder’s remarks should therefore be read as a record of an earlier moment in the debate, while remaining relevant to today’s questions of history, politics and reconciliation.

Norbert Nowotnik, PAP: In 2016, Wojciech Smarzowski’s film ‘Volhynia’ was widely discussed in Poland. How should Poles and Ukrainians discuss the Volhynia massacre so that the topic does not damage contemporary relations between our countries?

Timothy Snyder: I have not seen the film, so I cannot comment on it. I can only try to answer the question of how Poles and Ukrainians can discuss the Volhynia massacre at least in order to better understand one another.

I’m going to say some universal truths. First, one has to remember that in such disputes neither side ever is entirely right. Those Poles or Ukrainians who think they are completely right about the Volhynia massacre, and that they do not need to listen to the other side – they are wrong. Each of the sides should rather look for arguments which attempt to undermine its own position.

Second, if we consider relations between two nations, their perspectives and historical sources are never the only ones available for research. There are always other factors and other points of view on a given issue. Two nations may engage in a dialogue, but there is nothing like two versions of history. Because there is also a world outside the two countries.

People who say they fully understand the Volhynia ethnic cleansing, while invoking only Polish or Ukrainian sources, either lie or are not too knowledgeable. It is impossible to understand the background of the cleansing without learning about the first Soviet occupation, the following Nazi German occupation and the second Soviet occupation afterwards.

This has to be remembered, in order not to fall into a trap of a dialogue which, by its very form, involves a history told from two different ethnic perspectives only. We do not want either side to retreat into defensive claims that Ukrainians or Poles did not commit terrible acts against one another, because they did. To fully understand what happened in Volhynia, one has to consider the conflict from an outside perspective and look at the broader context of the war, including the occupiers’ administrative structures and, above all, the whole sequence of occupations, as the area was under triple occupation.

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A woman with a suitcase against the background of the ruins of destroyed buildings in Borodyanka, Ukraine, 5 March, 2022, photo: Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

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NN: However, in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict over memory, it is rather difficult to weigh the nuances properly, especially for politicians on either side whose assessment of the past is very simple and emotional.

TS: This is why it is so very important how you discuss the past. Politics and history function according to their own rules. Twenty-five years ago, Polish historians and politicians suggested a very good solution to their Ukrainian counterparts, who were only in the process of state formation. The solution was: let’s leave history to historians. This was wise, and perhaps today we are in a similar position, at a time when war is raging through eastern Ukraine and Russian troops have invaded Ukraine, Poland’s neighbour. Maybe it is worth separating these two realities – the historical one from the political one.

NN: Unfortunately, Polish and Ukrainian historians also differ from one another, and quite significantly. While in Poland the Volhynia slaughter is broadly perceived as genocide, in Ukraine it is thought of rather as a symmetrical Polish–Ukrainian civil war, which claimed lives on both sides. It is hard for Poles to understand that some Ukrainians glorify OUN-UPA, for example by building monuments to Stepan Bandera.

TS: And here is my first methodological comment: Stepan Bandera is not important for Ukraine as a whole; he is important only for the inhabitants of former Galicia. Of course, he is well-known in Poland: apart from leading the Ukrainian nationalist movement in Poland in the 1920s and 1930s, he also organised terrorist actions, including the 1934 assault on the then Polish Home Affairs Minister Bronisław Pieracki.

However, Ukraine is a big country; Bandera is known in Dnipro, in Kharkiv or even in Kyiv, but for the inhabitants of those cities he is not the most important person in the history of Ukraine. And one should remember that. No one who visits the capital of Ukraine or crosses the Dnieper River will encounter any manifestations of OUN and UPA glorification. Although you are certainly right that some Ukrainians have built monuments to Bandera or to other OUN leaders in the west. However, in my opinion, they really do not realise that this may hurt the Polish side.

I think that this happens according to the rule that one remembers the last stage of a given conflict. Because insofar as the first stage of OUN and UPA operations involved ethnic cleansing of Polish civilians, the last stage was their long and bloody battle against the Soviet regime. And since the fight was so determined, many Ukrainians have chiefly remembered it as OUN and UPA’s struggle against the Soviets.

But the fact that the Ukrainians do not remember the Volhynia massacre does not mean that it did not take place. Well, it did take place. And the Ukrainians should understand that those truths are not mutually exclusive. I believe, however, that in this case all that is needed is time and a bit of goodwill.

Some Ukrainians have regarded the crime committed against the Polish community in Volhynia as a Soviet myth. It certainly was so that the Soviets tried to cultivate the false belief in an everlasting conflict between Poland and Ukraine which could only be resolved peacefully by the communist regime. And since many Ukrainians today perceive everything the Soviets used to say as a lie, they may also struggle to believe in the Volhynia massacre.

NN: In the opinion of many of those who have already watched ‘Volhynia’, the film may be used by Russian propaganda, whose aim is to foster hostility between Poles and Ukrainians. The point is that Ukraine’s international isolation is in Russia’s interest.

TS: Of course, a continuing Polish-Ukrainian conflict is important for Russia. This is obvious, that’s why all the more the Volhynia massacre should be left to historians to explore. Mutual tactfulness is required in this respect.

It is true that atrocities happened in Volhynia and eastern Galicia; this is not in question, and as time goes by, every Pole and Ukrainian will admit it. This matter must be left to the flow of time, because today not every Ukrainian will understand a Pole when it comes to the Volhynia massacre, just as not every Pole will understand a Ukrainian when it comes to Operation Vistula – the forced resettlement in 1947 of Ukrainian civilians from south-eastern Poland to the western and northern parts of Poland by the communist regime.

This is why peaceful and tactful talks are needed in that case, as I’ve already said. The fact that a genuine atrocity took place – and ethnic cleansing in Volhynia was such an atrocity – does not mean that it should be brought up in every conversation.

Source: PAP, 10 October 2016. Updated 6 July 2026.

Embedded Work

Righteous Traitors: Neighbours from Volhynia – Witold Szabłowski

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