The Head of the Chancellery of the President of Poland, Zbigniew Bohutski, criticized the decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to create a National Pantheon and called the regions in western Ukraine “Eastern Lesser Poland”.

As  Censor.NET reports , he is quoted by the PAP publication. 

Criticism of the Pantheon and accusations of a “Bandera cult”

Bogutsky was asked in the Sejm about the Verkhovna Rada’s vote on the creation of the Ukrainian National Pantheon, which was passed the day before.

” This is the legislation of the Ukrainian state, which has the sovereign right to make its own decisions. The only question is whether they are correct. In my opinion, and primarily in the opinion of President Karol Navrotsky, as well as, I think, the vast majority of Poles, glorifying Bandera and the criminals who committed genocide in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland is not the path to the Western world, to common European and transatlantic values ,” Bogutsky said.

He added, ” this is not the path that leads to a civilized world .”

” Both Poland and the president will never agree to this – because, as he said, “we do not abandon our own”. (…) The voice of the victims is still heard, and the voice of the Bandera supporters cannot drown it out ,” the Polish official said.

Navrotsky added that ” movements from Ukraine are confrontational in nature, and this is very bad .”

Historical context of the term

It should be noted that the concept of “Eastern Lesser Poland” ( Małopolska Wschodnia ) has a chauvinistic political basis. This administrative-territorial term was actively artificially imposed by the government of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the interwar period (1918–1939).

The then Polish authorities strictly prohibited the use of the names “Western Ukraine” and “Eastern Galicia” at the legislative level, trying to completely erase the Ukrainian national identity of these lands and integrate them into the unitary Polish state. This was the name given to the territories that are now part of Ukraine, in particular the former Lviv, Ternopil and Stanislav voivodeships. Джерело: https://censor.net/ua/n4011510

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