Since 1991 – and in some respects for more than a decade – Ukraine’s memory politics has consistently emphasized Cossack and partisan traditions, centuries of history, and the injustices inflicted upon Ukraine by Russia, regardless of whether it appeared as the Tsardom or as the Soviet Union. Yet this is only part of the story. Ukrainian history and tradition also contain elements worth highlighting which confirm the country’s enduring European belonging.
On Nov. 22, 2019, the central square of Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, right next to the cathedral, was covered with a multitude of flags: most prominent was the Lithuanian Pahonia, alongside those of Poland, independent Belarus and Lithuania. Among them appeared references to the symbolism of the First Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth: on a single shield the Lithuanian Pahonia, the Polish White Eagle and the Ukrainian/Ruthenian Archangel Gabriel.
It was the ceremonial funeral of the January Uprising fighters who, in 1863–1864, challenged the Russian occupiers. Present on that day in 2019 were the presidents of Poland and Lithuania, as well as representatives of Ukraine, Latvia and Belarus – something that today seems almost impossible politically, especially speaking of Minsk.
Poland’s then-president, Andrzej Duda, said during the event that those five nations represented in Vilnius stood there as heirs to the legacy of the Commonwealth, which at the moment of the uprising’s outbreak formally no longer existed. The insurgents fought under the emblems of Poland, Lithuania and Ruthenia (latterly a historical exonym for the lands and people of the East Slavs) and today are regarded as heroes in several regional states.
Reclaiming the Commonwealth legacy
The Commonwealth period in Ukrainian history is only recently becoming rediscovered as an element of national heritage – both in museums and in historical literature. For decades, criticism dominated: the plight of peasants, the dismissal of Cossack demands, the marginalization of Ruthenian elites. But this view gives only one side of the story.
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was also composed of Ruthenian – that is, today’s Ukrainian – culture and nobility. The tragic fate of peasants was shared across ethnic lines. The state was hardly a model of social justice, yet it represented a unique European island of religious tolerance, linguistic pluralism in public life, and – for the time – broad civil freedoms. This heritage, in both its positive and negative dimensions, is also Ukrainian.
A home for many nations
The pinnacle of this multi-national statehood was the Union of Lublin, concluded on July 1, 1569 between the estates of the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Contrary to decades of Russian and Soviet narrative, the Union – which created the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth – was not simply a feudal annexation of lands.
Politically, it resembled a prototype of European integration: a common political framework in which the king was elected, and in which religious tolerance set the state apart from an early-modern Europe torn apart by confessional wars. It is true that Catholic and Latin culture dominated, but even the king could be considered ethnic Ruthenian – most notably Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki.
Mickiewicz, Romanticism and Ukraine
Identity in the Commonwealth was political rather than ethnic. Adam Mickiewicz – the great Romantic poet – is claimed simultaneously by Polish, Lithuanian and Belarusian literary traditions. Although not Ukrainian in either ethnic or religious terms, he spent considerable time in Crimea and Odesa. Ukraine today hosts monuments in his honor. His work contains powerful anti-imperial and anti-Tsarist themes, as well as respect for Ukrainian and Cossack traditions.
Equally important is the so-called Ukrainian school of Polish Romanticism – a group of 19th-century poets born in Right-Bank Ukraine after the partitions, including Antoni Malczewski, Seweryn Goszczyński and Józef Bohdan Zaleski. Modern Ukraine – just like the former Commonwealth – is a multi-ethnic state. Even Yiddish, now rarely heard, enjoys legal protection.
The Commonwealth’s heritage should be understood as a shared legacyrather than viewed solely through social injustice.
Collapse and missed opportunities
Although the Romantics wrote after the Commonwealth disappeared from the map in 1795, the spirit of the state survived. The failure to recognize the Ruthenian nation as an equal political entity is sometimes considered one of the reasons for its collapse. The Hadiach Union of 1658 – which envisioned a Commonwealth of Three Nations - came too late.
Neighboring powers, led by Tsarist Russia, opted for partition precisely at the moment when reformist movements emerged. Russia tolerated Poland only when the country was weakened and economically and institutionally backward. From the 19th century onwards, as nationalism grew and Poles increasingly appropriated the Commonwealth’s heritage, memory of the era became simplified. Yet this period should be understood as a shared legacy rather than viewed solely through social injustice.
Petliura and Piłsudski: A marriage of convenience
Historical relations between Ukraine and Poland – both in the First and Second Republic – are overshadowed by the Volhynia tragedy, which today has a political and social dimension. Yet the early 20th century also offers examples of cooperation, most notably the alliance aimed at Bolshevik Russia.
On Dec. 9, 1919, Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski and Ukrainian socialist politician Symon Petliura met in Warsaw’s Belweder Palace. What was planned as a two-hour meeting lasted all night. The result was an alliance that recognized the Ukrainian People’s Republic and backed its statehood ambitions.
The Petliura–Piłsudski agreement was, to some extent, a marriage of convenience. Yet despite later accusations of betrayal, it remains an example of pragmatic cooperation. Both leaders understood that collaboration was preferable to conflict – after all, Poland and Ukraine would always share a border.
Monuments commemorating Ukrainian and Polish commanders who defended Zamość against the Bolsheviks in 1920 – such as General Marko Bezruchko – could help balance historical narratives and move beyond the Second World War’s bloodshed. The story also illustrates the continuity of Russian threat across the centuries.
Decolonizing memory, Europeanizing identity
Ukraine is right to “derussify” and decolonize public space and collective memory, emancipating a distinct Ukrainian narrative – from folk culture to cinema and the “Executed Renaissance.” But there are other historical chapters worth bringing back into public discourse. They can help politically anchor Ukraine in Europe and remind Western partners that the country has long been part of the European political and cultural space, rather than simply a Soviet republic or a Tsarist periphery.
Unfortunately, the farther west one goes, the more obscured this perception becomes - which today, amid the debate on Ukraine’s future membership in the EU, matters not only historically, but geopolitically.
The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.