Confronting identifications: Ukrainian-Polish relations of power from an Irish perspective since the XIXth century

Abstract

Abstract. The purpose. The two-centuries-length evolution of Irish-Polish and Irish-Ukrainian relations through identification processes are not unknown to historians, whether they are from Ireland, Poland or Ukraine. Scientific novelty. However, those comparisons are often based on Ukrainian and Polish national narratives, often contradicting each other, as confirmed by ongoing historical debates- and still, links of both countries with Ireland were rarely confronted by historians. The article would question the way representations of hierarchies between Poles and Ukraine evolved since the mid – 19th century, from the emergence of Ukrainian national movements to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But through a specific lens: comparisons of Polish, and Ukrainian history (and societies) with Irish history. Indeed, as comparisons between Ukrainians and Irish would often tend to emphasize not only the “Russians being the Brits”, like would the comparison with Poles do. Several emphasized that Poles acted with Ukrainian like English nobles did with the Irish, therefore challenging Polish nationalist narratives. Conclusions. The article would confront comparisons coming from various sources – historiographical, press, testimonies, also in order to show how the comparisons between Ukraine and a “small nation” at the other side of Europe, and with their neighbor, could also forge their identity. Because since 2014 Ukrainians live a critical moment for the development of their national identity, a question that was concerning up to 40 % of Ukrainians in 2020, according to the Institute of Sociology of Sciences of Ukraine. Especially when nowadays, building itself against Russia, that most would assimilate to what Great Britain is to Ireland, Ukraine tends to grow closer to the West, to the EU, and thus, to Ireland and Poland.