Authors
Martin Rohde1; Jagoda Wierzejska2; 1 Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; 2 University of Warsaw, Poland Discussion
The paper analyzes the memoirists’ practices of knowledge production regarding the lands of former Habsburg Eastern Galicia and the Polish-Ukrainian War for the province in 1918-1919. We concentrate on two inextricably linked sides of knowledge production as prestructured by political attitudes: establishing legitimate knowledge, authorized by a center of power, through intellectual institutions and agents for circulating knowledge; excluding particular groups from the official knowledge, perpetrated as an act of violence. The memoirs-based practices of knowledge production on the war had Polish and Ukrainian manifestations. On the Polish side, they were authorized by Warsaw, while the writing, collecting and publishing of memoirs by former Polish fighters was institutionalized in Lviv. Thus, Polish memoirs created myths on the unity of the Polish nation and state, emphasized the bravery of the “defenders,” and highlighted war crimes of the Ukrainians and guilt of the Jews, who supposedly had brought the pogrom on 22-24 November 1918 on themselves. Ukrainians imitated Polish practices, loosely coordinated by the exiled government of the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic. Lacking political power, they failed to produce official knowledge, yet continuously challenged it. Ukrainian memoirs produced myths on individual heroism in the failed state-building attempt, while denouncing the oppression of Ukrainians in line with the national victim narrative. 
