Authors

SERHIY BLAVATSKYY¹;  ¹ Independent established researcher, Laureate/beneficiary of the PAUSE Urgency UKRAINE Solidarity Program (College de France, Paris) hosted at the National Library of France 2023, France

Discussion

This paper seeks to develop new avenues for Postcolonial Studies, specifically in the interwar period in Western Europe.
 More specifically, our research aims to reveal a contribution of the little-known, clandestine organization, Committee of Oppressed Peoples (Ukrainians, Belorussians, Lithuanians) (Paris, 1924) in the crusade of the anti-colonial and national liberation movements of the East European nations (Ukrainians, Belorussians, Lithuanians) in the interwar Western Europe. On the basis of the rediscovered archival documents in Switzerland (The UN Archive and Library, Geneva) and the francophone press corpus held at the French libraries (specifically, in the National Library of France (Paris) we show a crucial contribution of the Ukrainian émigré opinion leaders in shaping anti-colonial and nation state movement (national liberation movement) in Western Europe in the mid-1920s.
In particular, the ephemeral Bulletin de Presse issued by this Committee in Paris and Vienna (1924) reveals how those non-state actors impacted West European public opinion, specifically, in the francophone public sphere. Our findings show how Ukrainians, specifically, the President of the Committee of Oppressed Peoples, the West Ukrainian socio-political émigré figure, journalist, statesman, lawyer, scholar, Professor, Dr Mykhailo Lozynskyi influenced the west European public opinion by accomplishing press campaign in France and Switzerland. Specifically, the content of the this bulletin reveals how Lozynskyi and other East European émigrés in Western Europe challenged the Polish policy regarding the stateless nations in Eastern Europe, in particular Belorussians, Lithuanians and mainly – Ukrainians. More specifically, this bulletin shows how the leaders and members of this body informed the West European opinion leaders at the League of Nations in Geneva about the violations of the political rights and freedoms of the “occupied/oppressed” nations in the eastern Europe. For example, the publication featured the official address of Mykhailo Lozynskyi (as the President of this Committee) to Charles Roden Buxton, one the leaders of the British Labor Party and member of the British diplomatic delegation at the Fifth Assembly of the League Nations in Geneva in 1924, about the “revision of the Polish question.” (“Pour la revision de la question polonaise.” Bulletin de Presse, Vienna, 1924, n° 6, BnF, SP). We argue that this press crusade championed the anti-colonial perspective in regards of the Polish treatment of the nation-state aspirations of East European nations in the interwar Europe. Our research results prove that the Ukrainian émigrés were instrumental in masterminding and conducting “soft power" campaign of the stateless East European nations in the interwar Europe, specifically in France and Switzerland in the mid-1920s.