History and the politics of memorialising the past are never far from the surface in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in the complex border regions of Poland and Ukraine. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, Warsaw has been one of Kyiv’s strongest backers and has also emerged as one of Europe’s leading states in terms of defence spending. However, as the war has gone on, tensions have started to simmer again, from protests by Polish farmers and concerns over immigration, to now most critically, the veneration and naming of a military unit in Ukraine after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). To many Poles, the UPA was responsible for collaborating with the Nazis to commit massacres against ethnic Poles and Jews in the regions of Volhynia and eastern Galicia in World War II. The pursuit of independence and the dark realities of World War II required some Ukrainian nationalists to align themselves with the Nazis and ‘overlook the fact that they had to wear uniforms and swear allegiance to Hitler’, in the words of historian David Marples.

The politics of memorialisation are not unique to Ukraine, however, and something Polish President Karol Nawrocki and the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS) which backs him, are particularly familiar with. Nawrocki previously served as director of Poland’s Institute for National Remembrance, a body responsible for researching and investigating crimes committed on Polish soil from 1917 to 1991. Nawrocki was also the director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, which was subject to its own controversy over its politicisation by PiS. PiS has used Poland’s western neighbour Germany to exploit nationalist causes and increase its support ahead of elections, including on reparations and guilt over the Holocaust and atrocities committed by Nazis on Polish soil. Now, Nawrocki has accused Kyiv of providing Moscow with ‘a lot of oxygen for disinformation’ by glorifying the UPA, and he wants to take away Zelenskyy’s Order of the White Eagle, one of Poland’s highest honours.

This latest incident has repercussions not just for Ukraine but for Poland as well. It is a reminder that Poland’s status as a powerful state in Europe may have come from its........

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