"This is our country, an abandoned province, the end of an era, the end of the world and of everything. It's our territory. No one will give us another.(Yuri Andrukhovich, Ukrainian novelist, poet and thinker)
During the second leg of the round of 16 of the 67-68 European Cup between Górnik Zabrze and Dynamo Kiev, played on 29 November 1967 at the Silesian Stadium in the Polish city of Chorzow, television cameras were shown among the audience where one could read: "Oddajcie Lwów!", "Torneu Lvov!". The image will not last more than a few seconds, but it will be useful to satisfy the entire Ukrainian audience that at that moment was watching the game. The motto captures in writing a young Polish demand, in the middle of the Freda War, of course more than vint anys, since the Ialta chords of 1945 are It will be decided that the city considered for centuries as one of the cultural capitals of Poland will pass (with the entire eastern part of Galicia, a historic multi-ethnic region dominated by Ukrainian nationalism) to the hands of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine. amb All the territories on the Curzon line, which have belonged to the Second Polish Republic) to the Soviet Union. From those you know these confits.
The ethnic cleansing that took place in Central and Eastern Europe in the years immediately following World War II resulted in ethnically homogeneous societies, something that had been impossible to achieve during the interwar period. Thus, after the deportation and expulsion of millions of Germans, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and other minorities during the years 1945-1948, the population exchange between Slovaks and Hungarians under the Beneš Decree, and the disappearance of almost the entire Jewish population during the war, Poland and Czechoslovakia remained untouched. This entire "cleansing operation" was carried out with the acquiescence and approval of the Western powers, which wanted to avoid at all costs another large-scale conflict in Europe over ethnic or border disputes. Those "population transfers," as they were euphemistically called, proved to be a sturdy armor when the Wall fell, the entire socialist system collapsed, and all of Europe, which had been buried under its waters for decades, surfaced. Naturally, Yugoslavia was the exception, a state that had left its own particular problems unresolved—that is, its own ethnic cleansing—when it succumbed to Tito's yoke.
However, irredentism, or the claim to a territory that a state intends to annex for historical, ethnic, or linguistic reasons, has been latent, albeit at a low intensity, in certain areas of this part of the continent. The enclave of Kaliningrad (the former Königsberg, the brand new capital of East Prussia and Kant's birthplace), a oblast Exempt from the Russian Federation, caged between Poland and Lithuania, it has always been viewed with suspicion by both countries, which consider it an anachronism that, moreover, threatens their security, today more than ever. On the other hand, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has spent years plastering all official buildings and offices, schools, universities, churches, cathedrals, and monuments with the silhouette of the former Kingdom of Hungary, which has become the unofficial map of the country. Recently, the Hungarian press, almost entirely at the service of Orbán and his party, Fidesz, has occasionally hinted at the recapture of certain provinces in southern Slovakia, home to half a million Hungarians. This is especially true now that the long-standing rivalry between Robert Fico, the Slovak Prime Minister, and Orbán has turned into friendship, a friendship forged in Putin's forge.
If the Kremlin gets its way and incorporates former regions of the Tsarist Empire into the current Russian Federation, the dusty old trunk of Polish irredentism could open with a sinister creak. It's not unreasonable to think that someone with bad intentions (and these days there are plenty of them) could openly tempt and encourage Poland to recover its beloved lands of eastern Galicia lost at Yalta as compensation for all the military, economic, and humanitarian aid provided to Ukraine during the current conflict. Despite the Treaty of Good Neighborliness, Cordial Relations, and Cooperation signed by both countries in 1992, the idea, fueled by Russia, quietly looms over the most ultranationalist sectors, which are powerful in Poland. In fact, the issue has already appeared in some local media outlets, but it also circulates in more than one. spin doctor of Law and Justice, the ultraconservative party of Jarosław Kaczyński. Now that the European order that emerged from the Second World War has exploded, that old demand that appeared in a lost football stadium in Eastern Europe on a cold, leaden autumn afternoon nearly 60 years ago could become a reality. If this were the case, it would mean, at least as we know it now, the finis ukraine, as if it were a hallucination – in the words of the Ukrainian thinker and writer Yuri Andrukhovich – that had lasted just over a century.
Górnik Zabrze reached the semi-finals of that edition of the European Cup, where they were eliminated by Manchester United, who ultimately emerged as champions of the tournament by defeating Benfica 4-1.
