Katyn Materski, Wojciech; Cienciala, Anna M; Lebedeva, Natalia S
01/2008
eBook
The 14,500 Polish army officers, police, gendarmes, and civilians taken prisoner by the Red Army when it invaded eastern Poland in September 1939 were held in three special NKVD camps and executed at ...three different sites in spring 1940, of which the one in Katyn Forest is the most famous. Another 7,300 prisoners held in NKVD jails in Ukraine and Belarus were also shot at this time, although many others disappeared without trace. The murder of these Poles is among the most monstrous mass murders undertaken by any modern government.
Three leading historians of the NKVD massacres of Polish prisoners of war at Katyn, Kharkov, and Tver-now subsumed under "Katyn"-present 122 documents selected from the published Russian and Polish volumes coedited by Natalia S. Lebedeva and Wojciech Materski. The documents, with introductions and notes by Anna M. Cienciala, detail the Soviet killings, the elaborate cover-up, the admission of the truth, and the Katyn question in Soviet/Russian-Polish relations up to the present.
The Holodomor and Katyn Massacre are founding crimes of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc’s state. Their common feature was an attempt to annihilate nations and prevent them from achieving independence. ...Quite often, both crimes are called genocide, but their legal qualification from the perspective of the then international law is extremely difficult. However, there are solid grounds for qualifying both of these crimes, and particularly the Katyn Massacre, as genocide. As a result of the development of the law of armed conflicts in international law in the 1930s and 1940s, there was a ban on committing acts that the 1948 Convention defined as genocide.
The Soviet massacre of Polish prisoners of war at Katyn and in other camps in 1940 was one of the most notorious incidents of the Second World War. The truth about the massacres was long suppressed, ...both by the Soviet Union, and also by the United States and Britain who wished to hold together their wartime alliance with the Soviet Union.
This informative book examines the details of this often overlooked event, shedding light on what took place especially in relation to the massacres at locations other than Katyn itself. It discusses how the truth about the killings was hidden, how it gradually came to light and why the memory of the massacres has long affected Polish-Russian relations.
George Sanford is a reader in politics Bristol University and a leading academic specialist on Poland and Eastern Europe. He is the author of ten books, including most recently the Historical Dictionary of Poland (2003), Democratic Government in Poland (2002) and Poland: The Conquest of History (1999).
'This study is the fullest investigation to date of this atrocity...It is based on considerable research in various archives and is written dispassionately and objectively and is thereby all the more moving.' - Contemporary Review
List of tables Preface Introduction Acknowledgements List of abbreviations 1. Poland and Russia 2. The Sovietisation of East Poland 3. The Stalinist Terror and Prisoner of War System 4. The Indoctrination, Screening/Investigation and Selection 5. Course, Mechanisms and Technology of the Massacre 6. The Struggle for Historical Truth 7. Management and Control of the Truth about the 1940 Massacre: American-British lies, hypocrisy and self-delusion 8. Soviet and Polish Communist Control of the Truth about Katyn: The conflict with national memory 9. Closure of the 1940 Soviet Massacre Issue Bibliography Index
The researchers have been focused increasingly on war crime archaeology in recent years, e.g. the most significant until now scientific and logistic achievements which were archaeological-exhumation ...works carried out 30 years ago, related to searching for mass hidden graves of Polish officers, policemen and other civil servants murdered in spring of 1940 by NKVD in Katyn, Kharkiv and Mednoye. These were the first survey researches performed abroad on such a huge scale by Polish archaeologists. Obtained information concerning exact burial locations, the number of victims, burial ground sizes and final identification of the method and murder weapon which contributed to confirmation, verification and completion of our knowledge included in documents concerning the truth of The Katyn Massacre. Experience gained and excavation methodology of those mass graves exploration was presented and reported in detail in numerous publications (Głosek 1995; 2001; 2011; 2021; Kola 1995; 1996; 1998; 2001; 2005; 2021; Młodziejowski 1995) outlining cognitive possibilities and research directions for future studies and challenges. One of the most important tasks was the victims identification which was possible thanks to objects found with the bodies. This article objective is to present new obtained knowledge, using particular types of objects (personal movable property) and their systematization. Moreover, the article authoress, also working on the restoration of these objects and deciphering inscriptions placed on them, wanted to indicate particular object groups significance in the victims identification.
In order to form a certain image, media employ various linguistic means, such as metaphors, comparative structures, etc. Based on the material from “Gazeta Wyborcza” concerning the topic of the Katyn ...massacre, the present study attempts to reconstruct the image of Polish-Russian relations and decide what role the linguistic means used in the articles play in creating the discussed phenomenon. As a result the author concludes that there are two points of view about Russia presented in “Gazeta Wyborcza”. On the one hand, Russia is a criminal country and a debtor that cannot fulfil its obligations. On the other hand, Russia is a state that is open for cooperation and capable of helping. There are also two different points of view about the Polish-Russian relationships. As stated by some experts, Polish-Russian relations in the analyzed period are characterized as negative. According to the other opinions (prior to the 2022 war), these relations are getting better and perhaps will continue to improve.
Artykuł przedstawia życiorys kpt. Kazimierza Czyhiryna (1898–1940), egzemplifikujący zawiłe losy Polaków w pierwszej połowie XX w. Bohater niniejszego szkicu urodził się na Ukrainie w polskiej ...rodzinie o głębokich tradycjach patriotycznych. Pierwsze prace niepodległościowe podjął już w trakcie nauki w gimnazjum w Winnicy. W latach 1916–1917 służył w armii rosyjskiej, a następnie w III Korpusie Polskim w Rosji. Dwa lata przebywał w niewoli bolszewickiej. Po powrocie do Polski służył w 29. i 31. pSK. Przebywając wiele lat w łódzkim garnizonie stał się tu osobą znaną i popularną wśród mieszkańców miasta. W 1931 r. objął stanowisko oficera ordynansowego dowódcy Okręgu Korpusu nr IV w Łodzi – najpierw gen. Stanisława Nałęcza Małachowskiego, a następnie gen. Władysława Langnera. Wraz z tym ostatnim wyjechał do Lwowa, gdzie zajmował podobne stanowisko. We wrześniu 1939 r. uczestniczył w rozmowach o warunkach kapitulacji miasta. Później został aresztowany przez NKWD i zamordowany w bliżej nieznanych okolicznościach w 1940 r. (tzw. Ukraińska Lista Katyńska).
The article focuses on the Leningrad trials of Nazi war criminals (December 27, 1945 – January 6, 1946). Based on a wide range of sources, some of which are being introduced into scientific ...circulation for the first time, the political functions of the Leningrad trials are identified, and forms of their mediatization are determined. The Leningrad trials were supposed not only to sentence 11 specific criminals but also to condemn the occupation system in the region (the North-West of RSFSR) per se. The punitive actions of 1943–44 were most thoroughly investigated. However, the investigation could not or did not have enough time to identify those guilty of the Siege of Leningrad and the perpetrators of war crimes of 1941–42, including the Holocaust. The war crimes of Finnish and Spanish units in the territory of Leningrad Oblast and the participation of collaborators in those crimes were not investigated. Instead of these important issues, during the Leningrad trials the authorities chose to present false testimony of Private A. Düre about the Nazis’ guilt of the Katyn massacre (the testimony had neither political nor juridical effect). The Leningrad trials did not fully fulfil their political functions and escaped the culture of memory (among other reasons, due to selective mediatisation).
This article analyzes a German propaganda brochure, entitled “Massacre in the Katyn Forest. Fact-based Report,” edited in 1943 by the Central Nationalist-Socialist Publishing House of the German ...Workers Party.” The aim of the analysis is to determine whether the brochure follows propaganda guidelines defined by the Ministry of National Enlightenment and Reich Propaganda (PROMI), with particular attention paid to the manner of presentation and use of the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest where Polish officers and Soviet prisoners, imprisoned in the Starobielsk camp, were murdered and buried by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKWD). The analysis is set in a historical context. It focuses on the themes and language of the brochure. It finds that the brochure shows all the qualities of a propaganda text typical of PROMI. The analyzed parts of the brochure were translated into Polish.
The aim of the article is to show how in contemporary Russian history textbooks the Katyn Massacre (1940) is presented and compare its interpretation with different approaches to this tragedy that ...are actively discussed in scientific circles and among ordinary Russians. This approach should answer the question of the place occupied by this sensitive issue in Russian politics of memory and show how the process of forming historical memory related to the Katyn Massacre, based on historical education in schools, and public policy, looks like. Civic education in Russia is based on patriotic values and shapes the pride of power of the motherland. By emphasizing the importance of war victories, strong leaders, the formation of the students’ sense of belonging to the Russian nation and loyalty to the state takes place. The Katyn case continues to be a painful theme in Russian interpretation of the past, which explains why attempts are made to justify the crimes of the Stalinist regime. It is also not useful for patriotic education, as evidenced by the lack of mention of it in some history textbooks, or attempts to justify it partially.
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