History of Ukraine and the Ukrainian issue in the interpretation of Polish politician Stanislav Glabtnski in the early 20th century

The First World War intensified the struggle of the Polish and Ukrainian people for the acquisition of their own statehood. However, the general movement for independence brought tensions and conflict between two nations. The disagreements over the future of Polish and Ukrainian borders were the reasons for that process. Territorial claims of the Ukrainians on the part of the heritage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth caused irritation within the Polish establishment. Stanislaw Glabinski, the leading politician of the National Democratic party, a member of the Austrian National Council in 1902-1918 and a member of the Galician Parliament in 1904-1914, Minister for Railways in the cabinet of Prime Minister Reinhard Bienerth in 1911, was one of those who opposed those claims. In his political essays, written in German and addressed to the public and ruling circles of the Central Powers, he represented the critical view on the Ukrainian publications towards history and current political situation in Ukraine. He argued that the Ukrainian state had never existed before and exposed the myths of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Cossacks, and the Haidamaks. He considered that "the Ruthenians" from Eastern Galicia, "the Little Russians" and "the Russians" were in fact one nation. Glabinski concluded that the Ukrainian claims on the establishment of an independent Ukraine had no real base. Many of his arguments were congruent with the evaluations and approvals made by Polish experts on the Ukrainian issue during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-1920.