Shulha S. Czechs in Western Volyn: ethno-sociocultural transformations (60th years of the XIX– the middle of the ХХ century)

Ethno-sociocultural transformations of the Czech community in Western Volyn during the second half of the nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries were investigated comprehensively on the basis of archival and published materials in the thesis. It was established that the immigration of the Czech population into the territory of the Volyn province was caused by a complex of socio-economic and political factors, its stages were reconstructed, dynamics of the number of colonists was observed. The Russian government provide benefits to the colonists by the decision «On the settlement of the Czechs in Volyn» to limit the Catholic and Polish influences in the region as a result, the territory of a compact settlement of the Czechs was formed in Western Volyn. The government’s restrictive measures of the 1880–1890’s led to the cessation of mass emigration of the Czechs, liquidation of self-government, russification, conversion to orthodoxy. Modernization has led to the acceleration of property differentiation, social and spatial mobility of the Czech community, the formation of a second wave of immigration. The public organization «Union of Czechoslovak Societies in Russia» was created at the beginning of the First World War.The Czech detachment of the Russian army was formed. The politicization of the community of the Volyn Czechs, strengthening the processes of self-identification and developing their new model of identity was traced. The principles of Polish national policy were described in the second period of the immigration of the Volyn Czechs, 1921–1939. The characteristic features of the government policy the Czechs were clarified, its assimilation character. Methods of confrontation of assimilation were analyzed. The high level of economic development, public-political practices of the Czech minority has been determined. The creation and activity of the Czech cultural and educational societies was considered. The relationship with local multi-ethnic society and ties with the homeland were characterized. Socio-political transformations in the western Ukrainian regions with the beginning of the Second World War were revealed. 1939–1947 was defined as the third period of Czech immigration in Western Volyn. The features of the Soviet Communist Party regime’s national policies towards the Czechs were revealed, its repressive character was revealed. The purpose, organizational principles and activity of the Czech Resistance Movement «Blanik» were described. It was established that the participation of Volyn Czechs in resistance and military actions on the fronts of the Second World War became the basis for re-emigration. External and intra-political factors of the agreement on July 10, 1946 between the governments of the USSR and Czechoslovakia investigated. The process of option (the choice of citizenship) in the territory of Western Volyn and Eastern Slovakia has been followed. The voluntary character of the choice of citizenship by the Volyn Czechs and the choice of the pressure of agitation and state structures by the Ukrainians of Slovakia were revealed. Adaptation of the Volyn Czechs in the CzSR took place under conditions of support from the authorities; instead, Ukrainians from Slovakia felt the failure of the totalitarian regime of the USSR / USSR to solve the social, cultural and educational problems of the settlers. The ethno-socio-cultural transformations in the Western Volyn as a result of the re-emigration of the Volyn Czechs were revealed.