Bilobrovets O. Bilobrovets O.M. Poles in Ukraine: socio-political and cultural aspects. 1914–1918.

The paper is devoted to the study of the socio-political and cultural aspects of the history of the Poles in Ukraine in 1914–1918. The study analyzes the socio-political and cultural life of the Polish population in Ukraine at the beginning of the XX century. It is shown that the external factors of social transformation of the Poles in Ukraine were the events of the First World War, the Russian February Revolution, the Ukrainian National Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The search for ways to solve important issues of social development led to the activation of socio-political life and became an internal factor in the transformation of the Polish community. On the basis of the analysis of national and foreign historiography, it became obvious that a comprehensive study of the socio-political and cultural life of the Poles in Ukraine during the First World War was not carried out before. During the study there was examined presentable source database, which included materials from about 100 collections of 9 Ukrainian and 2 Polish archives, memoirs, Polish-language printed media and regional periodicals. That allowed to fully reveal the problem under the study. On the basis of demographic analysis and social structure, the significant role of the Poles in the economic and social life of Ukraine just before the First World War was determined. The Polish community in Ukraine demonstrated socio-political activity during the Bourgeois Revolution in 1905. This was the activity of Polish political parties, besides, a number of public organizations was created, and they participated in elections to the State Duma. The phenomenon of patriotic support of the tsarist power by the Polish population of Ukraine at the beginning of the First World War is highlighted. The public attitude, foreign policy orientations of the Polish population while showing political and public opinion on important issues of Polish public life were described, in particular the solution of the Polish question. From the beginning of the war till the revolutionary events in 1917, in the Polish environment there were changing beliefs about the restoration of Polish statehood from the desire to have autonomy to the struggle to get full independence of Poland.