Immediately after the
German invasionThe Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II...
of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the
Soviet UnionThe 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II, sixteen days after the beginning of the Nazi German attack on Poland...
invaded the eastern regions of the
Second Polish RepublicThe Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; from the creation of an independent Polish state in the aftermath of World War I, to the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic,...
, which Poles referred to as the "
KresyThe term Kresy, meaning "Outskirts" or "Borderlands", is used to define the Polish eastern frontier. The term referred to the eastern frontiers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the period of the Second Polish Republic, these territories roughly equated with the lands to the east of...
," and annexed territories totaling 201,015 km² with an ethnically mixed population of 13,299,000 people.
Most of these territories remained within the Soviet Union in 1945 as a consequence of
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
an-wide territorial rearrangements configured during the
Tehran ConferenceThe Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943, most of which was held at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference among the Big Three in which Stalin was present...
of 1943. Poland was compensated for this territorial loss with the prewar German eastern territories much of which had been devastated during the war, and had been looted and pillaged by the Red Army. The
Communist PolandThe Polish People's Republic was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990.Although the Polish People's Republic was a sovereign state as defined by international law, its leaders were at the very least approved by the Kremlin...
described the territories as the "
Recovered TerritoriesRecovered or Regained Territories was the official term used by the Communist Polish post-war authorities to denote those territories which were assigned by the Big Three allies to Poland and incorporated into Poland after the Second World War...
". The post-World War Two territory of Poland was significantly smaller than the pre-1939 land areas, shrinking by some 77,000 square kilometers (roughly equaling that of the territories of
BelgiumThe Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO...
and the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
combined).
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Early in the morning of August 24, 1939, the Soviet Union and
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
signed a 10-year non-aggression pact, called the
Molotov-Ribbentrop pactThe Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, colloquially named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and signed in...
. Most notably, the pact contained a secret protocol, revealed only after Germany's defeat in 1945, according to which the states of
NorthernNorthern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. The United Nations defines Northern Europe as including the following countries and dependent regions:** ** ** Ireland** Svalbard and Jan Mayen** ** Channel Islands: and...
and
Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
were divided into German and Soviet "spheres of influence". In the North,
FinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland
, is a Nordic country and democracy situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland...
,
EstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russian Federation...
and
LatviaLatvia , officially the Republic of Latvia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , and to the southeast by Belarus . Across the Baltic Sea to the west lies Sweden...
were assigned to the Soviet sphere. Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its "political rearrangement"—the areas east of the Narev,
VistulaThe Vistula , is the longest and one of the most important rivers in Poland at 1,047 km in length. The watershed area of the Vistula is 194,424 km² , of which 168,699 km² The Vistula , is the longest and one of the most important rivers in Poland at 1,047 km (651 miles) in...
and
San RiverThe San is a river in southeastern Poland and western Ukraine, a tributary of the Vistula River, with a length of 433 km and a basin area of 16,861 km2...
s going to the Soviet Union while Germany would occupy the west.
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
, adjacent to
East PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia...
, would be in the German sphere of influence, although a second secret protocol agreed in September 1939 assigned majority of Lithuania to the USSR. According to the secret protocol, Lithuania would retrieve its historical capital
VilniusVilnius Vilnius Vilnius as of 2008. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the...
, subjugated during the inter-war period by
PolandThe Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; from the creation of an independent Polish state in the aftermath of World War I, to the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic,...
.
Soviet occupation of Poland, 19391941
Under the terms of the
Molotov-Ribbentrop PactThe Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, colloquially named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and signed in...
, adjusted by agreement on 28 September 1939, two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland,
the Soviet Union invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to itSoviet invasion of Poland can refer to:* the second phase of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 when Soviet armies marched on Warsaw, Poland* Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939 when Soviet Union allied with Nazi Germany attacked Second Polish Republic...
by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland. The Soviets annexation included all
PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
territory east of the line of the rivers
PisaThe Pisa is a small river with a length of 80.4 km in the Masurian Lake District of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship of Poland. The Pisa flows from Lake Roś near Pisz and is a tributary of the Narew, connecting the lakeland region with the Vistula. The Piska Forest borders the river on its west...
,
NarewThe river Narew , in western Belarus and north-eastern Poland, is a tributary of the Vistula river...
,
Western BugThe Bug or Buh River , sometimes called the Western Bug to distinguish it from the Southern Bug, flows from central Ukraine to the west, forming part of the boundary between Ukraine and Poland, passes along the Polish-Belarusian border and into Poland, and empties into the Narew river near Serock...
, and
SanThe San is a river in southeastern Poland and western Ukraine, a tributary of the Vistula River, with a length of 433 km and a basin area of 16,861 km2...
, except for western part of the Wilno Voivodship with its capital Wilno (
VilniusVilnius Vilnius Vilnius as of 2008. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the...
), which was given to
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
(see map), and the Suwałki region, which was annexed by
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
.
The First draft of the Pact stipulated that Soviet gains in Poland would also cover the territory of the
Lublin VoivodeshipLublin Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division of the Second Polish Republic, in the years 1919–1939. Its capital and biggest city was Lublin.-Location and area:...
and eastern part of the
Warsaw VoivodeshipWarsaw Voivodeship was a voivodeship of Poland in the years 1919–1939. Its capital and biggest city was Warsaw.-Location and area:In the years 1919–1939, Warsaw Voivodeship covered north-central part of Poland, bordering East Prussia to the north, Pomorze Voivodeship and Łódź Voivodeship to the...
, and the Soviet-German demarcation line would reach the outskirts of
WarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2009 was estimated at 1,709,781, and the Warsaw metropolitan area at approximately 2,785,000...
(
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
was to be occupied by the Germans). Therefore, the border of the spheres of interest of Germany and the USSR would run along the Pisa, Narew,
VistulaThe Vistula , is the longest and one of the most important rivers in Poland at 1,047 km in length. The watershed area of the Vistula is 194,424 km² , of which 168,699 km² The Vistula , is the longest and one of the most important rivers in Poland at 1,047 km (651 miles) in...
, and San rivers. This was changed, and the Germans were granted Lublin Voivodeship, while the Soviet sphere of interest included Lithuania.
Initially annexed by Poland in a series of wars between 1918 and 1921 (primarily the
Polish-Soviet WarThe Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine against the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic, four states in post-World War I Europe. The war was the result of the belligerents' desire to expand their territories and their influence...
), these territories had mixed urban national populations with
PolesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a Western Slavic ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. Poles are sometimes defined as people who share a common Polish culture and are of Polish descent. Their religion is predominantly Roman Catholic...
and
UkrainiansUkrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group primarily living in Ukraine, or more broadly—citizens of Ukraine...
being the most numerous ethnic groups, with significant minorities of
BelarusiansBelarusians are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Belarusian language...
and Jews. Much of this rural territory had its own significant local non-Polish majority (Ukrainians in the south and Belarusians in the North).
The "need to protect" the Ukrainian and Belarusian majority populations was used as a pretext for Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland (including Western Ukraine and Belarus) carried out in the wake of Poland's dismemberment under the Nazi invasion with Warsaw being besieged and Poland's government being in the process of evacuation. The total area, including the area given to Lithuania, was 201,015 square kilometres, with a population of 13.299 million, of which 5.274 million were ethnic Poles and 1.109 million were Jews. An additional 138,000 ethnic Poles and 198,000 Jews fled the German occupied zone and became refugees in the Soviet occupied region
Stalin had decided in August 1939 that he was going to liquidate the Polish state, and a German-Soviet meeting in September addressed the future structure of the "Polish region." Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of
sovietizationSovietization is term that may be used with two distinct meanings:*the adoption of a political system based on the model of soviets .*the adoption of a way of life and mentality modelled after the Soviet Union....
of the newly-acquired areas. The Soviets organized staged elections, the result of which was to become a legitimization of Soviet annexation of eastern Poland. Soviet authorities attempted to erase Polish history and culture,, withdrew the Polish currency without exchanging roubles,
collectivizedCollective farming is an organization of agricultural production in which the holdings of several farmers are run as a joint enterprise. A collective farm is essentially an agricultural production cooperative in which members-owners engage jointly in farming activities...
agriculture, and nationalized and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property. Soviet authorities regarded service for the pre-war Polish state as a "crime against revolution" and "counter-revolutionary activity", and subsequently started arresting large numbers of Polish citizens. During the initial Soviet invasion of Poland, between
230,000 to 450,000 Poles were taken as prisoner, some of which were executed.As a result of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers became prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. Thousands of them were executed; over 20,000 Polish military personnel and civilians perished in the Katyn massacre....
NKVD officers conducted lengthy interrogations of the prisoners in camps that were, in effect, a selection process to determine who would be killed. On March 5 1940, pursuant to a note to Stalin from Lavrenty Beria, the members of the Soviet
PolitburoPolitburo, from German Politbüro, short for Political Bureau, , is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.- Marxist-Leninist states :...
(including Stalin) signed an order to execute 25,700 Polish POWs, labeled "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries", kept at camps and prisons in occupied western
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
and
BelarusBelarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel , Mahilyow and Vitebsk...
. This became known as the
Katyn massacreThe Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass murder of thousands of Polish military officers, policemen, intellectuals and civilian prisoners of war by Soviet NKVD, based on a proposal from Lavrentiy Beria to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps...
.
During 1939–1941 1.450 million.of the people inhabiting the region were deported by the Soviet regime, of whom 63.1% were Poles, and 7.4% were Jews. Previously it was believed that about 1.0 million Polish citizens died at the hands of the Soviets, however recently Polish historians, based mostly on queries in Soviet archives, estimate the number of deaths at about 350,000 people deported in 1939–1945.
Territories around Wilno (now Vilnius) annexed by Poland in 1920, were transferred to
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
on a base of Lithuania-Soviet Union agreement (however Lithuania was soon annexed by Soviet Union to become the
Lithuanian SSRThe Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Lithuanian SSR, was one of the republics that made up the former Soviet Union. It was established after the Soviet Annexation of Lithuania in 1940 and existed until 1990...
). Other northern territories were attached to
Belastok VoblastBelastok Voblast or Belostok Oblast was a territorial unit in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic created after the Soviet invasion of Poland and annexation of West Belarus into BSSR in November 1939...
,
Hrodna VoblastHrodna Voblast or Grodno Oblast is a voblast in northwestern Belarus....
,
Navahrudak VoblastNavahrudak Voblast or Novogrudak Oblast was a Voblast of the Byelorussian SSR following the annexation of West Belarus into the BSSR in 1939. The Voblast was formed on November 2 1939, out of parts of the former Nowogródek Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic.The Sovietisation of the...
(soon renamed to
Baranavichy VoblastBaranavichy Oblast was a territorial unit in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic created after the annexation of West Belarus into the BSSR in November 1939. The administrative centre of the province was the city of Baranavichy....
),
Pinsk VoblastPinsk Voblast was a territorial unit in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic created after the annexation of West Belarus into the BSSR in November 1939...
and
Vileyka (later Maladzyechna) VoblastVileyka Voblast was a territorial unit in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic created out of the eastern powiats of the Wilno Voivodeship after the annexation of West Belarus into the BSSR in November 1939. The administrative centre of the province was the city of Vileyka. The Voblast...
in
Byelorussian SSRThe Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union...
. The territories to the south were transferred to the
Ukrainian SSRThe Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or the Ukrainian SSR was one of the founders of the Soviet Union constituent republic that made up the former Soviet Union from its formation in 1922 to its abolition in 1991.-Name:...
:
Drohobych OblastDrohobych Oblast , was an oblast in the Ukrainian SSR. It had a territory of 9.6 thousands of km³, and population of 853 thousand .-History:...
,
Lviv OblastLviv Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Lviv.-History:...
,
Rivne OblastRivne Oblast is an oblast of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Rivne....
,
Stanislav (later known as Ivano-Frankivsk) OblastIvano-Frankivsk Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine...
,
Tarnopil OblastTernopil Oblast is an oblast of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Ternopil.-History:...
and
Volyn OblastVolyn Oblast is an oblast in north-western Ukraine. Its administrative center is Lutsk...
.
German occupation 1941–1944
These areas were conquered by the
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
in 1941 during
Operation BarbarossaOperation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a 2,900 km front...
. The Nazis divided them up as follows:
- Bezirk Bialystok
Bezirk Bialystok was an administrative unit created in the aftermath of the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941. It included the Białystok, Bielsk Podlaski, Grajewo, Łomża, Sokółka, Volkovysk, and Grodno counties, was "attached" to East Prussia....
(district of Białystok), which included the Białystok, Bielsk PodlaskiBielsk Podlaski is an Urban Gmina in Bielsk County, Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is located north-eastern Poland.-Geography:...
, GrajewoGrajewo is a town in north-eastern Poland with 23,302 inhabitants .It is situated in the Podlaskie Voivodeship ; previously, it was in Lomza Voivodeship...
, Łomża, Sokółka, VaukavyskVawkavysk or Vaŭkavysk is a town in the Hrodna Province of Belarus. It is the center of Vaŭkavysk district and has a population of around 48,000....
, and HrodnaHrodna or Grodno , is a city in Belarus. It is located on the Neman River , close to the borders of Poland and Lithuania . It has 325,164 inhabitants...
counties and was "attached to" (not incorporated into) East PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia...
;
- Bezirk Litauen und Weissruthenien — the Polish parts of White Ruthenia (today western Belarus
Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel , Mahilyow and Vitebsk...
), including the VilniusVilnius Vilnius Vilnius as of 2008. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the...
(Vilna) province of LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
, which was incorporated into the Reichskommissariat OstlandReichskommissariat Ostland was the German name for the Nazi civil administration of part of the occupied Eastern territories of the Third Reich, occupied during World War II...
;
- Bezirk Wolhynien-Podolien — the Polish province of Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Western Bug, to the north of Galicia and Podolia. The area has some of the oldest Slavic settlements in Europe...
, which was incorporated into the Reichskommissariat UkraineThe Reichskommissariat Ukraine was the civil administration of much of German-occupied Ukraine during World War II. Between September 1941 and March 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Reichskommissar Erich Koch as a colony...
; and
- District Galicia
District Galicia was an administrative unit of the General Government from 1941 to 1944.It was composed of former territories of the Second Polish Republic, since 1939 occupied by Soviet Union...
, East GaliciaGalicia is a historical region in East-Central Europe, currently divided between Poland and Ukraine, named after the Ukraіniаn city of Halych. The nucleus of historic Galicia is formed of three regions of western Ukraine: Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk.-Tribal area:The region has a turbulent...
, which was incorporated into the General GovernmentThe General Government refers to a part of the territories of Poland under German military occupation during World War II and that were a separate part of "Greater Germany"...
and became its fifth district.
During 1943–1944
ethnic cleansingEthnic cleansing is a term that has come to be used broadly to describe all forms of ethnically inspired violence, ranging from murder, rape, and torture to the forcible removal of populations...
operations took place in Ukraine (commonly known as the
Massacres of Poles in VolhyniaThe Massacres of Poles in Volhynia were part of an ethnic cleansing operation in Volhynia and its environs that took place mainly between late March 1943 and August 1947 during and after World War II....
) which brought about an estimated 100,000 deaths and an exodus of ethnic Poles from this territory.
The Polish and Jewish language population of the regions in 1939 totaled about 6.7 million. During the war, an estimated 2 million persons perished (including 1.2 million Jews). These number are included with Polish war losses. 2 million (including 250,000 Jews) became refugees to Poland or the West, 1.5 million were in the territories returned to Poland in 1945 and
1.2 million remained in the USSRThe Polish minority in the Soviet Union refers to people of Polish descent who resided in the Soviet Union before its dissolution, and might remain in post-Soviet, sovereign countries as their significant minorities.-1917–1920:...
. Contemporary Russian historians also include the war losses of Poles and Jews from this region with Soviet war dead.
Soviet annexation
At the end of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Soviet Union annexed most of the territories it had occupied in 1939, although territories with an area of 21,275 square kilometers with 1.5 million inhabitants were returned to Poland, notably the areas near Białystok and
PrzemyślPrzemyśl is a city in south-eastern Poland with 66,756 inhabitants, as of June 2009. In 2006, it became part of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship....
.
After the Soviet re-invasion of Poland in July 1944, the Polish government-in-exile prime minister flew to Moscow with Churchill to attempt to oppose annexations of its Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact portion of eastern Poland by the Soviet Union. He offered a smaller section of land, but Stalin declined, telling him that he would allow the exiled government to participate in the
Polish Committee of National LiberationThe Polish Committee of National Liberation , also known as the Lublin Committee, was a provisional government of Poland, officially proclaimed 21 July 1944 in Chełm under the direction of State National Council in opposition to the Polish government in exile...
. An agreement was reluctantly reached at the
Yalta ConferenceThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, was the wartime meeting from 4 February 1945 to 11 February 1945 among the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union—President Franklin D...
where the Soviets would annex the entirety of their Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact portion of Eastern Poland, but would grant Poland part of Eastern Germany in return. Thereafter, eastern Poland was annexed into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
On August 16, 1945 the communist dominated Polish government signed a treaty with the USSR to formally cede these territories. The total population of the territories annexed by the USSR, not including the portion returned to Poland in 1945, had an estimated population of 10,653,000 according to the 1931 Polish census. In 1939 this had increased to about 11.6 million. The composition by language group was
UkrainianUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet....
37.1%,
PolishPolish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
36,5%,
BelarusianThe Belarusian language, or Belorussian is the language of the Belarusian people and is spoken in Belarus and abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland...
15.1%, Yiddish 8.3%, Other 3%. Religious affiliation: Eastern Orthodox 31.6%,Roman Catholic 30.1%,
Ukrainian Greek Catholic ChurchThe Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , also known as the Ukrainian Catholic Church, is one of the successor Churches to the acceptance of Christianity by Grand Prince Vladimir the Great of Kyiv, in 988. UGCC is the largest Eastern Rite Catholic sui juris particular church in full communion with...
26.7%, Jewish 9.9%, Other 1.7%.
From 1944 until 1952 the
Ukrainian Insurgent ArmyThe Ukrainian Insurgent Army was a group of Ukrainian nationalist partisans who engaged in a series of guerrilla conflicts during World War II...
were engaged in an armed struggle against the communists (in the early 1940s, the UIA, supported by local Ukrainian peasants, participated in the
Ethnic cleansing operationsThe Massacres of Poles in Volhynia were part of an ethnic cleansing operation in Volhynia and its environs that took place mainly between late March 1943 and August 1947 during and after World War II....
). As a result of the skirmishes between the UIA and Soviet units, the Soviets deported 600,000 people from these territories and in the process 170,000 of the local population were killed in the fighting (See also Akcja Wisła)..
See also
- Curzon Line
The Curzon Line was a demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia, first proposed on December 8, 1919 at the Allied Supreme Council declaration. The line was authored by British Foreign Secretary, George Curzon, 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston...
- Oder-Neisse line
The Oder-Neisse line was drawn in the aftermath of World War II as the eastern border of Germany and the western border of Poland. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
- Historical demographics of Poland
Historical demography of Poland shows that in the past, Poland's demography was much more diverse than at present. For many centuries, until the end of Second World War, the Polish population was composed of many significant ethnic minorities....
- Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)
- Polish Autonomous District
Polish Autonomous Districts were autonomous raions in the interbellum period in the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics of the USSR. They were created in an attempt to live up to the postulate of the Leninism about the rights of nations for self-determination...
- Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939–1946)
- Occupation of East Poland by Soviet Union
- Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus
Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which took place on October 22, 1939, were an attempt to legitimize territorial gains of the Soviet Union, at the expense of the Second Polish Republic...