Poland's Minister of Education, Barbara Nowacka, expressed concern over how the events in Volhynia in the 1940s are presented in Ukrainian school textbooks. This was stated in her letter to Ukrainian colleague Oksen Lesovyi, the text of which was made available to the PAP agency, reports 'Glavkom'.
The head of the Polish Ministry of Education emphasized the shortcomings of the textbook 'History of Ukraine' for the 10th grade of secondary school, published in 2023. She noted that the textbook points to a connection between the deterioration of Polish-Ukrainian relations during World War II and 'mass murders of Ukrainians committed by the Armia Krajowa'.
The necessity of revising textbooks and joint work
According to the textbook, the victims of these actions were residents of Chełm, Podlasie, Galicia, and Volhynia. It also mentions a 'bloody Polish-Ukrainian war' that lasted until 1947 and resulted in the deaths of both military personnel and civilians.
In her address, Nowacka urged the Ukrainian Ministry of Education to take immediate action, particularly to revise existing textbooks and develop new ones that, in her opinion, better reflect the current state of Polish-Ukrainian relations. She also suggested creating a joint history textbook as part of the work of the bilateral Polish-Ukrainian expert commission to improve historical and geographical educational materials.
The Polish Minister of Education expressed concern about the content of history school textbooks regarding certain events in the Volhynian region in the early 1940s. She called on the Ukrainian Ministry of Education to revise historical textbooks and proposed joint work on creating new materials that better reflect the interconnections between the two countries.