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marshy northern regions of Volhynia provided an ideal physical arena for anti-state partisan activity,

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to which state authorities reacted by sending in police from other areas of the country.

In addition to an increase in communist agitation, the early 1930s also witnessed significant

developments in the work of Ukrainian nationalist organizations, prompting Polish authorities to

worry about the alternative Ukrainian center that had developed in the formerly Austrian lands of

eastern Galicia. While officials had long noted the penetration of Ukrainian nationalism into

Volhynia from the south with alarm, the Sanacja government attempted to prevent such influences by

setting up an internal administrative boundary—the so-called Sokal border (kordon sokalski)—

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between Volhynia and eastern Galicia. Its efficacy proved limited. Particularly after the liquidation

of Sel-Rob in 1932, a Galician-based political party, the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance

(Ukraїn’ske Natsional’no-Demokratychne Obiednannia, or UNDO), which advocated for the

creation of an independent Ukrainian state, made inroads into Volhynia by infiltrating the province’s

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cultural, educational, and cooperative organizations. Józewski, who saw such work as a
smokescreen for Ukrainian subversion, responded with repressive measures, suspending the work of

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the Ukrainian cultural association Prosvita and closing 124 Ukrainian cooperatives in 1932. At the

same time, more politically extreme challenges to the Polish state were gathering steam, most

notably the far-right Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiia Ukraïns’kykh

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Natsionalistiv, or OUN), which had set up bases in Kowel and Łuck counties by 1931. The OUN’s

57 Piotr Cichoracki, Polesie nieidylliczne: zaburzenia porządku publicznego w województwie poleskim w latach
trzydziestych XX w. (Łomianki, 2007), 99.
58 Jan Kęsik, “‘Kordon sokalski’. Problemy pogranicza galicyjsko-wołyńskiego w latach 1921-1939,” Acta
Universitatis Wratislaviensis, Historia CXI, no. 1532 (1993): 125-155. With this administrative boundary in mind,
the pre-coup Polish governments had developed separate policies for each region, stating in 1923 guidelines that
“Volhynia and Eastern Little Poland should not be treated as a uniform territory.” See “Ogólne wytyczne dla
polityki na Kresach Wschodnich,” AAN PRM (Part 4) 25/32/6.
59 Kęsik, “‘Kordon sokalski’,” 143. On the idea of Volhynia becoming the fourth province of eastern Galicia, see
“Atak separatystów ukraińskich na Wołyniu,” Przegląd Wołyński, May 18, 1930, 2.
60 “Dział ogólny. Charakterystyka ludności ukraińskiej,” AAN MSW (Part 1) 944/134-137; Snyder, Sketches, 69.
“Likwidacja spółdzielczości na Wołyniu,” AAN MSW (Part 1) 1054/2.
61 Mędrzecki, Województwo wołyńskie, 111.

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