Prelude
Prior to the First World War, within the Russian Empire Polish territories were administered by a Vistula Land, whose eastern frontier roughly determined the ethnic border between the Polish people on the west, and the Ukrainians and Belarusians (the referred to as Little and White Russians respectively) on the east. In Austrian Galicia there was no administrative border which marked the ethnic one the Polish and the Galician Ukrainians (Ruthenians).
During the First World War, the Russian Civil, the Polish-Soviet and Polish-Ukrainian wars, the territory passed hands several times, and each of the controlling powers tried to create its own administration on the region. During the conflict, the Supreme War Council, tried several times to intervene and create an agreeable border between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia, the most notable outcome, was the border presented by the British Foreign Secretary George Curzon, after whom the proposed line was named. The line mostly followed the 19th century border between the Vistula Land, but also extended further south and portioned Galicia along the rough ethnic border between Poles and Ukrainians.
Though accepted by the Bolshevik government, the line was ignored by Poland, and after the Polish-Soviet War's conclusion, on the Treaty of Riga, Bolshevik Russia recognised a new border almost 250 km east of the Curzon Line. The border was recognised by the League of Nations in 1923, and confirmed by numerous Polish-Soviet treaties and delimited in due course.
Read more about this topic: Border Agreement Between Poland And The USSR Of 16 August 1945
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