Wiktor Poliszczuk - Criticism

Criticism

Wiktor Poliszczuk was criticised as biased against OUN-UPA and nonscientific by several historians. Polish historian Rafał Wnuk of the Institute of National Remembrance in Lublin categorized Poliszczuk's work as belonging to the "para-scientific" tradition along with some other Polish authors who are "neither scientific nor objective". Although Poliszczuk was described by Wnuk as a "left-wing democrat" (quotes provided by Wnuk), he was said by Wnuk to have used the same jargon and to have reached the same conclusions as the Polish national nonscientific writers. Ukrainian academic Yaroslav Isayevich of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine called Poliszczuk an "expert practitioner of anti-Ukrainian hysteria." Canadian historian David Marples described Poliszczuk's work as detailed, although taking the form of a polemic similar to the views regarding UPA from the Soviet perspective to which Poliszczuk's work can be added. In an interview published in translation by the Warsaw-based Ukrainian newspaper Our Word (Нашe Слово), Polish historian Ryszard Torzecki dismissed Poliszczuk as an "NKVD prosecutor" (which he was not) and one of the named writers unworthy of discussion.

Ukrainian nationalist historians also condemned Poliszczuk's works. For example, Volodomyr Serhiichuk of Ukraine published an entire book in response to his writing, defending OUN-UPA and emphasizing the Polish community's alleged collaboration with the Germans and with the Bolsheviks. However, the aforementioned book also "denigrates the Poles at every opportunity. It is thus a diatribe – wrote Marples – rather than an academic work..." (Heroes and Villains). Poliszczuk was a "left-wing democrat" who fully supported Operation Vistula, wrote Rafal Wnuk (referring to the forced deportation of the Ukrainian community from eastern Poland after the assassination of Communist minister Karol Świerczewski there); however, any attempts at his work's classification "using a national key" (suggested by Motyka) would be the least convincing. Historian of Ukraine Timothy Snyder from Yale wrote that Poliszczuk's argument about the purpose of resettlement was his "blatant" mistake, because this action was undertaken in order to disperse Ukrainian communities so they "could never arise again in Poland". The purported removal of the civilian base from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army after the war was only a pretext used by the authorities in Operation "Wisla".