Polish photographers will record their people’s past in Volyn
However, “the project has no provisions” for popularization of Ukrainian identity sites located across the border“Retracing the Polish legacy” is the title of the open air workshop that has brought members of the local photographers’ union from Rzeszow, Poland, to Volyn. The event takes place in the framework of the “Joint Cooperation Network in the Fields of Culture and Social Security for the Development of the Polish-Ukrainian Border Cities” project, which the Lutsk City Council is a participant of. The project is co-funded by the EU. How will the money be spent, then?
The Polish page of Volyn’s history lasted for decades. For instance, our region was part of the Polish state in 1921-39. A good deal of Lutsk was built by the Poles, and Polish architects’ works are still the finest buildings of the city. Just over this period, lasting less than two decades, they built eight banks (now housing the garrison’s House of Officers, the regional branch of the National Bank of Ukraine, store and restaurant Diva, museum and other institutions), post office (still housing the state post’s branch), six hospitals, a cycling facility (now a stadium), a gym with a swimming pool (now the Municipal Children and Youth Sports School), and a few cinemas in the city. Even a mini-block of houses, built for the Polish servicemen, is still standing in Lutsk. Similarly well-built structures, lasting witnesses of the Polish state’s presence in our land, are extant throughout Volyn. During the open air workshop, photographers from Rzeszow will record not only the buildings that still remember their ancestors, but also borderland life in general, as well as historical monuments that decorate the city and are its hallmarks.
Volynians will benefit from this project, especially as it will be a way to promote further cooperation with Polish partners and the region itself. It is interesting, after all, how foreigners see our cities, villages, and historical monuments. Besides Lutsk, the Poles will visit Olyka, Dubno, Belz, Ternopil, Kremenets, and other localities of historical Volyn. An album that will promote our region will follow the project’s completion.
However, the question arises: does not the frontier always have two, so to speak, sides? Ethnic Ukrainians lived since the times immemorial on the other bank of the Bug River, now dividing the two countries, in the Kholm and Sian lands. They were evicted from their ancestral lands due to an agreement between the Soviet Union and Poland, as a result of redrawing the boundaries. It would be interesting to see, even as photos, Ukrainian identity sites that are extant there, much as Polish identity sites are in Volyn. However, the project’s regional coordinator Olena Semeniuk told us that the project had no provisions for it. In its framework, Volyn pensioners and disabled visited Poland, where they took part in art classes. Also, employees of the Lutsk City Council have been invited to Polish language courses. Neither Rzeszow nor any other Polish city held similar Ukrainian language courses. Meanwhile, Volyn photo artists are perfectly capable of producing a good album to popularize our region themselves, but the project “has no provisions” for it as well. Thus, our neighbors are interested in their history and historic sites, even if they are now in another state, while we are just learning the neighbors’ language...
