Архівні джерела про сталінські репресії в південних регіонах УСРР  у 30-х роках ХХ століття стосовно громадян польської національності

Yevhen Sinkevych

doi:10.31861/hj2025.62.73–85

Authors

Yevhen Sinkevych Cherkasy National University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5729-1644

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31861/hj2025.62.73–85

Keywords:

Stalinist repressions, rehabilitated, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Kherson, Tsarevodar, Kysylivka, Poles

Abstract

The significance of archival sources in historical research is difficult to overestimate. It was only with Ukraine’s independence that scholars gained access to documents from criminal cases of individuals repressed during the Stalinist era. The 1930s marked the peak period of Stalinist repressions, claiming numerous victims, including so-called kulaks, middle-class peasants, the creative intelligentsia, clergy, military personnel, party workers, and even members of the repressive bodies themselves.

In 1935, a secret directive initiated mass repressions against citizens of Polish and German nationality in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Documents concerning repressed Poles were stored in the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine in the Kherson region and the State Archive of the Kherson region. Unfortunately, the annexation of Crimea (2014), the establishment of pro-Russian quasi-republics in Donbas, and the occupation of Kherson from February to November 2022 resulted in these archival materials being transferred to the Russian Federation.

Between 2016 and 2018, aware of the risk of losing records of rehabilitated victims of Stalinist repressions from Kherson archives, the author examined a wide range of documents related to the persecution of Poles in the 1930s. Repressions took many forms. They targeted religious communities; Poles were recorded as Ukrainians or Russians in parish registers and marriage certificates; Polish-language newspapers were shut down; the Polish national district (the Marchlewski District) was abolished, and its inhabitants were actively resettled to other regions of Ukraine and to the Far East. Eventually, persecution based on property status began as well (repressions against kulaks and middle peasants). Criminal cases were often initiated against groups of people, since collective charges resulted in harsher punishment — usually execution. Extrajudicial reprisals were widely used, with a person’s fate decided by the so-called «twos» and «threes». Notably, these repressions were formally framed as if socialist legality were being observed. This article is based on photocopies of these documents.

Author Biography

Yevhen Sinkevych, Cherkasy National University

Doctor of History, Professor, Department of World History and International Relations, Bohdan Khmelnytsky National University of Cherkasy.

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