Daniel Beauvois, Le noble, le serf et le revizor: La noblesse polonaise entre le tsarisme et les masses ukrainiennes (1831-7863), Edition des Archives contemporaines, Montreux, 1895; pp. 365. Polish translation by Ewa and Krzysztof Rutkowscy, Polacy na Ukrainie (1831-1863), Biblioteka ‘Kultury’, 1987, pp. 296.

Daniel Beauvois (ed.) Les confins de l'ancienne Pologne, Presses Universitaire de Lille, 1988, pp. 282.

Iwo Werschler, Zdziejów obozu belwederskiego: Tadeusz Hołówko, ZJcie i działalność, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warsaw, 1984, pp. 315.

Anna Garlicka, Polska-rugoslawia, 7934-1939, Ossolineum, Wrodaw, 1977, pp. 224.

Aleksandra Bergman, Sprawy bialoruskie w II Rzeczypospolitej, Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warsaw, 1984, pp. 287.

The history of the Polish borderlands (Kresy) and of the Second Republic's policy on nationalities has not ceased to be the subject of research and interesting publications, both within Poland and abroad. Few fail to note the failure of Polish attempts at assimilation or co-existence; a recent article in the Paris journal Kultura (no.51476, 1987, pp. 94-9) bears witness to this. Polish ‘self-criticism’ is severe. However, what no State seems to have understood is that the problem of national minorities was not a problem to which a solution need be sought: in this case an Endlösung was not far away. It was rather a question of accepting co-existence. It still needs two to do this, and in pre-war Poland there were many more than two partners and each had its extremists.

In his excellent book, based on work in local Soviet archives, Professor Daniel Beauvois reveals the responsibility of the Polish land-owning nobility between 1831 and 1863 in that part of the Ukraine annexed to the Russian empire (Volhynia, Podolia, the province of Kiev). Its behaviour during this period was such as to leave lasting resentment among the almost totally peasant Ukrainian population. The large landowners, who were both accomplices and victims of the Tsarist regime, brought the weight of their accumulated authority to bear on the serfs. The excesses committed by some of their members remained unpunished, through an exaggerated class solidarity which the Russian authorities exploited against them all. This would appear to be the sole area where real mutual support operated amongst the nobility, because the well-endowed refused help to members of the landless minor nobility.