The resettlement and settlement action is one of the least known and explored aspects of the 'Vistula' Operation which took place in 1947. Polish Army troops were made responsible for the resettlement of the Ukrainians inhabiting southern Poland. In the course of the Operation, between May and October of 1947, about 9,684 families (33,946 Ukrainians) were forced to leave the province of Lublin to be settled in north and west Poland. They left behind 8,871 farms. Only 30% of them were later settled by new Polish settlers, while the rest was used as industrial-scale plough land and for forestry. The forces of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Ukrainian Nationalist Organization tried to prevent both the resettlement action and the subsequent Polish settlement, but were unsuccessful. This action changed the ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural face of the Lublin region. The author presents in detail both the numerical data and the course of these events.
The establishing of Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego (PKWN – Polish Committee of National Liberation) and assuming power by the Committee made it possible to implement a socio-political programme that had been based on a Manifesto of 22 July 1944. Aiming at a radical change of the nationality structure in Poland, on 9 September 1944, PKWN signed an agreement with the USSR that pertained an exchange of population. On this basis fast resettlement of Ukrainians inhabiting Poland, including the Lublin province, was to be executed. However, the prolonging resettlement process forced the authorities to implement a specific „national” policy in the area of political, economic, religious and educational relations. The attitude and activities undertaken by Organizacja Ukraińskich Nacjonalistów (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) exerted a considerable influence on the authorities’ decision to first suspend the resettlement process and then to use force to execute it. The resettlement could not be hastened even by periodically intensifying anti-Ukrainian demonstrations by the Polish nationalist military resistance movement (e.g. 5 June 1945 in Wierzchowiny). The mutual attacks launched by the Polish and Ukrainian anti-communist resistance were curbed when the Lublin province unit of NSZ was dissolved and local agreements were concluded. Voluntarily or forced by the authorities, about 195 thousand Ukrainians left the Lublin province. Their resettlement was supported by political parties licensed by Polska Partia Robotnicza (Polish Workers’ Party), such as Polska Partia Socjalistyczna (Polish Socialist Party), Stronnictwo Ludowe (Peasant Party), Stronnictwo Demokratyczne (Democratic Alliance) as well as by legitimate opposition (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe – Polish Peasant Party and Stronnictwo Pracy – Labour Alliance). In course of the resettlement, the authorities made the Orthodox Chełmsko- Podlaska Diocese, Greek Catholic Przemyska Diocese and the Ukrainian schools close down. In consequence of the national policy implemented by the authorities in the period of 1944–1946, the south-eastern Poland gradually lost its traditional status of a multi-national, multi-cultural, and multi-religious borderland. The ultimate status of the territory was decided by the „Wisła” action, executed in 1947.