Editing Polonization (section)

=== Ukrainians ===
[[File:1921 Decree on Polish as state language in Volyn Voyvodeship.jpg|right|thumb|220px|Decree of the first [[Voivodeship|governor]] of [[Volhynia|Wołyń]] (Volhynia), Jan Krzakowski: "On language in the [[Wołyń Voivodeship (1921–39)|Volhynian Province]]", establishing [[Polish language|Polish]] as the official language in accordance with the 1921 [[Treaty of Riga]] after the [[Polish–Soviet War]] in which the frontiers between Poland and the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics|Soviet Russia]] had been defined. Written in [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]]]]Interwar Poland was inhabited by 4-5 million Ukrainians. They lived primarily in the areas of Eastern Galicia and Volhynia.{{Sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=626}} Until the First World War, Galicia with its large Ukrainian [[Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church|Greek Catholic]] population in the east (around Lviv) was controlled by the [[Austria-Hungary|Austrian Empire]].<ref name="Snyder" /> On the other hand, the Ukrainians of Volhynia, formerly of the [[Russian Empire]] (around Rivne), were largely [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Orthodox]], and were influenced by strong [[Ukrainian Russophiles|Russophile]] trends.<ref name="Snyder" /> National self-identification was much stronger among the Galician Ukrainians,

==== Religion ====
{{See also|Recovery of Orthodox Churches in the Second Polish Republic}}
While the [[Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church]], which is in [[Full communion|communion]] with the [[Catholic Church]], hoped to receive a better treatment in Poland where the leadership saw Catholicism as one of the main tools to unify the nation – the Poles under [[Stanisław Grabski]] saw the restless Galician Ukrainians as less reliable than the Eastern Orthodox Volhynian Ukrainians,<ref name="Snyder" /> seen as better candidates for gradual assimilation. That's why the Polish policy in Ukraine initially aimed at keeping Greek Catholic Galicians from further influencing Orthodox Volhynians by drawing the so-called "Sokalski line".<ref name="Snyder">[[Timothy Snyder]], ''The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999'', Yale University Press, {{ISBN|0-300-10586-X}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=xSpEynLxJ1MC&dq=stanislaw+grabski&pg=PA144 No preview available. Google Books, p.144] See instead: [http://jivebelarus.net/files/books/Snyder-The-Reconstruction-of-Nations.pdf PDF copy (5,887 KB), last accessed: 25 February 2011.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110819003258/http://jivebelarus.net/files/books/Snyder-The-Reconstruction-of-Nations.pdf |date=19 August 2011 }}</ref>

Due to the region's history the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church attained a strong Ukrainian national character, and the Polish authorities sought to weaken it in various ways. In 1924, following a visit with Ukrainian Greek Catholics in North America and western Europe, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was initially denied reentry to Lviv for a considerable amount of time. Polish priests led by their bishops began to undertake missionary work among [[Eastern Catholic Church|Eastern Catholics]], and the administrative restrictions were placed on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.<ref name=Magocsi>{{cite book|author=Magocsi, P. |title=Morality and Reality: the Life and Times of Andrei Sheptytsky|location=Edmonton, Alberta |publisher=Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta |year=1989}}</ref>

With respect to the Eastern Orthodox Ukrainian population in eastern Poland, the [[Polish government]] initially issued a decree defending the rights of the Orthodox minorities. In practice, this often failed, as the Catholics, also eager to strengthen their position, had official representation in the [[Sejm]] and the courts. Any accusation was strong enough for a particular church to be confiscated and handed over to the Catholic Church. The goal of the two so called "[[Recovery of Orthodox Churches in the Second Polish Republic|revindication campaigns]]" was to reverse the gains of the Orthodox Church from the [[Russian Partition|partitions period]] and to return to the Catholics those churches that had been converted into Orthodox churches by the Russian authorities.{{Sfn|Magocsi|1996|p=596}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Piotrowski |first1=Tadeusz |title=Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947 |date=1998 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=9780786403714 |page=182 |quote=Under Tsarist rule the Uniate population had been forcibly converted to Orthodoxy. In 1875, at least 375 Uniate Churches were converted into Orthodox churches. The same was true of many Latin-rite Roman Catholic churches}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kloczowski |first1=Jerzy |title=A History of Polish Christianity |date=2000 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=9780521364294 |page=272 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ecdye8hk_tgC&pg=272}}</ref> 190 Orthodox churches were destroyed, some of the destroyed churches were abandoned,<ref name="BP">Manus I. Midlarsky, "The Impact of External Threat on States and Domestic Societie" [in:] ''Dissolving Boundaries'', Blackwell Publishers, 2003, {{ISBN|1-4051-2134-3}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=epmK6bwLECsC&dq=Pilsudski+minorities&pg=PA15 Google Print, p. 15.]</ref> and 150 more were forcibly transformed into Roman Catholic (not Greek Catholic) churches.<ref name=Subtelny>{{cite book |first= Orest|last=Subtelny |title=Ukraine: A History |location= Toronto |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=1988 |isbn=0-8020-5808-6 |author-link=Orest Subtelny}}</ref> Such actions were condemned by the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, [[Metropolitan bishop|metropolitan]] [[Andrei Sheptytsky]], who claimed that these acts would "destroy in the souls of our non-united Orthodox brothers the very thought of any possible reunion."<ref name="Magocsi"/>

==== Education ====
The Polish administration closed many of the [[Prosvita]] reading rooms. The number of reading rooms declined from 2,879 in 1914 to only 843 in 1923. The decline can be partially explained by the war devastation.{{Sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=631}}

In independent Poland, education was centralized, and provincial school administration was abolished, as happened with Lwów-based separate Ukrainian representation.{{Sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=631}} In 1924 the law was passed, which set up bilingual Ukrainian and Polish schools. As a result, number of Ukrainian unilingual schools declined, and they were replaced by bilingual schools. This affected Eastern Galicia most severely, where before the war there were 2,400 Ukrainian elementary schools, and during the existence of the West Ukrainian People's Republic their number increased to about 3,000. After the region was annexed to Poland, the number began to decline, in 1923 it was 2453, in 1925 it was still 2151, but after the introduction of bilingual schools there was a rapid decline to 648 schools in 1930 and 352 in 1938. At the same time, the number of bilingual schools grew from 9 in 1925 to 1,793 in 1930 and to 2,485 in 1938. The number of Polish schools also declined from 2,568 schools in 1925 to 2,161 in 1938.

The principle of "numerus clausus" had been introduced following which the Ukrainians were discriminated when entering the [[Lviv University|Uniwersytet Jana Kazimierza]] (not more than 15% of the applicants' total number, the Poles enjoying not less than the 50% quota at the same time).<ref name="National University of L'viv">[http://www.lnu.edu.ua/general/about.htm Brief history of L'viv University] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513221016/http://www.lnu.edu.ua/general/about.htm|date=2013-05-13}}</ref>

==== Land reform ====
The land reform was designed to favor ethnic Polish population.<ref name="Snyder146">Snyder, [[op cit]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=xSpEynLxJ1MC&q=land+reform&pg=PA146 Google Print, p.146]</ref> By 1938 some 800,000 hectares had been redistributed within Ukrainian-inhabited areas. The redistribution did not necessarily help the local Ukrainian population, however. In 1920 in Volhynia and Polissia 39 percent of the allotted land (312,000 hectares) had been awarded to Polish war veterans. In Eastern Galicia 200,000 hectare had been given to Polish peasants from the western provinces of the country. By the 1930s the number of Poles living within contiguous Ukrainian ethnographic territory had increased by about 300,000.{{Sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=629}}