'We swear to fight for the inviolability of the borders of our motherland': disabled veterans and social welfare in interwar Lviv

• Published in: European review of history = Revue européene d'histoire Vol. 31; no. 2; pp. 223 - 245
• Main Author: Vynnyk, Oksana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 03.03.2024; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Borders; Disability; Disabled veterans; Discourses; eastern borderlands; Ethnic groups; Ethnic identity; Heterogeneity; Interconnections; interwar Poland; Lviv; Minority groups; Nation building; social and ethnic minorities; Social welfare; State building; Veterans; War; Welfare policy
• ISSN: 1350-7486; 1469-8293
• DOI: 10.1080/13507486.2023.2288098

The newborn Second Polish Republic inherited a complex imperial legacy and a large minority population. The series of borderland conflicts and the Soviet-Polish War that followed the Great War added additional layers to the heterogeneity of the veteran population. Throughout the interwar era, the eastern borderlands became a source of interethnic, religious and political tension, and turned into a battleground of contested Polish and Ukrainian memory discourses. The article focuses on welfare policy as an instrument of state-building in the eastern Polish borderlands. The process of defining war disability took place alongside the process of nation-building. The question of the legal definition of 'Polish disabled veteran' turned into a discussion about who was a part of the national body. The article examines how the interconnections between the categories of war disability and ethnic and new social minorities forged new identities in interwar eastern Poland.