reason Giedroyc and his colleagues systematically worked for an independent Ukraine and brought up the Ukrainian question on international forums. Furthermore they worked towards improving Polish-Ukrainian relations and developing a network of contacts within the Ukrainian émigré community.

This eventually led Kultura to the creation of a new vision of Polish-Ukrainian relations. Its main points were adopted by the democratic opposition in communist Poland and later became a cornerstone of policy in independent Poland. Even if we tend to exaggerate and idealise the role Kultura played in making Poles accept losing the eastern territories, it remains true that after 1989-1991 not a single party in the Polish parliament had a revisionist programme. The question relating to Poland’s eastern border was forever closed.

Kultura collectively caused a dramatic breakthrough in Polishthinking about its eastern neighbours. The political elite of independent Poland began to implement by consensus its eastern programme. All in all it was a logical choice and the only rational option the Poles had after 1989. Pursing any other strategy would have been suicidal.

The Ukrainian question became one of the most important issues for the sovereign Polish state. Poland passed the test by being the first country in the world to recognise Ukraine’s independence. Kultura updated Mieroszewski’s vision and kept convincing the Polish elite to support Kyiv into the 1990s. Consecutive Polish governments understood it themselves and supported the new Ukraine, its international subjectivity, democratisation and European and Euro-Atlantic integration. Part of this was to bring up the Ukrainian cause on the international arena under the informal