The Polish—Ukrainian Agreement, 1920

The First World War caused a number of fundamental changes in Europe. Many new independent states were created or returned to the independence which they had lost many years earlier. One of them was Poland, which, thanks to a most favourable state of affairs, regained its independence: two of its partitioning powers, Germany and Austria, lost the war and the third, Russia, was in the throes of a revolution and so weakened for a considerable time. This power vacuum reopened for Poland many of the political and territorial issues that had been central to Russo-Polish relations in the past. One of these issues was the relationship of Ukraine to Poland. From the Polish point of view, it was a question fundamental to the security of the reborn Poland.