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This thesis is an examination of the relationship between the Ukrainian nationalists, led by Petliura (The Ukrainian People’s Republic) and both Germany and Poland in the period 1918-1922. Although the thesis addresses primarily the situation after World War I and the military collapse of Germany in Eastern Europe, I also examine the historical relationship between Germany and Ukraine, which came to the fore in the period of World War I, and especially following the treaties of Brest Litovsk. This period involved the German recognition of Ukrainian independence, and the German intervention in Ukrainian internal political and economic affairs.

This study is concerned with the influence of regionalism in the Congresses of People's Deputies of the USSR and Russia between 1989 and 1993 and its implications for future reform including the development of federal relations in Russia. In particular, emphasis will be placed on regionalist tendencies developed in Siberia and the Russian Far East. After perestroika, the discussion of federal relations showed varieties of possible developments, ranging from a unitary system to a confederation. Despite these varieties, it appears to be generally perceived that stable and 'genuine' federal relations are required in Russia. However, little attention has been paid to the role of the newly re-emerging political actor, the deputies of the central legislature, who are directly engaged in the establishment of such federal relations. This study reaches three main conclusions. First of all, regional socio-economic disparities affected the attitudes of deputies towards reform, including changes in centre-periphery relations. Secondly, the analysis suggests that at least two main streams of regionalism were developed during 1989-1993: one developed in the Congress by the regional deputy groups, and the other outside the Congresses by regional political leaders. Thirdly, despite growing regionalist tendencies in Russia at that time, regional political actors were not strong enough to initiate a federal structure of their preference, lacking horizontal and vertical coordination. This discussion of regionalism in the Congress leads us to a further conclusion that regional interest articulation was rather chaotic, hampering legislation of policies and thus facilitating the regionalisation of reform. Despite strong regionalist tendencies in some sub-national units, particularly based on ethno-nationalist sentiments, such a development may erode the legacy of reform as well as regional autonomy itself.

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of memoir competitions in communist-era Poland, focusing on contributions to them by Poles of rural origins inhabiting the lands – known as the Recovered Territories – acquired by the postwar Polish state from Germany in 1945. I explore the history of the memoir method in postwar Poland, the processes involved in producing published volumes of competition memoirs – including editing and censorship, and the use of these sources in communist-era and post-1989 sociological, historiographical and interdisciplinary studies. I focus on existing research both on the Recovered Territories, particularly Polish settlement of those lands and the development of new communities there, and also on postwar peasants’ lives, particularly where theories of social advance are applied. In this respect, this investigation adds to existing literature in social history on early postwar Poland. My study also contributes to work in censorship studies by considering Polish censors’ approach to quite exceptional sources. Because in many cases original competition entries are available, it is possible to establish where editors, publishers and censors have intervened, something that is rarely possible with standard works of literature or academic scholarship produced under communism. I consider what strategies different scholars used in presenting published sources and circumventing restrictions imposed. Subaltern studies approaches to speaking and its critique of nation-centred historiography are, meanwhile, applied in investigating the intersection of peasant autobiographies, academic research, scholars and Party-state institutions and their discourses, as I consider how the published communist-era compilations of competition entries framed peasant writing, experience, culture and consciousness, and how these frames potentially conflicted with the authors’ own interpretations of their experiences and social reality. This investigation also contributes to memory studies, a discipline whose approach to communist and totalitarian states is particularly problematic as many studies assume significant restrictions were imposed not only on publication but also on autobiographical memory expressed in usually unrecorded private and local spheres. I explore whether memory studies’ typical approach, based in notions of competing claims might also apply to Poland under state socialism. Bakhtin’s theories of dialogism prove useful in exploring the history of memory under communism, rather than the memory of it – as is commonplace today in oral history-based studies, for example. It is in respect of censorship studies and memory studies that this thesis makes its most substantial original contributions to research. My research draws on substantial archival research conducted in Poland, where I explored censorship archives in Warsaw and Poznań, Party and ministerial archives, and the Polish Academy of Science archive, since numerous memoir sociologists and rural sociologists were based there. I also used archives housing original competition entries, the main locations being: The Institute of Western Affairs in Poznań (Instytut Zachodni – IZ), the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Science (Instytut Historyczny PAN – IH PAN) and the Museum of the History of the Polish Peasant Movement (MHRPL in Piaseczno, near Tczew). I consider published volumes alongside original sources where possible, although substantial losses have occurred to the store of popular autobiography. Chapter 1 outlines the background of Polish memoir sociology and the main methods and theories used in this investigation, ranging from subaltern studies through Bakhtin to autobiography studies. Chapter 2 focuses on memory studies, including the field’s approach to communist and postcommunist countries, before outlining aspects of censorship studies relevant to this investigation. I end Chapter 2 on a case study of the memoir compilation Miesiąc mojego życia [A Month in my Life – MMŻ; (1964)] and its treatment by censors. Chapter 3 explores recent English- and Polish-language historiography on the Recovered Territories, concentrating on, firstly, how historians have used the memoir resources in considering the early postwar years, and, secondly, how peasants are represented within the recent wave of works exploring Polish communism through nationalism and popular legitimation. I end on a case study of one particular memoir by a female settler to the new Polish lands, highlighting the value of the competition entries as thick descriptions. Chapter 4 investigates the mainstream communist-era memoir movement where the leading analytical concept for approaching peasants and social change was ‘social advance’, developed from Józef Chałasiński’s prewar sociology. I explore how the nine-volume series Młode pokolenie wsi Polski Ludowej [The Young Generation of Rural People’s Poland – MPWPL; (1964-1980)] and other memoir-based studies approached peasants and the Recovered Territories, which were often framed as a site of quicker and more intensive social advance and urbanisation. I also explore the autobiographies of Poles who lost their homelands in the prewar eastern borderlands in the context of today’s assumptions that ‘repatriants’, as the eastern Poles were known under communism, were largely absent from communist-era publications. 4 Chapter 5 considers the academic sociology of the Western Territories, developed at IZ, and how materials from its 1956/57 memoir competition on settlers were used alongside fieldwork. I explore the sociological frameworks developed for analysing migration, settlement and community development, noting that some studies from the 1960s can today be considered forerunners of migration studies and memory studies. Chapter 6 specifically considers the publication Pamiętniki osadników Ziem Odzyskanych [Memoirs of Recovered Territories Settlers – POZO; (1963)], investigating original entries alongside published materials to explore editors’ and academics’ role in censorship, while also investigating how the volume was received in the press. Chapter 7 explores the production of the four-volume series Wieś polska 1939-1948 [Rural Poland 1939-1948; (1967-1971)] by historian-editors Krystyna Kersten and Tomasz Szarota, who treated these previously-unpublished texts written in 1948 explicitly as historical sources, thus contrasting with previously dominant sociological approaches while also posing specific problems for censors as the editors employed a unique method of summaries in an attempt to make the entire set of some 1700 texts available to readers. Exploring different approaches to memoir publication, I aim to illustrate the diversity of the published sphere in People’s Poland, while demonstrating the heterogeneity of ordinary Poles’ memories submitted to different competitions between 1948 and 1970. While the value of the archived sources should be quite evident, exploration of censorship and editing processes should demonstrate the value of compilations and indeed communist-era scholarship, which is often overlooked today. By avoiding totalitarian schools of historiography and memory studies, I aim to demonstrate that competition memoirs illustrated ordinary Poles’ agency within historical and social processes, while also stressing their agency over their memories and autobiographical narratives which at the same time were, as in any society, cultural and social constructs.

Before 1939 there had been some Polish settlement in Scotland, but the members were too few in number to organise themselves on a national basis. After the defeat of the 1830-31 `Powstanie Listopadowe' (the November Rising) some members of the `Wielka Emigracja' decided to settle in Scotland. Next, following the defeat of the 1863-64 `Powstanie Styczniowe' (the January Rising), there was a migration to Scotland with both economic and political motivations. Most of the men found employment either in coal-mining or in the iron and steel industries mainly in Lanarkshire. These `Poles' (who were mostly ethnic Lithuanians) had to overcome the opposition of the organised labour movement as well as anti-Catholicism and anti-alienism. By 1939 the members of the `economic emigration' had become `assimilated' into Scottish society. The defeat of Poland in September, 1939, by Germany and the Soviet Union caused Poles to escape to France where a new Polish government in exile was formed led by President Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz and Prime Minister General Wladyslaw Sikorski. General Sikorski led the re-organisation of the Polish Armed Forces with the financial and material assistance of France and Britain. Following the defeat of France, during June and July, 1940, the Polish government in exile, some 20,000 Polish servicemen and some 3,000 Polish civilian refugees were evacuated to Britain. General Sikorski received the support of Churchill and could reform Polish Army, Air Force and Navy units in the United Kingdom and the Near East. The Polish First Army Corps was organised in Scotland. When the war in Europe ended in May, 1945, the Corps comprised the First Armoured Division, the First Independent Paratroop Brigade, the Fourth Infantry Division (incomplete), the Sixteenth Independent Armoured Brigade (also incomplete) and administrative and training centres. During the war many Polish servicemen and civilians were befriended by hospitable Scottish people. The British authorities and the Polish government in London created a `support society' for Poles, including education and welfare facilities. Both the location of Polish units and institutions during wartime and the knowledge which Poles acquired of life in Scotland significantly influenced post-war settlement. For Poland the outcome of the war was `defeat in victory'. The decisions taken at the Teheran Conference (28 November to 1 December, 1943) and the Yalta Conference (4 to 11 February, 1945) prevented many Polish servicement and civilians from returning to their homeland. On 5 July, 1945, the governments of Britain and the U.S.A. ceased to recognise the Polish government in London and recognised the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity in Warsaw. Despite the participation of the former Prime Minister of the government in London, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, this new `government' in Poland was dominated by Stalin's Communist agents and their allies. Between 1945 and 1951 the Polish community in Scotland was formed against a background of increasing political terror in Poland. Initially, there was strong opposition in many parts of Scotland to the proposed settlement of Poles. Many people in Britain did not understand that Poland was under the control of the Soviet Union. The `elections' of 19 January, 1947, by which the Communist `Polska Partia Robotnicza' (Polish Worker's Party) and their allies seized power, finally made the position of the Polish settlers in Scotland secure. After the victory of the Labour Party in the British General Election in July, 1945, the Labour government, led by Clement Attlee, `inherited' the Interim Treasury Committee for Polish Questions which had been formed by the previous government led by Churchill with the aim of gradually closing down the institutions of the Polish government in exile. Instead, the machinery of the Interim Treasury Committee was used for the welfare of Polish civilian refugees in Britain, the Middle East, British East Africa and other countries. As the relationship between Britain and the Soviet Union worsened, the British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had to face the consequences of the failure of Stalin to honour the promises given at Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam regarding Poland. In order to place Poles in employment in Britain without serious opposition from the trades unions, the Labour government instituted a policy of controlled resettlement through the Polish Resettlement Corps, the Polish Resettlement Act of 27 March, 1947, and the European Volunteer Workers scheme. Above all, Polish servicemen under British command, their families, dependants and other civilian refugees were used to provide manpower for essential undermanned industries, such as agriculture, coal-mining, textiles and the building trades. The War Office transferred the majority of Polish service personnel who refused to return to Poland from their service areas to England and Wales for service in the Polish Resettlement Corps and demobilisation into civilian life. By 1951 the basis for the Polish community in Scotland had been formed with many institutions and organisations to replace the wartime `support society'. Most exiled Poles believed that the Soviet Union would be defeated by the Western democracies and that in a few years they would return to their liberated homeland. The majority of Poles in Scotland settled in areas with good employment opportunities. Between 1951 and 1961 the Polish community in Scotland became permanently established with major centres of settlement in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Falkirk and Kirkcaldy. After the removal of many of the worst features of `Stalinism' in Poland after October, 1956, the defeat of the Hungarian Uprising convinced most exiled Poles that Poland would not be liberated either by a national revolt or by intervention by the Western democracies. In addition, many Poles in Scotland lost interest in community life because of the disputes among the exile political and military leadership in London, which resulted in a major crisis during 1954 causing the creation of two factions, namely the `Zamek' supporting President August Zaleski and the `Zjednoczenie' whose aim was to remove him. These disputes contributed towards disunity in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Falkirk, leading to the creation of alternative social centres in opposition to the pro-`Zjednoczenie' Polish Ex-Combatants' Association (`Stowarzyszenie Polskich Kombatantó' or S.P.K.) and their `Domy Kombatanta'. The S.P.K. also lost popularity because of their opposition to visits by exiled Poles to Poland following the reforms after October, 1956. Fortunately, these disputes proved short-lived. Wladyslaw Gomulka and his successor, Edward Gierek, failed to give the Polish nation genuine political, economic or cultural freedom. Many exiled Poles in Scotland continued to support community institutions, such as the Polish Parish, and often returned to participate in organised community life after long absences. While many Poles became `assimilated' into Scottish society (mainly through marriage to Scottish women and isolation from fellow-Poles), in 1990 there are active Polish communities in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Falkirk, Dundee and Kirkcaldy. With a large number of members of the `second generation' involved in community activities than in other Polish centres in Scotland, the Poles in Glasgow are probably the most active.

In today's fast evolving Central and Eastern Europe, economic perspectives, especially European Union perspectives are indispensable to the success of the transformation process initiated in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Based on our research output, this thesis offers many such perspectives that can help understand the logic of the transformation and the subsequent business done by national and international enterprises. We have interwoven many information-rich threads of transformation principles with banking, dynamic cultural factors and tax policy that influence these new market-economy countries. We observe the role and the process of financial institutions and also consider the impact that information technology exerts on these economies and thus concluding that the significance of culture development and the betterment of the population are the central driving force within a wider Europe. This thesis offers fundamental notions that influence cross-cultural interactions also, providing a concrete basis for understanding the influence of Central and Eastern European countries on the European Union's political choices and vice versa. We examine the transformation and its significance, paradoxes and the interplay of economic approaches and entrepreneurship. In the specific, we look at how the European Union policy towards these countries evolved, suggesting that a trend towards a Bruxelles Consensus is the specific outcome of the European Union's attitudes towards Central and Eastern Europe. An extended evaluation of the consequences for all of us will also emerge as our approach has been that to present all these aspects in a way that inspire understanding of basic governing issues and expectations concerning the future on Central and Eastern Europe in the ever-growing European Union.

Beyond the half-lives, Exclusions Zones, and official imaginaries of nuclear risk, exists an informal geography of Chernobyl. This thesis explores what it is like to live with nuclear disaster. It reveals how people have developed informal coping tactics and local risk understandings that defy formal constructions of nuclear space, and help resist de facto state abandonment. This project involved in-depth ethnographic research with marginalised communities who live in the contaminated landscapes around the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine. Qualitative approaches including participant observation, photographic methods and semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants including liquidators (cleanup workers), border guards, evacuees, returnees, ‘Chernobyl widows’, farmers and many other people impacted by the disaster’s contested nuclear geography. The thesis reveals how Chernobyl’s constructed landscape is produced through a negotiated process of ‘nuclearity’ (Hecht 2012). The research posits that alongside formal spatialisations of Chernobyl – such as its ‘Exclusion Zones’ - are a spectrum of unofficial understandings of space and risk that contest this top-down and ‘strategic’ geography of nuclear disaster (de Certeau 1984). It demonstrates that these alternative nuclear understandings help people assert agency and oppose the status of post-atomic ‘bare life’ (Agamben 1998). Utilising theorisations of power and resistance offered by de Certeau (1984), the thesis uncovers the hidden geography of informality, local knowledge and place attachment that allow people to resist the ‘stealthy violence’ (Li 2009, 67) of abandonment and perform their own alternative narratives of nuclear space. This thesis contributes to discussions of Agamben within geographical discourses, and advances understandings of informality in the context of post-socialist marginalisation and landscapes of risk.