Ruszczyk, Hanna and Kallio, Kirsi Pauliina and Riding, James (2022) ''It’s the right thing to do': specificities of the Polish response to the Ukrainian crisis.', Fennia - International Journal of Geography, 200 (1). pp. 1-5.
Abstract
Overwhelmingly, the Polish response to the 24 February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has been based on the moral imperative of ‘It is the right thing to do’. Within three months, Poland was hosting 3.3 million Ukrainian refugees. This is equivalent to 8.7% of Poland’s population of 38 million. The numbers are difficult to grasp. I have identified four specificities in the Polish response. Firstly, a collective intergenerational trauma and fear that Russia may not stop at Ukraine. Secondly, the attitude of the Polish state towards refugees is generally restrictive and hostile with the exception of Ukrainians. Thirdly, there were pre-existing Polish-Ukrainian relationships upon which Polish society’s response has been layered upon. Lastly, there has been sustained collective and grassroots response for over nine months. For how much longer can the humanitarian response be driven by local authorities, local organisations and civil society ‘to do the right thing’?
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Full text: | (VoR) Version of Record Available under License - Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download PDF (124Kb) |
| Status: | Peer-reviewed |
| Publisher Web site: | https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.125368 |
| Publisher statement: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. |
| Date accepted: | No date available |
| Date deposited: | 31 January 2023 |
| Date of first online publication: | 23 December 2022 |
| Date first made open access: | 31 January 2023 |
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