Memories of Piotr Tyma, historian, journalist, president of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland, chairman of the Electronic Media Council of National and Ethnic Minorities, member of the Joint Commission of the Government and National Minorities.

(we spoke a few days after the tragic death of the Mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz)

On the wave of memories about President Paweł Adamowicz, I recalled my first meeting with him, in 1988, during the occupational strike at the Faculty of Humanities, in which I participated. I have a photograph from that strike in which I am with my friend Grzegorz Nocoń, who is now the director of Collegium Gedanensis. The death of President Adamowicz reminded me how different Gdańsk was from other cities in the People's Republic of Poland when I was a student. It was an important meeting place for people active in various organisations. Some of my friends were distributors of independent publications, and the university was a place where these publications were exchanged. To this day, I have contact with politicians I know from there: minister Jarosław Sellin, the late Paweł Adamowicz, and earlier Wiesław Walendziak. I also met Donald Tusk, with whom I cooperated during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. So these contacts from the University of Gdańsk, from Gdańsk, are constantly present in my life. I maintain contact not only with politicians - recently, at a conference for the Ombudsman, I met Prof. Cezary Obracht-Prondzyński, with whom I was a student. We exchange publications, sometimes we help each other in various situations.

There were several reasons why I chose the University of Gdańsk - in high school I attended the only school with an additional Ukrainian language, namely the Secondary School No. 4 in Legnica. As it happened, the University of Gdańsk hosted an innovative conference on Polish-Ukrainian relations in the 20th century. It was 1984, when this subject was still strongly controlled by the authorities. Besides, there were very few researchers who dealt with it. I was a third grade student and, with the permission of my classmate's teacher, I went to Gdańsk. The conference was held in the auditorium of the University of Gdańsk, the speakers included Wojciech Duda, Wiesław Walendziak, Mirek Czech and I was very moved by the atmosphere of free discussion and the fact that many aspects were discussed very openly. After the conference there was a meeting with Ukrainian students who had studied here. Gdańsk in general has always been a very important centre for Ukrainian students: in the interwar period many Ukrainian students from Galicia stayed in the Free City of Gdańsk, and since 1956 Gdańsk has been an important centre for the Ukrainian minority. We were urged at this meeting to choose this city. And that's how my friend and I decided in our final year of secondary school - I chose history, he chose law. There was also a third friend who applied to the polytechnic, but didn't get in. There was also another reason for my choice - in Gdansk there were specialists in subjects that interested me, and I had been interested in history since high school - the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, World War II. At that time, Dr. (probably already Prof.) Koko spoke at the conference, a really good specialist in Polish-Ukrainian relations in the 20th century. This conference, as you can see, was important for me, but also as a high school student I took part in a festival of Ukrainian culture, which was held in Sopot. One of the festivals took place just after the lifting of martial law. We had concerts in the Forest Opera - I performed in a folk band, but also everyone wanted to get to know the city. Gdańsk had the charm of the old city, on the other hand, the myth of the city of Solidarity and resistance, and all this meant that in the rivalry between UJ and UG, Gdańsk won.

Why history? I was interested in history since childhood, and in high school it was specified that it would be the history of Polish-Ukrainian relations, and part of my reading in high school referred mainly to these relations. Also on the occasion of the meeting of minority high schools, because there was a Lithuanian high school in Puńsk at that time, I was supposed to prepare a paper about the history of Lithuanians in pre-war Poland - as you can see, I was interested in the history of the 20 years. This history was partly taboo in communist Poland, just like the history of post-war resettlements, the Vistula action, the history of lands that did not belong to Poland before the war. My mother, grandmother and grandfather were resettled from the Jarosław area to the Malbork area. My parents moved from there to Zielona Góra. Then of course Legnica and Lower Silesia and its beautiful towns: Jawor, Złotoryja and Jelenia Góra. It was difficult - living in such a place - not to be interested in its past, and not necessarily in the history coherent with the message conveyed at school. Such interest fostered contacts with people who were also passionate about history and who had access to second-circulation publications. I had it thanks to my friends, graduates of our high school, who were already students and came to us, and this was literature not only about Solidarity, but also about the history of Katyń or Soviet Ukraine. When talking about the opposition in Poland, it was difficult not to mention Gdańsk. I still remember the film "Workers 80", which I went to see in the cinema in my small town of Szprotawa, and which made a huge impression on me. I also listened to radio broadcasts of the signing of the August Agreements. Gdańsk fascinated me. I had friends in Legnica who went to Warsaw to study Ukrainian Studies, and they encouraged me to do the same, but Warsaw didn't make such an impression on me.

I came to Gdańsk from a closed world, because for four years I was in a completely Ukrainian environment - I stayed at a boarding school in Legnica, although it was close anyway, because it was 100 km from home. My friends who came from the Mazury region, from Przemyśl, came home once a year. On the one hand, I was a bit afraid of leaving a comfortable place - we knew each other, we were from the same community, and suddenly we had to find ourselves in a completely different place. I remember that from the first meeting with my year supervisor, Professor Tadeusz Stegner, I felt that it was important that I come from where I came. In a similar vein, Dr Koko greeted me: "great, we have someone who knows Ukrainian". Besides, the main subject of the historians' research club I belonged to was the history of Polish-Ukrainian relations, so I had a chance to participate in meetings outside the university. We had the opportunity to cooperate with Prof. Wlodzimierz Mokry from Jagiellonian University, who is a Ukrainianist and organized conferences on Ukrainian issues - both literary and historical. He organised meetings with interesting people, but he was also an author of second-circulation publications, which he often published under a pseudonym. Of course, there were moments of doubt - Persia - 1st year. I have people fascinated by antiquity among my friends, and I think that I didn't make enough use of this knowledge then. I was more fascinated by student life. I was involved in the Ukrainian student community. After the failure of setting up an independent students' organisation, a substitute for such an organisation was created, namely the Cultural Council of National Minority Students. In Gdańsk, there was quite an active structure organising various educational activities, trips, and meetings at the university. It was so absorbing that the academic part of my life suffered. I won't hide the fact that some subjects and lecturers interested me less.

I was interested in this Gdańsk phenomenon - the Kashubian environment. In my year there were a lot of Kashubian students, not only by birth, but also very active in this environment - among others, the already mentioned Cezary Obracht - Prondzyński, Roman Beger. I was interested in the question of the identity of the language, culture, but also the history of the Kashubians, which was not spoken of or presented in ideological terms. The phenomenon of Gdańsk is also the opportunity to meet people from outside Gdańsk. My year was dominated by students from outside Gdańsk. In other years, I met people from different regions of Poland, also Lithuanians, people of German origin. That's what was fascinating about Gdańsk, that it's difficult to talk about the history of one ethnic, historical or cultural group. Thanks to living for a year in the so-called OKAc in Brzeźno, I also met students from Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea who lived there - that was also an interesting experience. When you lived in small-town Poland, you didn't have such opportunities. Living on one floor with Iraqis, you could get to know a different world through conversations, cuisine, etc.

What was also amazing in Gdańsk was the access to literature. I used to go to the PAN library and found things there which were unavailable anywhere else - for example, pre-war Ukrainian history textbooks with the stamp of the Teras Shevchenko Scientific Society. For me, it was simply a shock - the possibility to read books which we in Legnica read under the duvet, because we knew that it could harm the school if it was published. And here - it was made available for reading quite legally. I also found interesting publications in the university library that were not available elsewhere. Which testifies to the very good work and efforts of the librarians. But also Dr Koko sometimes lent his private publications. Of course, we were aware of the existence and surveillance by the security service. There were conferences organised at the university on various aspects that were not necessarily politically oriented, such as "The Ukrainian State in the Years 1918 - 21", and we knew that there were security officers at the conference on religious issues. This pressure was palpable, it was enough to go out on 1 or 3 May and you knew what kind of country we lived in. I also remember the strike at the University of Gdańsk, the end of the strike when the humanities building was surrounded by ZOMO troops, I remember going out at night to paint slogans or to my friends from the dormitories of the Technical University to persuade them to join the strike. I also knew people who went to the shipyard at that time - including Ewa Figiel, who carried various things to the shipyard because she had her own channels.

In '87-'88 we had the idea to share our experiences of the Polish opposition with the Ukrainian opposition and we managed to invite students from Kiev to Gdańsk and organise a meeting with people from Solidarity. When the first democratic elections in Ukraine were taking place, people who weren't party members could stand for election, and my colleague Krzysztof Figel, who also graduated in history but was above me, and my contacts made it possible for people from Ukraine to meet Bogdan Borusewicz, who explained to them how to run an election campaign. I can boast that one of these people, Igor Hryniv, is now in the close circle of the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. It seems to me, but I am not sure, that the Ukrainian Consul in Gdańsk, Lew Zacharczyszyn, was also in this group.

My contacts with people from Solidarity and my activities could also develop thanks to contacts from the University of Gdańsk - it was Darek Kobzdej, Wojtek Duda and his brother. When in 2008 we organised a conference on the experience of Polish, German and Ukrainian dissidents - there was Bogdan Borusewicz, Wolfgang Templin (an East German dissident) and Wojtek Duda, who spoke about the Solidarity experience. This is also a result of studying in Gdansk and knowing people who later entered politics. I also used these contacts for academic purposes - for example, while preparing the Festival of Ukrainian Culture in Gdańsk in 2008, we had the idea to organise a conference comparing Gdańsk to Lviv, because in both cities there was a complete exchange of inhabitants after the war. And one of the speakers was Prof. Stegner, and the other was Prof. Józef Borzyszkowski, whom I remember from my university days as a highly regarded lecturer, but also difficult in his relations with students, very demanding.

So this university is always present. One of my classmates initiated the Polish-Ukrainian Society - the late Mirosław Kopydłowski, together with Prof. Zbierski, Paweł Zbierski and Krzysztof Figel. It was the end of the 1980s, the beginning of the 1990s, but this shows that this circle was made up of people from UG. Later these circles expanded to other cities.

In Gdañsk, I was also fascinated by the alternative scene that was forming, the Totart milieu - also linked to the University of Gdañsk, because Paweł Konnak, Tymon Tymañski and Paulus Mazur were all from the University of Gdañsk. I attended their events, and later, in 89, we organised the concert "Ukrainian Nights" together in Club Żak. I also took part in official meetings and activities of the Ukrainian minority - evenings in memory of Taras Shevchenko, in ceremonies in the Orthodox Church in Oliva at Greek Catholic masses. In 87, together with my year-mate Grzegorz Nocoń, we decided to propose, inspired by Totart, to establish a Ukrainian experimental theatre. Together with a colleague from the Technical University, Piotr Pawliszcze. Later, we were joined by students from the Academy of Music and students from various faculties of the University of Gdańsk. We produced a dozen or so plays, one of them was later shown in the Television Theatre, when I had already left.

Our great success was that in 1989 we managed to bring Ukrainian avant-garde rock bands from Lviv and Kiev to perform in Żak together with Polish bands. For them, it was their first concert abroad. This project "Ukrainian Nights" was continued until the mid 90's. In Gdansk there was such an initiative of Totart, anarchists and us - in the meantime we founded the Union of Ukrainian Independent Youth, we cooperated with the Fighting Youth Federation and the city gave us premises where we opened the C14 club. Here concerts of Polish and Ukrainian bands were held. And it was important for us that we could show that Ukraine is not only folklore. I have a slight dislike for Piotr Semka, because there were two festivals at that time - one in the Forest Opera House, the official one, where most of the bands were folk ones, and the other one in Żak, with bands from the alternative scene from Ukraine, and so on. - These were the Ukrainian nights. It was important because it was the first time dissidents from Ukraine appeared here, it was the first time after the war that the Ukrainian national anthem was sung, Ukrainian flags appeared, and Piotr Semka wrote in the newspaper "Haydamacy jedzą kiełbaski" that it was a kind of festival, a kind of folklore. It was a stereotypical judgement - he did not know, he did not see, but he judged.

We distributed a legal magazine for Ukrainian students called "Zustriczi", published in Warsaw, but we also tried to publish our own publications, also in Ukrainian. In Gdańsk we had contacts with second-circulation journalists and an agreement with distributors that whatever was published about Ukraine, we would get it.

But Gdańsk for me is above all the discovery of Gdańsk literature - "Weisser Dawidek", which I read while living in Wrzeszcz, or "The Tin Drum".

The period of my studies was a time of a turbulent artistic life, including the discovery of the Film Discussion Club, where I discovered world cinema. I was fascinated with Totart and I watched even the most iconoclastic performances, I went to concerts of alternative bands to student clubs, e.g. "Łajba". I went to a concert of "Dezerter" in "Wyspa", and then I talked to the vocalist of "Skandal", who gave us a cassette tape with the music of Soviet underground bands.

Studying was one thing, but there was a lot going on around you, in student clubs. There were also ecological and social issues - a lot of people at the University were connected with the Freedom and Peace movement. They protested against military service, against the construction of the nuclear power plant in Żarnowiec.

Of course, there were people for whom studies were the most important thing. Not everyone went on strike, not everyone was involved in distributing bibles, that's clear. Some went to work for the UOP, others for a commercial company and had nothing to do with history. And it all started in Gdańsk. There I met people - politicians, journalists, who often later found themselves in key positions in Warsaw. If it wasn't for Wiesław Walendziak, whom I met in Warsaw when he was the president of TVP, there would be no TV programme "Telenowyny" in Ukrainian. Piotr Wysoki, the journalist leading 'Puls Dnia', and I knew him from UG, when he needed consultation on Ukrainian issues for the programme - he called me.

At the University, and in Gdańsk in general, it was characteristic that different organisations cooperated with each other at different levels - we had contacts with the Catholic student organisation "Verbum", for example, which was also active at the University. For example, there was a situation when the Polish authorities tried to close down a school in Biały Bór with an additional Ukrainian language. Various opposition groups organised a fund-raising campaign to build a new dormitory, so as not to give them an excuse to close the school. I became involved, not alone, and we went to see Monsignor Bogdanowicz, who supported the campaign with a large sum.

I also benefited a lot from self-education during my studies - my colleagues shared information about various interesting lectures from other faculties, and we attended them. We also held our own internal training meetings in the Ukrainian environment. We organised trips to Cyganek in Żuławy, to Sztutowo, where there were seminars conducted by people from all over Poland. It was also important that at that time life was incredibly unsaturated, there were so many opportunities to explore. You didn't just go to see a film at the DKF, for example, but we also met to discuss the film. There was a Catholic DKF at the Oliwa cathedral, where I watched "Citizen Kane".

An important event at that time was the Pope's visit. I lived in the Bieszczady Mountains for a while, my friends enrolled me in the church service and I even became a tithe. There were people from history and law in my tenth. We took part in a mass at Westerplatte. We had to leave early in the morning and we drove from the "Hilton" dormitory and I still remember - we were standing very close to one of those gates and the Security Service and the militia didn't allow us to bring in opposition and Solidarity symbols. They slapped one boy. Meanwhile we created a kind of corridor so that people would not pass between sectors. And my classmate Tomek Małkowski came up to us and said that we were legitimising what they were doing. And at one point fifteen of us gathered together and we decided that Tomek would go to them and tell them that if they didn't stop, we would leave the stands, which would mean that people would start filling the square in a completely uncontrolled way. And they at least stopped behaving so ostentatiously.

I also remember Lech Wałęsa's visit to the university and the crowds of students and SS men who we openly made fun of, because those were different times.

In Gdańsk, we had contacts with foreign journalists, who, not being able to meet Ukrainian activists, sometimes turned to me, directed by fellow opposition activists or by lecturers. Professor Stegner even joked that I was such a civilised Ukrainian and could be shown around.

Unfortunately, I abandoned English at university, this was a mistake. I came to university with a very poor knowledge of German and in my first German class I decided that the level was too high for me and chose basic English, but through my activities I was skipping classes and this took its toll on my English. In my first year I failed historical statistics, a subject that many of my fellow students also failed. The second shock was Latin - I tend to learn foreign languages by ear, and I didn't have as many grammar classes as Latin at university. As I grew older, I came to appreciate this knowledge, although much of it had already slipped away. But I also remember the clash between the university and the lecturer, who called us imbeciles and so on.

The pluses and pleasant memories are the lectures of Dr Koko, the lectures of Prof. Opacki. Our guardian of the year, a Renaissance man - Prof. Stegner, who was an evangelist and dealt with the problems of national minorities. He lent us literature, we went to Krakow and to the Bieszczady Mountains to learn history on the spot. Helena Głogowska, who had very interesting classes in political economy.

I keep in touch with the University not only through acquaintances. Some time ago Professor Opacki started post-graduate studies for people who had finished other studies than history, and because of teaching history or for other reasons wanted to finish such studies. And I taught classes there on the history of Ukraine in the 20th century. At that time I was already coming to those lectures from Warsaw.

A few times I also took part in conferences organized by Prof. Stegner and concerning Ukrainian matters, sometimes we met at Prof. Mokry's at the Jagiellonian University. However, there is less and less time, and besides, strictly scientific activities have never really interested me, I was more interested in journalism, writing articles relating to Polish-Ukrainian relations.

Some of my colleagues from UG stayed at the university - Grzegorz Berendt, Igor Halagida, with whom we sometimes exchange articles.

The lawyer working for the Association is Piotr Fedusio, a graduate of the University of Gdańsk - history and law, who defended his thesis on Ukrainian students in Gdańsk in the interwar period. This also testifies to the activeness of the community and our cooperation with the world of science, local government, etc.

Gdańsk, especially now, plays an important role for us because a lot of Ukrainian citizens have appeared - students, workers, but also businessmen. So we try to develop cooperation not only with local government officials, politicians, but also based on dialogue with scientists and with the inhabitants of Gdańsk.