This article aims to compare the biographical experiences and individual memories of child deportees and migrants from Eastern Europe. The analysis is based on a field study of over 100 biographical interviews in two local communities situated in the borderland regions which were particularly exposed to post-war displacement, resettlement and population exchange: Ukrainian Galicia and Western Poland. The author claims that although the history of these two distant communities was totally different, contemporary memory of being a refugee/deportee/forced migrant, losing one's home/ homeland and watching the deportation of the previous inhabitants of one's new place of residence bear many similarities. While analysing autobiographical narratives, I attempt to find common threads and topics generated by their experiences as children, as well as explain the differences by exploring the social context of individual memory, with a special accent on post-war socialisation and the Polish and Ukrainian memory culture. The author also strives to show how and why the children's memories differ from those of their parents.

Independence forced Ukraine to face a set of statehood and nationhood challenges. State and institution building progressed quickly and effectively. In 1996 the country adopted a constitution and based its institution building on pre-existing ones. Having been a Soviet Republic, Ukraine's institutions were shaped well before 1991—if we exclude the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the diplomatic corps. The country also diligently quelled Crimean separatism by granting a high level of autonomy to the region, with Kiev retaining control of financial matters.

The article is a comparative study of memories concerning displacement and the violence which accompanied it in post-war Poland and Ukraine. On the basis of case studies of two small, local communities, I attempt to answer how the inhabitants of townships which suffered mass displacement remember those who were exiled -the Others. Analysing biographical narratives of the oldest generation of deportees, I describe strategies for dealing with difficult memories, such as the tabooing of violence and the externalisation of guilt. In order to explain the differences between narratives from the two towns, I draw upon factors known to shape biographical memory, such as the individual biographical experience, local and national cultures of memory, remembrance practices and contacts with other biographical memories.Wartime and post-war displacement ranks among the key experiences for twentieth-century Central Eastern Europe. As a result of the Holocaust, ethnic purges and deportation many communities in the region lost a significant part of their pre-war population. However, this void in the 'Bloodlands', as Timothy Snyder (2010) has described the regions affected by both totalitarian regimes, was short lived. The murdered and the deported were swiftly replaced by new settlers, often victims of displacement themselves. The inspiration for writing this text was the question of how, if at all, are the old inhabitants, the Others, remembered today by those who settled in their vacated homelands after the Second World War. Methodology and research questionsThis text is based on comparative studies conducted in two small towns, Krzyż and Zhovkva, which lie in regions that felt the post-war border changes particularly strongly: today's western

This article analyzes the status of difficult historic events in Ukrainian collective memory. Difficult elements of collective memory are defined as those which divide society on basic matters, such as identity and national cohesion, and events which are being actively forgotten because of the role of Ukrainians as perpetrators. Three such issues were analyzed: World War II and the role of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Holocaust, and the ethnic purge of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943–1945. Utilizing data from quantitative and qualitative studies, the author showcases the significance of these issues for contemporary Ukrainian identity and Ukraine's relations with its neighbors. In particular, the evaluation of World War II and the role of the UPA in Ukrainian history polarizes Ukrainian society to a great degree. At the same time, this element of national history is used to construct a common, anti-Russian identity. The difficulty of relating to the memory of the Holocaust and the ethnic purge in Volhynia is of a different character. These events are problematic for Ukrainian collective memory because they demand a painful settling of accounts with the past. At present, only Ukrainian elites are willing to work on these subjects, and only to a limited degree, while the common consciousness either denies or ignores them altogether.