Legal status of the ukrainian population in Poland, 1944–1953

<jats:p>Purpose. The article aims to provide a historical and legal analysis of the transformation of the legal status of the Ukrainian population in Poland in 1944–1953, focusing on the relationship between formal legal guarantees and the actual capacity to exercise personal, property, religious, and cultural rights. Methodology. The study employs a combination of historical-legal, problem-chronological, systemic, institutional, and comparative approaches. The distinction between de jure and de facto status makes it possible to compare the formal citizenship status of Ukrainians with the actual scope of their rights. The source base comprises interstate agreements, statutory and regulatory acts, documents of Polish state and security authorities, materials of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), documentary collections, Ukrainian and Polish historiography, as well as contemporary judicial and prosecutorial materials. Originality. The legal position of the Ukrainian population is examined as an integrated process of transformation of legal status rather than as a set of isolated resettlement or repressive measures. The study identifies a transition from treaty-based regulation to military-administrative coercion, internal deportation, territorial dispersal, extrajudicial internment, and intensified administrative control. It demonstrates that the actual scope of rights was determined not only by legal norms but also by their implementation, in which a collective presumption of “disloyalty” increasingly displaced the principle of individual responsibility. Conclusions. In 1944–1953, the formal preservation of Ukrainian citizenship did not ensure an equivalent exercise of fundamental rights. Forced resettlement, restrictions on freedom of movement, internment, property losses, territorial dispersal, and constraints on religious and cultural life constituted interconnected elements of an administrative-repressive mechanism, culminating in Operation “Vistula”. The contemporary Polish debate over its legal assessment, together with Ukraine’s legislative recognition of Ukrainians forcibly resettled from Poland as deportees, demonstrates the continuing relevance of a historical and legal reassessment of these events. Keywords: Ukrainian population in Poland; legal status; post-war Poland; forced resettlement; deportation; Operation “Vistula”; Jaworzno; administrative coercion; property rights; religious rights; cultural rights; national minority.</jats:p>