Kościuszko Chair researcher and student, Paweł Styrna, has just published an article in the scholarly quarterly of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA), The Polish Review (2013, Vol. 58, No. 4: pp. 3-27).

The article is entitled: “Defense of Western Civilization or “Polish Imperialism”? Opinions on the Kiev Expedition in the American, British, Belgian, Polish, and Soviet Press: A Sample from April-May 1920.”

Mr. Styrna — a historian of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as of Russia/the former Soviet Union, by training — studied the press coverage in the US, Britain, Belgium, Poland, and Soviet Russia of the Kiev Offensive/Expedition during the spring of 1920. The counter-offensive, which commenced on 25 April and culminated in the liberation of the Bolshevik-occupied Ukrainian capital of Kyiv (Polish: Kijów; Russian: Kiev) on 7 May 1920, was the fruit of a Polish-Ukrainian alliance formed shortly before the attack. The two nations — in spite of previous tensions and fighting between them — joined forces against what they recognized as a grave common threat: the Moscow Bolsheviks.