#  Vitalii Borymskyi 

Research Fellow at the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

 

 

 



   ![Vitalii Borymskyi 2025](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/2025-10/vitalii-borymskyi.jpg?h=d0f238dd&itok=zZZfb7m1) 

 



 

 email <vborymskyi@fas.harvard.edu> 

- [ Linkedin   ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vitalii-borymskyi-4962433b)
 
 



 

### Research Fellow at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute

#### September - December 2025

Supported jointly by HURI with the Alex Woskob Family Foundation Endowment Fund

### Research Project

#### Józef Piłsudski’s Eastern Policy: Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian Visions from 1918 to the Present

This project explores the evolution and intellectual legacy of Józef Piłsudski’s Eastern Policy as reflected in Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian political thought from 1918 to the present. It examines how interpretations of Piłsudski’s vision—aimed at limiting Russian imperial influence by supporting the independence of non-Russian nations, particularly Ukraine—have shaped political and historical narratives within the Polish–Ukrainian–Russian triangle. It also investigates the shifting meanings of the 1920 Polish–Ukrainian alliance against Bolshevik Russia, analyzing how each nation incorporated this event into its national mythology, historiography, and political imagination.

Drawing on political writings, newspapers, memoirs, propaganda materials, and émigré historiography, the research employs a transnational intellectual history approach to reveal how historical interpretation has served as a tool of political argument. By applying narrative analysis and contextual methodology, the project identifies ideological assumptions and conceptual continuities across the three national traditions.

By tracing how the idea of Polish–Ukrainian cooperation evolved in opposition to Russian expansionism, the project illuminates the historical roots of current geopolitical alignments and the dynamics of Polish–Ukrainian relations. Moreover, by examining both Soviet and non-Bolshevik Russian interpretations of Piłsudski’s Eastern Policy, it contributes to a deeper understanding of Ukraine’s place within the Russian political imagination.

### Biography

Vitalii Borymskyi is a historian specializing in Polish–Ukrainian and Russian–Ukrainian relations. He is a Research Fellow at the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He obtained his Ph.D. in History from Bohdan Khmelnytsky National University of Cherkasy and has held research fellowships at Nicolaus Copernicus University, the University of Warsaw, and Jagiellonian University. His work has been published in *The Polish Review,* *East European Politics and Societies*, and *Acta Baltico-Slavica*, among other journals. He received the Jerzy Giedroyc Award (2016) from the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Kyiv for his doctoral dissertation and the L. Krzyżanowski Award (2023) from the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America for the best article of the year.

Vitalii’s current research explores interpretations of Józef Piłsudski’s Eastern Policy within Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian political thought, combining approaches from intellectual history and the study of political imagination.



 

 

 





 

 

- ## Fellowship Type
    
     [HURI Research Fellow in Ukrainian Studies](/fellowship-type/huri-research-fellow-ukrainian-studies)
- ## Fellowship Year
    
     [Fellows for Academic Year 2025-2026](/fellowship-year/fellows-academic-year-2025-2026)
- ## Fields of Expertise
    
     [History](/fields-expertise/history) [Memory Studies](/fields-expertise/memory-studies) [Modern History](/fields-expertise/modern-history)
- ## Role
    
     [Fellows](/role/fellows)