Volhynia

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Volhynia , Ukr. and Rus. Volyn, Pol. Wołyń, historic region, W Ukraine, around the headstreams of the Pripyat and Western Bug rivers in an area of forests, lakes, and marshlands. One of the oldest Slavic settlements in Europe, it derived its name from the extinct city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have stood on the Western Bug. Volhynia's early history from c.981 coincides with that of the duchies of Volodymyr (see Volodymyr-Volynskyy ) and Halych. After the disintegration (c.1340) of the grand duchy of Halych-Volodymyr, Volhynia was divided (c.1388) between Poland (western part) and Lithuania (eastern part). With the Polish-Lithuanian union of 1569, Volhynia became a quasi-autonomous province of Poland. During the second and third partitions of Poland (1793, 1795), Volhynia passed to Russia and was made (1797) a province. In 1921 the Treaty of Riga returned W Volhynia to Poland, but the rest passed to Ukraine. Poland ceded its section of Volhynia to the USSR in 1939, and the Soviet-Polish border agreement of 1945 confirmed it as a Soviet possession. In 1943-44 the region was the scene of ethnic massacres in which some 100,000 Poles died and some 20,000 Ukrainians were killed in revenge. This section constitutes the Volyn region, a rich agricultural lowland and coal-mining area.

Volhynia, a province of eastern Poland, where the Polish Home Army first implemented operation TEMPEST in an abortive attempt to maintain Poland's autonomy from the USSR.

Partisan units of the Home Army, formed into 27th Infantry Division, attacked German lines of communication, and established contact with the Red Army when it entered Poland in February 1944. In March the first joint operation against the Germans was mounted and an agreement was made with the Soviet commander, General Sergeyev, that the Home Army division was a unit of the Polish armed forces subject to the orders of its own government; that it would be properly equipped by the USSR; and that operationally it was under Soviet command. From then on the division and the Red Army fought side by side, but in April 1944 the NKVD refused to honour the agreement Sergeyev had made, and most of 27th Division was disarmed or merged with Berling's Army.