'Where the devil can't succeed, he'll send a woman': Polish-Ukrainian families in Ukrainian political fiction, c. 1869-1939

The seven decades between 1869 and 1939 saw ongoing publication of Ukrainian novels that focused attention upon the question of Polish-Ukrainian intermarriages. These politically motivated works aimed at stemming nationally diverse unions through discoursing practices that alleged the existence of a Polish conspiracy to ensure mixed families would become Polish. The books commonly provided visions of hell to symbolize these relationships. At the same time, they portrayed the Polish woman as a devil who brings discord as well as material and moral ruin to a family. To see to it that Ukrainians do not marry Poles the authors emphasized social and cultural incompatibility. They also desired that the Ukrainian partner in any such marriage should be nationally assertive. The texts discussed were all inspired by early modern religious polemical literature that had sought to curtail religious conversion as well as inter-confessional marriages.