Bohdan Osadczuk jako rzecznik europejskiego dialogu cywilizacyjnego

The life and activity of the publicist, journalist and researcher Bohdan Osadchuk is a meaningful example of activities for the inter-civilisation dialogue. He was born in Galicia, which belonged to the Second Polish Republic, and he always treated Polish and Ukrainian cultures as his own. Osadchuk’s efforts to strengthen Polish-Ukrainian relations and understanding, as well as his cooperation with Jerzy Giedroyc, editor-in-chief of the Paris-based journal Kultura [Culture], which was unique in terms of content and influence, were of particular importance. The author of this article has collected and analysed little-known and so far undiscovered facts and previously unavailable archival documents. Bohdan Osadchuk grew up in a multicultural environment. Professing liberal values, he condemned all chauvinism. He managed to combine the identity of a Ukrainian emigrant with that of a European democrat. For seventy years, he lived in Berlin (1941–2011), where he graduated from the university and became recognised as a journalist Alexander Korab. He was known under this pseudonym to readers of German newspapers and the oldest Swiss daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung for decades. For over half a century, he wrote for this authoritative newspaper about the events in the Soviet Union, Poland, Ukraine and the countries of the socialist bloc. Moreover, when actively cooperating with German radio and television, he introduced Polish and Ukrainian issues to the media discourse. The communist special services of the People’s Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union hunted Bohdan Osadchuk, watched him and tried to recruit him. But he was playing his own game and was not fooled. This article also describes Osadchuk’s scientific achievements that he gained as a professor at the Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin) and the Ukrainian Free University in Munich, as well as the author of fundamental publications. Moreover, the circumstances of the last years of Osadchuk’s life, which ended in Poland, are presented for the first time.