Marianka is a village in the Tarnopol region, located in the pre–war Nastasów commune, which was established in the second half of the 17th century. For centuries, Poles were neighbors here with Ukrainians. At the end of the 19th century, a chapel was built in the village where services were held in the Roman Catholic rite. The parish church in Nastasowo was 6 kilometers away. At the end of the war, a tragedy happened near Marianka. Four Polish boys from Samoobrona were deceitfully murdered by Ukrainians. Eugeniusz Mazepa was among the tragically dead. After 66 years, a relative of the murdered – Wojciech Pusz, a resident of Wrocław and a researcher at the University of Life Sciences, decided to look for his uncle's grave. „Finding my brother's grave was the greatest wish of Mr. Wojciech's grandmother – Albina née Mazepa – Komarnicka. For years she could not find peace recalling the events of February 1945. In Marianka, today called Marianówka, a representative of the Mazep family found a close family – his paternal grandmother Anna's sister – Natalia Bahryjo, and at the local cemetery the grave of his uncle and his tragically deceased friends”. Wojciech Pusz reports: „The winter of 1945 was harsh and frosty. Only the elderly, women, children and teenagers who were too young to be included in the created front divisions remained in Marianka. It was from them that the volunteers were recruited, who, with weapons in hand, formed the local self–defense unit. Among them was my grandmother's brother – Eugeniusz Mazepa. On January morning, he and a few colleagues went to nearby Nastasowo, where they were all ambushed and killed by a UPA unit. In a great secret, my great–grandfather, Michał Mazepa went to get the fallen boys to bury them next to the chapel in the center of the village. Soon the Poles left for Lower Silesia, and the graves remained… In winter 2010, I received a photo of the chapel from my relatives who stayed in Ukraine. What was my surprise when my grandmother, looking at the photograph, asked «And where are the graves?». This question bothered me. Tried to find out what happened to the graves? The opportunity to go to Marianka came at the end of 2011  […] After talking to the inhabitants, it turned out that they knew about the existence of graves at the chapel. The tombs were moved to the local cemetery in the late 1980s during the renovation of the chapel. Soon a local teacher arrived – Petro Kvet, whose mother looked after these graves, and after her death he took over her duties. When I lit a candle that my grandmother gave at my uncle Gienek's grave, I was aware that I had succeeded. The grave was found, and the memory of our uncle and his three friends who gave their lives for the local inhabitants will remain not only in our family”.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „Calendar of the genocide – January 1945”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: „He found his family in Kresy after 70 years”, 15/01/2016; in: portal: Studio East — web page: www.studiowschod.pl [accessible: 2021.04.11]

Describing the Marjanka colony, he states that it was established in the late 1920s from the purchase of land in the parceled estates, and on February 10, 1940, the Soviets deported all the inhabitants, Poles, deep into the USSR. On p. 277, describing the village of Nastasów, he mentions that in the second decade of January, in a UPA ambush, 8 Poles from „IB” were disarmed and murdered with knives and axes, and the commandant of the station, a Russian hanged. There is only one name of the victim mentioned: Mikołaj Szymański.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „Calendar of the genocide – January 1945”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Komański Henryk, Siekierka Szczepan, „The genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists on Poles in the Tarnopol Province 1939-1946”, in: Wroclaw 2004, p. 376