Emigracja kaszubska: Zjawisko, ludzie, ośrodki [The phenomenon of the Kashubian emigration, its people, and their centers of community life

Abstract

There are so few books being published about Kashubia in the last several years that this edited volume is a very welcome addition. Professor Daniel Kalinowski has assembled a team of scholars and distinguished leaders from Poland, the United States, and Canada who together cover a vast array of interesting subjects connected with the Kashubian experience. The work itself is well-titled as “the phenomenon of the Kashubian emigration, its people, and their centers of community life.”Kashubia itself is a region in northern Poland. The Kashubian or Kashub population is distinctive in a number of ways. The members have their own language and customs. The group has indeed existed for more than a thousand years. (In 2011, the Polish government reported that Kashubians, 82 percent of them rural residents, numbered about 110,000 in all. This recognition made them Poland's second largest ethnic minority—out of 14 in all. Only ethnic Germans, with 145,000 members, were larger.)This volume contains nine academic articles. Six are in Polish and three in English. A number of personal interviews from Kashubians are also included. Contributions discuss Kashubian settlements in Poland, in Canada, the United States, Brazil, and New Zealand. In addition, there are seven reprints about Kashubians and their culture from publications reaching back to 1889.It is impossible in a review to provide anything like an adequate characterization of the richness of the data provided by the contributors that is to be found in this publication. In the work one learns about the settlement experiences and historic hardships of Kashubian immigrants, most all of them men and women who were originally farmers, in such diverse localities as Canada, especially the town of Wilno, the United States, New Zealand, Brazil, and Germany. We read of cultural differences between them and the native populations they came into contact with, as well as immigrants from other parts of Poland. We are introduced to the language differences between the Kashubians and other Poles (for example, the “United States” in Polish is Stany Zjednoczone, in Kaszubian it is Zjednone kraje).We read of their most prominent leaders, most of them priests, including Paul Rhode, who became a prominent bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, Felix Burant, a dedicated leader in the Polish American Congress’ work to resettle thousands of Displaced Persons from Poland after World War II, and Paul Breza, a founder of the Kashubian Museum in its “capital,” Winona, Minnesota.We learn of the size and significance of the Kashubian migrations, especially in the United States, which became home to 90,000 men and women before World War I and whose efforts led to the creation of a number of churches, community organizations and an early and influential publication in Winona, Wiarus. Of special note is the saga of the Kashubian fishermen's squatters settlement on Jones Island on Lake Michigan, on the shore of the City of Milwaukee.We learn of the Kashubians’ assimilation into both the Polish culture in America and into the American mainstream. (Here the story of the Kashubians’ integration into American life is presented in a novel way—by looking at the experiences of three immigrants who were called into military service in the Civil War.) And we read of the efforts by a new generation of people of Kashubian ancestry in the emigration to re-establish ties with the old homeland in Poland. As a result, this attempt to bring together descriptions of both Polish and emigration topics represents a unique contribution to the literature on this subject and serves as a source to better understand the larger story of the Polish emigration as well.On a personal note, reviewer Angela Pienkos recalls her family history as a paternal granddaughter of Kashubian immigrants who settled in Chicago in the late 1870s, although other relatives went to Winona. The family name was even Germanized to Mischke although it was actually Myszka. When she visited her grandparents’ home village of Ugoszcz, about 40 miles from Gdańsk, she viewed the graves of her ancestors in the parish cemetery. In the records of the parish were the names of the many family members who were baptized and married there. Those records were in German.Overall, this publication is well worth reading. It suggests new areas for research like the Kaszubian communities in Chicago and Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and is acknowledged as a valuable addition to scholarship on a fascinating subject.