Orthodox Literature of the Second Polish Republic: Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech

Abstract

This article examines a Slavic historical and cultural phenomenon of the twentieth century — the multilingual Orthodox literature of the Second Polish Republic, otherwise known as interwar Poland. This literature became a full-fledged successor to the colossal religious and national-cultural heritage of the Orthodox peoples of the Russian Empire that had developed before the Empire’s collapse. Despite the harsh anti-Orthodox policy of the authorities of the new, revived-in-1918 Poland, which included huge territories with indigenous Belarusian and Ukrainian populations, conditions of religious life there were more tolerant than those in the USSR, where the religion experienced huge pressure, often reducing it to a semi-underground or even underground existence. During the two interwar decades in the Second Polish Republic, a huge amount of printed and handwritten Orthodox literature was generated, designed for the widest segments of the population, who spoke and read both East and West Slavic languages in addition to Church Slavonic. The main target of this literature was the Belarusian and Ukrainian peasantry, which made up about 93% of all Orthodox Christians in interwar Poland, the total number of which was close to 5 million people — 12% of the country's population. Orthodox literature of the Second Polish Republic did not lose its significance as time passed; it spread widely in the world, and its works are still reprinted and rewritten in many states, including modern Russia.