Social and economic effects of labor migrations of the Poles in the German empire in the late XIX – early XX century

Abstract

The article focuses on the problem of labor migrations of the peasant population of Vistula Land of Russia to the German Empire at the turn of the XIX and ХХ century. The subject of the study are the causes of migration, the situation of Polish workers abroad, the specifics and main spheres of hiring workers, the social and economic effects of the movement. The urgency of the work is determined by inadequate historiographic attention to the factor of the annual retreat of tens of thousands of Poles abroad. The article uses the civilizational approach, the principle of historicism, the ideas of the French school “Annals”. The conclusions obtained by the authors of the article testify to the special significance of migrations not only for the inhabitants of the Polish province, but also for the entire German landlord economy. Migration compensated for the labor shortage in Germany’s agrarian sector, ensuring rapid growth in production in the states. The experience of migration stimulated the economic initiative of Poles, increased their standard of living, affected the size of peasant land ownership in the Vistula Land.