The Activity of “Błyskawica” Partisans on the Polish–Slovak Borderland: Of Spisz and Orawa in the Years 1945–1947

Abstract

After the Second World War the Polish-Slovak borderland became a zone of serious tensions. Particularly controversial is the activity of the Polish partisan group “Błyskawica”, led by Józef Kuraś “Ogień”. The soldiers are responsible for takings of private property and acts of violence carried out in villages in South Poland that were inhabited mostly by Slovaks. This paper – based mainly on the query at the Archives of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance – aims to present the scale and circumstances of those activities. The work takes wider historical context into account and uses selected anthropological and sociological theories. In this perspective, it seems justified to explain the analyzed events through the mechanism of revenge, widespread in the post-war period of anomie and crisis. Sources indicate that the Polish partisans’ actions from the years 1946–1947 were not attempts to pacify the Slovak separatists (although some authors claim so) but rather repressions for the earlier actions of members of that nation.