Curzon Line Research Articles

The financial settlement with the USSR for the resettlement of the population as a result of the change in the eastern border of the Polish state

The financial settlement with the USSR for the resettlement of the population as a result of the change in the eastern border of the Polish state.The events of September 17, 1939, when the Red Army entered Polish territory, triggered a series of events that ultimately led to the reconfiguration of the countrys eastern border. The agreement on the Polish-Soviet state border, signed by the Polish Committee of National Liberation on July 27, 1944, adopted the so-called Curzon Line as the basis for delineating the border. Although the validity of the agreement was questionable, it became the starting point for the conclusion of the so-called Republican Agreements in 1944, which were agreements with the Soviet republics on evacuating the population, resulting in the resettlement of many people.The article presents the financial settlement process between Poland and the USSR for the resettlements that occurred due to the aforementioned agreements. It describes the negotiations that took place between the Polish and Soviet sides, as well as their culmination in the form of an agreement on July 21, 1952, which obligated Poland to pay a significant amount covering the costs of those repatriations.

The Polish-British Agreement and the Protocol of August 25, 1939: Objectives of the parties and the significance in the history of Poland (autumn 1939 — spring 1945)

The Mutual Assistance Agreement between the United Kingdom and Poland and the secret Protocol to it of August 25, 1939 is one of the most important documents for the history of Poland. It largely determined the current situation, politics and future of the Polish government until the settlement of the “Polish question” by the heads of the “Big Three” in 1945. The article analyzes this document based on specific historical information accumulated in Soviet, Russian, Polish historiography, and documentary material on the history of international relations on the eve and during the Second World War. Signed after the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the document obliged Britain in the event of a German attack to immediately provide Poland with “all support and assistance.” In the case of the Soviet threat, there was no such British commitment. This allowed W. Churchill, after June 22, 1941, to not support Poland openly in the territorial dispute with the USSR and, “playing along” with Stalin, to force the weak ally to agree to the “Curzon Line” in order to return the government to the country. The latter did not agree with Churchill’s intentions and, as a result, was defeated on the issue of borders and power in the country.

Debates about the Polish eastern border after World War II in the Polish immigrant circle

The new geopolitical realities after the World War II saw the revival of the Polish state in a new form. The Republic of Poland appeared on the map of Central Europe, with about half of its territory being the so-called Recovered Territories, while the state borders moved west. The new eastern border of the post-war Poland ran along the Curzon line. The new post-war eastern border of Poland was being negotiated and agreed upon by the Soviet and the Polish authorities starting from 1944 on an annual basis, up to 1948. The last exchange of territories took place in 1951. The debates about the political map of Europe and the new eastern border of Poland, which became a new reality after the World War II, were held both at politicians’ offices and in various media outlets. The most prominent debate about the new Polish eastern border could be found on the pages of the Kultura immigrant periodical. The Polish immigrant public intellectuals Jerzy Giedroyc, Juliusz Mieroszewski, Josef Czapski and other members of the Kultura periodical editorial board were adamant about the need to recognize the Polish borders drawn after the World War II. Such a stance was unacceptable for the Polish Governmentin-Exile based in London and some immigrant circles in the USA. Starting from 1952, the Kultura editorial staff is consistent in its efforts to defend the principle of inviolability of borders drawn after the World War II, urging the Poles to give up on the so-called Polish Kresy (Kresy Wschodnie) and to reconcile with the neighbours on the other side of the new eastern border.

Deportation of Ukrainians from Ethnic Areas in Poland and Contemplation of the International Community in 1944-1946

In the article, the author attempts to consider the nature of contemplation of the international community on the deportation of Ukrainians from ethnic lands in Poland during 1944-1946. The author implements this task through archival documentation, which to some extent justifies extensive quotations. Today, the subject of post-war resettlement for Ukrainians and Poles is ambiguous, both in interpretation and in the politics of memory. The deportation of Ukrainians of the borderlands is a conflict of the historical memory of both peoples: Ukrainians want to remember the history which Poles prefer to forget. We learn about the terrible conditions of social adaptation of Polish deportees in the USSR from the epistolary of deportees, which they had been sending abroad in hope that relatives would read the letters. However, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR had been intercepting those letters. In this sense, a conscious part of the local intelligentsia of the region was aware of the passive position of international politicians and the public on the unjustified eviction of autochthonous Ukrainians, but sincerely sought and expected its help. The analysis of The Open Letter of Ukrainians living behind the Curzon line entitled “To the whole civilized world” written in October 1945 convincingly evidences it. Losing hope of voluntary eviction, this letter was a kind of mouthpiece of Ukrainians in the region to the international community, hoping to be heard and supported. The author concludes that the international community did not live up to the hopes and expectations of Ukrainians who found themselves in a “war after war” and gradually lost their native lands, where they were indigenous.
 The deportation of 1944-1946, the local population from Lemkovschina, became a tragic ethno-political experiment of the USSR and Poland, which Lemkos had to survive in modern times.

«ZAKERZONNIA» AS A CONCEPT: THE LINE-THE BORDER-THE TERRITORY-THE LOST REGION?

The circumstances and context of creating the concept of «Zakerzonnia», which is used for the generalized definition of the whole region of modern Ukrainian-Polish ethnic borderland, are analyzed. The main approaches to explaining the term «Zakerzonnia» and related with it the notion of Curzon Line in encyclopedic articles are defined. In a brief historiographical review emergence and application of the term Curzon Line to the formation of the Polish-Russian and Polish-Soviet border are observed. The settlement's names through which the demarcation line went, its use's political contexts are given. Both the informational and analytical articles in the press of Ukrainian emigration in Europe and proclamation of the leadership of OUN of «Zakerzon Territory» of the late 1940s are considered. These materials highlight the problem of the Polish-Ukrainian border, the forced displacement of Ukrainians. It is noticed, that generally the first description of «Ukrainians living beyond the Curzon Line» was used in these publications. It is confirmed that this interpretation was later transformed into the term «Zakerzonnia» in periodicals of foreign units of OUN of the late 1940s-early 1950s, that is, the territory of the «Western Ukrainian lands», from which the Ukrainians were deported. It is shown that in the Ukrainian centers of the Lemko community of Canada and the USA in the early 1960s, in particular on the pages of periodicals of the Organization of Defense of the Lemkivschyna, the term «Zakerzonnia» is used less frequently than names of historical and ethnographic regions: Lemkivshchyna (Lemko region), Kholmshchyna (Kholm region), Pidliashia, Nadsiannia (Posiannia, Sian region). It is claimed that the active use of the term «Zakerzonnia» occurred in the 1990-2000s due to the activities of social-cultural organizations of deported Ukrainians from Poland. Keywords: Curzon Line, «Zakerzonnia», concept, Ukrainian-Polish borderland

The Lithuania Buffer Problem of 1920

The Curzon Line is usually identified as the line of 8 December 1919 (similar to the current eastern border of Poland), running to the east of the Daugavpils-Vilnius-Hrodna railway. Typical historiographical texts state that the Soviet government decided to ignore the Curzon Line after 17 July 1920. But in fact, the Red Army crossed the Curzon Line on 13–14 July and continued to occupy Vilna (Vilnius). Another inaccuracy follows from this one. The prevailing trend is to interpret the Lithuanian state’s situation in 1920 as facing one of two ideology-based alternatives: either Lithuania is sovietised, or it is ‘saved’ by Poland, which occupies Vilnius and separates Lithuania from contact with Soviet Russia. But this raises a whole swathe of questions: how should the Lithuanians’ struggle for Vilnius during the whole interwar period be viewed? How should assistance to Lithuanians from other countries, such as Germany, the USSR and Great Britain, be assessed? Finally, how should the return of Vilnius to Lithuania in 1939 be viewed? There is no answer to these questions, but the possibility of Lithuania as a buffer zone thanks to the Curzon Line, is ignored or hardly analysed at all. Using historical documents from Lithuania, Great Britain and Russia, and referring to the studies by Alfred Erich Senn, this article aims to find an answer to the question, why was the idea of Lithuania as a buffer state not realised in the summer of 1920? The idea that it would be more appropriate to call the line alongside Lithuania established at the Spa Conference ‘the Lloyd George Line’ is also discussed.

The Polish Question through the Eyes of Professor Sergey Konovalov

The first edition was published in London in 1944 and soon reprinted in the U.S.A. Konovalov was a Russian emigrant and a Professor in Birmingham University. In his constructions Russian and British intellectual traditions merged. It is concluded that the concept presented in the book fit well into the British historiographical discourse. S. A. Konovalov set a task to understand the evolution of ideas about the Russian-Polish ethnographic borderland. He fully shared the prevailing view in UK that the optimal line of demarcation between Poland and the USSR should be the Curzon line. S. A. Konovalov considered the problem of borders painful, generated by political adventurism, irreconcilable struggle of ideologies, catastrophic consequences of disintegration of empires and at the same time short-sightedness of Versailles system. Overcoming the shortcomings was inevitable, and the search for the optimal Russian-Polish border was among the priorities. Also the article analyzes the reaction of the scientific community to the publication of the book, primarily the critical views of the Polish historians (O. Halecki and W. Lednicki). The article shows that the views of S. A. Konovalov were formed both under the influence of his intellectual environment and under the influence of current historical events.

Cerkiew prawosławna w II Rzeczypospolitej

In 1918 the independent republic of Poland was proclaimed. In 1920-1921, after the Polish-Soviet war, the Polish border was moved 200 km east of the Curzon line, which is more or less the Soviet-polish border of 1945. During the 2nd Polish Republic the Orthodox Church was not supported by an ascendancy of the authority yet, but was identified with the Russian invader’s religion. The Polish authorities treated Orthodoxy not as the religion of their people, but as the faith of the former occupant. The transfer of Orthodox Church property was part of the government’s policy of building a revived Polish state and its national unity on the basis of Roman Catholicism. This policy meant decreasing the number of Orthodox parishes and monasteries, the confiscation of church property by the state or its transfer to the Roman Catholic Church, closing Orthodox churches, and converting the faithful to Roman Catholicism. Throughout the mid-war period (1938-1939) the Orthodox Church had no regulated legal status. It was only after the transfer of Orthodox churches and estates by the state and the Roman Catholic Church that president Ignacy Mościcki signed a decree of 18 November 1938 On the attitude towards the Autocephalous Orthodox Church. On the basis of that decree the position of the highest authority governing the matters of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church was given to the General Council (Sobor) which consisted of bishops and representatives of the clergy and faithful. The executive body of the Church was a synod consisting of the metropolitan, the army bishop and two diocese bishops. The 1938 decree was the first document in the history of the Orthodox Church in the Second Polish Republic, which settled the relations between the Polish state and the Orthodox Church. It removed the state temporariness criticised by the clergy and faithful. On the basis of this decree the Orthodox Church was greatly subjected to the state and its policy. Within three weeks of issuing the decree, on 10 December 1938, a governmental decree was issued containing “The Internal Statute of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church”. It settled in detail the competence of the Orthodox metropolitan, the General Council, the Bishops’ Council and the Bishops’ Synod.

Lewis Namier, the Curzon Line, and the shaping of Poland’s eastern frontier after World War I

The purpose of this article is to clarify the role of Lewis Namier, a Foreign Office expert on Polish affairs, and his contribution to the drawing of the “Curzon Line” – the Polish‑Ukrainian border in Eastern Galicia after World War I. Namier was of Polish‑Jewish descent, and he has gone down in Polish historiography as a man of rabidly anti‑Polish inclination; during the war and later at the Versailles Peace Conference, he consistently opposed Poland’s expansion in eastern Europe, notably propagating the view that the whole of the territory known as Kresy – the Eastern Marchlands – should be severed from Poland. His concepts and activities were in tune with the general thrust of British policy towards Poland, though it seems that he was not the eminence grise in Lloyd George’s cabinet in this question, but merely a convenient supplier of anti‑Polish arguments. This analysis aims at proving that the great role attributed to Namier in Polish historiography is exaggerated and it was not he – as is commonly believed – who was the actual author of the Curzon Line, and it was not he who inserted it into the famous note sent from Spa to the Bolsheviks in July 1920.

The Curzon Line as the eastern boundary of Poland. The origins and the political background

The Curzon Line as the eastern boundary of Poland. The origins and the political background

Linia Curzona jako wschodnia granica Polski – geneza i uwarunkowania polityczne

Linia Curzona jako wschodnia granica Polski – geneza i uwarunkowania polityczne

Making Borders Stick: Population Transfer and Resettlement in the Trans-Curzon Territories, 1944–1949

"Designed in 1919-20 by the British mediator Lord Curzon as an armistice proposal between the then warring powers Poland and Soviet Russia, the Curzon Line served to identify the maximum territorial reach of Soviet political influence in Europe....[The author discusses] a program of resettlement which would target communities on both sides of the new border, a policy eventually affecting some 1.4 million individuals...." The implementation and impact of this population exchange are described.

Ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe: Poles and Ukrainians beside the Curzon Line

ABSTRACT. The article draws on anthropological fieldwork in southeast Poland to illuminate both the historical development of national identities and the contemporary revival of ethnic tensions. For many centuries Eastern Galicia, and within it the town and district of Przemys̀l, exemplified what Ernest Gellner refers to as the diversity of the ‘Agrarian Age’. A drive towards homogenisation (associated by Gellner with modern industrial society) began here in the later Habsburg period, and reached its culmination after the imposition of a new and much sharper national boundary in 1945. The socialist period opened with a further burst of ethnic cleansing. Memories of this and of earlier confrontations this century are central to the antagonisms that have emerged in the new public sphere since 1989. It is important to move beyond Gellnerian abstractions and to examine both the social mechanisms and the symbols whereby ethnic and national sentiments are mobilised for political ends. In these case materials, as elsewhere in the region, symbols related to religion and to violence seem to be the most powerful, while the main agents of ethnic antagonism are ex‐communists.

As far as the name "Curzon's line" concerns

-

The Influence of War and Occupation on the Primary Reconstruction of the Polish Economy between July 1944 and July 1945

The liberation of the Polish lands was the result of two Soviet military operations. The first of these operations took place in June and July 1944 and liberated the areas situated East of the Vistula and Narew rivers. The second—January 1945 operation—liberated the rest of the lands belonging to Poland, prior to the Second World War. On the 26th of July 1944, the Polish National Liberation Committee and the Soviet Army's High Command signed an agreement concerning the taking over by the Polish administration of lands lying West of the so-called "Curzon line". The problem of the West borders was left open and was finally solved as late as the end of July 1945. And so, The West and North lands (then called "the Recovered Lands") were attached to Poland in the second half of July 1945. Thus, the part of the country, which we consider to be the subject of the present deliberation, stretched from the Soviet Western frontier up to the Western frontier of the Second Polish Republic. It is worth noticing, that the Polish Eastern boundary was fixed in result of an agreement signed in Moscow between Poland and the USSR on the 16th of August 1945, and our Western boundary was settled after Potsdam between the territory of Poland and the Soviet-Occupied Zone of Germany. The latter one followed the Odra and Nysa Łużycka rivers, with Szczecin and Świnoujście falling to Poland.

The Origins of the 'Teheran Formula' on Polish Frontiers

On the evening of 1 December 1943 at the Teheran Conference, Winston Churchill proposed to Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin that he be permitted to put to the Polish government-in-exile in London an agreed formula on Poland's post-war frontiers. This read that 'in principle . . . the home of the Polish state and nation should be between the so-called Curzon Line and the line of the Oder, including for Poland East Prussia and Oppeln'. Stalin agreed on condition that Russia obtained the 'Konigsberg area' of East Prussia. Roosevelt said nothing at this meeting, but he had told Stalin that morning that, although he could not pubicly commit himself, because of the 1944 presidential election, he would like to see the eastern border of Poland 'moved further to the west' and her western borders moved 'even to the River Oder'.1 The 'Teheran Formula' represented the acceptance by the Western allies of the 'Piast concept' of compensation, as advanced by Russia and her Polish supporters, over the 'Jagellon concept', adhered to by the Polish government and tacitly supported before Stalingrad by the Western powers. It was in the context of the allied victories at Stalingrad, El Alamein, and Tunis that the 'Big Three' were compelled to formulate and seek agreement upon conceptions of the post-war political order which would emerge upon the defeat of the Axis. The state frontiers and future government of Poland were related elements in that order. Acceptance of the 'Piast concept' of compensation and future frontiers was for Stalin a touchstone of 'friendliness to Russia' and a qualification for a ministerial portfolio in the future Poland.2 Adherence to the 'Jagellon concept' represented to Stalin the reverse.

Lord Curzon and the "Curzon Line"

Previous articleNext article No AccessNotesLord Curzon and the "Curzon Line"James R. HookerJames R. Hooker Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 30, Number 2Jun., 1958 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/238201 Views: 6Total views on this site Copyright 1958 University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Russia, Poland and the Curzon Line

Journal Article Russia, Poland and the Curzon Line Get access Russia, Poland and the Curzon Line. By L. Kirkien. 1944. (Duns, Berwickshire: Caldra House. 7″ × 4¾″. 62 pp. Maps. 3s.) H. J. Paton H. J. Paton Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 1945, Page 278, https://doi.org/10.2307/3016412 Published: 01 April 1945

The Religious Situation in ‘Eastern Poland’

The annexation by Soviet Russia of certain territory which after 1920 had again been part of the Polish State is now a thing not only accomplished in fact but recognised by those powers strong enough to have a say in the matter. We have heard a great deal about it (and doubtless shall hear more) from the several sides and from various aspects. The only people whose views we have not been able to hear are those most affected, the inhabitants of ‘Eastern Poland ’; the great powers have not asked them to express their choice.It is not easy to estimate what would have been the result of a free plebiscite (a really free plebiscite would probably have been un attainable in the circumstances). The people east of the Curzon Line are mixed, and accurate statistics of the ethnic elements are not easy to come by. A Polish estimate (quoted by Konovalov in Russo-Polish Relations, Cresset Press), based on the 1931 Polish census, gives a total population of 10¾ millions, of whom 36.4 per cent, were Poles, 40.6 per cent. Ukrainians, 11.8 per cent. Byelorussians, 8.4 per cent. Jews and 2.8 per cent, others. These groups are largely, but not entirely, localised : Byelorussians in the north, Ukrainians in the south, Poles in both; in the provinces of Stanislawow, Volhynia and Polesia, Poles are a minority of under 25 per cent.

About the Curzon Line and Other Lines and Lwow and Wilno

About the Curzon Line and Other Lines and Lwow and Wilno