Polish Settlers Research Articles

Głuchoniemcy w polskim dyskursie naukowym i publicznym od XVIII wieku do okresu PRL

The author analyses the history of scientific and public discourses growing around the phenom-enon of Głuchoniemcy (Deaf‑Germans) in Poland. In the literature, this term refers to the des-cendants of the German‑speaking colonists who settled in the Polish‑Ruthenian border in the mid‑fourteenth century. The history of interest in this phenomenon from the eighteenth to the twentieth century reflects the cultural changes and social tensions over time. These descendants of the German‑speaking colonists living in the Carpathian Foothills were mentioned for the first time in the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century as a regional phenomenon of cultural diversity. In the era of Romanticism, when the importance of national identity in Europe grew, so‑called Deaf Germans were portrayed as fully assimilated Polish settlers with only relics refer-ring to German culture. At the end of the nineteenth century, after the publication of Józef Szujski, they became the subject of a political debate and were placed in the context of peasant history. Finally, the socio‑political situation of the interwar period led to the term “Głuchoniemcy” being removed from scientific and public discourses for many decades. After World War II, the absence of the topic became permanent, still directly related to the Polish‑German antagonism that set the directions of scientific interests of ethnographers and historians in Poland. The article tries to answer the question about the course of these changes in the perception of Deaf Germans by looking for external causes as well as those resulting from the nature of the subject of interest.

The Polish Wild West: Forced Migration and Cultural Appropriation in the Polish-German Borderlands, 1945–1948 [Polski dziki zachód. Przymusowe migracje i kulturowe oswajanie Nadodrza 1945–48

The Polish Wild West: Forced Migration and Cultural Appropriation in the Polish-German Borderlands, 1945–1948 [Polski dziki zachód. Przymusowe migracje i kulturowe oswajanie Nadodrza 1945–48

Crimes of Soviet soldiers in the city and county of Gorzów Wielkopolski against Polish settlers in the years 1945–1946 in the light of Polish administration records – an attempt at a balance

Crimes of Soviet soldiers in the city and county of Gorzów Wielkopolski against Polish settlers in the years 1945–1946 in the light of Polish administration records – an attempt at a balance

Between Hospitality and Hostility: The Experience of Migration Through Things

ABSTRACT In this article, I propose the category of ‘hospitable things’, and argue that it can improve our understanding of the relationships between subjects and objects in the situation of migration. The analysis uses a case study of Polish migration to territories of pre-war Germany and the Free City of Danzig – the so-called Recovered Territories [Ziemie Odzyskane] – in the twilight of World War II. Based on primary sources from the time, I scrutinise how the new Polish settlers transformed German property into ‘hospitable things’ with substantial help from the post-war propaganda. I reconstruct the affective atmosphere of the period and confront these expectations with the actual experience of hostility materialised by everyday things. The image of ‘hospitable things’ – waiting and ready to be taken – has been formed through the experience of migration in radically inhospitable circumstances. ‘Hospitable things’ enable people to cope with the emotions accompanying the fragile experience of displacement; they help to form and transform fears and insecurities, but also desires and wants.

Akcja przesiedleńczo-osiedleńcza w województwie lubelskim (maj–październik 1947 roku)

The Resettlement and Settlement Action in the Province of Lublin (May–October 1947)The resettlement and settlement action is one of the least known and explored aspects of Operation Vistula, which took place in 1947. Polish Army troops were made responsible for the reset­tlement of the Ukrainians inhabiting southern Poland. In the course of the Operation, between May and October 1947, about 9,684 families (33,946 people) were forced to leave the province of Lublin to be settled in northern and western Poland. They left behind 8,871 farms. Only 30% of them were later settled by new Polish settlers, while the rest was used as industrial-scale plough land and for forestry.The forces of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Ukrainian Nationalist Organization tried to prevent both the resettlement action and the subsequent Polish settlement, but were unsuccessful. This action changed the ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural face of the Lublin region. The author presents in detail both the numerical data and the course of these events.

Derzhavnyi teror u zakhidnoukrainskykh zemliakh yak metod vstanovlennia radianskoi vlady

The course of historical events is studied with regard to the reunification of Western Ukraine with Soviet Ukraine. The formation of the foundations of the new state-political and territorial system with the formation of new regions of Western Ukraine is shown. The characteristics of the most important regulations on the formation of law enforcement agencies of the Soviet government and their repressive actions on the territory of the region are given. The first repressive actions were directed against the Polish servicemen and the members of counter-revolutionary, espionage organizations, the former landowners, the manufacturers, the Polish officers, the officials, and the defectors, who were at the prisons in the western regions of Ukraine. The activities of Ukrainian political parties were banned. The activity of «Prosvita», Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society was stopped and the work of cultural and educational institutions, theaters, philharmonics, museums was reorganized. The policy of forced collectivization, nationalization of the industrial enterprises, the banks was tracked on the basis of the research materials. There were four waves of deportations during the 1939–1940 years, when not only the Polish settlers and Polish civil servants of local self-government but also a group of Ukrainian foresters, members of public, political, nationalist organizations, entrepreneurs, merchants, wealthy peasants were deported. The priests of various denominations, members of the OUN underground did not escape deportation and repression. It is stated that the victorious conclusion of the war with Germany promoted realization of administrative measures to restore the Soviet power in the western Ukrainian lands. The edge of mass repression is directed against the Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists. The mass inspections were introduced under the guise of registration and population censuses. The repressive politics aims to fight the Greek Catholic clergy of the region. Strengthening the struggle against politically unreliable intelligentsia, students, Western Ukrainian literary and artistic elite, and members of Lviv organization of the Union of Soviet Writers of Ukraine is substantiated. Repressive bodies had a special attention to the assessment of the political views of the scientific and pedagogical workers of Lviv universities and the pupils of M. Hrushevskyi.

Поляки в Архангельской ссылке в годы Второй мировой войны (на материалах спецпоселков Уйма и Косково)

After the outbreak of the Second World War, the eastern territories of Poland were occupied by the Soviet troops (and the new Soviet-Polish border was removed far to the West). Almost 320 thousand Polish citizens who resided in these territories were arrested and sent to the camps and special settlements in the remote regions of the USSR. Of them, almost 58 thousand people were deported to Arkhangelsk Oblast. Based on the materials of two special settlements of Primorsky Raion of Arkhangelsk Oblast, this article considers the process of deportation of Polish citizens, the conditions of their accommodation and labor, their legal status, and repatriation. The authors made an attempt to identify social groups, establish the sex and age composition of the deportees, describe the process of their adaptation to the new conditions and labor efficiency, and point out the peculiarities of the application of amnesty and repatriation. According to the results of the study, the authors came to the conclusion that the conditions in the special settlements under study were such that the death rate among Polish settlers there in the first winter was almost 10% despite the territorial proximity of these settlements to the regional center. Of the survivors, only 20% of working-age men could be involved in the work in the forest. The rest of the exiles consisted of women and children, more than half of whom (47%) were children under the age of 14. In violation of the law, another 15–20% of this number could be sent to work, but in any case, the labor efficiency of such workers was minimal. The situation was aggravated by the lack of normal working and living conditions, which entailed high disease incidence and, as a result, absence from work. Such a contingent became burdensome for logging enterprises. Even with the lowest wages, special settlers’ labor was unprofitable. Meanwhile, even after the 1941 amnesty, the authorities did everything they could to keep the special settlers in the USSR. The authors explain this fact by an attempt to make Polish citizens hostages in resolving the “Polish issue,” i.e. recognition of the new Soviet-Polish border by the West and the Polish Government-in-Exile in London. As soon as an agreement with the allies on the western border of the USSR was reached and the special settlers got an opportunity to leave the USSR, there was no single Polish citizen who wanted to stay in the Soviet Union, and all of them hastened to leave for their homeland.

Construcciones narrativas de los colonos polacos en Misiones. Estudio de caso de Casimira Kotur

Narrative structures of Polish settlers in Misiones. The case study of Casimira KoturThis paper aims to analyse the narration of Polish emigrants from Misiones Argentina. It uses the interview method and its various forms: open, individual and uncategorised, as it attempts to analyse the case study of Casimira Kotur, who lives in Posadas. According to the results, discourse acts like narration, and not like single stories only, constructing new models of narrative identity. The presence of Polish emigrants in Misiones points to the concept of territorial polyphony and narrative identities because we can assume that discursive and metadiscursive structures — which establish historical and identity relationships — can also be found in narrative structures.

Social and Political Aspects of the Development of Cycling in Pomorze Zachodnie (West Pomerania) in the Years 1945–1950

The article presents the determinants of the development of cycling in the areas incorporated by Poland in the first years after the Second World War. The biggest contribution into this process was made by people from large cities, pre-war enthusiasts and athletes who undertook the hardships of social activity and the engagement of local youth. Sports organizations were controlled, but also supported, by state authorities that used mass events in the propaganda policy and actions aimed at integrating the Northern and Western Lands with the rest of the country. This was an important task due to the difficult living conditions and marauding groups of criminals for whom Pomorze Zachodnie constituted an area of criminal activity, mainly plundering former German property, as well as attacking. Polish settlers. The development of cycling in Szczecin was favored by the German infrastructure, including a concrete track often used in national championships. At the end of 1949, sport in Poland was reorganized and centralized, making it similar to the Soviet model, where there was no room for social measures. The bourgeoisie clubs had to cease their activities, while the circles and clubs were created at workplaces and trade unions. Sports federations were liquidated and their place was occupied by sports clubs located within the structures of the state administration. The organizational changes were accompanied by the mass popularization of sport and increased financing for competitive sport from the state budget. The goal of such activities was to reach a wide group of young people for the needs of indoctrination, as well as to raise the level of sport to achieve more effective competition with Western countries.

Wyznanie Świadków Jehowy na Warmii i Mazurach po II wojnie światowej (do 1950 roku)

The article concerns the organisation and religious activity of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Warmia and Masuria after World War II, to their suppression by the state in July 1950. The appearance of Jehovah’s Witnesses in these areas resulted from two natural and forced settlement processes. This community consisted of three groups of followers: Polish settlers, Ukrainians from the “Wisła” deportation action, and local groups cooperating with each other. In total, they formed a group of over a thousand people. From 1947, they were subject to the actions and repressive measures of the state and security authorities as the “American denomination.” They often also met with hostility from provincial communities, Catholic clergy and associations of Protestant Churches

Śmierć zwierząt w narracjach autobiograficznych osadników na Ziemiach Odzyskanych. Uwagi o obecności

Śmierć zwierząt w narracjach autobiograficznych osadników na Ziemiach Odzyskanych. Uwagi o obecności

Charakterystyka polskiej diaspory w Kurytybie (Brazylia) w świetle badań społecznych = Characteristics of the Polish diaspora in Curitiba (Brazil) in the light of social research

The article addresses an issue of the modern Polish diaspora in Curitiba, which is an important and symbolic city in the context of the Polish migration to Brazil since the second half of the 19th century. Moreover, the article presents an overview of the history of Polish migratory flows to Curitiba as well as significance of the city itself as a unique space for social activeness of the Poles living in Brazil. The main objectives of the article are as follows: identification of “Polish” places and areas in social space of Curitiba, determining a profile of a Polish migrant and assessing relations between the modern Polish diaspora and the mother country in the context of particular migration generations. The city of Curitiba has been perceived a significant and symbolic place for Polish migrants since the very beginning of the Polish migration history. Social activities taken up by the Polish diaspora in Brazil results from the necessity to sustain the national identity and they are aimed at promoting Polish traditions. The public space of Curitiba is marked by Polish monuments, plaques and street names commemorating famous and appreciated Poles as well as by Polish national institutions. There is only one Department of Polish Language in Latin America and it is at the Federal University of Parana in Curitiba. For the purpose of this article, a survey among a significantly differentiated group of respondents has been done. The group comprised representatives of the Polish diaspora having Polish ancestors in the fourth generation as well as modern Polish migrants. As the survey shows, although the descendants of Polish settlers are not fluent Polish speakers and they do not visit their mother country very often, the Polishness is demonstrated by the Polish diaspora in Curitiba. It is clearly visible in public space of the city as there are numerous objects representing Polish historical and cultural heritage as well as cultural events.Since the day when the first Poles settled in Brazil and Curitiba, they have been systematically integrating and assimilating with Brazilians.

Początki i rozwój szkolnictwa polskiego w Rumunii do 1939 roku

Poles settled in present-day Romania in the fourteenth century. A subsequent influx of Polish settlers followed the fall of the Kościuszko Uprising. The aim of this study is to present the history of education in the Polish minority in Romania. The work focuses on showing various forms of educational and upbringing institutions from the early 19th century to 1939. In the analyzed period, the Poles organized mainly kindergartens and comprehensive primary and secondary schools in Bukowina (now northern Romania). They also made attempts at introducing the Polish language to teachers’ training institutions i.e. teachers’ training colleges for men and women. They established their own socio-educational societies and built Polish Houses in which they pursued a wide range of educational and cultural activities. In the Kingdom of Romania, Polish children could also attend (under certain conditions) Polish language classes in Romanian state schools. Owing to the Polish Schools in Romania, followed by the Polish School Association in Romania, Polish private education assumed various forms.

A soja e os colonos poloneses no sul do Brasil: o caso de Ceslau Biezanko e outros personagens (1930-1934)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the case of a Polish immigrant and agronomist, Ceslau Biezanko, officially recognized as the introducer of soybean in the plateau of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, among Polish settlers in the present city of Guarani das Missoes, in the early 1930s, long before the soybean boom in the region. Despite the official recognition, we intend to insert Biezanko in the context of the relationship of soybean with Polish settlers through other intellectual introducers of the plant, in the 1930s, both in the Polish community of Parana state and in the region of the plateau of Rio Grande do Sul, where controversies involving the pioneering introduction of that legume emerged. Keywords: soybean, Polish people, Ceslau Biezanko.

Integracyjna działalność Kościoła warmińskiego w pierwszych latach po II wojnie światowej

W 1945 r. południowe Prusy Wschodnie, ale bez Królewca, znalazły się w granicach państwa polskiego. Całe dawne dominium warmińskie rządzone do 1772 r.przez biskupów i kapitułę warmińską, kraj katolicki było pod rządami polskimi. W wyniku działań wojennych ziemie wschodniopruskie doznały ogromnych zniszczeń i wyludnienia. Już w 1945 r. w wyniku osadnictwa zmieniał się demograficzny i wyznaniowy obraz tych ziem. Ludność niemiecka została wysiedlona, a ludność mazurska i warmińska odmawiająca przyjęcia polskiego obywatelstwa też musiała te ziemie opuścić. Do 1945 r. katolicy byli jakby diasporą wśród wyznawców ewangelickich. Po 1945 r. wszystko się odwróciło, ludność w większości była katolicka. Kapłani niemieccy ustąpili miejsca duchownym polskim, którzy przyjechali na Warmię i Mazury wraz z polskimi osadnikami. Władze państwowe odmówiły biskupowi warmińskiemu Maksymilianowi Kallerowi kontynuacji rządów biskupich w warmińskiej diecezji. Dr Teodor Bensch został administratorem diecezji. W 1956 r. Tomasz Wilczyński otrzymał nominację na biskupa w Olsztynie, lecz dopiero Józef Drzazga został pełnym ordynariuszem warmińskim po unormowaniu stosunków polsko-niemieckich. Księża katoliccy odegrali niezwykle ważną rolę w procesie zasiedlania ziem, a tym samym integracji ludności. Otwierając kościoły, budowali poczucie stabilizacji, likwidując poczucie tymczasowości. W zmieniającej się politycznej polskiej rzeczywistości Kościół stał się przeciwnikiem władz państwowych. Księża zaczęli doznawać szykan, wypychano Kościół z działalności społecznej. Na Warmii i Mazurach schronienie znalazło wielu żołnierzy podziemia zbrojnego, organizacji politycznych i księży ściganych przez komunistyczne władze. Ze strony tych władz doznawali oni represji. A jednak mimo nieustających szykan nie zmniejszały się wpływy Kościoła, świątynie wciąż były pełne wiernych. Kościół integrował ludzi przybyłych z różnych stron dawnej Polski, obejmował ich opieką nie tylko duszpasterską. Kościół pomagał w odnajdywaniu dawnej świetności Warmii. Na bazie historii tworzył podwaliny zrywania z tymczasowością i pomagał mieszkańcom w procesach zakorzeniania się na nowej ziemi.

Problem ludności niemieckiej w Gdańsku w pierwszym okresie po zakończeniu II wojny światowej. Rekonesans badawczy

This article focuses on the problem of Germans in Gdańsk shortly after the end of World War II. Among the issues analysed are: forced relocations of the German population by the Red Army; the so-called wild expulsion of Germans by the Polish authorities in 1945; the attitude of the Gdańsk administration towards the Germans; relations with Polish settlers from Central Poland and eastern territories incorporated into the Soviet Union. Mistrust, aversion and disputes were parallel to, sometimes, brutal competition for material goods, such as houses and workshops left by previous inhabitants. The Germans were underdogs in this conflict. They understood that they would no longer be responsible for their home city. They lost their position. Not having civil rights, they lost the right to their houses and farms. Gdańsk was an example of a former German city, whose new Polish community was created in the presence of its German inhabitants, who were subsequently deported to the territories on the other side of the Oder River. By this time, the coexistence of the Polish and German populations had evolved from hostility to cooperation between people devastated by war experience and forced migration. An official verification procedure was launched to determine who was a real German or Pole. One had to prove Polish descent and national usefulness in front of the Verification Commission. By the end of 1948, the number of native citizens of Gdańsk accepted as Polish citizens reached nearly 14,000. However, it was not possible to classify instantly all citizens of Gdańsk by their nationality. The memory of the pre-war Free City of Gdańsk was often more important for the collective identity of those who were born and lived in Gdańsk or Danzig before 1939. Both German and Polish citizens of Gdańsk were so strongly linked to their local homeland that they called themselves and were called by others ‘gdańszczanie’ or ‘Danziger’ for many years after the war.

Forms of medical pluralism among the Polish Community in Misiones, Argentina

ABSTRACTThe paper addresses forms of medical pluralism, studied from the microsocial perspective, among the Polish community in Misiones, Argentina. It shows different attitudes to health treatment within the field of home medicine, local non-biomedical specialists and biomedicine. It points out the relationship between the diversity of offers of medical assistance and community members’ negotiations between various medical approaches. It also identifies the factors influencing these choices. While prior research examines Indigenous and Mestizo medical ethnobotany in this region, there has not been research on medical pluralism and very little study of complementary and alternative medicine among the inhabitants of Misiones. The study group comprises Polish peasants who settled in northern Misiones between 1936 and 1938 and their descendants born in Argentina. Field research was based on semi-structured, in-depth and free-listing interviews. The analysis was carried out using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The results show that Polish settlers tried to reconstruct bits and pieces of their familiar and traditional healing practices in the new environment. Phytotherapy plays the most important role among home therapies. It is at home that most treatments start. Members of the Polish community also treat folk illnesses at home and report them to local healers. The growing influence of biomedicine does not contribute to the elimination of home medicine or non-biomedical specialists in the study area. There has been a medicalization of childbirth and fractures, but folk experts such as curanderos, hueseros and naturistas are still very popular in the region.

Plants Used as Food and Medicine by Polish Migrants in Misiones, Argentina

In this article we discuss the importance of food plants, both introduced and native, in the pharmacopoeia of the Polish community in Misiones, Argentina. Food species constitute a relevant portion of all botanicals used by Polish settlers in home therapies (41%), while introduced food species prevail among the continued herbal remedies used by the study group. We explain this pattern of use by food plant availability, their versatility as reflected in the number of medicinal applications, and also their importance in cross-cultural relations. Finally, we conclude that several food plants used by Polish migrants (e.g., Allium sativum, Mentha xpiperita, and Camellia sinensis) may have served to “strengthen” migrants’ identity within the host country.

Reinterpreting the Expulsion of Germans from Poland, 1945–9

This article offers a reinterpretation of the causes and driving forces behind the expulsion of Germans from Poland at the end of the Second World War. Recent scholarship has taken us beyond the German victimhood consensus of West German writers and the sanitized accounts of Communist-era Polish historians. It has demonstrated that the postwar expulsion was not merely the product of international agreements or the impulse for revenge, but was principally the outcome of the Communist-led government’s nationalist campaign to turn Poland into an ethnically homogeneous nation-state between 1944 and 1949. Several recent studies have emphasized that the regime sought to achieve ethnic purity in Poland’s ‘recovered territories’ not only through deliberate forced migration of Germans but also through systematic repopulation with Polish settlers. But there has yet to appear a detailed examination of the practical connection between these mass migration processes. By taking a locally grounded approach to the subject, this article demonstrates that the massive influx of Polish settlers in fact helped to instigate, propel and set the pace of the forced migration of Germans from postwar Poland, and that the fates of Germans and Poles thereby became inseparably intertwined.

Lower Silesia – Literary Emanations (1945-2010)

Niederschlesien, Dolni Slezsko, Silesia Interior. These are only three among many different names that define Silesia region. Variety of words describing this geographical area is a symbol of its complex political history. Over the centuries this land belonged to the Poles, Czechs, Germans respectively. In 1945, after the Second World War, Silesia became part of Poland again, but its former rulers had marked it by their cultures and traditions. The region was inhabited mostly by residents of the former Polish eastern borderland. This territory, on the strength of Yalta and Potsdam conferences’ agreements, was irreversibly lost in ZSRR’s favor. Polish settlers in Silesia replaced Germans, who were forced to start new lives on post-war Germany territories. I would like to present how over 60 years (1945-2010) Polish writers have been perceiving and describing the process of the Silesia recolonization. I will adopt following perspectives: 1. Silesia before the war as an emanation of the borderland (e.g. works by Marian Jachimowicz). 2. Different Poles’ attitudes towards germanness of the region (e.g. Henryk Worcell and Marek Krajewski). 3. Apology of the myth of multiculturalism (e.g. Tokarczuk). 4. The convention called Lower Silesia little realism as an individual effort to put down roots in the new land (e.g. Wojciech Grabkowski). 5. 'Lower Silesia – place called nowhere' – an unknown space as an alternative to well-worn convention (Lower Silesia young writers). After analyzing these issues, I will try to answer the question concerning the role of Silesia in Polish literature, and I will discuss the parallels between the role of Silesia motif in Polish literature and the initiation myth.