Polonization Totally Explained

Everything about Polonisation totally explained

Polonization is the acquisition or imposition of elements of Polish culture, especially Polish language, as experienced in some historic periods by non-Polish populations of territories controlled or substantially influenced by Poland.

Meaning of terms

In linguistics, Polonization refers to conversion of a foreign word or name to a form better following Polish phonetic and syntactical rules. Compare with Romanization.
In history, depending on the context, the phenomenon of Polonization can be understood in two different ways.

Evaluations

cultural assimilation. Such view is widely considered applicable to the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795) when the Ruthenian and Lithuanian upper classes were drawn towards the more Westernized Polish culture, political and financial benefits of such transition, as well as, sometimes, by the administrative pressure exerted on their own cultural institutions, primarily the Orthodox Church. The conversion to the Roman Catholic faith (and to a lesser extent, Protestant) was often the single most important part of the process as for Ruthenians of that time being Polish culturally and Roman Catholic by religion was almost the same. This aspect of Polonization that led to the diminishing of the Orthodox Church was most resented by Belarusian and Ukrainian masses. In contrast the Lithuanians, who were mostly Catholic, were in danger of losing their cultural identity as a nation, but that didn't become evident for the wide masses of Lithuanians until the Lithuanian national renaissance in the middle of the 19th century.
On the other hand, the Polonization policies of the Polish government in the interwar years of the twentieth century were again two-folded. Some of them were similar to the mostly forcible assimilationist policies, implemented by other European powers that have aspired to regional dominance (for example, Germanization, Russification), while others resembled policies carried out by countries aiming at increasing the role of their native language and culture in their own societies (for example, Rumanization, Ukrainization). For Poles, it was a process of rebuilding the Polish national identity and reclaiming Polish heritage, including the fields of education, religion, infrastructure and administration, that suffered under the prolonged periods of foreign occupation by the neighboring empires of Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary. However, as a third of recreated Poland's population was ethnically non-Polish and many felt their own nationhood aspirations thwarted specifically by Poland, large segments of this population resisted to varying extent policies aimed to assimilate them into Polish culture. Part of the country's leadership emphasized the need for the ethnic and cultural homogeneity of the state in the long term. However, the governmental advancement of Polish language in the administration, the public life and, especially, the education (combined with discriminating against other languages) were perceived by some as an attempt at forcible homogenization. In areas inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians for example, actions of the Polish authorities seen as aiming at restricting the influence of the Orthodox and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church caused additional resentment, and were considered to be closely tied to religious Polonization, as most ethnic Poles were Catholics.
The proponents of the Polonization policies implemented in areas where ethnic Poles were a minority hoped that they'd result in the Polish language becoming dominant over the continuum of a few generations. However, given the relatively short duration of the Republic's independence of less than twenty years, these policies, applied with varying intensity by successive Polish governments, fell far short of their aim, thus contributing to increased ethnic tensions which led to large scale interethnic violence during World War II.

Historic periods

Piast Poland

Between the 12th and the 14th centuries many towns in Poland adopted the so-called Magdeburg rights that promoted the towns' development and trade. The rights were usually granted by the king on the occasion of the arrival of migrants. Some, integrated with the larger community, such as merchants who settled there, especially Greeks and Armenians. They adopted most aspects of Polish culture but kept their Orthodox faith. Since the Middle Ages, Polish culture, influenced by the West, in turn radiated East, beginning the long and uneasy process of cultural assimilation.

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the non-Polish ethnic groups, especially the Ruthenians and Lithuanians, found themselves under the strong pressure of Polish culture.
   The Polish rule of the territory started from the 1569 Union of Lublin, when many of the territories formerly controlled by largely Ruthenized Grand Duchy of Lithuania were transferred to the Polish Crown, while in reality it continued well into the 19th century as the enserfed peasantry and huge estates were left in the Russian and Austrian Empires under the control of the Polish magnates, or the Polonized ones, virtually indistinguishable from the former.
   In the climate of the colonization of Ruthenian lands by the Polish or Polonized nobility, persecution and even an attempted ban of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Polish controlled territories following the unsuccessful attempt to convert the Ruthenian peasantry
   The Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila was offered the Polish crown and became Władysław II Jagiełło (reigned 1386-1434). This marked the beginning of the gradual Polonization of the Lithuanian nobility. He built many Roman Catholic churches in pagan Lithuanians land and provided them generously with estates, gave out the lands and positions to the Catholics, settled the cities and villages and gave most the biggest cities and towns the Magdeburg Rights privileges that consisted of many allowances. These rights were given only to the settlements dominated by the Poles and the Germans but not to Ruthenian settlements whose residents were fully taxed. The noble Ruthenians were also freed from many payment obligations and their rights were equalized with those of the Polish nobility but only when they adopted the Catholicism. Then they were provided with compensation for the military service, while those who remained Orthodox received none. As such, the entire population of Ruthenia was split into the privileged and non-privileged ones, and the latter were the Orthodox people of Ruthenia. attained a certain degree of subtlety. Władysław III introduced some more liberal reforms. He expanded the privileges to all Ruthenian nobles, irrespective of their religion, and in 1443 he signed a bull equalizing the Orthodox church in rights with the Roman Catholicism thus alleviating the relationship with the Orthodox clergy. These policies continued under the next king Casimir IV Jagiellon. Still, the mostly cultural expansion of the Polish influence continued since the Ruthenian nobility were attracted by both the glamour of the Western culture and the Polish political order where the magnates became the unrestricted rulers of the lands and serfs in their vast estates.
   Some Ruthenian magnates like Sanguszko, Wiśniowiecki and Kisiel, resisted the cultural Polonization for several generations, with the Ostrogski family being one of the most prominent examples. Remaining generally loyal to the Polish state, the magnates, like Ostrogskis, stood by the religion of their forefathers, and supported the Orthodox Church generously by opening schools, printing books in Ruthenian language (the first four printed Cyrillic books in the world were published in Cracow, in 1491) and giving generously to the Orthodox churches' construction. However, their resistance was gradually waning with each subsequent generation as more and more of the Ruthenian elite turned towards Polish language and Catholicism.
   Still, with most of the educational system getting Polonized and the most generously funded institutions being to the west of Ruthenia, the Ruthenian indigenous culture further deteriorated. In the Polish Ruthenia the language of the administrative paperwork started to gradually shift towards Polish. By the 16th century the language of administrative paperwork in Ruthenia was a peculiar mix of the older Church Slavonic with the Ruthenian language of the commoners and the Polish language. With the Polish influence in the mix gradually increasing it soon became mostly like the Polish language superimposed on the Ruthenian phonetics. The total confluence of Ruthenia and Poland was seen coming.
   As the Eastern Rite Greek-Catholic Church originally created to accommodate the Ruthenian, initially Orthodox, nobility, ended up unnecessary to them as they converted directly into the Latin Rite Catholicism en masse, the Church largely became an hierarchy without followers. The Greek Catholic Church was then used as a tool aimed to split even the peasantry from their Ruthenian roots, still mostly unsuccessfully.
   After several, especially the fateful Khmelnytsky uprising, and foreign invasions (like the Deluge), the Commonwealth, increasingly powerless and falling under the control of its neighbours, started to decline, the process which eventually culminated with elimination of the Polish statehood in the end of the 18th century for the next 123 years.
   While the Commonwealth's Warsaw Compact is widely considered an example of an unprecedented religious tolerance for its time, the oppressive policies of Poland towards its Eastern Orthodox subjects is often cited as one of the main reasons that brought the state's demise.
   During all time of existing of Commonwealth Polonization in western part of country referred to rather small groups of colonists, like Bambrzy in Greater Poland.

Partitions

Polonization also occurred during times when a Polish state didn't exist, despite the empires that partition Poland applied the policies aimed at reversing the past gains of Polonization or aimed at replacing Polish identity and eradication of Polish national group.
   The Polonization took place in the early years of the Prussian partition, where as a reaction to the persecution of Roman Catholicism during the Kulturkampf, German Catholics living in areas with a Polish majority voluntarily integrated themselves within Polish society, affecting approximately 100,000 Germans in the eastern provinces of Prussia.), Mitrofan Dovnar-Zapolsky (1926)). Paradoxically, the substantial eastward movement of the Polish ethnic territory (over these lands) and growth of the Polish ethnic regions were taking place exactly in the period of the strongest Russian attack on everything Polish in Lithuania and Belarus.
   The general outline of causes for that's considered to include the activities of the Roman-Catholic Church and the cultural influence exacted by the big cities (Vilna, Kovno) on these lands, the activities of the Vilna educational district in 1800s—1820s, the activities of the local administration, still controlled by the local Polish or already Polonised nobility up to the 1863—1864 January Uprising, secret (Polish) schools in second half nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century (tajne komplety) that the Polonization actually intensified under the liberal rule of Alexander I, particularly due to the efforts of Polish intellectuals who led the Vilnius University which was organized in 1802-1803 from the Academy in Vilna (Schola Princeps Vilnensis), vastly expanded and given the highest Imperial status under the new name Vilna Imperial University (Imperatoria Universitas Vilnensis). With the effort of Polish intellectuals who served the rectors of the University, Hieronim Strojnowski, Jan Śniadecki, Szymon Malewski, as well as Czartoryski who oversaw them, the University became the center of Polish patriotism and culture; and as the only University of the district the center attracted the young nobility of all ethnicities from this extensive region.
   With time, the traditional Latin was fully eliminated from the University and by 1816 it was fully replaced by Polish and Russian. This change both affected and reflected a profound change in the Belarusian and Lithuanian secondary schools systems where Latin was also traditionally used as the University was the main source of the teachers for these schools. Additionally, the University was responsible for the textbooks selection and only Polish textbooks were approved for printing and usage. also noting that the Polonization trend had been complemented with the (covert) anti-Russian and anti-Orthodox trends. The Lithuanian opposition to these development was quieted by various, sometimes even violent means. Any Polonization of the east and west territories (Russian and German partitions) occurred in the situation were Poles had steadily diminishing influence on the government. Partition of Poland posed a genuine threat to the continuation of Polish language-culture in those regions. the situation for Polish culture steadily worsened.

Second Polish Republic

By the times of Second Polish Republic (1918-1939) much of the territories controlled by Poland over a century ago (at the Commonwealth's time), that were historically mixed (partly Ruthenian and partly Polish), had the Ukrainian and Belarusian majority. Following the post-World War I rebirth of the Polish statehood, these lands became again disputed but the Poles, who were more successful than the nascent West Ukrainian People's Republic in the Polish-Ukrainian War of 1918. Thus, in the wake of the Poland's elimination of Ukrainian statehood attempt in Galicia (Eastern Europe) and Volhynia followed by the further westward expansion into Belarus – which the Russian SFSR succeeded to deter only to a degree – these territories ended up under the Polish control. Approximately one third of the new state's population was non-Catholic, including a large number of Russian Jews who immigrated to Poland following a wave of Ukranian pogroms which continued until 1921. The Jews were entitled by a peace treaty in Riga to choose the country they preferred and several hundred thousand joined the already numerous Jewish minority of the Polish Second Republic. As such, the young Poland was also forced to learn how to deal with problems resulting from influx of people with different ethnic identities.
   The Ukrainian territories of Galicia and Volhynia had different backgrounds, different late histories and different dominant religions. Until the First World War, Galicia with its largely Greek Catholic Ukrainian population, was controlled by the Austrian Empire whose local policies were relatively pro-Ukrainian (Ruthenian) in an attempt to cement the Austrian control over the territories and prevent the political trends of population's leaning towards the rest of Ukrainians controlled by the Russian Empire. Such policies resulted in much stronger national self-perception among the Galicia Ukrainians. On the other hand, the Ukrainians of Volhynia, formerly of the Russian Empire, were largely Orthodox by religion, and were influenced by strong Russophile trends. Therefore, while the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), which functions in communion with the Latin Rite Catholicism, could have hoped to receive a better treatment in Poland, where the leadership saw the Catholicism as one of the main tools to unify the nation, the Poles saw the Greek Catholic Galicia Ukrainians as even less reliable than the Orthodox Volhynia Ukrainians seen as good candidates for the political assimilation. As such the Polish policy in Ukraine initially was aimed at keeping Greek Catholic Galicians from influencing Orthodox Volhynians.
   Due to the region's history the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church attained a strong Ukrainian national character, and the Polish authorities sought to weaken it in various ways. In 1924, following a visit with the Ukrainian Catholic believers in North America and western Europe, the head of the UGCC was initially denied reentry to Lviv until after a considerable delay. Polish priests led by their bishops began to undertake missionary work among Eastern Rite faithful, and the administrative restrictions were placed on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
   With respect to the Orthodox Ukrainian population in eastern Poland, the Polish government initially issued a decree defending the rights of the Orthodox minorities. In practice, this often failed, as the Catholics, also eager to strengthen their position, had official representation in the Sejm and the courts. Any accusation was strong enough for a particular church to be confiscated and handed over to the Roman Catholic church. 190 Orthodox churches were destroyed (some of the destroyed churches were abandoned and 150 more were forcibly transformed into Roman Catholic (not Greek Catholic) churches. Such actions were condemned by the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, who claimed that these acts would "destroy in the souls of our non-united Orthodox brothers the very thought of any possibility of reunion."
   How to deal with the non-Polish minorities was a subject of intense debate within the Polish leadership. Two ideas of Polish policy clashed at the time - a more tolerant and arguably less assimilationist approach advocated by Józef Piłsudski, whose project of creating a Międzymorze federation with other states failed in the aftermath of the Polish-Soviet War, clashed with the eventually prevailing assimilationist approach advocated by Roman Dmowski (minister of foreign affairs) and Stanisław Grabski (minister of religion and education). Dmowski and Grabski saw the solution of the "minorities problem" in imposing "Polish values" (Polish language and the Catholic Church) on the minorities to achieve "national assimilation", for example to make them "Polish" within the "next generation". policies based on his views were implemented. Dmowski is quoted as having said: "Wherever we can multiply our forces and our civilizational efforts, absorbing other elements, no law can prohibit us from doing so, as such actions are our duty." The ND policies alienated Poland's minorities to such an extent that, even after Piłsudski gained power in 1926, his attempted modest reforms didn't affect the attitude of the minorities. Some officials denied the existence of the Ukrainian and Belarusian nations altogether.
   A law issued in 1924 banned usage of any language but Polish in governmental and municipal paperwork. It the area of public education it was postulated that state schools could be only Polish language schools. However a combination of various reasons, from the Great Depression,
   The land reform designed to favour the Poles in mostly Ukrainian populated Volhynia, the agricultural territory where the land question was especially severe, brought the alienation from the Polish state of even the Orthodox Volhynian population who tended to be much less radical than the Greek Catholic Calicians. The use of Belarusian language was discouraged. There wasn't a Belarusian school in the spring of 1939, and only 44 schools teaching Belarusian language existed in Poland at the beginning of World War II.
   Situation of Lithuanians also was getting worse. During the interwar period of the 20th century (1920-1939) Lithuanian-Polish relations were characterised by mutual enmity. Starting with the conflict over the city of Vilnius (Wilno), and the Polish-Lithuanian War shortly after the First World War, both governments - in the era nationalism was sweeping through Europe - treated their respective minorities harshly. Beginning 1920, after the staged mutiny of Lucjan Żeligowski Lithuanian cultural activities in Polish controlled territories were limited; closure of newspapers and arrest of editors occurred. One of them - Mykolas Biržiška was accused of state treason and sentenced to a death penalty, only direct intervention by the League of Nations saved him from this fate. He was one of 32 Lithuanian and Belarussian cultural activists formally expelled from Vilnius on September 20, 1922 and turned over to Lithuanian army. Following Piłsudski's death in 1935, Lithuanian minority in Poland again became an object of Polonisation policies, more intensive this time. 266 Lithuanian schools were closed since 1936 and almost all organizations were banned. Further Polonisation was ensued as the government encouraged settlement of Polish army veterans in disputed regions. About 400 Lithuanian reading rooms and libraries were closed in Poland in 1936-1938. The Polonization of Lithuanians became reduced with more relaxed government policies only after Lithuania re-established diplomatic relations with Poland in 1938.
   Polonization of the economy was advanced by Polish statism. Lack of private capital in the country after the First World War, and later state interventions and takeovers of politically important sectors in the aftermath of the Great Depression, increasingly expanded the government economic sector. From 1931 on, the state industrial sector grew more rapidly than the private sector, however the Jewish minority was excluded from this sector of the economy. Even facing acute shortage of engineers, the responsible authorities preferred to leave positions vacant than fill them with Jewish experts Jews were also excluded from local administrations. In Lublin, where Jews made up about 40% of the population, only 2.6% of municipal workers were Jews; in Warsaw 16% of the Poles, and only 0.8% of Jews, were employed in the state or public sectors . Efforts to Polonize the economy also affected Jews employed in the private sector. Boycotts of Jewish businesses were instigated by National-Democratic groups such as the League of the Green Band (Liga Zielonej Wstążki). The Catholic Church and Polish government condoned this Polonization of the economy especially after the National Democrats gained control of the government in 1937..
   However, Polonization also created a new educated class among the non-Polish minorities, a class of intellectuals aware of the importance of schooling, press, literature and theatre, who became instrumental in the development of their own ethnic identities.
   Some scholars emphasize the importance of the interwar government's Polonization policies for the preservation of Polish statehood in the long term.

Post–World War II

Ethnic Germans still living in the western territories gained by Poland (determined by Tehran Conference by Stalin in the aftermath of World War II - for example Silesia) were denied the use of their language in public by the Communist regime and they'd to adopt the Polish language and citizenship to evade discrimination, expropriation and insult. Some 180,000 were sent to forced work camps like camp Tost, camp Potulice or camp Lamsdorf. Their situation improved in 1950 with the Treaty of Zgorzelec between Poland and the GDR. Western Germany however didn't recognize this agreement. Until 1953 there were 55 German basic schools and 2 higher German schools in Poland. The Germans enjoy a formally recognized status of an ethnic minority in modern Poland.
During Operation Wisła in 1947, the Ukrainian and Rusyn populations were forcibly resettled from their historic territories in the south-east of Poland to northern areas of the territories awarded by the Allies to Poland in the post-war settlement. According to the order of the Ministry of Recovered Territories, "the main goal of the relocation of settlers "W" is their assimilation in a new Polish environment, all efforts should be exerted to achieve those goals. Do not apply the term "Ukrainians" towards the settlers. In cases when the intelligentsia element reaches the recovered territories, they should by all means be settled separately and away from the communities of the "W" settlers."

Ethnicity of notable figures

As a consequence of the process of cultural Polonization, disputes occur as to the ethnicity of some notable persons such as Tadeusz Kościuszko, Adam Mickiewicz and Ignacy Domeyko, who are claimed as national celebrities by Poles, Belarusians and Lithuanians alike.

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