{"id":2510,"date":"2021-10-14T08:26:42","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T06:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/herito.pl\/?post_type=artykul&p=2510"},"modified":"2023-07-17T14:53:09","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T12:53:09","slug":"the-kresy-as-a-memorial-the-long-history-of-persistence","status":"publish","type":"artykul","link":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/artykul\/the-kresy-as-a-memorial-the-long-history-of-persistence\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kresy as a Memorial: the Long History of Persistence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The interest in the Kresy has gone beyond their actual territory. The Kresy are omnipresent, as their former inhabitants have been dispersed, but also due to the status of the Kresy as one of the main categories of defining Polish culture. Poland is full of unquestioning apologists of the Kresy, as well as critics of the nostalgic, sentimental approach. However, it would be difficult to identify a social group, political party or organisation which has refused to acknowledge them on purpose.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is it likely that the myth of the Kresy Wschodnie (Eastern Borderlands) in Polish will cease to exist? The early 1990s appeal of the French historian Daniel Beauvois, which marked out one aspect of the dispute about Polish memory after 1989, continues to recur, and remains an open issue. Today, one thing is certain: namely, the Kresy are a Polish memorial which is vibrant and brims with individual emotion, as well as carrying a mythical meaning. The longing for a lost homeland inspires a diversity of recollections, making the Kresy part of the cultural memory of successive generations of Polish people. Furthermore, continuous efforts have been made to find an alternative historical description of the Kresy. The efforts to historify the discourse on the region do not necessarily mean that it will vanish from the mosaic of Polish memorials. It seems that we have yet to witness a long dispute concerning the definitional potential of the Kresy in the context of Polish national identities.<\/p>\n

The loss<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The\u00a0history of the\u00a0Kresy as a\u00a0Polish realm of memory is like a\u00a0process of creation of a\u00a0national imagined community. The\u00a0story of the\u00a0area\u2019s identity is being supplemented with facts, events, and characters so that they complement a\u00a0feeling of community and a\u00a0sense of the\u00a0continuity of tradition. The\u00a0Kresy have acquired the\u00a0qualities of a\u00a0realm of memory since the\u00a01960s. Some of the\u00a0historical and emotion-al potential that is essential for creating kresowo\u015b\u0107 (borderlandness) as a\u00a0new value could be traced as early as the\u00a017th century; it was most certainly there around the\u00a0early 19th century. Among political elites, it would be based on a\u00a0sense of injustice and humiliation caused by the\u00a0loss of independence in\u00a01795. That particular condition worsened due to the\u00a0provisions of the\u00a0peace treaty between France and Russia (1807), and were sealed by decisions made at\u00a0the Congress of Vienna (1815). A hope emerged for regaining in-dependence when the\u00a0Duchy of Warsaw was created under the\u00a0aegis of Napoleon (1807\u20131815); however, a\u00a0sense of injustice developed, again, as the\u00a0east-ern lands of the\u00a0former Republic of Poland (which later became the\u00a0geographical Kresy) were incorporated into the\u00a0Russian Empire. As\u00a0they were separated from Poland by a\u00a0border post, they came to be called the\u00a0Stolen Lands.<\/p>\n

The first person to name and define the region in Polish \u2013 with the word\u00a0kresy<\/em> (which is the\u00a0plural<\/em>\u00a0form of kres<\/em>, i.e. borderland) \u2013 was Wincenty Pol. Earlier, according to the first ever Dictionary of the Polish Language<\/em>, written by Samuel Bogumi\u0142 Linde (1815), only the singular form of the common noun kres<\/em>, krys<\/em>, existed, meaning \u201cborder\u201d and \u201cmarked end\u201d. Born into a Warmia family, where Polish, German, and French were spoken (owing to his mother\u2019s origin), Pol was raised in a patriotic Polish atmosphere. He is one of the most renowned Polish authors of the Romantic period. In the knight\u2019s rhapsody Mohort<\/em>, published in the mid-19th century, the writer described the life story of a \u201cborderland knight\u201d fighting against the enemies of Poland. The more than 100-year-old Szymon Mohort personified Polishness, the essence of which was \u201clove and duty towards God and the Homeland\u201d. Pol set his poem in the landscape of the area between the Dniester and the Dnieper rivers with its military fortifications built to ward off Tatar invasions into the land of the Republic of Poland. He did not, however, picture the Kresy as some sort of a mythical area. On the contrary, he saw it as specific territorial units located on the edge of the Republic.<\/p>\n

Having said that, it is Wincenty Pol\u00a0who is universally (sometimes even in literary studies, too) seen as the\u00a0father of the\u00a0founding myth of the\u00a0Kresy. However, according to the\u00a0Polish literature specialist Jacek Kolbuszewski, Pol\u2019s aim was to \u201cresurrect only one character\u201d, that is to say, the\u00a0legendary, invincible knight Mohort. By\u00a0invoking the\u00a0ideals of defence of Poland and Christianity, Pol\u00a0would appeal to several generations of Poles dreaming about regaining their independent homeland. Evidence of Mohort\u2019s popularity is the\u00a0fact that the\u00a0poem was included in the\u00a0compulsory reading list in Polish schools in Galicia, and also that it was published in the\u00a0Russian partition, and in St\u00a0Petersburg and Vienna. By\u00a01922, a\u00a0total of twelve editions of the\u00a0work had been published. The Song of Our Land<\/em>, written in a\u00a0similar spirit, was published eleven times, and Songs of Janusz<\/em> were learnt by heart and recited by young people in Galicia, as well as in the\u00a0Congress Kingdom of Po-land. Some even claim that, in terms of popularity, all the\u00a0aforementioned works by Wincenty Pol\u00a0have competed with the\u00a0Polish national epic poem Pan Tadeusz<\/em> by Adam Mickiewicz.<\/p>\n

Axiology appropriates territory<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The way in which the Kresy region was perceived and described was created by Romanticism. Even critics of Romanticism had to acknowledge its main ideas, namely, struggle for freedom, dedication to one\u2019s home country, and love for a lost homeland. Everyone would become \u201csons of the Homeland\u201d in Vilnius and Lviv, as well as in Warsaw and Krak\u00f3w. Polish Romanticism was both a literary period and a ritualised message of cultural memory. A part of the social life, it generated a symbolic \u201ciconosphere\u201d in which the modern national identity was defined. The power of the identity code that was shaped at the time resulted from the fact that the high quality of literature and the source of Polish mythology (i.e. the events around the year 1800) had no other cultural alternative which would satisfy the elite\u2019s expectations. One of the forms of Polish Romanticism was messianism, in which Poland was presented as the \u201cChrist of nations\u201d. In this way, the narrative of Polish national sacrifice and suffering was given a sacral dimension.<\/p>\n

By\u00a0the\u00a0early 1920s, the\u00a0symbolism attached to the\u00a0notion of the\u00a0\u201cKresy\u201d would considerably expand in terms of semantics and space. The\u00a0notion became increasingly important in the\u00a0transfer of popular national ideas to the\u00a0society as a\u00a0whole. A \u201clost\u201d, or \u201csto-len\u201d region, the\u00a0Kresy came to embody the\u00a0political myth of Poland which, owing to an\u00a0ardent spirit of patriotism and the\u00a0\u201cdecrees of God\u201d, is to be reborn again. They were no longer a\u00a0mere background to the\u00a0national narrative (like in Pol\u2019s poetry), but they would increasingly become its very subject. Further-more, the\u00a0attribute of kresowo\u015b\u0107 would be connected post facto with earlier concepts and political myths, especially Sarmatism and antemurale christianitatis (the bulwark of Christendom).<\/p>\n

Contemporary scholars (literary historian Maria Janion, philosopher and historian of ideas Marcin Kr\u00f3l) agree that, to the\u00a0Polish people, the\u00a0Roman-tic message was just as important as its interpretations. Poland\u2019s history since the\u00a01820s has large-ly been a\u00a0continuation, reinterpretation, trivialisation, and condemnation of Romanticism[1]<\/a>.
\n1 No\u00a0wonder then that, almost parallel to the\u00a0trend of perceiving the\u00a0Kresy as a\u00a0realm of memory, an\u00a0emotionally neutralised legend of the\u00a0region emerges:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn everyday life in the late 19th century, it [the notion of the \u201cKresy\u201d \u2013 RT] would lose its significance, because traditional components of the myth of the Kresy collided with actual reality. Thus, it would increasingly become an idealised historical notion \u2013 a mere tale of a glorious past rather than a myth capable of inspiring and integrating people.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

As\u00a0early as 1860, Jan\u00a0Zachariasiewicz called upon people to move the\u00a0 Kresy from the\u00a0 Dnieper and the\u00a0Ukrainian Steppes to the\u00a0Warta and Note\u0107 riverbanks, where \u201cthe real struggle for Polishness was fought\u201d. The\u00a0symbolic meaning of the\u00a0region was fur-ther blurred by politicians. Jan\u00a0Ludwik Pop\u0142awski, an\u00a0 ideological father of the\u00a0 National Democracy movement, would see the\u00a0borderland in every single place where the\u00a0\u201cPolish element\u201d clashed with other ethnic and national groups, that is to say, in Bukowina, Cieszyn Silesia, Upper Silesia, East Prussia, and Pomerania. Jacek Kolbuszewski claims that, despite deliberate propaganda, the\u00a0effort to universalise the\u00a0myth of the\u00a0Kresy and to transfer it onto all border territories did not bring the\u00a0expected results.<\/p>\n

A circumstance which was favourable in the\u00a0pro-cess of mythologising the\u00a0Kresy was a\u00a0dispute about the\u00a0Polish society\u2019s attitude towards foreign authority, an\u00a0effort to define modern patriotism in a\u00a0situation when a\u00a0real chance of regaining independence seemed remote. This argument dominated the\u00a0public debate between the\u00a01870s and the\u00a0outbreak of the First World War. It\u00a0assumed special importance as Ukrainian and Lithuanian national movements developed. As\u00a0a\u00a0reaction to the\u00a0obvious, but not dominant tendencies of self-assimilation (\u201cmerging with Russia so as to [\u2026] revive in Slavdom\u201d), inspired by Polish in-telligentsia of different political orientations, an\u00a0un-written code of the\u00a0modern Pole emerged in which boundaries between patriotism and national treason were set[3]<\/a>. One\u00a0of the\u00a0code\u2019s ideological pillars was about invoking the\u00a0times of glory and magnificence of the\u00a0Republic of Poland, and the\u00a0bravery and heroism of the\u00a0Polish people. The\u00a0Kresy \u2013 a\u00a0\u201clost area\u201d \u2013 were indeed the\u00a0perfect field to cultivate these values. It\u00a0was the\u00a0vast areas of Podolia, Halych Ruthenia, Volyn, and later also Lithuania and Livonia that served as the\u00a0setting for most Polish national novels.<\/p>\n

The archetype of kresowo\u015b\u0107<\/em> was essentially made up of four components: namely, heroic defence of the stronghold of Polishness against hordes of infidels and enemies of the Republic of Poland (the myth of antimurale christianitatis<\/em>); pastoral landscape and idyllic life (the myth of Arcadia and Sarmatism), exoticism of a mysterious distant land; a courageous, righteous and slightly sentimental hero \u201cdevoted to God and the Homeland\u201d.<\/p>\n

Two\u00a0self-complementary images of the\u00a0 Kresy emerged. The\u00a0first was created by Henryk Sienkiewicz. The\u00a0type of narrative and the\u00a0story in his Trilogy, published in the\u00a01880s, became a\u00a0\u201cmeta-space of adventure\u201d in which the\u00a0chivalrous characters, wild scenery, and dynamic plot made up a\u00a0kind of a\u00a0European Western (Kolbuszewski). Regardless of the\u00a0artistic value of the\u00a0Nobel Prize laureate\u2019s prose, we must recognise the\u00a0indisputable thesis formulated by literary critics, that Sienkiewicz captured the\u00a0imagination of several Polish generations. His\u00a0most popular books are set in the\u00a0boundless Ukrainian landscape of Wild Fields (now Zaporizhia), the\u00a0steppes of Podolia, and Cossack stanitsas on the\u00a0Dnieper. Sienkiewicz\u2019s Ukrainian creations such as Ukraine\u2019s national hero, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1595\u20131657), Cossack atamans, and characters from Ukrainian folk tales, have also become part of the\u00a0Polish national mythology. In\u00a0these creations, references can be found to the\u00a0typically Romantic fascination with Ukrainian-ness (Rusynness) as a\u00a0component of the\u00a0Slavic com-munity, Ukrainness as intriguing folklore of the\u00a0former Republic of Poland. Sienkiewicz\u2019s Ukrainians are part of \u201cour own\u201d, Polish community. Owing to Sienkiewicz\u2019s writings, the\u00a0great battles that the\u00a0Polish fought with Turks, Tatars, Moscals, and Cossacks in the\u00a017th century went beyond their historical context and acquired the\u00a0meaning of a\u00a0literary and artistic myth which became widespread as historical truth, and in this way became part of cultural memory.<\/p>\n

This way of perceiving the geographical Kresy, inherent in the strong 19th-century tradition of Sarmatism, favoured a further broadening of the region\u2019s chronological as well as semantic meaning. Sarmatism was a type of ideology of the Polish nobility, popular from the 17th century, out of which a unique cultural formation developed. Its ideological core was the conviction that a \u201cgenuine Pole\u201d is a Polish-speaking Catholic who fights for \u201cGod, Freedom, and Homeland\u201d. This message aroused contradictions and conflict in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious environment, but at the same served as a stimulus to the unique form of Polish political nation. Sarmatian ideology included, among other things, the myth of the earliest beginnings of the Polish nation, created by ancient Sarmates who inhabited the steppe west of the Black Sea \u2013 the furthest reaches of the Republic of Poland. Thus, the Kresy were equated with the founding myth of the Polish nation, a part of which were also Ruthenians and Lithuanians, \u201cfighting shoulder to shoulder to defend the Holy Cross from heathens and the Moscow Schism\u201d[4]<\/a>. The idea of the bulwark of Christendom favoured the sacralisation of the historic mission of the Kresy. This was reflected in an expansion and domination of the influence of Roman Catholic Church confronted with the Orthodox Church and the Uniate Church (since the Union of Brest in 1596). In the 19th century, under Russian rule, the Roman Catholic Church found itself under pressure from the Tsar\u2019s authority and had to protect its possessions \u2013 which supported the idea of Polish people as a \u201cnation entrusted to the special care of God\u201d. A broad public confidence, also in the interwar years, was enjoyed by the Marian cult, manifested in pilgrimages to sanctuaries with images of \u201cthe miraculous Blessed Virgin Mary\u201d of the Kresy, and also to the famous Polish Calvaries. A cult of saints \u2013 heroes who died for faith in the Kresy \u2013 spread across the country.<\/p>\n

The other vision of the Kresy was expressed to its fullest by the prose of Maria Rodziewicz\u00f3wna, Poland\u2019s most popular writer of the first forty years of the 20th century. Her Kresy encompass Samogitia and Polesye and are considerably different from the actual geographic region. The writer\u2019s oeuvre was not only a glorification of pastoral life, but also an ideological message whose basis consisted in social solidarism, the cult of native nature, and defence of Polish national identity. In her works, the female writer cultivated the figure of the Polish mother whose sons have died or suffered for their homeland. A lonely woman, she becomes the embodiment of national and social life, acting as a philanthropist, a teacher, and a protector of hearth and home. This literary type of mother and social worker, set in the landscape of Polesye and Lithuania, defined a model for the patriotic woman in the early 20th century. In contrast, colourful anti-heroes emerged, appealing to the popular imagination: \u201c\u2026various layabouts and squanderers, careerists travelling to Russia, changing their faith and marrying Russian women [\u2026], cosmopolites, socialists kowtowing to the \u2018black God\u2019, and Moscals. Furthermore, Jewish usurers and innkeepers encouraging peasants to drink, lessees of mills and distilleries, trading in land, forests and cattle, collaborating with Russians and ruining the Polish kresowo\u015b\u0107<\/em>\u2026\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

The colour of the national and social diversity of the Kresy region was present in the literary works of Sienkiewicz, Rodziewicz\u00f3wna, and dozens of other novelists, as well as poets and painters. The peaceful or maybe even idyllic quality of perceiving national relations resulted from a widespread paternalist and solidarist ideology: the togetherness of the folk, landowners, and intelligentsia. In this approach, social as well as national stratifications became completely unimportant. Lords were Poles \u2013 righteous protectors; and peasants were Ruthenians, Ukrainians, or Lithuanians who were educated by the virtuous Polish landowners. This literary motif is best shown in the following sentence from Maria Dunin-Kozicka\u2019s widely-read novel, Storm from the East<\/em>: \u201cWe liked [\u2026] Ruthenian people, we spoke to them using their language, we enjoyed singing various Ukrainian dumkas and shumkas, and, as we were never hostile towards them, we never sensed hostility towards Polishness in them.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u201cothers\u201d, needing care, would become the target of this civilisational mission. They played the role of a slightly backward yet good folk who, owing to their contact with \u201cenlightened lords\u201d become better, and in time more Polish, too. Even though colonialism never existed in Poland, the colonial nature of those declarations became part of the popular West European \u201cwhite man\u2019s ideology\u201d.<\/p>\n

The role of the \u201cbad ones\u201d, excluded from the national community, frequently the role of traitors, was taken by socialists and Jews. The former did not create an alternative borderland narrative. Instead of creating a competitive world, Jewish people (with their powerful intellectual and political centres in Vilnius and Lviv) who dominated the demographic structure of borderland towns, made up their very own mythical world which was embodied by life in the shtetl and the image of a wise Rabbi. This world\u2019s cultural epicentre was Vilnius, \u201cthe Jerusalem of the North\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Making Vilnius and Lviv part of the Kresy<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Warfare on the Eastern front in 1915 and 1916 and, later, the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, left the Kresy with incalculable material damage, causing the region to suffer considerable losses in men. The tragic events were accompanied, between 1918 and 1921 in particular, with a struggle over the borders of a new Polish state, and the Polish-Soviet War. As in the late 18th century, the Kresy became the scene of events significant for Poland as a whole. The \u201cbleeding border\u201d assumed new mythological potential; first and foremost, however, it was a most tangible painful reality. \u201cCultural monuments erected over hundreds of years turned into a blood-soaked pile of ashes,\u201d[7]<\/a> as the writer Kornel Makuszy\u0144ski tersely described the situation in the Kresy region after the First World War.<\/p>\n

Beginning around these dramatic events, Vilnius and Lviv, which were situated far away from the Kresy, and served as major cities in Polish culture, came to be identified with kresowo\u015b\u0107<\/em>. In 1920, inspired by J\u00f3zef Pi\u0142sudski, Vilnius was captured by the army led by General Lucjan \u017belichowski, and, in spite of the intervention of Lithuania and many European countries, incorporated into Poland. Marshal Pi\u0142sudski, born in the vicinity of Vilnius, was the archetypal borderland Pole in that he was courageous, kind-hearted, and whole-heartedly dedicated to his homeland. Between 1918 and 1920, Lviv became the arena for bloody Polish-Soviet-Ukrainian battles. As a result of the battles, this city, as well as Eastern Galicia, was also incorporated into Poland. Two symbols of the \u201cdefence of Lviv\u201d became the permanent symbol of heroism and dedication in the fight for the Homeland, namely, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the Memorial of Lviv Eagles. As far as the former is concerned, it was made by transferring the ashes<\/em>\u00a0of one of the\u00a0unknown defenders<\/em>\u00a0of Lviv as a symbolic foundation stone to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier established in Warsaw in 1925. As regards the latter, the fact that the fight against Ukrainians and Soviets was participated in by voluntary units of children\/young people (the youngest participant was nine years old) \u2013 commemorated in history as \u201cLviv Eagles\u201d \u2013 came to stand for utter dedication and patriotism. The solemnity of their attitude was given a religious aspect by the Lvivian poet Kazimierz Bukowski:<\/p>\n

Blessed are those,
\nwho with their eyes fixed on the star of the Homeland,
\nwere killed in the Kresy, defending their town,
\nfor their death is the Nation\u2019s greatest pride
\nand amongst heroes they\u2019ll be placed \u2013
\nthe blessed! [8]<\/a><\/p>\n

Lviv came to be widely perceived as a heroic city. It symbolised a new type of \u201cPolish stronghold\u201d, which was earlier immortalised in Romantic poetry, or the novels by Henryk Sienkiewicz.<\/p>\n

The literary image of the Kresy Wschodnie received support from Poland\u2019s first official international representatives for over a hundred years, as well as from legal political parties. There was nothing new about the political definition of the Kresy, but it was during the First World War that, for the first time ever, the region assumed a real political dimension due to the fact that the state borders had to be delineated. The sole points of reference were the borders of pre-partition Poland (1772), extending to the Dnieper in the southeast, the Polish Livonia in the north, and Belarus Minsk in the east. According to the Gda\u0144sk political historian Roman Wapi\u0144ski, however, among major political powers there was no tendency to return to the borders of pre-partition Poland. The Kresy were an important part of ideology and practical strategy in the programmes of national democratic parties, mainly represented by Roman Dmowski\u2019s National Democracy movement, for the longest time. By the end of the war, all political orientations, apart from Communists, would discuss the subject of the region. In these discussions, the Kresy appeared as a part of the interwar period\u2019s fundamental argument about an idea of federal (also referred to as \u201cJagiellonian\u201d) Poland (broadly conceived groups centred around J\u00f3zef Pi\u0142sudski\u2019s ruling camp), and an incorporation idea, an idea of Poland as a \u201cgreat Catholic state of the Polish nation\u201d (strong right-wing opposition). The latter idea also referred to the borders of the Piast-period Poland, which were moved westwards. The main point of the argument was not so much about how far Poland\u2019s borders were supposed to reach, but how one was supposed to treat the independence of Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine, and also national minorities inhabiting the eastern parts of Poland. Strong independence movements, chiefly Lithuanian and Ukrainian, caused an increasing sense of the political foreignness of the eastern region of the First Republic of Poland. At the same time, the Soviet threat deepened the vision of Poland as bulwark of West European civilisation[9]<\/a>. In this context, the ruling camp developed the concept of the \u201cPromethean idea\u201d (supporting non-Russian nations of the USSR), which was also presented as the political concept of \u201cIntermaria\u201d, based on a loyal co-operation of East Central Europe\u2019s countries. The Kresy, mainly the \u201ccaptured\u201d Vilnius (Lithuania) and the \u201cdefended\u201d Lviv (Eastern Galicia), played an important role in domestic politics as a nation- and state-building factor. The National Democratic Party also included in their political programme the Kresy Zachodnie (Western Borderlands), namely, Polish-German border areas. The role of a historical equivalent of the Kresy Zachodnie, created in historiography and historical journalism, was played by \u201cnative lands\u201d which, in the course of time, originated the myth of Regained Lands.<\/p>\n

In the interwar period, novels by Maria Rodziewicz\u00f3wna and Henryk Sienkiewicz were still the most popular books in Poland. The mythology of the Kresy spread from belles-lettres to pamphlets and country community newspapers published in thousands of copies. Most importantly, the Kresy issues became a permanent part of the curriculum \u2013 dominated by the image of the Kresy as an area where the heroic struggle over Poland\u2019s independence was fought. The region was threatened by the newly forming national Lithuanian and Ukrainian movements, allegedly the result of a Soviet conspiracy. This was why the new Lithuanian state was treated in a disrespectful and patronising manner[10]<\/a>. In Krzysztof Buchowski\u2019s opinion, the myth of Poland\u2019s eastern \u201cyounger brothers\u201d, who were Christianised and culturally educated by the Polish, was becoming stronger.<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, in comparison with the above, in the Kresy the situation was perceived in a different light, that is to say, the problems of everyday life were crucial in the discussion about the region. Owing to J\u00f3zef Mackiewicz\u2019s outstanding reportages (The Revolt of the Marshes<\/em>, 1938), published in popular Vilnius newspapers, they also reached a wide public. The Kresy as presented by Mackiewicz are not a mythical area. On the contrary, they are permeated with destitution and apathy, difficult living conditions, and a struggle for survival against nature which is not charming but hostile.<\/p>\n

Myth \u2013 realism \u2013 phantom<\/strong><\/h1>\n

During the Second World War, the Kresy became a temporary area between the Soviet occupation (until June 1941) and the German occupation. As a result of the Yalta and Potsdam Conference, after the year 1945 the region as a whole was incorporated into the Soviet Union. To Poles, Ukrainians, and Lithuanians of the Kresy, the Soviet occupation turned out to be extremely brutal, which is symbolised in the Polish memory by the mass murder of Polish soldiers in Katy\u0144 (1940), in particular. The Sovietisation of the Eastern Kresy caused, during the Second World War, mass deportations of Polish citizens of the Second Polish Republic into the depths of the USSR (historians estimate the number of the deported to be over 300,000) and to Germany for forced labour (more than 400,000), then a migration to Western Europe, and finally a forced migration to Poland\u2019s western and northern lands with the newly delineated borders (a total of approximately 1.3 million people)[11]<\/a>. Again, like in the early 19th century, strong Polish intellectual centres developed abroad, chiefly in London (the seat of the government-in-exile) and in Paris. Various ways of commemorating the lost Kresy would also emerge.<\/p>\n

The interwar myth of the Kresy was retained abroad by politicians, as well as the rapidly growing culture. A demand that Poland should regain its border from before the year 1939 was part of the government-in-exile\u2019s policy until the 1980s. The Polish government in London advocated \u201cintegrity of the Republic\u201d and \u201crecovering the possession of the beloved eastern lands\u201d.<\/p>\n

Parisian Kultura<\/em> circle perceived the essence of the transformation after 1945 in active dialogue and partner involvement in contact with Poland\u2019s eastern neighbours. Inspired by, among other things, the interwar experience of the Kresy and the discourse on the region, Jerzy Giedroyc, Juliusz Mieroszewski, Jerzy Stempowski and their collaborators formulated a new, critical political and cultural programme for Poland, which has survived until today under the acronym of \u201cULB\u201d (Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus). Contrary to the dominant nostalgic, sentimental memory leading to political helplessness, they proposed \u201cactive memory\u201d which ought to become the matter of Poland\u2019s future democratic consciousness. \u201cActive memory\u201d was about accepting the loss of the region, cultivating kresowo\u015b\u0107<\/em>, and also understanding the identity of other national communities and the aspirations of Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine to become independent states. The concept of ULB became a permanent element of Poland\u2019s foreign policy after 1989[12]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Besides literature, historiography also played a significant role in creating historical consciousness among Polish immigrants. Historical thought served a compensatory purpose. It became part of a specific social demand; in many aspects, it idealised the national past. Like in politics, the Kresy were treated as an integral part of Polish civilisational area. Poland\u2019s entitlement to the region was supposed to result from centuries-old labour and tribute of blood. Interpreted in this way, the Kresy would lose their inner uniqueness: the Vilnius land blended with the Grodno land; Polesye blended with the Lviv land. The differentia specifica<\/em> of the Kresy was marginalised, and they lost their original characteristics[13]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Poland, until the mid-1950s the Kresy region was absent from official culture due to the fact that the former eastern lands of the Second Polish Republic had been incorporated into the Soviet Union. After 1956, the national literary canon with Mickiewicz and Sienkiewicz was gradually re-introduced to the school curriculum. The notion of \u201cKresy\u201d, however, remained on the blacklist. Several million Poles were connected with this area in different ways, but they were not allowed to discuss it openly. A \u201cphantomisation\u201d of the Kresy occurred The meaning of this notion is best illustrated by the renowned Polish lexicographer W\u0142adys\u0142aw Kopali\u0144ski\u2019s Dictionary of Myths and Cultural Traditions<\/em>. In his 1985 (sic!) opus magnum <\/em>(1360 pages), aside from references to ancient tradition and modern European culture, we can find among the entries both Wincenty Pol\u2019s Mohort<\/em> and The Song of Our Land<\/em>, and the eastern motifs from the works by Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz S\u0142owacki, and Henryk Sienkiewicz. It would be no use trying to find the word Kres<\/em>y[14]<\/a>. Kopali\u0144ski described all attributes of the cultural phenomenon of kresowo\u015b\u0107<\/em> in Polish culture, but omitted the name of the region itself. This shows the mechanism of creating a phantomatic reality in the system of monopolised history by the ideology of \u201csocialist state\u201d; everyone knew that the Borderlands existed, but nobody would mention them publicly. The approach towards the Vilnius and Lviv traditions of two prestigious Polish universities, in Toru\u0144 and in Wroc\u0142aw, was similar. Not only was the student community well aware that the tradition of the universities of Vilnius and Lviv were continued, but, officially, the history of the universities in Toru\u0144 and Wroc\u0142aw began after 1945. At the same time, it did not even cross anybody\u2019s mind to refer to Wroc\u0142aw University using its official name, that is the Boles\u0142aw Bierut University.<\/p>\n

In the Polish People\u2019s Republic, the \u201cnon-existence\u201d of the Kresy was manifested in the general perception of national and patriotic issues in public life (in schools, state celebrations, youth organisations\u2019 activities) when the doctrine of the \u201cinternationalist socialist state\u201d was officially binding. This paradox was able to work solely due to the fact that Poland\u2019s cultural oeuvre was bowdlerised, deprived of passages and interpretations that disrupted the \u201cbrotherly alliance\u201d with the Soviet Union (and also the Kresy region, the USSR\u2019s geographic and political segment). At the same time, the most outstanding artists inherently connected with the Kresy, namely, Mickiewicz, S\u0142owacki, Moniuszko, Szymanowski, Sienkiewicz were not banned. The brutal Sovietisation of the Kresy and the Ukrainian massacres in Volyn were erased from textbooks and, in a broader sense, cultural memory.<\/p>\n

However, the issues of the eastern lands of the Second Polish Republic could be present in public space to some extent as the Kresy were always attainable by the imagination. This was a trend in outstanding Polish prose, which was about escaping into the past and imagination, and also finding one\u2019s identity in the memory of the Kresy (Lithuania, Ukraine, Galicia)[15]<\/a>. Autobiographism, which often appears in this type of literature, allowed the writers to invoke eastern lands (never referred to as the Kresy) by idealising the native land, recalling the myth of Arcadia, describing the brotherhood of various nationalities, religions, languages, and cultures, as well as creating Polish national identity. As Jan B\u0142o\u0144ski claims, this trend existed in the works of \u00e9migr\u00e9 writers (for example Czes\u0142aw Mi\u0142osz, Stanis\u0142aw Vincenz) as well as domestic ones (Tadeusz Konwicki, Andrzej Ku\u015bniewicz, Leopold Buczkowski, to name but a few).<\/p>\n

In his cycle Elegies<\/em>, Jaros\u0142aw Iwaszkiewicz, the most influential creator of literary life in the Polish People\u2019s Republic, outstanding prose writer and poet, lyrically expressed giving up the old myth, and the necessity to create a new image of Poland:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s gone. Closed. Finished. For ever!
\nI don\u2019t stop this water. It\u2019s floating away, it\u2019s leaving.
\nLet it run where all, all rivers disappear,
\nThe old world bent down; a new day is born.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Julian Stryjkowski\u2019s Galician trilogy (mainly Austeria<\/em>) and Ku\u015bniewicz\u2019s novels, the Kresy world was complemented with a colourful picture of Jewish community life that was very different from the popular myth introduced by Maria Rodziewicz\u00f3wna.<\/p>\n

The 1970s set off a boom in heroic adventure films set in the beautiful, severe landscapes of Ukrainian Podolia and Zaporizhia. Moviegoers\u2019 interest in the region was inspired by the filmmaker Jerzy Hofmann and his screen visions of Polish national literary classics. His tremendous success (equalled only by Aleksander Ford\u2019s earlier Knights of the Teutonic Order<\/em>) was mainly due to his film adaptations of the third and second parts of Henryk Sienkiewicz\u2019s Trilogy: Colonel Wolodyjowski<\/em> (premiered in 1969) and The Deluge<\/em> (premiered in 1974). The greatest film productions of the Polish People\u2019s Republic era enjoyed record-breaking attendance in cinemas, as well as countless reruns on both of the two Polish Television channels operating at the time. Later, Hoffman adapted other pre-war borderland classics for the silver screen, including Leper<\/em>, the most popular novel of the interwar period (published sixteen times by 1939), written by Helena Mniszk\u00f3wna.<\/p>\n

Polish readers increasingly broadened their knowledge on the Kresy as a result of clandestine publications, mainly by the Parisian Kultura<\/em> and Literary Institute in Paris. In mimeograph printed books and Radio Free Europe\u2019s programmes, extremely popular were subjects officially banned by the regime censorship. The ban chiefly concerned the Soviet occupation of the Kresy, deportations, and the crime of genocide on Polish soldiers. Between 1982 and 1987, J\u00f3zef Czapski\u2019s book The Inhuman Land <\/em>(1949) was published illegally nine times in Poland. Legally, it appeared in print in 1990. Another World<\/em>, by the outstanding Italian-based writer Gustaw Herling-Grudzi\u0144ski, was also very popular. After 1990, this book became part of the required reading. The two Gulag stories complemented the picture of borderland Polish people\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n

Return to tradition and the argument over bestowing new meanings<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Since 1989, the Kresy and kresowo\u015b\u0107<\/em> have gradually been recovering their mythical dimension. For more than twenty years, Poles have been witnesses to and actors in the process of an enthusiastic release of the longing for the lost Kresy. The inherently human need to remember, sentimentalise, and idealise the native land that was \u201cforbidden\u201d for decades has been incorporated into great ideological narratives and political programmes. When censorship was abolished, the political system was democratised, and the contacts with immigrant circles became legal again, the demand for subjects that were moved from public life to family tradition at best resurfaced. Consequently, societies for promoting the former eastern lands have emerged and developed, the Kresy have become part of political programmes; borderland festivals and performances have been organised. In a short time, the region became part of Poland\u2019s cultural memory again. Monuments to those \u201ckilled in action in the East\u201d, \u201cSiberians\u201d, and the \u201clost Kresy\u201d can be found in prominent points of cemeteries and squares in most Polish cities. It is around them that patriotic ceremonies and national holidays are celebrated. Dozens of societies of friends and enthusiasts of Grodno, Vilnius, and Lviv organise sentimental journeys to their \u201cnative places\u201d as well as borderlanders\u2019 conferences and festivals. Old forgotten customs, rites, and songs have been revived. In interwar Poland varying attitudes between the partitions existed that defined the perception of the Kresy, whereas today \u2013 as a result of the unprecedented transfers of the population during and after the Second World War and the socialist policy of domestic migration \u2013 the interest in the Kresy has gone beyond their actual territory. The Kresy are omnipresent, as their former inhabitants have been dispersed, but also due to the status of the Kresy as one of the main categories of defining Polish culture. Poland is full of unquestioning apologists of the Kresy, as well as critics of the nostalgic, sentimental approach. However, it would be difficult to identify a social group, political party or organisation which has refused to acknowledge them on purpose.<\/p>\n

The contemporary Polish author W\u0142odzimierz Odojewski reeled off the names of artists of the borderlands in one go. Writers and poets: Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz S\u0142owacki, Antoni Malczewski, W\u0142adys\u0142aw Syrokomla, Seweryn Goszczy\u0144ski, Wincenty Pol, Ignacy Kraszewski, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Eliza Orzeszkowa, Maria Rodziewicz\u00f3wna, Stanis\u0142aw Mackiewicz and J\u00f3zef Mackiewicz, Melchior Wa\u0144kowicz, Sergiusz Piasecki, Jaros\u0142aw Iwaszkiewicz, Joseph Conrad (sic!); composers: Stanis\u0142aw Moniuszko, Karol Szymanowski; painters: Artur Grottger, J\u00f3zef Brandt, Juliusz Kossak, Leon Wycz\u00f3\u0142kowski[16]<\/a>. The list could go on and on: Jerzy Giedroyc, Witold Gombrowicz, Bruno Schulz, Stanis\u0142aw Ignacy Witkiewicz, J\u00f3zef Wittlin, Czes\u0142aw Mi\u0142osz, Jerzy Stempowski, Stanis\u0142aw Lem, Witold Wirpsza, Tadeusz Konwicki, Ryszard Kapu\u015bci\u0144ski, Adam Zagajewski, Czes\u0142aw Niemen\u2026 What all these people have in common is the fact that they were born in the eastern lands of the Polish Republic. Above all, however, they are among the most outstanding creators of Polish culture of the 19th and 20th centuries, who incorporated autobiographical topics into their remarkable works in a most original fashion. Most of them spent part of their lives as \u00e9migr\u00e9s, far from their native land, which naturally intensified their emotional attitude towards their \u201clost homeland\u201d and personalised it. The values with which they filled the Kresy have been very diverse, dependent on their lifestories or political views. To some extent, this is illustrated in Odojewski\u2019s selective list quoted above. The semantics of the term \u201ckresy\u201d has gone beyond its definition. Until today, political selectivity (excluding the characters and\/or events which do not fit into the tradition of pre-war myth) has been accompanied by a process of incorporating \u201call things eastern\u201d of the former Republic to the poetics of kresowo\u015b\u0107<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Fundamental arguments about the Kresy have been expressed by two opposing pairs of notions: sacralisation versus demythologisation, and a sense of longing versus commercialisation. It is only the sum of these narratives that makes up a contemporary, hybrid meaning of \u201cthe Kresy\u201d. Despite the dominant trend of sacralisation, new meanings have been given to things; alternative narratives have been created of the Kresy as part of both Poland and its neighbouring countries. Or maybe some of these narratives are so unique that we are witnessing the creation of many alternative memorials, the core of which are the Kresy? Demythologisation has inspired a number of questions in this respect. Perhaps the Kresy will become a \u201cfamily Europe\u201d (Czes\u0142aw Mi\u0142osz, Andrzej Mencwel)? Perhaps they will be absorbed into the broader notion of Central Europe versus Central Eastern Europe (Krzysztof Czy\u017cewski), where they will meet the Ukrainian myth of Galicia (Andrzej Stasiuk, Yuri Andrukhovych)? Maybe they will transform into a mythical, multicultural borderland? Or else, in the course of new decades, they will simply become an attractive region of multicultural Europe, where, centuries ago, the Byzantine East met the Christian West, creating space for the Jewish, Muslim, and Armenian Orient?<\/p>\n

These questions materialise as they have been constantly referred to in journalism (Gazeta Wyborcza<\/em> versus Rzeczpospolita<\/em>), non-profit organisations (Borderland in Sejny, Borussia in Olsztyn, the Lublin quarterly Kresy<\/em>), numerous scientific publications indirectly influencing broad circles of the Polish intelligentsia community (for example the International Cultural Centre in Krak\u00f3w). The condition of being weary with the mythologised interpretation of the Kresy was aptly described in the following complaint to Eliza Orzeszkowa, by the late poet Zbigniew Dominiak, editor of the \u0141\u00f3d\u017a monthly Tygiel Kultury<\/em>:<\/p>\n

No, Miss Eliza, let\u2019s throw away those myths
\nThe mission is over. Here on the Neman is
\nThe sad culture bearer with a bag full of clothes
\nAnd sweets in colourful wrapping<\/p>\n

Absolve this woman from staying at her outpost
\nI see. You\u2019ve lied for a just cause
\nMay my candy sweeten her bitterness
\nAnd let the Neman flow Faraway[17]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many critics have made their motto the much-publicised expression of a necessity to \u201cput an end to the myth of the Kresy\u201d, which was first formulated in 1922 by the French historian, expert in the history of Poland and Ukraine, Daniel Beauvois. This message resulted from a critical analysis of social relationships, especially Polish landed gentry\u2019s attitude towards Ukrainian peasants, as well as an urge to reinterpret the problems of the multi-ethnic region in a way similar to the ULB concept. Emotional tensions connected with the interpretation of the Kresy were revealed as Izabella Cywi\u0144ska\u2019s TV series God\u2019s Lining<\/em> (1997\/1998 and 2003) was broadcast. The region, portrayed in the best tradition of television drama, was shown from an everyday life perspective. The atmosphere of the distant world of countryside near Vilnius, as presented in the series, was more similar to J\u00f3zef Mackiewicz\u2019s naturalistic reportages than to the idyllic imagery that Polish people had developed throughout the restrictive Communist period. During the many months that the show was broadcast, the most heated debate concerning the Kresy was conducted in the Third Polish Republic, which consolidated the opposing viewpoints.<\/p>\n

The background to the most important discussions on the region has been the debate over the \u201cend of the Kresy\u201d. There is a consensus that the day of the Soviet invasion of Poland, namely 17 September 1939, was a groundbreaking moment. To some people, the Kresy ceased to exist as they became part of the history of Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, and also part of the multi-ethnic cultural borderland. Others perceive it as \u201cdestruction\u201d which only requires a commemoration of Polishness[18]<\/a>. Another approach, nostalgic as well as realistic, was formulated by Tadeusz Chrzanowski[19]<\/a>: \u201cFarewell, Kresy. This goodbye, however, is not final, because I wish to return to you both physically and mentally, and I wish to believe that the borders delineated after the Second World War do not divide but connect people; that history, even at its most bloody and cruel, will connect us\u201d.<\/p>\n

Today, the discussion has been polarised chiefly by the sacralisation of the Kresy. I will refer to one example which shows the scale of ideologisation and emotion of this discussion. On 18 April 2010, ten minutes after the funeral of Poland\u2019s presidential couple in the royal crypt of Wawel cathedral, in his commentary for a national Polish television channel, Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski (one of the main advocates of the Kresy revival movement) connected the murder of Polish officers in the Katyn forest (1940) with the plane crash near Smolensk. In the context of those events, he evoked the need to create a new myth of the Kresy, which would be immortalised by founding a \u201cKresy chapel\u201d in Wawel Cathedral. In this way, there was a symbolic realisation of the Polish \u201cJagiellonian idea\u201d, that is to say, the heroic idea of Poland as a superpower containing the former eastern lands. The Kresy would become the Golgotha of Polishness. The sacralisation current is close to the ideology of national and Catholic circles which, over the last few years, have been represented in the Sejm by the Law and Justice party, and in the public space by the Catholic Radio Maryja and high-circulation newspaper Nasz Dziennik<\/em>. Efforts have been made to incorporate borderlanders into the myth of national unity and the mission of ethnic Poles scattered around the world. A leading role in this respect has been played by some programmes of the public TV channel Polonia, targeted at Polish people abroad. In the sacralising narrative, one can find a kind of a cultural schizophrenia, to quote the French-Polish specialist in literature Micha\u0142 Mas\u0142owski: \u201ca dilemma between the Romantic, messianic tradition which aims at connecting Poland, in a unique way, with European universalism, and the 20th-century world torn by wars and genocide\u201d[20]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nostalgia triggers emotions untainted by politics; it idealises one\u2019s beloved distant homeland. In this narrative countless representations and attitudes meet which seem poles apart, ideology-wise. In my opinion, this is exemplified by both Czes\u0142aw Mi\u0142osz and Ryszard Kapu\u015bci\u0144ski, who were among the critics of Polish national megalomania. Mi\u0142osz defined himself not by kresowo\u015b\u0107<\/em> but by his cultural ties with Lithuania \u2013 \u201cmy true spiritual homeland\u201d, \u201cmy family European marches\u201d, and Eastern Europe. However, The Issa Valley, <\/em>depicting the poetic, sublime landscape of the writer\u2019s homeland on the Lithuanian Nev\u0117\u017eis, makes his work part of the Kresy literature. <\/em>Ryszard Kapu\u015bci\u0144ski, like Marion Countess D\u00f6nhoff, who idealised the \u201cEast Prussian soul\u201d, invoked the Kresy ethos: \u201cI have been shaped by all things which shape the so-called borderland man. The borderland man is, always and everywhere, a man between two cultures, the man of the \u2018in-between\u2019. He is a man who from his childhood [\u2026] learns that people are different, and that otherness is simply an inherent part of human life\u201d[21]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On a popular Polish right-wing website, however, we will find words of protest against the sentimentalisation of the Kresy region, and also encouragement to rationalise its perception: \u201cI disagree with your lament over the so-called Kresy, for the names you mentioned [renowned artists born in the Kresy \u2013 R.T.] have functioned in Polish culture and tradition because they are great names and, additionally, Polish names, not because of their Kresy connotation. It is similar as regards the Polish immigrants who, over the last two centuries, have been creating Polish culture\u201d[22]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Such a statement could also be published in a liberal Polish paper, because the different approaches to the issue of the Kresy do not directly reflect the different political viewpoints.<\/p>\n

Likewise, the commercial aspect of the Kresy, which have become rather trendy, concerns different political options. This is manifested by the development of sentimental tourism of Polish people to the Kresy Wschodnie, a souvenir industry, and restaurants serving the region\u2019s cuisine. The nostalgia and mythology of the Kresy have produced innumerable commemorative publications, picture albums, and guidebooks, and also souvenirs and gadgets. Kresy websites have had approximately 1.11 million views, but the Virtual Museum Kresy \u2013 Siberia has had only about 9000 views, although no Polish museum devoted to the Kresy has been established so far. Unexpectedly, the Kresy and Ziemie Odzyskane (Regained Territories) were associated in a non-political manner, during the 2010 presidential campaign, by Bronis\u0142aw Komorowski, who invoked his family\u2019s place of birth in Lithuania, and his birthplace, namely, Lower Silesia. He mentioned his origin in an ideology-free, casual manner, so as to appear a good guy. Judging by electronic media, newspapers, and the semantics of everyday life, we can definitely conclude that this demythologised way of defining the Kresy is now dominant in Poland.<\/p>\n

Translated from the Polish by Pawe\u0142 \u0141opatka<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Literature<\/p>\n

Daniel Beauvois, Tr\u00f3jk\u0105t ukrai\u0144ski. Szlachta, carat i lud na Wo\u0142yniu, Podolu i Kijowszczy\u017anie 1793\u20131914<\/em>, Lublin 2005.<\/p>\n

Krzysztof Buchowski, Litwomani i polonizatorzy. Mity, wzajemne postrzeganie i stereotypy w stosunkach polsko-litewskich w pierwszej po\u0142owie XX wieku<\/em>, Bia\u0142ystok 2006.<\/p>\n

Dziedzictwo kres\u00f3w \u2013 nasze wsp\u00f3lne dziedzictwo?<\/em>, ed. Jacek Purchla, Krak\u00f3w 2006.<\/p>\n

Encyklopedia Kres\u00f3w<\/em>, Krak\u00f3w [undated].<\/p>\n

Europa nieprowincjonalna: przemiany na ziemiach wschodnich dawnej Rzeczypospolitej (Bia\u0142oru\u015b, Litwa, \u0141otwa, Ukraina, wschodnie pogranicze III Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej) w latach 1772\u20131999<\/em>, ed. Krzysztof Jasiewicz, Warszawa 1999.<\/p>\n

Boles\u0142aw Hadaczek, Historia literatury kresowej<\/em>, Szczecin 2008.<\/p>\n

Jacek Kolbuszewski, Kresy<\/em>, Wroc\u0142aw 1996.<\/p>\n

Kresy \u2013 poj\u0119cie i rzeczywisto\u015b\u0107. Zbi\u00f3r studi\u00f3w<\/em>, ed. Kwiryna Handtke, Warszawa 1997.<\/p>\n

Kresy na nowo odkryte. Wsp\u00f3lne dziedzictwo Polski i Ukrainy<\/em>, Krak\u00f3w 2007.<\/p>\n

Andrzej Romanowski, Prawdziwy koniec Rzeczy Pospolitej<\/em>, Krak\u00f3w 2006.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Marcin Kr\u00f3l, Romantyzm. Piek\u0142o i niebo Polak\u00f3w<\/em>, Warszawa 1998, p. 4; cf. Maria Janion, P\u0142acz genera\u0142a. Eseje o wojnie<\/em>, Warszawa 1998.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Jacek Kolbuszewski, Kresy<\/em>, Wroc\u0142aw 1996, pp. 84\u201385.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>Magdalena Mici\u0144ska, Inteligencja na rozdro\u017cach 1864\u20131914<\/em>, Warszawa 2008, p. 110.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>Boles\u0142aw Hadaczek, Historia literatury kresowej<\/em>, Szczecin 2008, pp. 54 and 52\u201357 and 68\u201376. Cf. Daniel Beauvois, Nowoczesne manipulowanie sarmatyzmem \u2013 czy szlachcic na zagrodzie by\u0142 obywatelem?,<\/em> in: (ed.) Przemys\u0142aw Czapli\u0144ski, Nowoczesno\u015b\u0107 i sarmatyzm<\/em>, Pozna\u0144 2011, pp. 121\u2013140.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> B. Hadaczek, Historia literatury kresowej<\/em>, op. cit., p. 119.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Maria-Dunin Kozicka, Burza od Wschodu. Wspomnienia z Kijowszczyzny<\/em>, Krak\u00f3w 1925.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Kornel Makuszy\u0144ski, Radosne i smutne<\/em>, Warszawa 1922, p. 78.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Serce wydarte z polskiej piersi. Lw\u00f3w w poezji<\/em>, Warszawa 1993, p. 186.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Roman Wapi\u0144ski, Kresy w polskiej my\u015bli politycznej w XIX i XX wieku<\/em>, in: Kresy \u2013 poj\u0119cie i rzeczywisto\u015b\u0107<\/em>, by Kwiryna Handke, Warszawa 1997, pp. 100\u2013101; cf. Mi\u0119dzy Polsk\u0105 etniczn\u0105 a historyczn\u0105<\/em>, Wroc\u0142aw 1988 (in the series: Polska my\u015bl polityczna XIX i XX wieku<\/em>, vol. VI, ed. Wojciech Wrzesi\u0144ski).<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Hanna W\u00f3jcik-\u0141agan, Litswini i stosunki polsko-litewskie w podr\u0119cznikach historycznych lat 1918\u20131939<\/em>, in: Mi\u0119dzy Wschodem a Zachodem<\/em>, ed. Hanna Dyl\u0105gowa, Miros\u0142aw Filipowicz, Lublin 1994, pp. 31\u201342; Karol Sanojca, Obraz s\u0105siad\u00f3w w szkolnictwie powszechnym Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej<\/em>, Wroc\u0142aw 2003, pp. 118\u2013128.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Przesiedlenie ludno\u015bci polskiej z Kres\u00f3w Wschodnich do Polski 1944\u20131947<\/em>, ed. Stanis\u0142aw Ciesielski, Warszawa 1999, pp. 11\u201312 and 48\u201349.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Cf. Leszek Szaruga, Kresowa lekcja \u201eKultury\u201d paryskiej<\/em>, in: Tematy polsko-bia\u0142oruskie<\/em>, ed. Robert Traba, Olsztyn 2003, pp. 162\u2013171.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> J. Kolbuszewski, Legenda Kres\u00f3w w literaturze polskiej XIX i XX w.<\/em>, op.cit., p. 52; cf. Rafa\u0142 Stobiecki, Obraz Kres\u00f3w Wschodnich w historiografii polskiej na uchod\u017astwie po 1945 r.<\/em>, [in:] Wielokulturowe \u015brodowisko historyczne Lwowa w XIX i XX w.<\/em>, vol. IV, eds J. Maternicki, L. Zaszkilniak, Lw\u00f3w\u2013Rzesz\u00f3w 2006, pp. 77\u201392.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> The publisher (the prestigious Pa\u0144stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy) failed to correct this obvious omission even in the fifth, \u201crevised\u201d edition (1996)!<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a> Jan B\u0142o\u0144ski refers to this phenomenon as \u201cimmigration of imagination\u201d, in: Bez\u0142adne rozwa\u017cania starego krytyka, kt\u00f3ry zastanawia si\u0119, jak napisa\u0142by histori\u0119 prozy polskiej w latach istnienia Polski Ludowej<\/em>, Teksty Drugie<\/em> 1990, issue 1.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/a> Kresy. Zapomniana ojczyzna<\/em>, wst\u0119p [introduction by] W\u0142odzimierz Odojewski, fotografie [photographs by] Krzysztof Hejke, Warszawa [2007], n. pag.<\/p>\n

[17]<\/a> Bohatyrowicze, 23 czerwca 1996<\/em>, in: Tematy polsko-litewskie<\/em>, ed. by Robert Traba, Olsztyn 1999, pp. 160\u2013162.<\/p>\n

[18]<\/a> Krzysztof Jasiewicz, Zag\u0142ada polskich Kres\u00f3w: ziemia\u0144stwo polskie na Kresach P\u00f3\u0142nocno-Wschodnich Rzeczypospolitej pod okupacj\u0105 sowieck\u0105 1939\u20131941<\/em>, Warszawa 1998.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/a> Tadeusz Chrzanowski, Kresy, czyli obszary t\u0119sknot<\/em>, Krak\u00f3w 2001, p. 220.<\/p>\n

[20]<\/a> Micha\u0142 Mas\u0142owski, Problemy to\u017csamo\u015bci. Szkice mickiewiczowskie i (post)romantyczne<\/em>, Lublin 2006, p. 315.<\/p>\n

[21]<\/a> Cz\u0142owiek z bagna<\/em>, z Ryszardem Kapu\u015bci\u0144skim rozmawia Barbara N. \u0141opie\u0144ska, Przekr\u00f3j<\/em>, 13.07.2003.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/a> Jerzy Ka\u0142wak in a discussion forum, replying to: Stanis\u0142aw Srokowski<\/a>, Czy polskie KRESY jeszcze co\u015b znacz\u0105<\/em>? [Do the Polish Eastern Borderlands still mean anything?], www.prawica.net\/node\/4171 (May 1st 2011).<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/section>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":2269,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[256,337],"region":[],"kraj":[],"magazyn":[235],"class_list":["post-2510","artykul","type-artykul","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-central-europe-en","tag-history","magazyn-herito-08en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Kresy as a Memorial: the Long History of Persistence - herito<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The interest in the Kresy has gone beyond their actual territory. 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