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The Historical, Cultural and Political Background
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
I Do not have to relate the story of the partitions of Poland, 1772, 1793 and 1795. In two decades Russia took the greatest part of Poland, including in the first place all those now so-called eastern Polish borderlands, which had coexisted with Poland for exactly four centuries. After the Napoleonic War and the Congress of Vienna Russia obtained even more, because to these lands was added the central part of Poland, called the Kingdom of Poland. Poland fought against this domination— in the insurrection of Kosciuszko in 1794, the insurrection of 1830–31, the insurrection of 1863, the revolutionary movements of 1905. These insurrections and these movements produced three results: (l) they maintained and preserved the spirit of independence in the nation; (2) they maintained and preserved in European public opinion the still international character of the political question, of which they became a bloody symbol; (3) they augmented and deepened the Russian oppression. Indeed, most of the cultural achievements that Poland had made were destroyed; on the other hand, nothing was done to continue the natural development of the country, which, just because of that constant arrest of its development, was not able to follow the march of time. The University of Wilno was liquidated; the Lyceum of Krzemieniec was liquidated, and with its wealth the Russians organized their Russian University of Kiev. Museums, libraries, collections of art were confiscated and evacuated. Catholic churches were converted into Russian churches and monasteries.
- Type
- The Russo-Polish Dispute
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1944
References
* We are pleased to present to our readers two articles on the Russo-Polish dispute, one by Professor Lednicki (Harvard), a prominent Polish student of Russian civilization, the other by Professor Timasheff (Fordham), author of Religion in Soviet Russia.
1 See my article “Russia and her Culture,” New Europe, New York, 1941Google Scholar.
* The father of the author. Ed.
2 “The Treaty of Versailles did not fix the Polish-Russian frontier: it did, however, in Article 87, empower the Principal Allied Powers to fix at a later date those frontiers of Poland about which the treaty contained no provisions. The so-called Curzon Line (it was called that only later, since Lord Curzon was not in fact its author) was merely a temporary delimitation of the territories which the Supreme Council of the Allies on December 8, 1919 recognized as indisputably Polish. It was, moreover, clearly stated in the text that this delimitation did not in the least prejudice any Polish claims to the territories east of this line. It should be added that this line, drawn on December 8, 1919, concerned only territories formerly included in Russian Poland, while it did not at all affect Eastern Galicia, which before 1914 belonged to Austria-Hungary. The Soviet Government never considered the Curzon Line even as a basis for discussion in the drawing of a frontier between Poland and Russia; all the frontiers proposed by Soviet Russia were far to the east of the Curzon Line… When the Soviet Army invaded Poland in 1920, thrusting deep into her territories, and Lord Curzon made his mediation proposals, in which he recalled the decision of the Supreme Allied Council of December 8, 1919, the Soviet Government stated that it was prepared to grant more favorable frontiers to Poland than those suggested by the Curzon Line. (Namely, the so-called circular signed by Lenin, Trotsky, and Chicherin, stated inter alia: ‘The real frontiers which Soviet Russia will establish with the representatives of the Polish people will be to the east of the frontier marked out by the imperialists in London and Paris’—quoted from The Times, July 22, 1920.)”—DrWeyers, J.: Poland and Russia, (London 1943) pp. 15–16Google Scholar.
Eloquent enough is the statement of The Creai Soviel Encyclopaedia (vol. 46, p. 272): “On March 18, 1921, the Treaty of Peace was signed, and in accordance with its provisions, Poland kept Galicia and a part of White Ruthenia. However, the Soviet-Polish frontier was far less advantageous for the White Poles than the one which was proposed to Poland by the Soviet Government in April, 1920; the frontier determined after the Polish-Soviet war runs 50 to 100 kilometers to the west of the line which was suggested at the beginning of the war. This means that Soviet Russia emerged victorious even from this struggle against the forces of counter-revolution.”
3 DrWeyers, J., Poland and Russia, (London. 1943) p. 51Google Scholar.
4 Grabski, Stanislaw: The Polish-Soviet Frontier (London. 1943)Google Scholar.
5 “The Polish character of the regions of Grodno and Wilno was an unpleasant surprise to the German occupation authorities, the so-called Ober-Ost, which between April 1 and June 30, 1916, ordered a census to be taken there. The purpose was to provide arguments for the inclusion of these regions in Lithuania, then organized as a German protectorate. The census, however, showed that all along the zone stretching from Bialystok through Grodno and Wilno up to the Latvian frontier the Poles were everywhere in an absolute majority.” DrWeyers, J., op. cit., pp. 29–30Google Scholar. See the figures quoted by the author, ibidem.
6 See Dr.Weyers, J., op. cit., p. 28Google Scholar. “The Poles,” Dr. Weyers says justly, “constituted, therefore, numerically the largest national group. They were mainly resident there for many centuries, and were not the outcome of artificial Polonization. A part of the area under Soviet occupation was inhabited by a purely Polish population, in many parts the Poles constituted an absolute majority. The districts of Lemza and Bialystok, lying to the west of the so-called Curzon Line… were and are as Polish as the country around Warsaw and Cracow. This region has an area of 6,370 square miles, with a population of one million, of which over 80 per cent were Poles, the remainder being mostly Jews” (op. cit., p. 29). These districts were occupied by Soviet Russia in 1939–1941.
7 Op. cit., pp. 50–51.
8 Today the Editor of the Nineteenth Century and After expresses the same opinions and ideas: “The Russian declaration of January 11 has uncovered the biggest political crisis of the second World War so far. All Europe is looking on. The conflict between Russia and Poland does not concern the “Curzon Line,” it does not really concern the frontiers of Poland or her demographic structure. The questions are not: Shall her eastern border be shifted westward? Shall she lose her eastern territories, or, losing them, acquire in their place, western territories at the expense of Germany? The question is: Shall Poland exist? Beyond this, there is another question: Shall Europe exist—the Europe we have known, and hope to know again, the Europe for which the war is being fought, the Europe which alone gives the War any meaning, a Europe that is neither anarchy, nor servitude, the Europe that is a balanced and integral whole, the Europe of systems and ideas, varied and yet related, the Europe of many sovereign states, big and small. The Europe that is so much more than a geographical expression. Europe, the stronghold of the Graeco-Roman and Christian heritage? That is the question. Without Poland there can be no such Europe. That is why, in September,. 1939, England and the Empire went to war…” (Op cit. p. 49.)
9 However in present Russia as never before: in prerevolutionary Russia man as such was valued more than perhaps anywhere else. See my article: “Russia and her Culture,” New Europe (New York, 1941Google Scholar.)