GERMAN POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO LANDS OF FORMER POLISH-LITHUANIAN COMMNWEALTH IN WORLD WAR I ERA. PRO-LITHUANIAN AND PRO-BELARUSIAN, OR DIRECTED AGAINST POLISH ASPIRATIONS? (original) (raw)
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The legacy of territorial changes in the treaty of Brest-Litowsk. Polish Eastern Border 1918-1921
The legacy of territorial changes in the treaty of Brest-Litowsk. Polish Eastern Border 1918-1921 (in:) Ostmitteleuropäische Friedensschlüsse zwischen Mittelalter und Gegenwart, ed. by M. Wołoszyn, M. Hardt, Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2021, 2021
At the time when World War I broke out, the territorial order on the Polish lands was regulated by the provisions of the Congress of Vienna, which had introduced a new security system in Europe. From the moment when the Congress created the Kingdom of Poland in 1815, the eastern border of this autonomous polity was viewed in Europe as the borderland between the Polish lands and Russia. With time, the term "Russian Poland" came to be used in reference to the Polish lands ruled by the Romanov Empire. This name referred only to the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, excluding the areas of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth annexed by Russia in the aftermath of the Partitions of Poland. 1 The political map of Europe before the outbreak of World War I in 1914 differed markedly from the ethnic map. Many nations which had experienced their rebirth in the nineteenth century did not have their own independent states. The Polish people were one of such nations. World War I, in which Poland's partitioners (Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russian) found themselves on opposing sides, brought about deep territorial changes in Eastern Europe. The offensive of the Central Powers in 1915 resulted in their armies seizing Warsaw on 5 August, followed by the occupation of the whole Kingdom of Poland. It was divided into two occupation zones, an Austrian and a German one. The armies of the Central Powers reached the Riga-Dvinsk-Baranavichy-Pinsk-Tarnopol line. 2 Germany and Austria-Hungary's announcement (5 November 1916) of the declaration which promised to reincarnate the Kingdom of Poland was the first genuine step in the process of internationalising the Polish independence cause during World War I. It was also a reflection of the German Empire seizing the initiative and playing an increasingly stronger role in the alliance with Austria-Hungary. 3 The February Revolution, which abolished tsarism, opened up new possibilities of a German expansion in the East. On
A ghost was haunting the 19 th-century Europe – a ghost of the Polish Commonwealth: a great country, with centuries-old tradition of statehood within more or less stable borders, although borders that would constantly and gradually be cut out in the East. The borders from the year 1772, that is from before the first partition, were strongly ingrained in the historical consciousness of not only the country's citizens or their heirs, but equally in the memory of the political elites of the great powers that executed the partitions and benefited from them. The Commonwealth, through an unprecedented act, was erased from the map of the continent at the moment when her elites have already undertaken – as the first political community in Central and Eastern Europe – to construct a modern nation. Yet what nation precisely? A Polish nation, naturally. One that would write in and speak the Polish language (as proved with the textbooks prepared by the Commission of National Education), and would be less decentralized politically than before (the Constitution of May 3, 1791, made no reference to Lithuania). Should the Poland have survived the European crises at the end of the 18 th century, and continued to implement the program of modernization, it would have to face, sooner or later, the great tensions rooted in those very matters: the language of education, administration, army – the three institutions, which in other 19 th-century states were turning " peasants into French " , or into Germans, or Italians… Under the partitions, the birth of new national projects, competing with the Polish efforts on the territories of the former Commonwealth, run in parallel to yet a different phenomenon: a more or less systematic attempts by the administrations of the partitioning powers, to " de-Polonize " the territories under their control, to weaken the still-dominant Polish cultural and economic elements – in order to strengthen control over them by the imperial center, which was founded on a much different cultural and ethnic substrate: Russian and German. The competition between the new masters and the legacy of the former ones, allowed the national programs of the ethnic inhabitants of those territories to come to maturity, particularly the Lithuanian and Ukrainian ones, but also Belarusian. On the other hand, in the process of modernizing and educating – in the sphere of politics as well – the " masses " , formerly passive in their public life, the Polish elements were moving westward, beyond the 1772 borders, onto the territories long-lost by the Polish state to her western, German-speaking neighbors – onto Pomerania and Silesia. Bound by the historical obligation in the form of pre-partition borders, by the consequences of the de-Polonization policies pursued for over a century by the partitioning powers (with the exception of Austro-Hungary in the post-1866 period), and finally by the realities springing from the changes in the concept of a nation – as the legitimizing fundament for creating and shaping the statehood – the new " mental map " of Poland would be constructed at the turn of the 20 th century. A map with vague contours. The real map of the reconstructed Polish Republic was the result of struggles. The primary forces in that struggle were the geopolitical successors to the partitioning powers: Soviet Russia (for a time the " white " Russia as well) and Germany. Partaking in that struggle were also those forces, which supported the political-national programs competing with the Polish one on the eastern borderlands of the former Commonwealth: Ukrainian, Lithuanian and, the weakest of them, the Belarusian program. A significant influence on the events and the results of that struggle was exerted by the western powers, victors of World War I – mainly Great Britain and France, and to a lesser extent the United States – which nourished the ambitions of dictating the new European order founded on the compromise between the proclaimed principles (the right of nations to self-determination) and their own strategic and economic interests. Quite naturally, the Polish society was a part to that struggle, with its choices and determination, with the competing (yet at the same time – a fact to remember – essentially convergent in their aims) political programs and visions of the reconstructed Poland, and foremost with the Polish army, which, through its " spirit " and organization, was the key to those programs being either implemented or, conversely, remaining unfulfilled.
Trimarium, 2023
The end of World War I brought the collapse of three multina- tional monarchies, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany, in Central and Eastern Europe, which offered the societies living in the region a chance to organize their own state structures. In Poland, the political elites agreed that the western border would be demarcated at the Paris Peace Conference, while chances for a more independent resolution were seen in the east. There were two competing notions of the Polish presence in this area: the incorporationist view, promoted by nationalists and advocating the division of the so-called partitioned terri- tories between Poland and Russia, and the federal view, under which socialists and Pilsudski supporters championed the establishment of independent Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus, which were bound to it by alliances, on the eastern fringes of the Republic. Although the final decisions at Riga were closer to the former, the territory of Poland that was outlined in both concepts raised objections from Ukrainians and Lithuanians. Germany reacted similarly to demands that Pomerania, Greater Poland and Upper Silesia be annexed to Poland, and Czechs opposed the annexation of Cieszyn to Silesia. These demands were only moderately strengthened by the ethnic predomi- nance of Poles in these areas, but the final decisions were influ- enced by the pressure of uprisings and the goodwill of France. The borders postulated by the nationalists and the Pilsuds- kiites corresponded with their vision of policy toward national minorities. The nationalists believed that Slavic minorities, who were denied the right to a separate state, should be assim- ilated. The Pilsudskiites, on the other hand, advocated state assimilation: they allowed religious, cultural and linguistic separateness of national minorities on condition of loyalty to the Polish state. Ultimately, however, the Second Republic failed to develop a long-term and consistent policy towards national minorities, as well as towards Poles living abroad.
The Journal of Modern History, 2017
, the restraints keeping the Polish Question in check became one of the First World War's earliest casualties. From the confl ict's opening days, the central Eu ro pean Great Powers worked to mobilize Polish discontent in the ser vice of their respective war eff orts, sending promises of a bright future for Polish national aspirations ahead of their armies as they marched into battle. Virtually overnight, Polish nationalism was transformed from a source of potential international instability into a weapon in the strug gle for military and po liti cal mastery on the eastern front. Germany, despite its history of hostility to Polish nationalism, took an active role in this initial drive for Polish sympathies, but it gave little serious thought to what it might actually do if the "fortunes of war" brought German armies into Rus sia's Polish territories. When these came under German occupation in 1915, this failure of strategic imagination was remedied by the ambitious German Governor-General, Hans Hartwig von Beseler. Over the course of his tenure in Poland, Beseler became convinced that it would be in Germany's best interests to support-and thereby control-the creation of a new Polish state in central Eu rope. A dependent Polish state, he reasoned, would be a useful ally in a potential future war with Russia-or Austria. Beseler also believed that there neither could nor should be a return to the era of the partitions; the constant upheavals of that era had shown that a diff erent answer to the Polish Question was essential to the stability of central Eu rope. Moreover, the war-by
Two main myths constitute the founding basis of popular Polish ethnic nationalism: first, that Poland-Lithuania was an early Poland, and second, that the partitioning powers at all times unwaveringly pursued policies of Germanization and Russification. In the former case, the myth appropriates a common past today shared by Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. In the latter case, Polonization is written out of the picture entirely, as also are variations and changes in the polices of Germanization and Russification. Taken together, the two myths to a large degree obscure (and even falsify) the past, making comprehension of it difficult, if not impossible. This article seeks to disentangle the knots of anachronisms that underlie the Polish national master narrative, in order to present a clearer picture of the interplay between the policies of Germanization, Polonization, and Russification as they unfolded in the lands of the partitioned Poland-Lithuania during the long nineteenth century.
Germanization, Polonization, and Russification in the partitioned lands of Poland-Lithuania
Nationalities Papers, 2013
Two main myths constitute the founding basis of popular Polish ethnic nationalism: first, that Poland-Lithuania was an early Poland, and second, that the partitioning powers at all times unwaveringly pursued policies of Germanization and Russification. In the former case, the myth appropriates a common past today shared by Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. In the latter case, Polonization is written out of the picture entirely, as also are variations and changes in the polices of Germanization and Russification. Taken together, the two myths to a large degree obscure (and even falsify) the past, making comprehension of it difficult, if not impossible. This article seeks to disentangle the knots of anachronisms that underlie the Polish national master narrative, in order to present a clearer picture of the interplay between the policies of Germanization, Polonization, and Russification as they unfolded in the lands of the partitioned Poland-Lithuania during the long ni...
1993
The notion East Prussia concerns an area of the former Electoral Prussia including Ermland annexed in 1772. After World War the First, according to the peace treaty of Versailles of 28 June, 1919 the area should remain under German sovereignty. However, an attachment of its southern part should be decided by its population in a plebiscite.1 As the results of the plebiscite were unfavourable to Poland, nearly the whole territory of East Prussia belonged to the Third Reich before World War the Second. It constituted an exclave of the Third Reich, and the treaty of Versailles contained provisions dealing with the freedom of passage between the Reich and East Prussia through Polish terri tory.2 The problem of the so-called corridor of Pomerania, causing numerous conflicts, the long boundary between Poland and East Prussia, and an extreme militarization of East Prussia, constituted potentially a great danger for the security and territorial integrity of the Polish State. It should be re...
2013
Recently uncovered records of the Soviet consulate in Königsberg retrieved from the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation are used in this article to analyze relations between the USSR and Germany in 1925—1930. The author focuses on the role of the “Polish question”, which largely affected the nature of bilateral elations. The consulate documents indicate that Soviet diplomacy aspired to exploit the differences between Poland and Germany over a wide range of issues (the geopolitical situation of East Prussia, the position of national minorities, the problem of transit through the Polish corridor, the status of the Free city of Danzig, etc.). Soviet consuls carefully observed political life in Königsberg and the province. At the same time, they were paying close attention to an increase in the nationalist and fascist attitudes. On the other hand, they emphasized the aspirations of the local political and business elite to develop economic cooperation with the Soviet Union. The People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs tried to transform East Prussia into a Soviet lobby in the German government. These plans were not implemented at that time, but the 1920s ideas of cooperation between the two states on the anti-Polish basis were put into practice on the eve of World War II.
Nation und Grenzen. Bildung neuer Staaten in Ost- und Mitteleuropa nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg, 2022
This study examines the action taken by Polish politicians and diplomats aimed at restoring Poland’s sovereignty and its borders lost as a result of the triple partition at the end of the 18th century. The author presents the major organisations and related independence activists during the Great War. He further discusses the efforts and struggle of the Polish delegation in Paris, mainly in terms of the border with Germany, and then the diplomatic and military mobilisation of the newly created state for international recognition of the eastern border.