Imaginations and Configurations of Polish Society Polen: Kultur – Geschichte – Gesellschaft Poland: Culture – History – Society Herausgegeben von / Edited by Yvonne Kleinmann Band 3 / Volume 3 Imaginations and Configurations of Polish Society From the Middle Ages through the Twentieth Century Edited by Yvonne Kleinmann, Jürgen Heyde, Dietlind Hüchtker, Dobrochna Kałwa, Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov, Katrin Steffen and Tomasz Wiślicz WALLSTEIN VERLAG Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Deutsch-Polnischen Wissenschaftsstiftung (DPWS) und der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (Emmy Noether-Programm, Geschäftszeichen KL 2201/1-1). Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. © Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2017 www.wallstein-verlag.de Vom Verlag gesetzt aus der Garamond und der Frutiger Umschlaggestaltung: Susanne Gerhards, Düsseldorf © SG-Image unter Verwendung einer Fotografie (Y. Kleinmann) von »Staffel«, Nationalstadion Warschau Lithografie: SchwabScantechnik, Göttingen ISBN (Print) 978-3-8353-1904-2 ISBN (E-Book, pdf) 978-3-8353-2999-7 Contents Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX Note on Transliteration und Geographical Names . . . . . . . . X Yvonne Kleinmann Introductory Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XI An Essay on Polish History Moshe Rosman How Polish Is Polish History? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 1. Political Rule and Medieval Society in the Polish Lands: An Anthropologically Inspired Revision Jürgen Heyde Introduction to the Medieval Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Stanisław Rosik The »Baptism of Poland«: Power, Institution and Theology in the Shaping of Monarchy and Society from the Tenth through Twelfth Centuries . . . . . . . . . 46 Urszula Sowina Spaces of Communication: Patterns in Polish Towns at the Turn of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times . . . . . . . . . . 54 Iurii Zazuliak Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia: Critical Reconsiderations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Jürgen Heyde Migration and Ethnicity in Medieval Poland: »Ethnic Markers« in a Historical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 5 Contents 2. Multiple Loyalties: Coexistence of Political, Territorial and Religious Self-Conceptions in Early Modern Communities Yvonne Kleinmann and Tomasz Wiślicz Introduction to the Early Modern Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Towards an Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Karin Friedrich Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands: Bogusław Radziwiłł (1620-1669) and the Problem of Treason . . . 143 Bogumił Szady Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century: A Geographical-Historical Approach 174 3. Facing a Fantasy: Concepts of Community in the Imperial Setting of the Nineteenth Century Dietlind Hüchtker and Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov Introduction to the Nineteenth-Century Section . . . . . . . . . . 209 Karsten Holste Reform from Above and Politics from Below: Peasants in the Prussian Partition of Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Ostap Sereda On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Polish Theater in Russian-Ruled Kyiv before 1863 . . . . . . . . . 238 Maciej Górny Identity under Scrutiny: The First World War in Local Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 6 Contents 4. Counter-Narratives of the Twentieth Century? Re-Configurations due to Mobility, Violence and Transformation Dobrochna Kałwa and Katrin Steffen Introduction to the Twentieth-Century Section . . . . . . . . . . . 281 Kornelia Kończal The Quest for German Property in East Central Europe after 1945: The Semantics of Plunder and the Sense of Reconstruction . . . . . 291 Dietlind Hüchtker Gender, Youth, and Popular Culture: Telling Polish History during Socialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Olga Linkiewicz Bearers of Local Stories: Memories of the Eastern Borderlands and the Grand Narratives of the Polish Kresy . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 Winson Chu »Something has destroyed my memory«: Stalingrad and Karl Dedecius’s Second World War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377 7 Acknowledgements This book is the result of the international conference Imaginations and Configurations of Polish Society: From the Middle Ages through the 20th Century, initiated by the Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies and co-organized with the Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IH PAN), Warsaw, and the Center for the History and Culture of East Central Europe (GWZO, now the Leibniz Institute for History and Culture of Eastern Europe), Leipzig. The conference that convened in Halle and Leipzig in October 2014 was nourished by perspectives from history and its neighboring disciplines. It aimed at both an appreciation and critical revision of historical narratives on Polish society in longue durée as well as at the development of new research questions and perspectives. The articles presented here are extensively reworked versions of most of the papers presented; in addition a few new contributions were integrated into the volume. The Polish-German Foundation for Academic Cooperation (PNFN) acted as primary sponsor of the conference as well as of this volume. Additional funding was provided by the German Research Foundation (Emmy Noether Program, GZ KL 2201/1-1) and the GWZO e.V. via the funding priority »Centers of the Humanities« of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (FKZ 01UG1410). The editors would like to take this occasion to thank all those who agreed to start this joint venture and who participated in the conference, and especially those who faced the editing process in discussing and revising their articles. We offer special thanks to Michael G. Müller, who long before the conference was an inspiring interlocutor in conversations on the varying political contexts and spaces of Polish history; to Wojciech Kriegseisen, Director of the Institute for History of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IH PAN), who agreed to start this cooperative project; to Christian Lübke, Director of the GWZO, who participated in and hosted part of the conference; and to the University Library and the Franckesche Stiftungen in Halle, where parts of the conference took place. Within the Aleksander Brückner Center we are particularly grateful to Paulina Gulińska-Jurgiel and Dorothea Warneck, both research fellows, who carried the organizational responsibility for the whole event. On their part they could not have done without the administrative skills of Sylvia Opel. We also wish IX Note on Transliteration and Geographical Names to thank our students Patrick Ulm and Paweł Gorszczyński, who assisted in the organization of the conference, as well as Kay Schmücking, who supported the editing process by his accuracy in text-editing and critical remarks. Silke Dutzmann, cartographer at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig, generously contributed the maps to Moshe Rosman’s essay. Joseph E.B. Hogan and Jonathan Long, through their English copy-editing, substantially improved the texts, which were written mostly by non-native speakers. Last, but not least, we would like to thank Christiane Weber and Janet Boatin, who steadily accompanied and supported the book project at Wallstein publishing house. The editors Note on Transliteration and Geographical Names The transliteration of Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian follows the Library of Congress system, the exception being that, for the sake of readability, »ь« (soft sign) in Ukrainian is represented by an apostrophe (’) only in the footnotes and bibliographies, but not in the main text. We have not held to a coherent use of place names in the case of cities, towns, and villages, as many of them were situated in varying political and linguistic contexts. Each author has decided on the suitable name(s) in the individual historical setting, e.g. Kiev, Kijów, or Kyiv. X Yvonne Kleinmann Introductory Remarks The cover of this book shows a digitally altered version of Adam Roman’s sculpture Sztafeta (Relay Team), dating from 1955, which depicts three runners exactly at the moment when one of them is handing over the baton to his team mate. The sculpture was originally created for the 10th-Anniversary Stadium (Stadion Dziesięciolecia) in Warsaw, which for its part was built to commemorate the Manifesto of the Polish Committee for National Liberation from 22 July 1944, installed by Iosif Stalin as a transitional government of Poland after liberation from German occupation. On the one hand the Manifesto recognized the democratic Polish March Constitution of 1921, but on the other hand it was meant to introduce Communist rule in Poland.1 The use of the stadium that was conceptualized as a venue for soccer matches, athletics competitions, but also for Party and state festivities, developed just as contradictorily. Among others, the stadium was the site of the official Harvest Festival on 8 September 1968 where Ryszard Siwiec, a former soldier of the nationalist Home Army, accountant, and anti-communist activist, immolated himself publicly in protest of the military invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in Czechoslovakia and of socialist rule in Poland.2 In 1983 it also hosted the Papal mass of John Paul II, which was attended by 100,000 people. After the collapse of state socialism, under administration of a private company the dilapidated stadium was turned into the Fair of Europe (Jarmark Europy), the largest European outdoor bazaar, soon to be perceived as a site of wild capitalism and uncontrollable illegal activities.3 Finally, from 2008 the stadium was demolished to make space for the new National Stadium, which became one of the venues of the European Football Championship in 2012. Roman’s Sztafeta has been retained there in remembrance of the original stadium. 1 Makiłła, Historia prawa, 560. 2 Macedoński, »Siwiecz, Ryszard,« 615-616; Stach, »An Ordinary Man,« 298299. 3 Szulecka, »Obecność cudzoziemców,« 4-7, 18-19. XI Yvonne Kleinmann In 2013, some months after Roman’s death, a commemorative plaque was placed on the sculpture’s pedestal, identifying the artist as a former soldier of the Home Army, a participant of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, and a professor at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts.4 The first two identifications would have been a taboo at the inauguration of the sculpture in 1955. In the context of our book, Roman’s sculpture can be seen as a witness of several transformations in Polish history and society, and also as a part of them. The changing uses of the stadium and the re-contextualization of Roman’s Sztafeta are strongly connected to the notion of configuration, one of the two key concepts that prominently figure in the title of this collection. We refer to Michel Foucault, who in The Order of Things (Les mots et les choses, 1966), understood configuration as an underlying structure of each culture, a »primary code« that finds its manifestation in specific language, schemes of perception, forms of exchange, technics, values, and practices – the »empirical orders« human beings are able to experience.5 Foucault claimed that simultaneous changes in these orders indicate a substantial change in the underlying structure, which he endeavored to demonstrate through examples of changes in the systematization of knowledge in the Humanities from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. Transferring the concept to our example, the practice of a Papal mass in the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in Warsaw points to a fundamental change in the socio-political configuration, in this case to the end of state socialism. We also draw on Norbert Elias’ concept of Figuration (Engl. configuration, figuration) that he introduced in The Civilizing Process (Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, 1939) and elaborated later in What is Sociology? (Was ist Soziologie? 1970). Similar to Foucault, Elias was interested in the forces creating social change. In this context he defined figuration as the never ending, but changing interrelatedness between human beings: If four people sit around a table and play cards together, they form a figuration. Their actions are interdependent. […] By figuration we mean the changing pattern created by the players as a whole – not only by their intellects but by their whole selves, the totality of their dealings in their relationships with each other.6 4 »Sztafeta/Adam Roman.« 5 Foucault, The Order of Things, xx-xxiii; idem, Les mots et les choses, 11-15. 6 Elias, What is Sociology, 130-131; idem, »Was ist Soziologie,« 172-173. XII Introductory Remarks The concept of figuration enabled Elias to demonstrate the permanent connectedness between »individual« and »society.« With regard to the size of (con)figurations he was much more flexible than Foucault; a figuration could, as in the case of the card players, consist of only a few people, but could also embrace classes, nations or whole societies.7 Figuration in Elias’ understanding was also much more concrete or »human« than Foucault’s configuration, which could refer to an abstract philosophical concept such as rationalism.8 How to apply these two understandings of (con)figuration to our endeavor? This volume covers more than one thousand years of »Polish« history. Nevertheless, we are aware of the fact that over the centuries, the territory, contexts of political power, demographic structure and other features of what can be called Poland have varied greatly. These societal transformations and differentiations would get lost in an approach focused on national history. Therefore, in most articles, the perspectives of nation and state will be kept in the background, whereas the dynamics of community and society building are of prior interest. Namely, smaller political, social, or cultural configurations such as local communities, ethno-religious groups, the service network of a nobleman, theater audiences, and youth groups will play a prominent role. However, these configurations in Elias’ sense are repeatedly bound to such ideological concepts as republicanism, nation, empire, and socialism that Foucault would perceive as underlying configurations. Some contributions – such as Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz’s analysis of political language in the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Kornelia Kończal’s examination of the semantics of plundering in the aftermath of World War II – are clearly in search of changes in the »primary code« in Foucault’s sense. Yet it would be unsatisfying and one-dimensioned to read the articles of this volume exclusively as research on social change in longue durée. The second key concept we refer to is imagination, which is located in the broader conceptual field of perception, representation, imagery, discourse, and performance.9 Following an approach inspired by cultural anthropology, we understand imagination as a force or energy that enables human beings to materialize the world. To materialize has two dimensions: humans perceive the world according to their capabilities and from their perspectives; and, with the help of mental 7 Elias, What is Sociology, 131; idem, »Was ist Soziologie,« 174. 8 Foucault, The Order of Things, 54; idem, Les mots et les choses, 68. 9 Mattl and Schulte, »Vorstellungskraft,« 9-10. XIII Yvonne Kleinmann (or real) images, they conceptualize the world and change it according to their fantasies.10 It is important to stress that in this context fantasies are understood not as something unreal or fictitious, but rather as the potential of imagination to restructure a system or order and to create something new. In the same way, Benedict Anderson used the term »imagined communities« in his analysis of nineteenth-century nationalism.11 Using these theoretical considerations, the authors of this volume have generated questions about how various social groups within the »Polish« realm imagined their world, and how such perceptions, images, and ideas of community and society changed over time: What co-existing or competing ideas of community can be identified? Were multiple loyalties part of political culture? In what ways did socially or politically marginalized groups organize and present themselves and thereby shape a new reality? How was historical memory reinvented over the course of political transformation? The book is subdivided into four chronological sections, focusing on the Middle Ages, the early modern period, and the long nineteenth and short twentieth centuries. Each section was coordinated by one or two experts in their respective fields who formulated a specific research perspective: The medieval section concentrates on the dynamics of ethnic markers, namely the communicational processes establishing them. In the early modern section special attention is paid to self-conceptions and representations of social and ethnic groups, whereas the authors exploring the nineteenth century focus on communities, politics, and loyalties and their relation to the concepts of nation and empire. Finally, the authors of the twentieth-century section examine the re-configuration of society, narratives, and memory as a result of violence and migration. Each of the sections will be introduced in depth separately. What can be expected of such a collection? Certainly no solutions to the questions of what was »Poland« or »Polish« at a particular time, but a sharpened awareness for the coexistence and competition of many perspectives and narratives. The definition of Polishness, it seems, is in most cases rather a problem of historiography than of historical actors. 10 Wulf, »Imagination und Performativität,« 159. 11 Anderson, Imagined Communities. XIV Introductory Remarks Bibliography Edited Sources »Sztafeta/Adam Roman – fotorelacja.« Okręg Warszawski Związku Polskich Artystów Plastyków, September 2, 2013. http://web.archive.org/web/ 20131023060912/http://www.owzpap.pl/wydarzenia/139-sztafeta-adamroman-fotorelacja.html. Scholarly Works Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983. Elias, Norbert. »Über den Prozess der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen,« vol. 1. In: Ders. Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 3.1, ed. by Heike Hammer. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1997 (Orig. 1939). —. The Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell, 1982. —. »Was ist Soziologie?« In: Ders. Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, ed. by Annette Treibel. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 2006 (Orig. 1970). —. What is Sociology? New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. Foucault, Michel. Les mots et les choses. Paris: Gallimard, 1966. —. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, ed. by R.D. Laing. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1970. Macedoński, Adam. »Ryszard Adam Siwiec.« In Polski Słownik Biograficzny, vol. 37, 615-616. Warszawa, Kraków: IH PAN, 1997. Makiłła, Dariusz. Historia prawa w Polsce. Warszawa: PWN, 2008. Mattl, Siegfried, Schulte, Christian. »Vorstellungskraft.« In Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften, 2014/2: 9-11. Stach, Sabine. »An Ordinary Man, a National Hero, a Polish Palach? Some Thoughts on the Memorialization of Ryszard Siwiec in the Czech-Polish Context.« Acta Poloniae Historica 113 (2016): 295-313. Szulecka, Monika. »Obecność cudzoziemców na targowisku zlokalizowanym wokół Stadionu Dziesięciolecia z perspektywy kryminologicznej.« CMR Working Papers 24 (2007), issue 82: 1-33. Wulf, Christoph. »Imagination und Performativität. Zur Dynamik der Entwicklung von Kultur.« In Rahmenwechsel Kulturwissenschaften, ed. by Peter Hanenberg, Isabel Capeloa Gil, Filomena Viana Guarda, and Fernando Clara, 159-173. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2010. XV An Essay on Polish History Moshe Rosman How Polish Is Polish History? Polish history’s problem of definition Early in 1979 an American literature professor serving as a Fulbright-Hays scholar in Poland presented a lecture at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991) had just won the Nobel Prize in literature and the lecture was devoted to an analysis of three of Singer’s stories. Discussing one of the stories, in passing the speaker mentioned the words »Polish Antisemitism«. This prompted a comment from one of the Polish professors in attendance. He noted that between 1795 and 1918 there was no country called Poland on the map of Europe. Therefore »Polish Antisemitism« could not have existed in the nineteenth-century setting of Singer’s story. The ironic smile that played on the faces of some of those present at the lecture conveyed their opinion of the professor’s too clever bit of casuistry. However, what made such rhetorical disingenuousness even possible was the presence of a serious and perennial question: What is Polish History the history of? Is it the history of a state called Poland? If so, then must the multiple incarnations of the Polish polity – from tribes to monarchy, to associated duchies, back to monarchy, then to nobles’ republic, great power satellite, democracy, dictatorship, communist regime and back to democracy – be considered to be a continually and coherently evolving »political organization«? Or, might one argue just as cogently that these developments were no more than a discontinuous concatenation of successor states. The fact that each of them was called some variation of »Poland« is an interesting fact, worthy of investigation, but the common name does not automatically mean that all of these states were connected as points on a continuum. We certainly may ask if during the 123 years between the Third Partition of Poland and the Treaty of Versailles, there was indeed a Polish polity. Was the Duchy of Warsaw a Polish state or a French colony? Was the Congress Kingdom a Polish kingdom or a Russian province? Pushing further, after 1945, was the Polish People’s Republic (PRL) a Polish Republic or a Soviet protectorate? Even if all of these entities were Polish polities, there is something intuitively 19 Moshe Rosman wrong about equating the history of each of them with »Polish history«. Surely the Napoleonic rump-state Duchy of Warsaw was not coextensive with the idea of Poland; neither were Congress Poland or the PRL representative of »historical Poland«, etc. Since the nineteenth century Polish historians had been keenly aware of the fragility of the state construct as a rubric for Polish history. In reaction, they emphasized that other nations and states had recognized the Polish state beginning as early as the end of the tenth century.1 The main point was that, whatever its form, the Polish state was a real political entity. It enjoyed agency and exercised actual power, at least through the mid-seventeenth century. Hedging their bets, however, Polish historians also stressed how Polish language and Polish culture pre-dated the medieval consolidation of Poland and persisted through every period whatever form the Polish state did or did not take. In other words, if Poland in the ninth century could be Polish without having a political dimension, it could also be so in the nineteenth.2 Perhaps the history of Poland is the history not of a state but of a country, a land, a geographic area, what Poles refer to as the macierz, the Motherland; what Czesław Miłosz called »Poland Proper«.3 The problem with this approach is that, as the maps above imply, »it is impossible to identify any fixed territorial base that has been permanently, exclusively, and inalienably Polish.«4 Virtually every square centimeter of soil asserted to be at one time or another as Polish had been claimed, occupied or ruled by different nations. The most popular approach to Polish history has been to call it the history of a nation. Taking nation in the sense of nineteenth-century European nationalism, Poland would be an aggregation of people of common ethnic origin, history and cultural heritage (including language, myths and other cultural markers), believing they also share a collective identity, collective responsibility and a collective fate, living mostly within a common contiguous territory, with mutual economic ties, and who are organized, or aspire to organize, politically.5 It is difficult to frame pre-Second World War Poland as encompassing an aggregation of people of common ethnic origin, history and cultural heritage, sharing a collective identity. Yet, in the twentieth century 1 2 3 4 5 20 Manteuffel et al., Historia Polski, vol. 1, 116-117. Gieysztor et al., History of Poland, 25; Topolski, Dzieje Polski, 12. Miłosz, History of Polish Literature, xv. Davies, God’s Playground, vol. I, 24. Rosman, How Jewish Is Jewish History, 24. How Polish Is Polish History? virtually all histories of Poland were written as if it did; that is, as histories of ethnic Poland, not multinational and multicultural Poland.6 This is prima facie problematic. From 1569 until the Partitions, more than 200 years, the very name of Poland contradicted the idea that the political Poland and ethnic Poland were coextensive. Poland was called Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów, the Commonwealth of two nations, referring to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Actually, in this early modern period it could reasonably be called the Commonwealth of at least six nations, adding to Poles and Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Belarusians, Prussians and Jews. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as well, Poland – the state, the society, the culture – was never exclusively Polish. There were always huge Ukrainian and Jewish minorities in addition to others. Ethnic homogeneity was attained only after 1945, and then only as a result of great power machinations, not Polish initiatives. Nonetheless, until recently Polish historians of a variety of stripes – Romantic, Positivist, Chauvinist, Catholic, Liberal, Marxist, etc. – have spilled much ink attempting to contort this multinational history into the history of one hegemonic, ethnic group. The pattern was set already in the nineteenth-century writing of Joachim Lelewel (17861861). As is evident in his magnum opus source collection7 as well as in his survey of Polish history,8 when Lelewel spoke of the necessity to relate the history of the »entire nation«, he meant not only the kings and the nobility, but also the peasants and the townsfolk. Yet, for him, the »entire nation« still excluded the non-Poles who lived in Poland. This tendency to see Poland, primarily, as the country of the Poles who live there and therefore its history as their exclusive history is actually much older. True, some early Polish historians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries propagated a version of the Sarmatian myth which claimed a common proto-Slavonic origin for most of the diverse Christian inhabitants of the Commonwealth, implying equality and legitimacy for all members of the nobility, at least.9 However, a different – and more common – version of Sarmatism insisted on Polish superiority which entitled the ethnic Poles to hegemony. 6 E.g. Reddaway et al., The Cambridge History of Poland; Halecki, A History of Poland; Gieysztor et al., History of Poland; Manteuffel et al., Historia Polski, 1955-1974; Topolski, Dzieje Polski; Zamoyski, Poland. 7 Lelewel, Polska, dzieje i rzeczy jej. 8 Lelewel, Histoire de Pologne. 9 Kloczowski, History of Polish Christianity. 21 Moshe Rosman 22 How Polish Is Polish History? 23 Moshe Rosman As expressed by the Catholic cleric, political writer and prolific defender of Poland’s forma mixta political constellation, Stanisław Orzechowski (1513-1566): Let it be known that Lithuania cannot be equal to the Polish crown. Nor can any Lithuanian [in Lithuania], be he the most important and famous, equal the lowliest Pole [in Poland]. Lithuanian born – you spend your life under the yoke. But I, as a Pole, like an eagle unbound under my King, fly freely.10 Later, nineteenth and twentieth century historians spoke of the »denationalization«, or Polonization, of the Lithuanian, Ruthenian and even Prussian nobility.11 Thus in the Republic of Nobles, where the only people who mattered politically and culturally were the nobility, it was asserted that virtually all the nobles were in essence Polish, by culture if not by birth. The division that was determinative in Poland was that of the estates, not ethnicity or religion. Peasant identity was regional and changeable. Burghers – lacking nobility in more than one sense of the word – all belonged to the same »socio-cultural guild«, no matter where or who they were. Both peasants and burghers were inconsequential at best. The estate that counted was the nobility; and to be part of the nobility one had to be assimilated into Polishness.12 Between the wars and into the communist period, most Polish historians took for granted that non-Poles might be in Poland, but they were not of it. Their marginality in Polish society was reflected in Polish historiography as well. The Polish history that had real meaning and was worthy of being recorded and analyzed was the history made by Poles. Moreover, if Poles were hegemonic in Lithuania or Ukraine, it was a deserved and pedigreed hegemony, born of responsibility, earned by fighting those who had oppressed Poland. Those oppressors had also persecuted the non-Poles. The only realistic alternative to Polish hegemony was rule by tyrannical absolutists who had, thankfully, been defeated by Poland, to the benefit of its other ethnic and religious groups as well. Polish hegemony, then, was a defensive hegemony. Poles intended, not to afflict others, but to ensure that 10 Orzechowski, Wybor pism, 562, 564; idem, Quincunx to jest wzor Korony Polskiej, 140-142 (translation by Friedrich, The Other Prussia, 90). 11 Gieysztor et al., History of Poland, 158. 12 Sysyn, Between Poland and the Ukraine, 5-36; Rosman, The Lords’ Jews, 1-10. 24 How Polish Is Polish History? Poland remained strong and was treated fairly among nations. Poland could not sacrifice itself for the sake of the non-Poles in its midst. It would treat them decently, better than they had been treated by others, so long as they accepted Polish predominance. In this spirit, Polish historiography was obligated to tell the story of Polish responsibility, Polish suffering, Polish endurance, Polish strength. The subordinate groups had their own histories parallel to, but not integral to, Polish history. Their own historians should write them.13 Given the very evident non-Polish aspects of the Polish state, Polish historians frequently performed rhetorical acrobatics attempting to define the interconnections between Polish land, state, nation and society so that when, politically, Poland was truncated or erased, other dimensions of Polishness might serve to illustrate how Poland still existed. Jerzy Topolski, for example, noted that it was wrong to artificially separate the pre- and post-Partition periods as if there was no continuity between them. In reality when the Polish state disappeared Polish society and the Polish nation remained.14 If there was, for a time, no Polish state, there was still a Polish nation. If that nation was divided among conquering states and places of emigration, there still was in each of those places a Polish society which served as a cell of essential Polishness keeping the nation alive. Eventually, the conceit that the history of Poland was primarily the history of the Poles was challenged by historians. The pioneer in this was Jerzy Tomaszewski who, in 1985, published two books whose very titles boldly asserted the counter thesis: Ojczyzna nie tylko Polaków (A Patria not just for Poles) and Rzeczpospolita wielu narodów (Commonwealth of many nations).15 While Tomaszewski focused on the interwar Second Polish Republic, his work implicitly called for a re-evaluation of the long dominant trend to conflate the history of the Poles and the history of Poland in every period. This re-consideration was not too long in coming. In 2000 Andrzej Kamiński tested Tomaszewski’s thesis with respect to the early modern, first Polish commonwealth, and echoed Tomaszewski’s thesis by calling his book about Poland from the sixteenth century until the partitions Historia Rzeczpospolitej wielu narodów (History of the Commonwealth of many nations). This trend 13 E.g. Bujak, »Uwagi o potrzebach historii gospodarczej,« 283. 14 Topolski, Dzieje Polski, 9-12. 15 Tomaszewski, Ojczyzna nie tylko Polaków; idem, Rzeczpospolita wielu narodów. 25 Moshe Rosman was bolstered by dozens of studies, especially by Józef Andrzej Gierowski and scholars associated with him, published from the end of the twentieth century which emphasized both the religious and ethnic pluralism of pre-partition Poland.16 Collectively, these studies affirmed that the history of the First Republic could not be seen entirely in the traditional categories of Polish national history. It was rather to be perceived as the common history of all the ethno-religious peoples who composed the PolishLithuanian state. Polish history, which historians had strained to demonstrate as coherent, continuous and unified, actually exhibited a significant degree of discontinuity and incoherence. As Lukowski and Zawadzki summarized: For much of its history, Poland was very much a border region of more or less peacefully co-existing peoples and cultures … [Its] history is intertwined with too many other national pasts to be quietly reconciled.17 What Polish pluralism meant in theory was that, somewhat reminiscent of the later United States, what bound the citizens of the Commonwealth together was not some ethno-national identity, a la pre-Second World War France, Germany or England, but rather a common commitment to Polish legal and political institutions. What this pluralism meant in practice was demonstrated by Karin Friedrich in her portrayal of the Prussian nation within the Polish-Lithuanian state, which »defined itself politically as a community of citizens who embraced the constitutional agenda of the multinational commonwealth.«18 The idea of Poland as a multinational or multicultural state, in all of its periods until 1945, is still rather new, but it has begun to penetrate consciousness outside of the academy. In the wake of the post1999 studies noted above, in 2012 there was an exhibition staged by the Museum of Polish history at the Royal Palace in Warsaw entitled Pod współnym niebem: Rzeczpospolita wielu narodów, wyznań, 16 Link-Lenczowski and Markiewicz, Rzeczpospolita wielu narodów i jej tradycje; Kaźmierczyk et al., Rzeczpospolita wielu wyznań; Ciesielski and Filipczak, Rzeczpospolita państwem wielu narodowości i wyznań, XVI-XVII wiek; Kriegseisen, Stosunki wyznaniowe; Gierowski, Na szlakach Rzeczypospolitej w nowożytnej Europie; Topolska, Przemiany zachodnioeuropejskiego pogranicza kulturowego pomiędzy Bugiem a Dźwiną i Dnieprem. 17 Lukowski and Zawadzki, A Concise History of Poland, xiv-xvi. 18 Friedrich, The Other Prussia, 217. 26 How Polish Is Polish History? POLIN : The Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw 2013. Photo: Yvonne Kleinmann. kultur (Under a common sky: The Commonwealth of many nations, religions and cultures).19 On October 28, 2014 a major expression of the »Commonwealth of many nations« concept was unveiled. This was the official opening of POLIN: The Museum of the History of Polish Jews core exhibition in Warsaw covering »1000 years« of the Jewish experience in Poland, mirroring the same thousand-year trope common to conventional Polish historical narratives. There are Jewish critics who feel the Museum tells more of a Polish story than a Jewish one. But that is precisely the point. This Museum reifies Jacob Goldberg’s axiom that »There is no history of Poland without the history of the Jews.«20 The Jews are part of the Polish story. This has not only been the conclusion of Polish historical scholarship. In recent years this theme has been emphasized over and over by official Poland. At the groundbreaking for the POLIN museum in 2007 the late President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, declared that the Jews were »part of 19 Kąkolewski et al., Pod współnym niebem. 20 Goldberg, »Professor Jacob Goldberg on the Study of Polish-Jewish History,« 9. 27 Moshe Rosman the history of my country and, in a certain sense, part of the history of my nation«. On the seventieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 2013, President Bronisław Komorowski pronounced that uprising as »a link in the Polish tradition of uprisings against invaders«. In part, this shift is due to a desire to counter charges of antisemitism being endemic to Poland. In part, it is an attempt finally to settle Poland’s Jewish account, so problematic in the wake of the fate of Poland’s Jews in the first half of the twentieth century and under the communist regime. In part, it is a halo effect of the salutary relations between the Polish and Israeli governments. Beyond these factors, however, it is also an indicator of a more profound change of which the Jews and their history are but a symbol and an example. In the past, official anti-Jewish policy was usually a weapon to contend with stronger and more threatening enemies.21 Analogously, positive official attitudes towards the Jews after 1989 betokened a desire to create a new image for Poland in general as a liberal bastion; to show that contemporary authentic, Polish Poland is truly heir to the tolerant, proto-democratic, multi-religious, multi-cultural Republic of many nations and not to its less savory successor regimes. Reaching out to the Jews is a signal that there is a new Poland, for everyone. To be sure, including the Jews in the story does not make the relationship between Poles and Jews into a happy brotherhood.22 There will be uncomfortable moments for both sides. Consider the 2013 movie Ida, directed by Paweł Pawlikowski, which points to both Polish treachery against Jewish neighbors during the Second World War and Jewish prominence in the communist regime after the war. Such matters aside, on a profound level the POLIN museum and the Jews stand for the proposition that Poland’s history is the history of all of its people. Poland was Poland not despite the presence of non-Poles but to a great degree because of them.23 In addition to the Jews, the historical experience of Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Prussians and others in and under Poland still needs to be elucidated and integrated into the Polish story. This is no less necessary because doing so may include some inconvenient truths. It is more so. 21 Teter, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland; Teter, Sinners on Trial. 22 Opalski and Bartal, Poles and Jews. 23 Kamiński, Historia Rzeczpospolitej wielu narodów. 28 How Polish Is Polish History? Problems of Polish metahistory The preceding has outlined what amounts to a major revision of Polish metahistory. Metahistory is the big story that the little stories which historians research and write about feed into. Metahistory consists of both the initial assumptions that historians bring to their research and the end product of historical interpretation. It is what people believe to be the truths of history, drawing on both ideology and research.24 The notion of a national history is itself metahistorical. History could certainly be organized otherwise than by national political boundaries. Other organizing principles might be economic networks, ethnic solidarity, geographical regions, etc. etc. Yet, like the Olympics, which are supposed to showcase individual achievement, but for utilitarian, ideological and political reasons are organized by nation, similarly history has most often been told as the aggregate story of nations. Moreover, the national narrative metahistory is often expounded by historians who see their national history as a faith to be justified and defended. Polish historiography is a good example. Polish metahistory is rich and its historians have been deeply enmeshed in it. In identifying metahistorical themes in Polish historiography one quickly understands that for many Polish historians Polish history was an ideal, a cause. Sometimes Polish history has been subjected to mystification. This was brought home to me when I first visited the Warsaw Rising Museum (Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego) devoted to the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation. As I was touring the exhibit, I was wearing a hat. An usher approached me and said, »You are in a holy place. Take your hat off.« This sacredness of Polish history, analogously to other national histories, has been reflected in Polish literature and historiography, which are rife with terms and phrases describing Poland in fraught, even mystical, language. For example, Adam Mickiewicz’s (17981855) evocation of Poland, in Part III of his romantic drama-poem Dziady (1832), as »the Christ of Europe« simultaneously emphasizes Poland’s unjust treatment at the hands of its neighbors, alludes to the Catholic religion that has come to be regarded as the fountainhead of its culture and character, and promises Poland’s ultimate vindication and redemption. Alternatively, terms like »the vital forces of the Polish 24 Rosman, How Jewish Is Jewish History, 47-55. 29 Moshe Rosman Warsaw Rising Museum, Warsaw 2015. Photo: Sabine Stach. nation«25 or »the fundamental force […] the determination of the Poles themselves«26 are in the nature of mystification. They imply that Poland’s political, economic and social fate is not subject only to the laws of political science, economics and sociology. Poland has a destiny that will be realized by a deeper and more meaningful set of factors. The temptation to mystify Polish history is very strong. Norman Davies, at the beginning of his important survey of Polish history, claimed that for him Polish history was no more or less than »an object of study«. In his view Poland had no special moral worth, historical mission or even a priori right to exist.27 Yet, in the very act of researching and writing about Poland, Davies seems to have been subject to the well-known cognitive dissonance effect. Confronted with the pathos, passion, poignancy and emotive power of the sources he so competently and lovingly gathered and analyzed, maintaining his initial professed neutrality was not an option. Like a diplomat or ethno25 Halecki, A History of Poland, 153. 26 Gieysztor et al., History of Poland, 538-539. 27 Davies, God’s Playground, vol. I, x. 30 How Polish Is Polish History? grapher who »goes native« as a result of intimate contact with his foreign interlocutors, Davies, apparently, became a believer. By the end of his second volume he would write: Poland is not just another European country battered by war and beset with problems […]. Poland is something more besides. Poland is a repository of ideas and values […], an enduring symbol of moral purpose in European life […]. Its essence cannot be described in a thousand pages of learned commentary.28 This need to penetrate to the essential meaning of Polish history, which may even be beyond cool description and rational analysis, is reflected in the type of metahistorical issues that saturate Polish historiography: – Was Poland a subject or object of history in the various periods? Did it have agency or was it merely an instrument in the hands of others? – Were Polish armed struggles against invaders and occupiers purposeful resistance, futile gestures or inspirational symbols? – Moustache (wąs) or wig (peruke)? Was Enlightenment an organic, natural development blossoming from within Polish culture with a Polish inflection; or was it a foreign transplant, an invasive species destructive of true, authentic Polish culture? – Why was Poland victimized? Was it due to the rapaciousness of its neighbors, the perfidy of its allies or the incompetence of its own institutions and leaders? – Is there a deterministic teleology to Polish history? Did everything ineluctably lead to (or flow from) the Partitions, or the Second World War, or some other catastrophic event? – Was Poland the wellspring and motherlode of democratic idealism or an object lesson in democracy run riot? – Was Poland the world’s laboratory of civil society or of ethnonationalism; or perhaps of both? Given this highly charged historiographical tradition, how should today’s historians of Poland proceed? I believe the key is loyalty to the historical method. This means, above all, historicism, a term with many interpretations. I use it as a label for the idea that everything has a history. Nothing is immutable, unchanging, or essential. Nothing that 28 Ibid., vol. II, 642. 31 Moshe Rosman happened was inevitable. Everything is subject to analysis and critique. This means historians must adopt a self-consciously critical stance. Nothing – not sources, not interpretative procedures (hermeneutics), not rhetorical conventions, not one’s own motivations, not one’s own interpretations – can be taken for granted and left unexamined. The attempt must be made to multiply sources and perspectives as much as possible, while admitting that the resultant descriptions will always imply interpretations, will always be contingent, and will never be complete.29 So how Polish is Polish history? Or perhaps the question should be formulated as the politician, historian and eminent emigre intellectual, Joachim Lelewel (1786-1861) famously asked: »Polska? tak! Ale jaka?« (Poland? Yes! But what sort of Poland?).30 There have been two basic historiographic answers to Lelewel’s question. These can be represented by the two museums I have already mentioned. The first answer is manifest in the POLIN museum, which, in portraying the history of the Jewish experience in Poland, implies that the real Poland is the multicultural one. Poland was at its strongest politically and economically, at its largest extent geographically, and at its most influential internationally when it was at its most variegated demographically and culturally and most tolerant politically and religiously.31 The Warsaw Rising Museum conveys the second answer to Lelewel. It posits that the real Poland (and the real Polish history) is the Polish Poland, the Poland where ethnic Poles and their social structure and culture predominate; Poland where Poles forge the kind of country they want to live in by themselves, for themselves; where they determine their own fate. This was the ultimate objective of the 1944 uprising. It could not be realized then, nor under the subsequent communist regime. It does seem tantalizingly attainable in post-1989 Poland, more than in any previous historical period. These two positions represent contemporary Poland’s cultural-political yin and yang: liberal, secular, pluralistic, »European« Poland vs. Catholic, nationalistic, ethnic, »essentially Polish« Poland. 29 Rosman, How Jewish Is Jewish History, 10. 30 Davies, God’s Playground, vol. II, 524. 31 Stone, The Polish-Lithuanian State, 336-338. 32 How Polish Is Polish History? Both tendencies are present; they seem to continually vie for dominance. It may indeed be that Poland’s future promises to be more Polish than its past ever was. But it may also be that to sustain itself Poland needs to look back on its past with appreciation for the pluralism from which emerged the traditions that have contributed so much to making Poland what it is today. Bibliography Scholarly Works Bujak, Franciszek. »Uwagi o potrzebach historii gospodarczej.« Nauka Polska 1 (1918): 275-286. Ciesielski, Tomasz, and Anna Filipczak-Kocur. Rzeczpospolita państwem wielu narodowości i wyznań, XVI-XVII wiek. Warszawa-Opole: Wyd. DiG, 2008. Davies, Norman. God’s Playground: A History of Poland. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. Friedrich, Karin. The Other Prussia: Royal Prussia, Poland and Liberty, 15691772. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Gierowski, Jozef. Na szlakach Rzeczypospolitej w nowożytnej Europie. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2008. Gieysztor, Aleksander, Stefan Kieniewicz, Emanuel Rostworowski, Janusz Tazbir, and Henryk Wereszycki. History of Poland. Warszawa: PWN, 1979. Goldberg, Jacob. »Professor Jacob Goldberg on the Study of Polish-Jewish History.« In Studies in the History of the Jews in Old Poland, ed. by Adam Teller, 9-13. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1998. Halecki, Oscar. A History of Poland. New York: David McKay, 1976. Kąkolewski, Igor, Michał Kopczyński, and Elżbieta Lewczuk. Pod współnym niebem: Rzeczpospolita wielu narodów, wyznań, kultur (XVI-XVIII w.): wystawa Muzeum Historii Polski, Zamek Królewski w Warszawie, 3 V-31 VIII 2012. Warszawa: Muzeum Historii Polski, 2012. Kamiński, Andrzej Sulima. Historia Rzeczpospolitej wielu narodów, 1505-1795. Lublin: Instytut Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, 2000. Kaźmierczyk, Adam, Andrzej K. Link-Lenczowski, Mariusz Markiewicz, and Krystyn Matwijowski, eds. Rzeczpospolita wielu wyznań. Krakow: Księgarnia akademicka, 2004. Kloczowski, Jerzy. A History of Polish Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 33 Moshe Rosman Kriegseisen, Wojciech. Stosunki wyznaniowe w relacjach państwo-kościół między reformacją a oświeceniem. Warszawa: Semper, 2010. Lelewel, Joachim. Polska, dzieje i rzeczy jej. 20 vols. Poznań: J.K.Zupanski, 1854-1868. —. Histoire de Pologne. 5 vols. Paris: La Librairie Polonaise, 1844. Link-Lenczowski, Andrzej K., and Mariusz Markiewicz. Rzeczpospolita wielu narodow i jej tradycje. Krakow: Tow. Wyd. »Historia Iagellonica«, 1999. Lukowski, Jerzy, and Hubert Zawadzki. A Concise History of Poland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 22006. Manteuffel, Tadeusz et al., eds. Historia Polski. 4 vols. Warszawa: PWN, 1955-1974. Miłosz, Czesław. History of Polish Literature. New York: Macmillan, 1969. Opalski, Magdalena, and Israel Bartal. Poles and Jews: A Failed Brotherhood. Waltham: Brandeis University, 1992. Orzechowski, Stanislaw. Wybor pism. Ed. by Jerzy Starnawski. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1972. —. Quincunx to jest wzor Korony Polskiej. Kraków: Lasarz Andrysowicz, 1564. Reddaway, W.F., J.H.Penson, O. Halecki and R. Dyboski, eds. The Cambridge History of Poland. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941-1950. Rosman, Moshe. How Jewish Is Jewish History? Oxford: Littman Library, 2007. —. The Lords’ Jews: Magnate-Jewish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. Stone, Daniel. The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795. Seattle, London: University of Washington Press, 2001. Sysyn, Frank E. Between Poland and the Ukraine: The Dilemma of Adam Kysil, 1600-1653. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985. Teter, Magda. Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. —. Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Tomaszewski, Jerzy. Ojczyzna nie tylko Polaków. Mniejszości narodowe w Polsce w latach 1918-1939. Warszawa: MAW, 1985. —. Rzeczpospolita wielu narodów. Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1985. Topolska, Maria Barbara. Przemiany zachodnioeuropejskiego pogranicza kulturowego pomiędzy Bugiem a Dźwiną i Dnieprem: polsko-litewsko-białorusko-ukraińskie losy od XV do początku XX wieku. Zielona Góra: Uniwersytet Zielonogórski, 2009. Topolski, Jerzy, ed. Dzieje Polski.Warszawa: PWN, 1977. Zamoyski, Adam. Poland: A History. London: Harperpress, 2009. 34 1. Political Rule and Medieval Society in the Polish Lands: An Anthropologically Inspired Revision Jürgen Heyde Introduction to the Medieval Section In recent decades, the image of Polish history in the Middle Ages has undergone profound changes and reevaluations. Until the 1980s, Polish historiography in general focused on the modern nation as a model. Medievalists placed special emphasis on early Polish statehood in the tenth to early twelfth centuries (with Silesia as one of the core provinces and Pomerania still within its political orbit) and the restitution of the united kingdom in the early fourteenth century. While not ignoring these topics, recent studies have turned significantly more attention to the »non-national« parts of medieval history: the processes of colonization in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as well as to the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Jagiellonian monarchy of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Instead of a historiography that was oriented towards tradition-building, searching for the »roots of the modern nation«,1 medievalists nowadays emphasize the need to understand the distinctiveness and difference of their field of study. Topics such as migration, social communication, interethnic relations, and cross-cultural transfers and entanglements have revived historiography of medieval society as one of the most important subfields of medieval studies in Poland. This is not a new trend. Without exaggeration, it can be said that since the beginnings of modern Polish historiography, configurations and perceptions of society played an extraordinarily important role. In contrast to German or Russian historiography, Polish research has never fixated on monarchic rule, but has always looked for the broader social fundaments of power. One of the earliest and for a very long time most influential historical visions of society were Joachim Lelewel’s studies on early medieval Slavs. Lelewel (1786-1861) portrayed Slavic culture, with its focus on community, as a counter model to western models that centered on power.2 His vision of Poland’s 1 In the wider context of Polish postwar historiography cf. Grabski, Zarys, 201-203. 2 Słoczyński, Światło w dziejarskiej ciemnicy; Baár, Historians and Nationalism, 19-25; Wierzbicki, Historiografia polska doby romantyzmu, 307-336. 37 Jürgen Heyde ancient past, however, can only be understood against the background of the partitions of Poland, a statement which also holds true for later works by Polish historians in the nineteenth century. The loss of Polish statehood at the end of the eighteenth century raised a crucial question: Who embodies Polish history? Looking for an answer, historians turned to society. The nation, not the rulers, were the real subjects of history, and even without a state as a political embodiment, the nation was able to fulfill its historical mission. As such, this statement was both an agenda for research and a bold political statement. After Lelewel and particularly during the years after the end of the January Uprising in 1863-1864, research into the Middle Ages became somewhat less important than the discussions about the eighteenth century and the immediate period of the partitions. Medieval times appeared in that era as a sort of pre-history of the early modern events, even more so as a lot of studies concentrated on efforts to consolidate Polish territory and nation under the early Piasts or King Casimir the Great. Historians of the Cracow and Warsaw schools quarreled passionately about the interpretation of the eighteenth century. In the Prussian part of Poland, scholars – mostly non-professional historians, working as teachers, preachers or librarians – focused on the »struggle of medieval Poland against the German aggression.«3 That was obviously aimed at contemporary Prussian politics against the Polish population in the province of Poznan, but the examples focused on the politics of the Teutonic Order and the immigration of German settlers into Polish lands in the late Middle Ages, which was called a »German expansion« in response to German publications on this topic. When the Polish state was re-instituted after the First World War, historical research changed its focus. The era of the partitions no longer appeared to reflect the fate and quintessence of Polish history but, on the contrary, to be just another episode in the centuries-long development of the Polish nation. In the interwar period, questions of society and social history received a lot less attention than before. Instead, the history of the state was of central importance, especially the state-building actions during the reign of Casimir the Great. The development of medieval society was interpreted as a long line of modernization efforts, embodied in the proverbial »he [that is Casimir] found a wooden Poland and left a Poland built of stone.« 3 Hackmann, Ostpreußen und Westpreußen in deutscher und polnischer Sicht, 307-336. 38 Introduction to the Medieval Section The political expansion to the east received attention, but Casimir, in all his greatness, was also criticized for abandoning Eastern Pomerania and Silesia.4 The relations between Poland and the Teutonic Order were treated as a metaphor for Polish-German relations and thus became a central subject. The 1410 Battle of Grunwald/Tannenberg in particular was portrayed as a symbol of Polish superiority that could be used as a narrative for national integration.5 The Middle Ages were perceived as a time of success in contrast to the early modern period of crises and decay. Social developments were embedded into the national agenda. There were important studies on modernization and urban development that in their own way addressed questions of social integration, for example the policy towards peasants in the late Middle Ages, or especially the integration of immigrants from the era of colonization. »Integration« was seen as synonymous with assimilation and Polonization. Just as in the nineteenth century, Polish historians used their research in order to establish historiography as a leading science, guiding present-day politics by applying the knowledge of the past. That way, even medieval studies became a political science in the interwar period.6 After the end of the Second World War, Polish historians once again found themselves in a position that attributed historiography with responsibility for the development of society. Now, however, it was not the historians who offered their expert knowledge to the politicians, but the politicians who assigned a clearly defined role to the historians – to provide historical legitimacy to the new political order. This need was even more pressing as Poland had acquired not just a new political and economic system, but also a significantly altered territory. Research into the former eastern territories, the kresy which now were part of the Soviet Union, was no longer considered appropriate, as they »belonged« to Belarusian and Ukrainian historiography. In itself, the concentration of historical research on the present-day territory was not a purely Polish specialty but commonplace throughout the socialist camp. On the other hand there were the northern and western territories that now belonged to the Polish state but had formerly been treated only marginally by Polish historians, because their historical 4 Tymieniecki, Polska w średniowieczu, 120-150; Sobieski, Dzieje Polski, 1. 5 Ekdahl, »Tannenberg/Grunwald«; Ozóg and Trupinda, Conflictus magnus apud Grunwald 1410. 6 Cf. e.g. Strzelczyk, Kazimierz Tymieniecki. 39 Jürgen Heyde ties with Poland had seemed remote. It was first and foremost medieval history that was able to find ways of integrating these territories into the agenda of national history. Pomerania had long since been in the focus of historical research, as the studies on the Teutonic Order, and Upper Silesia had been treated in the context of industrialization. Lower Silesia and what was termed now Western Pomerania posed a certain challenge: In their case, one had to go back to the early and high Middle Ages in order to find their »Polish« history.7 For that reason, too, research on the earliest stages of Polish history took a leading position within the field of medieval studies up to the 1970s. Historical scholarship was torn between its own claim of being a leading national discipline and the role the Communist Party ascribed to it – to lend legitimacy to the political system. The differences were subtle, especially since the political leadership adopted a clearly national agenda in the field of history as early as the mid-1950s. The demands of historical materialism – a special emphasis on the history of society, namely the working masses – were easily combined with older strands of research asking about the inclusive power of the nation. Furthermore, Polish social historiography found itself on the same level as global trends in historical research. The 1960s and 70s were a period of intensive contacts between Polish historians and the French School of Annales e. s. c.8 The 1970s saw a blossoming of other international contacts as well, and Polish medievalists used them to break out of political orthodoxy. When the talks of the Polish-(Western) German conference on history and geography textbooks reached a new level of cooperation, medieval history played an important role as sort of »ice-breaker.«9 Polish medievalists used these contacts to overcome the one-sided and politically favored treatment of Polish-German relations as a history of conflict, beginning at its medieval roots. Another significant change in postwar historiography consisted in the almost total neglect of questions of ethnicity in historical research. Communist Poland called itself the »first ethnically homogenous Polish state,« and tried to construct a sort of taboo in this realm.10 Medievalists felt the need to evade ethnical issues as well. Apart from a 7 Maleczyński, Historia Śląska; Labuda, Historia Pomorza; Grabski, Zarys, 202-203. 8 Wiślicz, Historiografia polska 1989-2009. 9 Jacobmeyer, Zum wissenschaftlichen Ertrag der Deutsch-Polnischen Schulbuchkonferenzen. 10 Górny, »Przede wszystkim ma być naród.« 40 Introduction to the Medieval Section few studies on the assimilation of German immigrants in Polish towns, the subject was virtually nonexistent for decades. At the end of the twentieth century, the transition from state socialism to democracy was much less abrupt as conventional wisdom might suggest. Not the year 1989 in itself should be treated as the turning point, but rather the whole of the 1980s. Even though there was continuing pressure from the government, throughout the decade there were clear and strengthening tendencies of ignoring political demands. Since the 1970s improved opportunities for travel had strengthened contacts with historians in Western European countries, where at the same time the traditional disregard for Polish scientific contributions (»Polonia non leguntur«) had slowly eroded. An early sign of a fundamental change in the making was the crisis of social and economic history in the 1980s. Just like their Western European colleagues, Polish medievalists were increasingly engaged in researching cultural history. The cultural turn in Polish historiography led to an oft-deplored discontinuity in social history, but it facilitated a new beginning that took shape in the years after the political transformation.11 Directly after 1989, there was almost no interest in history as a source of political legitimacy, and amongst historians there was little temptation to act as pallbearers of national identity.12 In this time of political »peace and quiet,« one can observe radical changes of orientation within several fields of historiography. They did not just overcome research traditions from the time of the People’s Republic, but they broke with older traditions of a nation-based orientation in historical research as well. In the field of studies into the structure of power and its political organization, historiography gradually left positivist approaches behind, which had basically been dressed up in the forms of a Marxist narrative but in essence constituted a continuation of older traditions. As Polish medievalists adapted the experiences of cultural anthropology, their outlook on the mechanisms of power relations changed, especially with regard to the early Middle Ages. In the light of these approaches, the earliest stages of Polish statehood were embedded into a broader cultural context. Historiography discovered the »non-institutional« factors of political and social processes and interdependencies, 11 Gawlas and Szczepański, Historia społeczna późnego średniowiecza. 12 This becomes evident against the background of the revival of politics of history after 2005: Modzelewski »Historia w trybach polityki«; Kula, »Lepiej nie nadużywać (historii).« 41 Jürgen Heyde emphasizing the problems of symbolic communication, forms of conducting and solving conflicts, or the place and role of rituals.13 From the 1990s on, the geographical horizon of Polish historical studies widened to include once more the territories east of the Polish borders. Research on the kresy still lacks the intensity with which research on other historical regions is conducted, but it is now part of the historiographical landscape again.14 The widening of the geographical horizon went hand in hand with renewed interest in ethnic questions. For the first time though, ethnicity is not just viewed from the angle of assimilation, but as a contribution to a new understanding of social difference. While research on ethno-religious groups – one of the preferred topics of the new research on the kresy – shows this trend quite clearly, there has been a wider change in the treatment of social difference on the whole. Even before 1989, there were several pioneering studies into groups at the margins of society. At present, those initiatives have combined to transform the history of everyday life. Polish medieval studies have by and by abandoned their former methodological and national restrictions that once had been the foundations of their position as a national leading discipline and had fostered the drive to use them for political legitimization. By placing greater emphasis on international and interdisciplinary approaches, historiography discovers new actors and their perspectives, which in turn strengthens reflections on a topic that had been close to its heart from the very beginning: the fundaments of society and the ties that bind people together throughout all changes. These are basic problems that are important far beyond the realm of medieval studies, and this is the reason why the history of society is, even nowadays, one of the central areas in the historiography of the Middle Ages. The texts of this section obviously cannot represent the whole range of studies on medieval Poland. Just as pars pro toto, they present some core issues that have been discussed by medievalists for a long time, and at the same time develop new approaches leading the way in today’s historical research. They all share the commitment to an interdisciplinary approach and a critical inquiry into the historiographical 13 Gawlas and Szczepański (ed.), Historia społeczna; Czaja and Noga (ed.), Heterogeniczność przestrzeni miejskiej w Królestwie Polskim i Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów. 14 Janeczek, Frontiers and Borderlands; Wünsch and Janeczek, On the Frontier of Latin Europe; Makowski, O nowy model historycznych badań regionalnych; Piskorski, Historiographical Approaches to Medieval Colonization. 42 Introduction to the Medieval Section tradition, making them useful as showcases for the development of medieval studies in the last quarter of a century. In his contribution on the »Baptism of Poland: Power, Institution and Theology in Shaping the Monarchy and Society from the Tenth through Twelfth Centuries,« Stanisław Rosik addresses the conversion of Mieszko I, the first historical Piast ruler, to Christianity in the tenth century as a founding event for Polish history. He analyses the imagery of society in the narrative about the »baptism of Poland« and deconstructs historiographical traditions that made this event »politically useful« from medieval times to the twentieth century. Urszula Sowina’s article »Spaces of Communication: Patterns in Polish Towns at the Turn of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era« highlights the use of socio-topographical research for studying urban morphology. She examines the diversity of social communication processes within towns organized on the basis of German law urban charters, processes which underline the social heterogeneity of these spaces while at the same time functioning as integrating factors within the private, neighborhood and public space of a given settlement. The third contribution, »Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia: Critical Reconsiderations« by Iurii Zazuliak, addresses the interpretation of legal traditions and their function for medieval societies. He shows that »Ruthenian Law« was essentially an umbrella term for a variety of legal conditions going back to the era of the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia but need to be understood as being shaped by the social and institutional changes that took place after Galicia became part of the Polish kingdom in the fourteenth century. In the last text of the section, Jürgen Heyde explores »Migration and Ethnicity in Medieval Poland: ›Ethnic Markers‹ in a Historical Perspective.« He discusses the notion of categories such as origins, customs, language and laws, which were already present in medieval sources and their historical contexts. He argues that they should be treated not as anthropological (i.e. unchanging) principles, but as elements of the historical process itself, shifting in meaning and relevance according to their socio-political ramifications. 43 Jürgen Heyde Bibliography Scholarly Works Baár, Monika. Historians and Nationalism: East-Central Europe in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2010. Czaja, Roman, and Zdzisław Noga (eds.). Heterogeniczność przestrzeni miejskiej w Królestwie Polskim i Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów w epoce przedprzemysłowej – w 750-lecie lokacji Nowego Miasta Torunia (1264-2014), Toruń, 10-12 IV 2014 (= Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej 63/2). Ekdahl, Sven. »Tannenberg/Grunwald – ein politisches Symbol in Deutschland und Polen.« Journal of Baltic Studies 22 (1991): 271-324. Gawlas, Sławomir. »Die mittelalterliche Nationenbildung am Beispiel Polens.« In: Mittelalterliche nationes – neuzeitliche Nationen. Probleme der Nationenbildung in Europa, ed. by Almut Bues and Rex Rexheuser, 121-143. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995. Gawlas, Sławomir and Michał T. Szczepański (eds.). Historia społeczna późnego średniowiecza. Nowe badania. Warszawa: DiG, 2011. Gawlas, Sławomir. »Stan badań nad polską świadomością narodową w średniowieczu.« In Państwo, naród, stany w świadomości wieków średnich. Pamięci Benedykta Zientary 1928-1983, ed. by Aleksander Gieysztor and Sławomir Gawlas, 149-194. Warszawa: PWN, 1990. Górny, Maciej. »Przede wszystkim ma być naród.« Marksistowskie historiografie w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Trio, 2007. Grabski, Andrzej Feliks. Zarys historii historiografii polskiej, Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 2000. Hackmann, Jörg. Ostpreußen und Westpreußen in deutscher und polnischer Sicht. Landeshistorie als beziehungsgeschichtliches Problem. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996. Jacobmeyer, Wolfgang (ed.). Zum wissenschaftlichen Ertrag der Deutsch-Polnischen Schulbuchkonferenzen der Historiker 1972-1987. Braunschweig: GeorgEckert-Institut, 1988. Kula, Marcin. »Lepiej nie nadużywać (historii).« Przegląd Polityczny 76 (2006): 39-48. Labuda, Gerard (ed.). Historia Pomorza. Vol. 1: Do roku 1466. Poznań: Wydawn. Poznańskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk, 1972. Makowski, Krzysztof A. (ed.). O nowy model historycznych badań regionalnych. Poznań: Institut Zachodni, 2007. Maleczyński, Karol (ed.). Historia Śląska. Vol 1/1: Do połowy XIV wieku; Vol. 1/ 2: Od połowy XIV wieku do trzeciej ćwierci XVI w. Warszawa: Zakład Narodowy imienia Ossolińskich, 1960/1961. Modzelewski, Karol: »Historia w trybach polityki.« Więź 579 (2007) 1: 35-44. 44 Introduction to the Medieval Section Ożóg, Krzysztof, and Janusz Trupinda (eds.). Conflictus magnus apud Grunwald 1410. Między historią a tradycją. Materiały z międzynarodowej konferencji naukowej »Grunwald – Tannenberg – Žalgiris« zorganizowanej 2024 września 2010 r. w Malborku i Krakowie, Malbork: Muzeum Zamkowe, 2013. Piskorski, Jan M. (ed.). Historiographical Approaches to Medieval Colonization of East Central Europe: A Comparative Analysis against the Background of Other European Inter-Ethnic Colonization Processes in the Middle Ages. Boulder: East European Monographs, 2002. Słoczyński, Henryk Marek. Światło w dziejarskiej ciemnicy. Koncepcja dziejów i interpretacja przeszłości Polski Joachima Lelewela. Kraków: Towarzystwo Wydawnicza Historia Iagellonica, 2010. Sobieski, Wacław: Dzieje Polski. Vol. 1: Do roku 1696. Warszawa: ANTYK, 2011 (Original: Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Zorza 21938). Strzelczyk Jerzy (ed.). Kazimierz Tymieniecki (1887-1968). Dorobek i miejsce w mediewistyce polskiej. Poznań: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, 1990. Tymieniecki, Kazimierz. Polska w średniowieczu. Warszawa: PWN, 1961. Wierzbicki, Andrzej. Historiografia polska doby romantyzmu. Wrocław: Funna, 1999. Wiślicz, Tomasz. »Historiografia polska 1989-2009. Bardzo subiektywne podsumowanie.« Przegląd Humanistyczny 54 (2010) 5/6: 37-48. Wünsch, Thomas, and Andrzej Janeczek (eds.). On the Frontier of Latin Europe: Integration and Segregation in Red Ruthenia, 1350-1600. Warszawa: IAE PAN, 2004. 45 Stanisław Rosik The »Baptism of Poland« Power, Institution and Theology in the Shaping of Monarchy and Society from the Tenth through Twelfth Centuries The baptism of Poland is a metaphorical image for the beginnings of Polish history in the social and cultural memory of contemporary Poles. A major factor in the lasting public presence of this historical event was the millennium celebrations of the Polish state, whose beginnings were symbolically linked to the year 966 when they took place half a century ago. In the light of historical research and according to long-standing conviction, 966 was most certainly the year of Mieszko I’s christening. Linking the establishment of the Polish state with this particular ruler is not surprising at all – he was the first ruler whose historicity cannot be discredited. However, it is thought-provoking that in 1966 the communist authorities, under whose patronage the celebrations of the purported millennium of the Polish state were conducted, accepted an event with such clearly religious nature as a symbolic caesura marking the beginnings of Poland. In this situation, one can speak of a certain rivalry between the state authorities and the Catholic Church in Poland in the 1960s. The former’s goal was to take over the initiative in organising the millennium celebrations; this, however, is worth another article. Here, let us simply emphasise the basic fact that in Poland’s historical tradition, for both sides, the state and the church, Mieszko I’s personal decision to become Christian was the sign symbolising the moment Poland entered the stage of history. Given the political conditions of the ruler’s baptism and its cultural consequences, one can find sufficient evidence to stress its significance in shaping the monarchy and the ruler’s subject community. Nevertheless, this view constitutes a kind of rationalisation of an actually mythical image presenting the baptism as a symbolical beginning of a new reality. It should be emphasised that at least since the times of Jan Długosz, that is the fifteenth century, the image of Mieszko I’s baptism has gained a lasting position as the baptism of the entire Polish people and 46 The »Baptism of Poland« monarchy.1 This assumption contains the idea of close relationship between the personal fate of a ruler and the community governed by him. In the nineteenth century, it became especially important in shaping Polish national awareness as it referred to the myth constructing Polish identity by establishing a close relationship between the Polish community and the Piast dynasty based on a mythical origin, one of blood ties. This idea finds its clear expression in the words of Rota, a song written by Maria Konopnicka in 1908, We are the Polish nation, Polish people, the royal Piast tribe.2 Premises illustrating the functioning of this archaic thought, so closely connecting the fate of the Piast dynasty as the »natural lords« (domini naturales) with the history of the whole country, can be found even in the first Polish chronicle, written by the Anonymous called Gallus in the second decade of the twelfth century. The chronicler emphasised the significance of the adoption of Christianity in the history of Poland by referring to a legend about Mieszko’s blindness in childhood.3 The miraculous granting of sight to him during his first haircut anticipated the fate of the whole of Poland: it predicted that Mieszko’s future baptism would bring Poland, which was earlier »blind« in the darkness of paganism, enlightenment; it would elevate Poland above other nations and save its people from death in paganism. Czesław Deptuła, who undertook an analysis of this motif of Poland’s transition from paganism to Christianity from the viewpoint of the hermeneutics of symbols, has recognised two beginnings for Poland in the chronicler’s narrative: with some reservations, the first one can be defined as pagan, whereas the other Christian one is given by Mieszko’s baptism.4 This second beginning was constructed around the theological idea of the second birth or rebirth through baptism (Gospel of John 3,5) and the identification of the ruler’s fate with the fate of the entire country. Yet in this interpretation of Gallus’s narration, the idea of the baptism of Poland is imputed to the chronicler without sufficient evidence.5 Although the symbolism of regaining sight or enlightenment is strictly connected with the Christening theology, the key 1 Dlugosz, Annales, book 2, under the year 965. Lately on this issue in view of the wider context of medieval historiography see: Węcowski, Początki Polski, 235-272. 2 Modzelewski, Barbarzyńska Europa, 463. 3 Gallus Anonymus, Cronica, I, 4. 4 Deptuła, Galla Anonima mit. 5 Rosik, »The World of Paganism,« 96-97. 47 Stanisław Rosik to interpreting the chronicle’s passage in question first of all seems to be the biblical motif of bringing the light of faith to a particular people. It appeared expressis verbis in Gallus’s narration in a reference to the Gospel of Luke (1,78), stating that thanks to Mieszko »the rising sun will come to Poland from heaven«. This motif concerns the people meeting the Messiah, hence its use in Gallus’s narration to refer to Poland indicates that enlightenment in this case does not mean baptism but hearing the gospel, which only in the subsequent association – distancing us from the text of the chronicle – can be interpreted as the baptism of a country according to said earlier tradition. This metaphorical image and discussed motif from Gallus’s chronicle are connected by the similarity of the very motif of the personification of Poland and, consequently, by the division of the country’s earliest history into a time of heathen blindness and a Christian time after the country’s enlightenment or baptism. The image arises from ecclesiastical tradition, referring to biblical models of history, according to which particular peoples and nations had waited for the gospel to be preached to them or, in other words, for their spiritual birth in baptism.6 This metaphor appeared in a vision of the conversion of the Pomeranians from the hagiography of St Otto of Bamberg,7 which was temporaneously close to Gallus. The historiographic image of pagan Poland took on a specific shape in Długosz’s chronicle thanks to his creation of an old Polish, pre-Christian pantheon. The nineteenth century would turn the existence of a common pre-Christian Slavic religion into a scientific conviction,8 into whose framework – based on reconstructions – some elements of Długosz’s pantheon were included. In this circle of images, Poles were representatives of the Slavic religion, which 6 It was in accordance with a statement in Vulgata (Mt 28,19): »docete omnes gentes, baptizantes eos« or in the First Letter of St. Paul to Corinthians (4,15): »[…] in Christo Jesu per Evangelium ego vos genui«. 7 E.g. according to Ebo of Michelsberg: Otto of Bamberg »ad remotissimam Pomeranorum gentem extendere curavit, ut illic populum acquisitionis et filios Dei per euangelium generaret, quibus cum Paulo gratulabundus dicere posset: Que est nostra spes aut gaudium aut corona glorie? Nonne vos ante dominum Iesum Christum estis in adventu eius? Vos enim estis gloria nostra et gaudium ac signaculum apostolatus mei.« Cf. Ebo, Żywot św. Ottona, II, 12. For more examples and discussion on this matter cf. Rosik, Conversio gentis Pomeranorum, 632-635. 8 Potkański, »Wiadomości Długosza«; Brückner, Mitologia słowiańska. 48 The »Baptism of Poland« in turn resulted in the appearance of still-discussed post-romantic historiosophical concepts, an example of which are Maria Janion’s essays Niesamowita Słowiańszczyzna (Incredible Slavdom), published a few years ago.9 From the perspective of historical research on the religion of the Slavs and their Christianisation, the quality of these considerations, burdened with anachronisms and interpretational dilettantism, evokes despondency,10 especially if one takes into account their extensive social topicality and relevance. However, it is worth mentioning them exactly in order to emphasise the long-lasting mental paradigm that posits a division of Polish history into stages, the pagan, or more precisely, pagan-Slavic one and the Christian one, during the formation of the identity of the community of Poles. The vision of the Polish past contains its tribal, pre-state stage, especially when »the beginning of the state« is connected with Mieszko’s baptism, i.e. the moment his rule joined the circle of Christian monarchies concentrated around the Holy Roman Empire in the era of Ottonian renovation. The understanding of Poland in this context exceeds the relatively small territory ruled by Mieszko in 966. While his authority certainly reached beyond the historical Wielkopolska (Greater Poland), it was nevertheless far from encompassing all the lands of tribes considered »ethnically« Polish or »pre-Polish«. When one refers to the »baptism of Poland«, understood as the elimination of the primeval Slavic religion in the country governed by the Piasts and introduction of Christianity, linking this change with the year 966 or even with the first decades of Mieszko I’s rule is therefore merely symbolic.11 It is not accidental that historical studies naturally treated the »baptism of Poland« as a metaphorical term referring to a long process of introducing Christianity, lasting at least until the thirteenth century. This was the time when the parish network took shape in Poland and offered everyday access to religious practices to the Christian population in general. Sometimes this period is thought to be even longer, lasting until the beginnings of the modern era if folk beliefs are treated as relics of paganism, visible in the »old Polish« pantheon presented by Jan Długosz.12 Such models appeared in classic studies written over half a century ago by Władysław Dziewulski on the progress of 9 10 11 12 Janion, Niesamowita Słowiańszczyzna. Rosik, »Slavia universa?« Grodecki, »Dzieje Polski,« 68-69 or lately: Ożóg, 966. Długosz, Annales, book 1, 106-108. 49 Stanisław Rosik Christianization and the eradication of paganism,13 or by Jerzy Dowiat with his programmatic Chrzest Polski (Baptism of Poland).14 In the light of archaeological research on Piast Poland, the pagan ritual of cremation did not disappear until the twelfth century.15 By that time, churches were common in castle towns, and there were even private ones in knightly mansions. A network of monasteries developed too, in part thanks to the patronage of the wealthy elite and not just of the ruler.16 At the same time, one should take into account the still living repertoire of native beliefs among rural people, practicing nature cults.17 Regardless of this, Gallus does not have any doubt that Poland was a Christian country, even an exporter of Christianity to pagan lands: about 1115 the chronicler emphasised that the current Polish ruler, Boleslav the Wrymouth, fought with barbarians to the north to convert them.18 One hundred years earlier, at the beginning of the eleventh century, Thietmar of Merseburg had also treated the country of the first Piasts as Christian. In his view, the mere inclusion of a certain region and people living there by the power of a Christian monarchy and the related network of bishoprics meant the introduction of Christianity.19 When he mentions Mieszko I’s baptism, he describes him as the »head« of the people after whom the other body parts (membra) were also baptised. In addition he mentioned that the first bishop of this new Christian community, Iordan, had to invest great effort before he managed to teach its new members how to »tend the Lord’s vineyard«, but he was successful.20 Dziewulski, Postępy chrystianizacji. Dowiat, Chrzest Polski. Urbańczyk and Rosik, »The Kingdom of Poland,« 279-281. Dobosz, Monarcha i możni, 250-405. Urbańczyk, Dawni Słowianie, 16, 92, 117-118, 164, 171-175. Gallus Anonymus, Cronica, Prohemium. Thietmar, Chronicon, III, 17, where the tribes of Luticians in Northern Polabia are treated as Christians in 983 (i.e. »gentes, quae suscepta christianitate«); Rosik, Interpretacja chrześcijańska, 85-96, 168-171. For a discussion about this way of interpreting the introduction of Christianity in the early medieval missiology cf.: Kahl, »Die ersten Jahrhunderte,« 11-76, especially 73-75; Wavra, Salzburg und Hamburg, 15, 28-31. 20 According to Thietmar, Chronicon, IV, 56, Mieszko I »innatae infidelitatis toxicum evomuit et in sacro baptismate nevam originalem detersit. Et protinus caput suum et seniorem dilectum membra populi hactenus debilia subsequuntur et nupciali veste recepta inter caeteros Christi adoptivos 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 50 The »Baptism of Poland« The image of Mieszko and his people’s conversion presented in the chronicle conflicts with the model of the Christianisation of Poland in the historical research of the twentieth century as presented above. Definitely under its influence, the Polish translator of Thietmar’s chronicle, Marian Z. Jedlicki, wrote that the baptism of the »head« of the people was not followed by »members of the people« but »members from among the people,«21 hence suggesting that not all of the people were baptised. However, this statement led him to lose the sense of the message and the theological implication of the image of the conversion of the entire community – the key idea in the chronicler’s work related precisely to the conversion of entire peoples. The image of Mieszko and his subjects’ conversion corresponds with a metaphor for the baptism of Poland as the baptism of the ruler. However, in interpretation of this image, it is easy to be dissatisfied with this association, especially in the context of the latest findings on the beginnings of Poland. The very existence of the tribe of Polans (Polanie) is, in fact, nothing more than a hypothesis, and it is even more significant that the political organism, headed by Mieszko, turned out not be a continuation of a tribal structure, but an alternative form, concentrated in specific centres or strongholds.22 Even if the original network was created in the area inhabited by one tribe, the hypothetical Polans, it had already been superseded by Mieszko’s times. Combining the state structure with the church’s organisation gave the local society a new outline, which was essentially a new group concentrated around the ruler. It was this group that was defined by Thietmar as the people whose leader was Mieszko. His people in Thietmar’s narration were called Poleni.23 Later historians often equated them with a tribe, the Polanie,24 although this seems to be incorrect. Even if one assumes that this name has a tribal origin, Thietmar uses it to mean Poles, or more specifically a posttribal community governed by a baptised ruler and with its own bishop, a community that managed tribal domains. The earliest history of this community was certainly pagan, but it will remain unknown 21 22 23 24 numerantur. Iordan, primus eorum antistes, multum cum eis sudavit, dum eos ad supernae cultum vineae sedulus verbo et opere invitavit.« Ibid., 220, 222. For a summarizing view on the debate cf. Kara, »Historiografia i archeologia polska.« E.g. Thietmar, Chronicon, IV, 55; V, 29; V, 34. Their land was called Polenia by the chronicler, cf. Thietmar, Chronicon, V, 23; VI, 10. See e.g. the commentary of Jedlicki in: Thietmar, Chronicon, 218. 51 Stanisław Rosik whether they were, at that stage, called Poles. One way or another, Thietmar indicates an essential mechanism shaping Poland, based on expanding this community (i.e. Poleni) not only territorially but also into increasingly bigger social structures encompassed by Piast rule and the related diocesan organisation. From this point of view, one can say that it was not the »baptism of Poland« that continued over a few centuries, but the formation of Poland understood as its inhabitants’ adoption of a worldview, which was previously shared only by Mieszko and the people who were considered his subjects by Thietmar. Bibliography Edited Sources Długosz, Annales = Joannis Dlugossi. Annales seu Cronicae Incliti Regni Poloniae, book 1-2. Ed. by Marian Plezia. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1964. Ebo, Żywot św. Ottona biskupa bamberskiego. Ed. by J. Wikarjak and K. Liman. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1969. Gallus Anonymus, Cronica = Galli Anonymi cronicae et gesta ducum sive principum Polonorum. Ed. by Karol Maleczyński. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1952. Thietmar, Chronicon = Kronika Thietmara. Ed. and transl. by Marian Zygmunt Jedlicki. Poznań: Instytut Zachodni, 1953. Scholarly Works Brückner, Aleksander. Mitologia słowiańska i polska [1918]. Ed. by Stanisław Urbańczyk. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1986. Deptuła, Czesław. Galla Anonima mit genezy Polski. Studium z historiozofii i hermeneutyki symboli dziejopisarstwa średniowiecznego. Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1990. Dobosz, Józef. Monarcha i możni wobec Kościoła w Polsce do początku XIII w. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 2002. Dowiat, Jerzy. Chrzest Polski. Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1960. Dziewulski, Władysław. Postępy chrystianizacji i proces likwidacji pogaństwa w Polsce wczesnofeudalnej. Wrocław, Warszawa, Kraków: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1964. 52 The »Baptism of Poland« Grodecki, Roman. »Dzieje Polski do r. 1194« [1926]. In Dzieje Polski średniowiecznej, vol. 1: do roku 1333, ed. by Jerzy Wyrozumski, 25-210. Kraków: Wydawnictwo PLATAN, 1995. Janion, Maria. Niesamowita Słowiańszczyzna. Fantazmaty literatury. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2007. Kahl, Hans-Dietrich. »Die ersten Jahrhunderte des missionsgeschichtlichen Mittelalters. Bausteine für eine Phänomenologie bis ca. 1050.« In Kirchengeschichte als Missionsgeschichte, vol. 2: Die Kirchen des früheren Mittelalters, part 1, ed. by Knut Schäferdiek, 11-76. München: Kaiser, 1978. Kara, Michał. »Historiografia i archeologia polska o mechanizmach formowania się władztwa Piastów. Próba zestawienia ważniejszych poglądów.« In Instytucja »wczesnego państwa« w perspektywie wielości i różnorodności kultur, ed. by Jacek Banaszkiewicz, Michał Kara, and Henryk Mamzer, 303-316. 2nd ed. Poznań: Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii PAN, 2015. Modzelewski, Karol. Barbarzyńska Europa. Warszawa: Iskry, 2004. Ożóg, Krzysztof. 966. Chrzest Polski. Kraków: Biały Kruk, 2015. Potkański, Karol. »Wiadomości Długosza o polskiej mitologii.« In idem, Pisma pośmiertne, vol. 2, 1-93. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1924. Rosik, Stanisław. Conversio gentis Pomeranorum. Studium świadectwa o wydarzeniu (XII wiek). Wrocław: Chronicon, 2010. —. Interpretacja chrześcijańska religii pogańskich Słowian w świetle kronik niemieckich XI-XII wieku (Thietmar, Adam z Bremy, Helmold). Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2000. —. »Slavia universa? O współczesnym oglądzie kultury duchowej dawnych Słowian i jego mitologizacji (w nawiązaniu do eseistyki Marii Janion).« Przegląd Humanistyczny 53 (2009) 4: 1-17. —. »The World of Paganism in Gallus’ Narrative (Reconnaissance).« In Gallus Anonymous and His Chronicle in the Context of Twelfth-Century Historiography from the Perspective of the Latest Research, ed. by Krzysztof Stopka, 91-102. Kraków: Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2010. Urbańczyk, Przemysław, and Stanisław Rosik. »The Kingdom of Poland.« In Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’ c. 900-1200, ed. by Nora Berend, 263-300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Urbańczyk, Stanisław. Dawni Słowianie. Wiara i kult. Wrocław, Warszawa, Kraków: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1991. Wavra, Brigitte. Salzburg und Hamburg. Erzbistumsgründung und Missionspolitik in karolingischer Zeit. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1991. Węcowski, Piotr. Początki Polski w pamięci historycznej późnego średniowiecza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Towarzystwa Naukowego »Societas Vistulana«, 2014. 53 Urszula Sowina Spaces of Communication Patterns in Polish Towns at the Turn of the Middle Ages and the Modern Era With regard to the subject of the present section – which concerns diversity as a new category in research on the society of medieval Poland – mention must first be made of a conference that took place in Toruń in April 2014. Organized by the Team of Urban History at the Committee on Historical Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences and by the Scientific Society in Toruń, the conference was titled Heterogeneity of urban space in the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the pre-industrial era. Raising »the issue of spatial, social, legal, and symbolic diversity of urban space in East-Central Europe,« in their program, the organizers of the Toruń conference recalled assumptions that this issue has a long and – let us add – highly developed research tradition in Polish historiography. In order to avoid a simple recapitulation of the existing state of knowledge, the organizers proposed that the participants consider space not as a (geographical) place where social processes occur, but as »a product of human activities/a product of man and groups of people.« During this conference, I gave a presentation about social groups in urban space at the turn of the Middle Ages and the modern era. The main accent was necessarily put on heterogeneity, namely the social and economic diversity of urban space. As early as in the introduction, an obvious observation was made that the diversity of space resulted from the heterogeneity of the society at each center and was the effect of a different way of living and working, and consequently of various needs and means of satisfying them by individual groups of this society. In the present paper, I would like to demonstrate that heterogeneity was indispensable for the efficient functioning of the entire town as a well-organized whole. The diversity of the urban space led to its unity – due to the internal coordination of these different elements, each of which had the task of fulfilling its social or economic role the best it could. This is why the town, with all its structures making up the entire picture of »life in the town,« can serve as a field of research on defining societies, including Polish society. The necessary condition 54 Spaces of Communication is the best possible recognition of the morphology of towns, which is attainable only through the most thorough analysis of all the preserved sources pertaining to the studied center. As I mentioned many times before,1 what is essential here is the entire preserved documentation produced by the town tribunals, i.e. the officium scabinatus together with the advocatus, and the town council together with the burgomaster. This means not only the series of entries in books concerning all the issues dealt with by the two above-mentioned categories of town authorities, but also municipal books which emerged later (in centers where this happened), namely town account books, books of admission to burghership, books of wills, or books of clerks and town officials who had control over financial matters (e.g. books of the Lohnherren in Kraków)2 and public services (e.g. books of the town hall’s Hauptmann in Kraków).3 Apart from the municipal books, this also includes laws passed by the city council and privileges issued by the owners of the towns. In many cases, the court books of the medieval district (burgh) provide valuable sources of additional information (acta castrensia). As a result of an analysis of the different types of sources listed above, socio-topographical studies have so far generated the most accurate image of society and its various activities (including economic and professional activities) in the space of large, medium-sized and small centers. This article presents some results from such studies, and from prosopographic studies closely connected with them. The results pertain to various forms and means of social communication within the space of the town chartered with German law. One could ask whether, and to what extent, the »meeting places,« namely the titular »spaces of communication,« established by the necessary coexistence or cohabitation (cohabitatio) in the town, contributed to the integration of a diversified and hierarchical society in late medieval Polish towns. It should be noted that in large centers, social diversity was accompanied by ethnic diversity, resulting mainly from the fact that, since the towns were chartered with German law, the most important role was played by foreigners (chiefly Germans), among whom were long-distance merchants, as was the case e.g. in Kraków. The latter formed the first Kraków patriciate. It was they who occupied the best-situated plots with the highest value in the town, including corner plots in the Market Square, and, in the 1 Most recently, Sowina, »Medieval Towns,« 503-504. 2 ANK, rps 1574. 3 ANK, rps 899. 55 Urszula Sowina fourteenth century at the latest, built brick or stone houses.4 Like in other European urban centers, they also became members of the municipal authorities.5 Medium-sized and small towns were the most widespread type in the Kingdom of Poland at the turn of the Middle Ages into the modern era, and they were much more homogeneous in terms of ethnicity, with a marked dominance of the Polish element. Nevertheless, Germans and Jews were present as well, along with Ruthenians in Red Ruthenia. The Polish element predominated, because it was common in these centers that representatives of other social hierarchies, namely the gentry and particularly the peasantry, usually from neighboring villages, became burghers, as evidenced in entries confirming their new status in a given town.6 As for the elite of such centers, it was composed mainly of craftsmen and, mentioned only sporadically in sources, merchants (mercatores). They were absent in the smallest towns that did not hold annual and weekly fairs (in oppidis non habentibus fora annua et septimanalia), i.e. the fourth category according to the tax law of 1520.7 Private space In private space, the urban house and the entire plot on which it stood became the space of communication, i.e. the space of contacts: mainly familial, but also professional due to the fact that workshops were situated there. In the present state of research on the family in Poland’s late mediaeval towns – no synthesis concerning this subject has been published to date – it is difficult to unequivocally establish whether the urban house was inhabited by the nuclear family of its owner, namely one consisting of two generations (parents and children), or by an extended family. This question concerns houses both in large and in smaller centers. There exists only fragmentary data referring to the inhabitants of urban houses who did not belong to the family of the owner. Nevertheless, it is valuable. Like the plots, houses underwent 4 Rajman, Kraków, 244-268. 5 Starzyński, Krakowska rada miejska, 217-228. 6 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, 132-134; Sowina, Sieradz, 120; Grabarczyk and Nowak, »Ludność miasta,« 143; Szymczak, »Mieszkańcy Sieradza,« 142-143. 7 Corpus Iuris Polonici, 599; Volumina constitutionum, vol. 1, 362. 56 Spaces of Communication internal divisions in terms of ownership as a result of their parts being inherited or bought and sold,8 which entailed changes in the forms of coexistence of their inhabitants. For small and medium-sized towns, where the most common type of house was wooden or timber-framed with such basic rooms as the socalled »white room« (Latin: stuba alba, Polish: izba biała), a chamber (Latin: camera, Polish: komora), the kitchen and the hall, the simplest way would be to state that one house was used by one family: the owner’s family, i.e. one household used one house. However, socio-topographical studies, identifying in written sources mainly the owners of houses, revealed that some owners still lived for some time in the houses they had sold. This phenomenon can be illustrated by the following example. A certain widow from Sieradz, a medium-sized town in central Poland, stipulated that, on selling her house, she could stay in the chamber of that house in which she could brew beer until the receipt of the final installment.9 Hence, on selling the house, she did not lose the right to brew beer for sale. This case challenges the current opinion that only citizens-owners of properties on which such brewing took place were entitled to such a right in medieval towns. On the basis of records in the town books of Kraków, researchers have managed to collect detailed information concerning the division of some houses-»palaces« between family members and/or heirs.10 This information enables us to supplement existing knowledge about the history of some Kraków houses and their owners; it also gives an insight into the formal relations within one family in the space of one house. For example, a will, preserved in the town books, furnishes evidence that the »better« part of the house was bequeathed to the beloved husband, and the remaining part was to be divided between two adult children from the first marriage, who already had their own families.11 Another example is the spatial division of a brick dwelling house-»palace« (together with the plot) of Jan of Reguły – a physician, 8 It is known that – like in the majority of European towns – also in Polish centers of various sizes, especially intensively from the late Middle Ages, the »front house« was the main merchandise on the developing town real estate market. For more information see Sowina, »Średniowieczny dom,« 10-11 (with relevant literature). 9 AGAD, Siradiensia Civilia Advocatialia III, 183v. (year 1524). See also Sowina, Sieradz, 131, 176. 10 More about »houses-palaces« in Kraków, see Komorowski, »Rezydencje.« 11 ANK, Liber Testamentorum (LT) 772, 270-275: Testamentum Honestae Dominae Catherinae, Spectabilis ac Egregii Domini Doctoris Petri Wedelicÿ 57 Urszula Sowina nobleman from Mazovia, Rector of the University of Kraków, and city councilor – on the corner of Bracka Street and the Market Square between the widow and four adult children with their respective families. The house was divided into five equal parts; the rooms that would belong to the widow were listed: a large room on the ground floor, a chamber above that room – on the first floor, and the kitchen with an adjoining pantry for various foods; two cellars: one for food, the other for firewood; and two chambers in the gallery for male and female servants.12 Unlike in the case of smaller towns, sources testify that house owners in Kraków (also of patrician houses-»palaces«) rented rooms to tenants. Hence, not all rooms were inhabited by the owner and his or her family. Tenants were not only travelling merchants13 or people as Matthias de Miechów, a physician and chronicler living in a house belonging to Johann Thurzo senior,14 but also poor lonely women who could not afford to pay rent, which often resulted in the seizure of their modest movables by the owner-patrician.15 We must not forget about students who rented rooms in these houses,16 and obviously about servants of the owners-patricians,17 who were employed not only in the main house, but also in the utility part of the plot, including the lucrative malt houses or breweries, besides »professional« workers, namely maltsters and brewers. Such close coexistence of the powerful burghers with members of other social strata, including the poorest, largely shaped everyday life in Kraków houses-»palaces« and caused the private space of the house and the plot to become a buzzing space of communication – despite differences in the social and economic status between its inhabitants. Invariably common passageways and 12 13 14 15 16 17 58 de Oborniki consortis Conditum in Domo Testatricis ex opposito templi p. Mariae in Circulo feria quinta post Egidÿ Anno Domini MDXXXIX. ANK, LT 772, 185-187 (will of Johannes de Reguli, 1512): stuba magna inferior, vna caminata super stubam in sala superiori et coquina unacum testitudine circa eam pro sznandis, leguminibus et alys esculetis concerna, item duo cellaria, vnum pro sznandis potagys et aliud pro lignis. Item duas cameras in ambitu pro familia et ancille. Sowina and Pacuski, »Testamenty mieszczan,« 441. ANK, Advocatialia Cracoviensia (AC) 115, 100 (year 1522). Hajdukiewicz, »Przyczynki,« 278, 280. See e.g. ANK, AC 91, 13 (inventory of Agnes Alemana, 1493); Sowina, »Kilka uwag,« 314-315. Boroda, Studenci, 174-182. ANK, LT 772, 185-187. Spaces of Communication stairs, not to mention devices supplying water or collecting sewage, must have been the places of at least fleeting encounters between the diverse inhabitants of the houses. Neighborhood space The microcosm of private urban space, namely a plot including a house and other buildings and devices, did not exist in a void. Since the plot was always an element of the urban block arising from the principles of the plan of towns chartered with German law, communication between neighboring plots was necessary. Consequently, the whole neighborhood space was one of the spaces where the most intense communication took place. The wooden or wattle fences between plots, found by archeologist,18 are a visible proof of boundaries between plots that marked out the limited area of the latter. This marker was very important, if only for determining rent. However, when there were firewalls instead of fences, they formed the border protecting against fire; in social terms, they testify to the cooperation – and thus community – between neighbors, protecting each other against potential calamity. Apart from walls between the sides of the houses and plots,19 the most important devices within this space were wells and wastewater canals. They performed a highly significant, fundamental role in establishing neighboring communities in towns. Maintaining these devices required harmonious cooperation, including financial, between two neighbors. When a well stood on the border between two plots,20 negligence on the part of one neighbor resulted in the lack of water for both plots, and in the case of canals, in the inability to remove wastewater, especially production wastewater, from the plots, which could lead to sewage or rainwater overflow.21 In a discussion of neighborhood space as one of the most important, if not the most important space of communication in medieval towns, we should mention two other forms: still poorly researched, the first one is the boundary between urban properties belonging to various institutional owners, e.g. the town and a monastery situated within its 18 19 20 21 Kufel-Dzierzgowska, »Sieradz,« 34. Goliński, »Mur i ściana.« Sowina, Woda i ludzie, 178-181; eadem, Water,189-192. Sowina, »Les dispositifs d’évacuation des eaux,« 285-286; eadem, »Kanały wód odpływowych,« 270, 272. 59 Urszula Sowina limits. The conflict between Kraków’s Dominican friars and the town over the maintenance of a border sewage canal can serve as an illustration.22 This conflict that lasted from the fourteenth through the nineteenth century is an example of a communication space that lacked any chance of the necessary effective cooperation between the neighbors, and had a wider social impact than simple interpersonal activities. Another form of the neighborhood space of communication consists of contacts between owners of suburban farming plots. Such contacts are rarely documented and therefore poorly researched. In towns chartered with German law, such suburban farming plots formed part of the burghers’ immovable property, granted together with a plot inside the town walls at the time of the town being chartered. Studies on this space of communication, namely on the necessary contacts established during farming work under the three-field system, can also prove helpful for research on the neglected topic of space and society in medieval villages. Public space The simplest solution is to state that in the public space of large, medium-sized, and small towns, the market square was undoubtedly the most important communication space, a place for various encounters and interpersonal contacts. This statement is correct, however, only on the macro level, i.e. if we compare its functions with the functions of streets, even the main ones. Studying the morphology of the public area in the market square leads to the conclusion that there were many spaces of communication within it, particularly all buildings and devices situated in and around the market square: first of all, the town hall, but also craftsmen’s stalls – usually shoemakers, butchers, and bakers in smaller centers – and stalls belonging to people working in trades – merchants and stallholders in large cities, stallholders in smaller towns. In addition, medium-sized and large towns also had places for cutting cloth (pannicidiae), where the last stage of cloth production took place, as well as its cutting and sale. Kraków’s Market Square housed the town’s scales, two of which were the most important: the great scales, and the little scales, in their respective buildings.23 They contained fa22 Sowina, »Les dispositifs d’évacuation des eaux,« 286-289. 23 Rynek Główny w Krakowie; Komorowski and Sudacka, Rynek Główny, 3140, 52-53. 60 Spaces of Communication cilities to smelt the weighed metals, including silver and gold, as well as copper imported from Hungary and lead from Olkusz in Lesser Poland. Apart from facilities connected with the flourishing cloth trade, e.g. cloth stalls, and with metals (depositorium plumbi, Bleymargkt), the Market Square also contained a place where second hand articles (in Polish: tandeta) were sold, as well as food markets, including a fish market (forum piscium, Fischmargkt), and an indoor market called szmatruz/smatruz, Szmetterhaus, or garrulatorium.24 The latter was, as in Wrocław,25 a commercial place belonging to the town where various craftsmen had their stalls and benches, for example leather workers, skin dressers (e.g. glovers), and purse makers, but also cutlers, needle makers, and women who fabricated linen goods. Even this short list indicates the variety of these spaces of communication in the Market Square.26 They were places of encounters and contacts: the people who gathered there were not only local traders and craftsmen, but also visitors from all kinds of geographical and social backgrounds, such as wealthy merchants and their agents trading in metals, stallholders and craftsmen, and the local poor. Each of the above-mentioned commercial places situated in this square was visited by representatives of various social groups, both from the town and from outside the town. In this manner, different parts of the vast Market Square were valorized: from the most highly valued cloth stalls and the so-called »rich stalls« filled with luxury handicrafts, through the Schmetterhaus with basic necessities, food stalls, to provisional stalls with rummage. Perhaps this valorization was followed by the valorization of public sources of potable water, situated in different parts of the Market Square, namely wells and water storage reservoirs connected to water supply systems, open to the public. For instance, encounters at wells standing next to patrician houses in the Market Square may have been valued more highly than contacts at wells serving the needs of the fish market or the butchers’ stalls.27 Of course, both these situations 24 ANK, Rps 1587 (year 1390), 53; Rps 1600 (year 1524), 48 (Schmetterhaws), and Rps 1602 (year 1531), 59 (garrulatorium). 25 Goliński, Socjotopografia, 25. 26 For a full list of buildings and devices in the Kraków Market Square see Heydeke, Census Civitatis (year 1500); »Liber omnium prouentuum,« 721767 (year 1542). 27 See the author’s reconstruction of the location of dug wells within the space of late-medieval Kraków. Sowina, Woda i ludzie, 205-220 (incl. plan); eadem, Water, 223-241. 61 Urszula Sowina involved members of the lower social strata, namely servants who drew water. Such valorization may also have extended to wells in other parts of the town. Conclusion Obviously, the vast topic indicated in the title of the article has not been exhausted in this presentation, but at least it has been outlined. For example, neither ceremonial spaces nor public baths have been mentioned. Having divided space into private, neighborhood, and public, I have focused on describing the selected main places for various contacts in everyday life and, by extension, for work as well. It was here that, in increasingly cramped conditions in towns and on plots, patterns of social behavior typical of inhabitants of towns were established both in normal and in extreme circumstances, for example during epidemics. These patterns shaped our ideas about the towns’ burghers. Translated by Justyna Woldańska Bibliography Archival Sources AGAD (Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie): Siradiensia Civilia Advocatialia III: 1506-1531 ANK (Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie): Advocatialia Cracoviensia (AC) 91 Liber Testamentorum (LT) 772 (years 1427-1623) Rps (Rękopis) 899: Acta capitanei praetorii Cracoviensis 1564-1565 Rps 1574: Acta Lonherorum Civitatis Cracoviensis, 1543-1575: Acta dominorum provisorum aerarii civilis Cracoviensis anno Domini MDXLIII coepta Rps 1587, 1600, 1602: Registra perceptorum et distributorum (expositorum) dominorum consulum Civitatis Crac.: 1587 (years 1390-1391), 1600 (year 1524), 1602 (year 1531). 62 Spaces of Communication Edited Sources Corpus Iuris Polonici, sectionis primae: privilegia statuta constitutiones dicta decreta mandata Regnum Poloniae spectantia comprehendentis. Vol. 3 (15061522), ed. and introd. by Osvaldus Balzer [Oswald Balzer], Cracoviae: Academia Litterarum, 1906. Heydeke, Jan. Census Civitatis conscripti. 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Zespół osadniczy, proces lokacji, mieszczanie do roku 1333. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Akademii Pedagogicznej, 2004. Sowina, Urszula. Sieradz. Układ przestrzenny i społeczeństwo miasta w XV-XVI w. Warszawa, Sieradz: Instytut Historii Kultury Materialnej Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 1991. —. »Les dispositifs d’évacuation des eaux dans les villes polonaises aux XVe-XVIe siècles: archives et archéologie.« In Archives, objets et images des constructions de l’eau du Moyen Âge à l’ère industrielle, ed. by Liliane Hilaire-Perez, Dominique Massounie, and Virginie Serna, 283-297 (Cahiers d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences 51). Lyon: ENS Éditions, 2002. —. »Średniowieczny dom mieszczański. Niektóre problemy badawcze.« In Dom w mieście średniowiecznym i nowożytnym, ed. by Bogusław Gediga, 9-30 and 317. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2004. —. »Kilka uwag o późnośredniowiecznych inwentarzach rzeczy w najstarszych zachowanych krakowskich księgach wójtowskich.« In O rzeczach minionych. Scripta rerum historicarum Annae Rutkowska-Płachcińska oblata, ed. by Marta Młynarska-Kaletynowa and Jerzy Kruppé, 311-327. Warszawa: Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk, dawniej Instytut Historii Kultury Materialnej PAN, 2006. —. Woda i ludzie w mieście późnośredniowiecznym i wczesnonowożytnym. Ziemie polskie z Europą w tle, Warszawa: Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2009. —. »Kanały wód odpływowych w późnośredniowiecznym i wczesnonowożytnym Krakowie,« In Ulica, plac, cmentarz w publicznej przestrzeni średniowiecznego i wczesnonowożytnego miasta Europy Środkowej / Strasse, Platz und Friedhof in dem öffentlichen Raum der mittelalterlichen und frühneu64 Spaces of Communication zeitlichen Stadt Mitteleuropas, ed. by Stefan Krabath, Jerzy Piekalski, and Krzysztof Wachowski, 269-274. Wrocław: Uniwersytet Wrocławski. Instytut Archeologii, 2011. —. »Medieval Towns as a Research Issue in Polish Historiography over the Past Two Decades.« In Städte im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit als Forschungsthema in den letzten zwanzig Jahren / Města ve středověku a raném novověku jako badatelské téma posledních dvou desetiletí, ed. by Olga Fejtová, Michaela Hrubá, Václav Ledvinka, Jíří Pešek, and Ludmila Sulitková. Documenta Pragensia 32 (2013), 1: 495-511. — and Kazimierz Pacuski. »Testamenty mieszczan krakowskich jako źródła do badań nad stronami rodzinnymi imigrantów w krakowskiej elicie władzy (Przykład Jana z Reguł na Mazowszu).« In Elita władzy miasta Krakowa i jej związki z miastami Europy w średniowieczu i epoce nowożytnej (do połowy XVII wieku). Zbiór studiów, ed. by Zdzisław Noga, 433-446. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Antykwa, 2011. —. Water, Towns and People: Polish Lands against a European Background until the Mid-16th Century. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2016. Starzyński, Marcin. Krakowska rada miejska w średniowieczu. Kraków: Societas Vistulana, 2010. Szymczak, Alicja. »Mieszkańcy Sieradza do końca XVI wieku.« In Sieradz. Dzieje miasta, vol. I, ed. by Zbigniew Anusik, 141-204. Łódź-Sieradz: Księży Młyn Dom Wydawniczy, 2014. 65 Iurii Zazuliak Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia Critical Reconsiderations »[…] because at the time of the Ruthenian law, there was a custom of the land to make all legal transactions before the office of the captain and record them into the captain’s register.«1 This passage from the legal record in the court register of the Sanok district, dated 1442, is probably one of the most popular quotes among scholars interested in the history of late medieval Galicia. As a rule, historians interpreted the expression »time of the Ruthenian law« as a short but exact definition of the social, political and legal order existing in Halych Rus, before the privileges of the Polish nobility were extended to the local landowning elite and before Polish judicial and administrative institutions were officially introduced to the region in 1430 and 1434.2 The record was often taken as a main proof to support the historians’ view of fifteenth-century Ruthenian law as remnants of the judicial and administrative institutions, social relations, and legal norms that went back to the times before the Polish and Hungarian conquests of the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia from 1340 to 1387. According to this viewpoint, the institutions and norms of the social and legal organization that existed in the Halych Rus principalities from the twelfth through fourteenth centuries survived in the form of what is 1 »quia tempore iuris Ruthenicalis erat moris inscriptiones facere coram Capitaneis pro causis quibuscunque.»AGZ, vol. 11, no. 1445. The record speaks about the request brought by the local nobleman Nicholas of Tarnawa to the session of the Sanok judicial assembly (termini particulares). Nicholas asked the court gathering to allow him to add to the register of the Sanok region’s court the charter of the dowry he had made to his wife. The charter presented by Tarnowski was composed in the captain’s chancellery, sealed by the captain and dated January 30, 1412. In other words, Tarnowski made his request thirty years after the issue of the charter. He justified his late appeal, however, by indicating that, during the era of Ruthenian law, the promulgation and confirmation of all private documents belonged to the prerogatives of the royal captains. 2 In historiography, the two dates are considered to be the most important threshold in the administrative and legal history of Red Ruthenia. 66 Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia called »Ruthenian law« and continued to play a significant role in the social and legal life of the region under the rule of Polish kings in the fifteenth century. This interpretation gained in popularity during the late nineteenth century mostly through the influential works of such distinguished historians as Mykhailo Hrushevskyi and Ivan Linnichenko.3 In twentieth-century scholarship, it remained a widespread historiographical cliché, and it occurs in many academic works about Galician history.4 In this regard, one can take the work of the renowned Soviet historian Boris Grekov on the history of Rus peasantry as an example. Relying on the observations and conclusions of Hrushevskyi and Linnichenko, Grekov wrote about »a time of the Ruthenian law« as a period when Ruthenian law constituted a kind of public local administration law which had not yet been completely replaced by Polish or German law. In addition, Grekov argued – without providing any evidence – that the legal norms of the Russkaia Pravda, the law code of the old Rus, continued to operate in fifteenth-century Galicia.5 This article intends to show that the term »Ruthenian law« covered varied and fragmented social and legal phenomena, and that its meanings were too varied to be reduced to the one uniform institution with a clearly established historical genealogy. Furthermore, a number of institutions known in the fifteenth-century sources as part of »Ruthenian law« cannot be linked exclusively to the social and legal order of the era of independent Halych-Volhynian polities. They also need to be understood as phenomena that were shaped within the contexts of the social and institutional interactions and changes that took place in Halych-Volhynia after it had come under Polish rule. To begin with, it is necessary to note that the views of Hrushevskyi and Linnichenko did not go totally unchallenged when they were first published. The Polish historians Ksawery Liske and Władysław Margasz proposed an alternative point of view: Margasz contended that »Ruthenian law« was a distinct manifestation of the social and legal order which emerged in Galicia in connection with the gradual reception of Polish land law in the period before the years 1430 and 1434.6 3 Hrushevskyi, Istoria Ukrainy-Rusy, 20, 22; Linnichenko, Cherty iz istorii soslovii, 15. 4 Chodynicki, Sejmiki ziem ruskich, 73; Sochaniewicz, Wójtowstwa i sołtystwa, 29; Fastnacht, Osadnictwo ziemi sanockiej, 8, 233. 5 Grekov, Krestiane na Rusi, 258. 6 Margasz, »W sprawie sądownictwa czerwonoruskiego,« 41, 44-45. 67 Iurii Zazuliak A more thorough inquiry into the social and legal relationships of »a time of Ruthenian law« is possible due to the preservation of the first register of the Sanok district court, which chronologically encompasses the years 1423-1434, immediately before and after the introduction of the Polish administrative and legal institutions in Galicia. Analyzing the records of those court proceedings proves that many basic institutions, norms, and procedures of the Sanok region’s judicial practice as well as the Latin language of its records were in fact elements of Polish land law. We also cannot exclude that the model of captaincy jurisdiction, which existed in the Sanok region at the time, and which gave captains the power to judge local noblemen and control the circulation of privately owned land, was borrowed from remote Greater Poland.7 The Sanok court record from 1442 discussed above suggests that the Ruthenian law was related primarily to the judicial and political competencies of the royal captains, an office that was introduced in Galicia after the Polish conquest. The evidence provided by this record is by no means unique. Sources from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries portray a similar picture of the wide-ranging authority of royal captains regarding the administration of justice, property transactions, and the production of written documents. They reveal direct links between the Ruthenian law and the office of the royal captain, which was an administrative innovation brought by the Polish and Hungarian rulers to Halych Rus. Overall, they cast some doubts on the definitive conclusion proposed by Hrushevskyi and Linnichenko about the essential role of the Ruthenian judicial and administrative institutions from the pre-Polish period for local government and the administration of public justice in fifteenth-century Galicia. Besides the evidence of the Sanok legal record about »a time of the Ruthenian law«, historians have usually seen the main proof of the persistence of the institutions and norms of Ruthenian law during the fifteenth century in the existence of various groups of royal servitors. The common trait of all those groups of service population was their dependence on royal power, which manifested itself in their being subject to the royal captains and in the fulfillment of a number of specific services and duties. The obligations and group law of the inhabitants of service settlements were rooted mainly in oral customs and were only rarely confirmed by special royal privileges. The sources speak about a great variety of groups of servitors living in fifteenth-century Gali7 Gąsiorowski, »Początki sądów grodzkich,« 69. 68 Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia cia, such as servitors from Dobra, Ulych, and Lodzyna in the Sanok region, royal stablemen from Vitoshynci in the Przemyśl region, and groups of kalanni and ordynci (royal officials) from the Lviv and Halych regions, to mention only the most important ones. Hrushevskyi and Linnichenko viewed all of these servitors as men living under Ruthenian law. Both academics argued that the principles of the servitors’s social and legal organization and their privileges and duties had already been established during the time of Halych-Volhynian statehood. For example, Linnichenko wrote about the »hundred men« from the Sanok district – though the term is attested only very occasionally in the local court register – as being »the relicts of the ancient Russian service organization of the peasantry existing already in the ducal period«.8 In turn, Hrushevskyi considered the village of Medyka in the Przemyśl region, inhabited in the fifteenth century by royal stablemen, to be an old settlement of a service population dating back to ducal times. In addition, the existence of other servitors in fifteenth-century Galicia dependent on the power of royal officials (ordynci, kalanni) was regarded by Hrushevskyi as sufficient evidence for tracing their origins back to the ducal servants during the Kievan Rus era.9 In the first half of the twentieth century, the interpretation of these servitors as the remnants of the all-embracing service organization of Ruthenian law was most fully developed in studies of the Polish historian Wojciech Hejnosz. Hejnosz maintained that various duties and obligations fulfilled by the servitors were part of the old ducal law and pertained to the ducal castles of the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia. Hejnosz viewed the dependence of the servitors to royal captains and castles in the fifteenth century as being a direct continuation of the practices established in Halych Rus under the Rurikid and Romanovychi rulers. To do justice to Hejnosz and his interpretation, it must be noted that he attempted to avoid viewing the Ruthenian law of the servitors as a mere Halych-Volhynian remnant. Hejnosz admitted that some elements of Ruthenian law came into existence through the complex interaction with the Polish political and legal order in late medieval Galicia.10 However, he never examined this aspect in detail, and his main argument was that the servitors were an institution embedded in the social order of the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia. 8 Linnichenko, Cherty iz istorii soslovii, 116; repeated by Grekov, Krestiane na Rusi, 297-298. 9 Hrushevskyi, Istoria Ukrainy-Rusy, 144-146. 10 Hejnosz, Zagadnienie niewoli, 56. 69 Iurii Zazuliak Hejnosz also argued that the public or, in his own words, the »state« character of the dependencies of the servitors living under Ruthenian law distinguished them from the system of vassalage and feudal relationships that expanded into the territory of the Halych Rus under the rule of the Angevin and Jagiellonian dynasties, which had a distinctively private character.11 The line of interpretation that considered the dependence of the Ruthenian law and Ruthenian servitors on the local institutions of royal power to be their distinctive trait was uncritically adopted by some historians, including Hejnosz himself. Sometimes they took a single mention of the exercise of the captains’ power in the form of tax collection or jurisdiction in the sources as sufficient reason to classify the village or men as belonging to Ruthenian law,12 though such evidence provides no references to Ruthenian law. Following Hejnosz, historians never raised doubts about the association of Halych servitors with Ruthenian law in the fifteenth century. Hejnosz’s conclusions, backed by the previous tradition of the academic research represented by Hrushevskyi and Linnichenko, became a commonplace in historiography. Hejnosz’s interpretation provided the basis for subsequent comparative studies aiming to show the typological similarities between servitors’ organizations in the history of the medieval statehood of various territories in Eastern Europe. Even if historians attempted to point to the possible non-Rus roots in the formation of some groups of servitors, such as the kallani and ordynci, their conclusions never questioned the major role of Ruthenian law as the basic and primary context for the origin of those groups.13 However, the view that the Halych servitors were an element of Ruthenian law cannot be fully supported for one important reason: There are only a few, minor items of evidence in fifteenth-century sources which point explicitly to the connection between Ruthenian law and the status of servitors. If one takes, for example, some village settlements of the servile population in the Sanok region, the use of »Ruthenian law« in connection with them is of quite a late date, found only in one source from the first half of the sixteenth century, in the inventory of the Sanok captainship from 1523.14 11 Hejnosz, Ius Ruthenicale, 6-7. 12 Hejnosz, Zagadnienie niewoli, 181-2; Fastnacht, Osadnictwo ziemi sanockiej, 228-229; Persowski, Osady na prawie ruskiem, 49. 13 Vernadsky, »The Royal Serfs.« 14 Fastnacht, Osadnictwo ziemi sanockiej, 230, 232. 70 Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia Concerning evidence from the fifteenth century, the court registers of the Sanok region mention Ruthenian law in connection with the servitors only twice. The first evidence is a record of a court verdict from 1446 in the case of a certain Fil, a servitor from the village of Kostarovci. Fil owned land there and was obliged to provide service because of this ownership. However, according to the same record, Fil also was a townsman in Sanok. By passing its judgment, the court prohibited Fil from selling his land in Kostarovci. The same verdict also saw the court deny Fil the right to transfer this property to German law and forced him to keep serving based on the holding »according to the Ruthenian custom« (et ipso servire more Ruthenico) until he arranged with another person able to fulfill the same service and duties prescribed by the aforementioned custom.15 The second record of the Sanok castle court, dated from 1445, refers to the servitors from the village of Dobra. This is the only evidence which clearly indicates links between the Dobrianskis as royal servitors and Ruthenian law. However, this single item of evidence contrasts with the richness of other source materials available on the fifteenth-century history of this family, members of the petty Ruthenian nobility.16 In his detailed analysis of the social position of the Dobrianskis in the fifteenth century, Hejnosz also qualified all legal records of collective actions taken by the servitors from Dobra before the captain’s court as evidence of Ruthenian law, for example the cases of collective liability for criminal offenses committed by their members.17 This assumption is open to criticism mainly for two reasons: first, such evidence says nothing about Ruthenian law; and second, such collective legal actions were not restricted to Ruthenians and servitors, but were universal instruments in the administration of justice in the Middle Ages.18 A legal record relating Ruthenian law to the Dobrianskis says that members of the family ignored the court summons in a lawsuit which had been initiated against them by a certain Ivan Huno from the neighboring village of Ulych. Because of this contempt of the court, all of the Dobrianskis were fined: They were ordered to give an ox to the court. The record specified that the penalty was imposed in accordance 15 16 17 18 AGZ, vol. 11, no. 2295-2296. Hejnosz, Ius Ruthenicale, 16-37. Ibid., 32-33. Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities. 71 Iurii Zazuliak with Ruthenian law.19 It is interesting to add that two other passages in the lawsuit, written down next to the first one, mention other types of penalties, payable in oxen and rams, imposed on the Dobrianskis because of their nonappearance at the first two hearings of the trial. However, those passages does not indicate whether the penalties belonged to the norms of Ruthenian law. The information about the penalty paid in cattle as a sanction pertaining to Ruthenian law is unique. Records of other cases involving servitors periodically mention fines by which the court penalized the refusal of the members of those groups to attend trials, but they never connect those penalties with Ruthenian law and never present the punishment as specific to their group law.20 The question of whether fines in oxen and rams imposed by the Sanok castle court in the fifteenth century were indeed penalties from old Rus law, as maintained by Hejnosz and Grekov, must be left without a definite answer.21 We know for sure that such penalties cannot be attributed exclusively to Ruthenian law, because they also were imposed by courts operating under Wallachian law in the Sanok and Przemyśl regions during the same era.22 It has to be stressed that the above-mentioned court ruling is the only one in the registers that refers explicitly to the norms of Ruthenian law. We know that some Ruthenian legal customs were preserved in the captains’ court proceedings during the fifteenth century. A record from the Lviv castle court from 1444 provides a telling example. It speaks about the sale of property by Ruthenian inhabitants of the settlement around Lviv castle, an area subject to the authority of the local captain. By terms of the contract, the sellers took on obligations to defend the buyer, a local Armenian, from possible legal claims by their relatives. This obligation was agreed upon in accordance with the custom of Ruthenian law (iuxta consuetudinem iuris Ruthenicalis).23 Another, and probably the most important, legal institution that explicitly emphasized the distinct status of local Ruthenians as a separate ethnic and legal group was a particular type of oath-taking. The procedure of oath-taking according to Ruthenian custom was recognized and widely used in court disputes in fifteenth-century Galicia. 19 20 21 22 23 72 AGZ, vol. 11, no. 2059-2060. Ibid., no. 1766, 2170, 2205, 2209, 2261. Grekov, Krestiane na Rusi, 355. AGZ, vol. 11, no. 1538, 1539, 1540. AGZ, vol. 14, no. 970. Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia Still, the overall quantity of evidence about the application of Ruthenian law in court is very small. Given this evidential problem, it seems difficult to support the opinion held by Linnichenko about the widespread use of Ruthenian law in the administration of justice by land and castle courts. Linnichenko wrote that the castle and land courts in fifteenth-century Galicia administered justice according to Ruthenian law in legal cases in which Ruthenians were involved as plaintiffs or defendants.24 Contrary to this argument by Linnichenko, the sources suggest a quite limited application of Ruthenian law in the administration of justice. For example, sources do not speak of special court sessions held according to Ruthenian law. The silence of sources about this point is especially revealing in comparison with the evidence about the right to special court proceedings that other ethnic and legal groups, e.g. Wallachians, Germans, Jews, and Armenians, enjoyed in Galicia at the time. In such instances, justice was administered according to the legal provisions that pertained to the ethnic laws of those groups. The lack of visibility of Ruthenian law as a comprehensive ethnic law in contemporary legal sources, particularly if compared with the other ethnic group laws, could be accounted for by the fact that the various communities of the Ruthenian population, including servitors, were directly subject to the power of the royal captains. Under Polish rule, the legal customs governing the life of Ruthenian communities became synonymous with the captain’s jurisdiction as such, as the above-mentioned Sanok court record from 1442 indicates. Even though it was not related to the servitors, it described the captain’s judicial competencies as a kind of Ruthenian law. It appears that the »captain’s jurisdiction« as established in Halych Rus after the Polish conquest played an active role in the process of reshaping the local law of the Ruthenian population. Such an assumption can be inferred from the fact that the captains’ justice was rooted not just in Polish land law or the local Ruthenian law. One of its sources was the lord’s will and command, spoken at court proceedings. Furthermore, the exercise of captains’ justice followed the principle of collective judgment: justice was done, sentences delivered, and new legal provisions established in the course of a collective discussion and invention of law by all individuals present at the court sessions. The idea of collective judgment, which governed the administration of the captains’ justice, meant that the norms and procedures adopted for considering and judging legal cases were not taken from statute law, but were 24 Linnichenko, Cherty iz istorii soslovii, 20. 73 Iurii Zazuliak instead the result of collective deliberation and agreement reached by all men who attended the court proceedings. This is probably one of the reasons explaining the difficulties in finding sufficient evidence supporting the thesis that the service population in fifteenth-century Galicia consisted of men subject to Ruthenian law only. Such difficulties can be further illustrated by the royal privileges issued for some Ruthenian servitors. Two frequently mentioned and discussed privileges are known from the fifteenth century. One of their remarkable traits is that none of them mentions Ruthenian law. The first of these documents is the privilege of King Władysław Jagiełło from 1402 for Juriy, Zanko and Dmytro from Ulych.25 It granted the brothers the camp called Dobre (Dobra in later documents) as a hereditary possession. The privilege marked the beginnings of the Dobrianski family and laid the foundations for its future noble status. The document is typical for the royal land grants of that time, which were given in return for service: land ownership was a reward for military service; the right to continued possession was conditional on the continuation of military service. The Dobrianskis were obliged to present three armed men for every military campaign and to fulfill duties to the royal castle with the same number of men. The privilege describes the brothers as servitores nostri de Vlicz. It is worth noting that the numerous conflicts between royal captains and members of the Dobrianski family (as well as with other servitors) in the fifteenth century that originated from the latter’s negligence and refusal to fulfill their service obligations never invoked any customs or norms from Ruthenian law. In case of the Dobrianskis, the legal actions appealed only to the privilege of Władisław Jagiełło.26 The second privilege was promulgated by King Jan Olbracht in 1501 for the servitors of Solonka and Zhyrivka. Those two villages, situated near Lviv, were populated mostly by unfree royal men known as ordynci and kalanni. The main reason for granting the privilege was the destruction of the previous documents as well as of privileges held by the servitors in Solonka and Zhyrivka. The documents had fallen victim to the Tatar raids frequent around that time.27 Another privilege for royal men from Solonka and Zhyrivka was issued a few days later. It abolished the custom by which, following the death of a servitor, the captain, and not the family of the deceased, was entitled to inherit 25 AGZ, vol. 7, no. XXII; Hejnosz, Ius Ruthenicale, 16. 26 AGZ, vol. 11, no. 2260, 2261, 2271, 2272; vol. 13, no. 6494, 6496, 6515. 27 Ibid., vol. 9, no. CXL; Hejnosz, Ius Ruthenicale, 77-79. 74 Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia his goods and property.28 The text of the first privilege describes in detail the duties of the inhabitants of those two villages. Again, the document provides no clues that would permit historians to speak about the social and legal status of those servitors as having been based on Ruthenian law. The privileges for the Dobrianskis as well as for the serfs from Solonka and Zhyrivka clearly suggest that the Jagiellonian rulers of Galicia and their captains not only preserved but also actively determined the duties and influenced the status of local servitors. In the case of Dobra and the Dobrianskis, neither the village with such a name nor the noble family of the Dobrianskis itself existed before the privilege of 1402. It was precisely the royal privilege of Władysław Jagiełło that gave rise to the new family of petty Ruthenian aristocrats. The royal confirmation of the rights and obligations for the servitors from Solonka and Zhyrivka displays a similar application of royal policy towards servitors. By describing and specifying the duties and services of the village inhabitants, the privilege of Jan Olbracht did not rely on the tradition of Ruthenian law, but was based on the testimony of the Cracow voivode Spytko of Melsztyn. The privilege itself explains the key role of Spytko in defining the legal status of the servitors and promulgating the privilege by stressing his special expertise and experience in this matter. Spytko, a scion of one of the most powerful Polish aristocratic families, served for a long time as royal captain of the Lviv region and therefore had many opportunities to acquire good knowledge about the customs and services of the royal men from Solonka and Zhyrivka. In addition, the privilege of King Jan Olbracht mentions that it was Spytko who had issued the previous document for the servitors that had been lost before 1501. Again, it is important to point out this striking parallel in the status of servitors from Dobra and those from Solonka and Zhyrivka: in both cases, their status was determined exclusively by the documents issued by Polish kings and their captains, and not by legal tradition derived from Ruthenian law. The impression that kings and royal captains played an active role in sustaining and extending the institutions of service similar to the examples of Dobra, Solonka, and Zhyrivka is also conveyed by the evidence provided by the Korczyn privilege from 1456. The privilege in question was issued by King Kazimierz Jagiellończyk to confirm the rights of the nobility of the Rus palatinate. One of its paragraphs speaks of the complaints of local noblemen brought before the king 28 Ibid., no. CXLI. 75 Iurii Zazuliak against his captains, accusing them of attracting peasants to move from the nobles’ estates into the »horde«, that is, into royal villages like Solonka and Zhyrivka, which were inhabited by royal servitors.29 Given the evidence from all of the royal privileges discussed above, the servitors emerge not merely as a group originating in the epoch of Halych-Volynian statehood, but as a group whose continuity in terms of rights and status owed much to the policy of the Polish kings. In general, the notion of Ruthenian law as related to the Halych servitors is presented in the sources in highly fragmentary ways. The legal records from the fifteenth century do not contain any direct reference to Ruthenian law as a group law encompassing all of the Halych servitors. Quite the contrary: those few pieces of evidence which point to the links between Ruthenian law and servitors concern only individuals and describe only some aspects of their personal status.30 In addition, the available evidence points to the different times and circumstances behind the origins of the various groups of servitors. Overall, it is impossible to prove that the diverse groups of Halych servitors ever constituted a single organization and shared a common law which originated and developed in the systematic and purposeful politics of the dukes from the Rurikid and Romanovychi dynasties. This does not rule out the possibility that the origins of some servitors and their duties can indeed be traced back to the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia ruled by the Rurikid dukes. Nevertheless, it is important to point out that the social and legal status of the servitors as reflected in fifteenth-century local legal sources seems to indicate a new quality of this group, one which can be explained first and foremost within the context of the tendencies and peculiarities of the Polish and Hungarian rulers’ policies in late medieval Galicia. This new legal and social profile of the Ruthenian servitors reveals some parallels with the process of adjustment that the group laws of other ethnic communities, e.g. Armenians, underwent in the specific context of the region.31 Considering the role of the monarchy in shaping the status of various privileged landowning groups in late medieval Galicia, one could easily disagree with Hejnosz’s proposition of a differentiation between the public (state) duties as characteristic of Ruthenian servitors, and the private (vassal) dependence of other groups and individuals who were granted land and were obliged to perform military service and other 29 Jus Polonicum, 293. 30 AGZ, vol. 14, no. 1106. 31 Heyde, »Lemberg 1440,« 36. 76 Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia duties in return.32 Such a separation is difficult to reconcile with the realities of power relations in Galicia during the given period. There was no division between public and private in the exercise of power by the royal officials; this is most clearly visible in the administration of justice by the royal captains. Moreover, the line between the private (vassal) and state (public) types of dependencies also disappears if seen from the perspective of the rulers’ donation policy in Halych Rus. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there were no rigorously observed differences between legal titles for property granted to different groups of recipients and services attached to them. It should also be taken into consideration that some of those duties and services were never written down in the privileges, being regulated by oral customs only. Rulers also granted estates in Galicia in return for military service without issuing written confirmations of such grants. As a result it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to discern clear distinctions between various types of service law or to consider the recipients’ specific services and obligations as being linked to the criteria of state versus private dependencies.33 In general, one can say that the policies of the rulers from the Piast, Angevin, and Jagiellonian dynasties in Galicia before 1430 tended towards creating a specific regime of services and obligations which, to various degrees, embraced all privileged groups and landowning elites.34 Rightly emphasizing the deep social, economic, and political changes in Galicia under Polish and Hungarian rule does not mean that the various groups of servitors and their duties must be considered exclusively as relicts of the »Ruthenian time«, doomed to extinction by the rise of the new nobility and the formation of an estates-based society in the region.35 Such interpretations have often placed the phenomenon of Halych servitors in an explicitly teleological perspective and underestimated the complexities and contradictions in the policies of Polish and Hungarian rulers in Galicia. The latter often tended to preserve various institutions and relationships of service, and sometimes resisted the efforts of the local social elite to acquire the estate privileges of the Polish nobility. The peculiar type of service relationships to which various groups of local landowners were subjected in the form of multiple 32 33 34 35 Hejnosz, Ius Ruthenicale, 6. Zazuliak, »Navrokolo polemiki pro feodalizm.« Janeczek, »New Authority.« Paszkiewicz, Polityka ruska, 261-263; 267; Prochaska, Lenna i maństwa, 1112; Hejnosz, Ius Ruthenicale, 20-21. 77 Iurii Zazuliak duties and services to the monarchy was not only part of the legacy of the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia, but also a consequence of Polish and Hungarian rule during the second half of the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth centuries. However, the overwhelming bulk of evidence from the fifteenth century that mentions »Ruthenian law« is not related to servitors, but to peasants, known in the sources as kmethones or kmiecie. Ruthenian law as illuminated by this type of evidence was one of the peasant group laws, which regulated relationships between peasants and their lords. As one of the basic institutions determining the social organization of the peasantry in fifteenth-century Galicia, Ruthenian law was conceived of as a set of specific customs and duties to which peasants were subjected. It highlighted the difference in the status of such village communities from other social and legal organizations of village life such as the German or Wallachian laws. In addition, Ruthenian law represented a distinct legal and spatial model of peasant settlement. Its most important elements were the specific spatial arrangements of campus units, and the dvorysche as a basic unit of peasant property ownership and taxation. The institutionalization of Ruthenian law as a distinct type of peasant group law occurred at a time of deep social transformation among the Galician peasantry during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The wide-scale rural colonization under German and Wallachian laws fundamentally transformed the village landscape of Galicia during this period.36 It also brought about the need to conceptualize, in new terms, the legal status of those peasants who had not been encompassed by German or Wallachian law. The formation of Ruthenian law as a legal category and as an institution of peasant life thus took place in the context of encounters and interactions between the old Ruthenian village customs and the institutional and legal innovations of German and Wallachian laws. The main body of evidence about the Ruthenian law of the peasantry comes from the legal records of the local courts, which illuminate various stages of disputes held in the courts about the peasants’ right to move from one lord to another. A distinctive trait of the peasantry as a social group in fifteenth-century Halych Rus was its high level of mobility based on the legally approved right to move. Under certain legal conditions, peasants were allowed to pass from one lord to another. However, legal provisions and customs forbade a peasant to change his 36 Janeczek, »Ethnicity,« 41-43. 78 Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia legal status after the move. In other words, a peasant who had left his former lord for a new one had to be treated under the same law under which he had lived when on his previous lord’s property. However, the disputes over peasant transit were often dominated by a climate of uncertainty and doubts about the legal status of peasants who had passed from one lord to another.37 These uncertainties found their expression in competing claims and disagreements about the type of law – Ruthenian, German, or Wallachian – to which the peasant had been subject while living under the power of the previous lord. To resolve such doubts, the courts usually ordered additional legal action to confirm or clarify a peasant’s legal status. The most frequent disputes arose from the need to clarify which of two laws, Ruthenian or Wallachian, was to be applied.38 One can infer from the records of such disputes that the boundaries between Ruthenian and Wallachian laws were not clearly defined, which enabled peasants to move easily between those two legal types of settlement. Another type of dispute, most common in the Halych region, focused on efforts to prevent peasants from shifting from Ruthenian to German law. Behind such efforts was the widespread conviction and legal custom that a peasant who wanted to move to a new lord had to be subject to the same type of law that had been in force under his previous lord. Yet at the same time, the complaints regularly brought to the courts accusing nobles of neglecting this rule show that German law was expanding at the expense of Ruthenian law, and that nobles were compelling peasants to accept German law as their legal status.39 There is also evidence that peasants were able to choose not only their lords and places of residence, but also the law that determined their social position. Yet available sources indicate that peasants could be settled under Ruthenian law only for a short period.40 Some records of disputes also specify that a peasant could live under Ruthenian law only for a period of four years.41 Another legal document states that the court permitted a lord who had acquired peasants in a dispute to settle them under Ruthenian law or any other law he wished. We learn from the same source that the previous lord had held those peasants 37 Rundstein, Ludność wieśniacza, 16. 38 AGZ, vol. 12, no. 4018-4019, 4094; vol. 14, no. 474, 478, 485, 2146, 2349. 39 Ibid., vol. 11, no. 2295; vol. 12, no. 147, 166, 454; vol. 13, no. 5041; vol. 14, no. 1106. 40 Ibid., vol. 14, no. 3130. 41 Ibid., vol. 12, no. 4094. 79 Iurii Zazuliak under Wallachian law.42 After the move to another lord, peasants could also voluntarily change from Wallachian to Ruthenian law.43 Following an agreement between lords, peasants could be temporarily transferred from German or Wallachian to Ruthenian law.44 Evidence of the change in peasants’ legal status was by no means restricted to Ruthenian law. For example, the sources reveal how peasants of private lords changed laws when passing to the authority of royal captains and becoming members of the group of unfree servitors known as kallanni-ordynci.45 Another interesting aspect of peasant mobility visible in the sources was how some peasants were subject simultaneously to different lords and different kinds of group laws,46 such as the case of the above-mentioned townsman from Sanok, called Fil. As a townsman, Fil was subject to the norms of German law. At the same time, he also was obliged to provide some service according to Ruthenian law, as he was the owner of some land in the village of Kostarovci. This kind of evidence suggests that, in certain circumstances, a peasant could be subject at the same time to such different types of legal systems as Ruthenian and German law.47 The evidence discussed above also leads us to another observation. In practice, the boundaries between different peasant group laws, which regulated the internal activities of peasant communities, remained blurred. In terms of their legal organization, many villages were in fact hybrids, which allowed different types of peasant laws to coexist and intermingle. Consequently, village communities regulating their activities were able to combine procedures and norms that belonged to different laws. This process of close interdependence and merging was particularly evident regarding Wallachian and Ruthenian laws.48 While the coexistence and interaction of Ruthenian and German laws was less frequent, it was not completely unknown.49 The variety of statuses and practices emerging from interactions between Ruthenian, German, and Wallachian laws, which bore the mark of being legal hybrids, allows us to consider the law in the fifteenth-century peasant society as some42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 80 Ibid., vol. 14, no. 3241. Ibid., no. 3130. Ibid., vol. 12, no. 3607. Jus Polonicum, 293. AGZ, vol. 14, no. 509. Ibid., vol. 11, no. 2295. Ibid., vol. 18, no. 1979; Jawor, Osady prawa wołoskiego, 125. Persowski, Osady na prawie ruskiem, 8, 66-67. Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia thing dynamic and open to innovations and social change, and not as a body of immutable norms and institutions which imposed immobility and rigidity onto the social and legal order of the village. It also must be noted that Ruthenian law was an accumulation of amorphous, poorly defined local and oral customs. No sources available from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries provide a clear explanation and description of the essence and basic traits of Ruthenian law, regardless of whether it concerns servitors or peasants. This feature of Ruthenian law becomes especially evident when compared with the numerous privileges in German and partly also in Wallachian law. One of the novelties that German law brought to Eastern Europe was the more widespread use of the written word in the peasant world. Privileges in German law that granted the right to found new rural and urban settlements were largely instruments of a written law which saw users write down and describe in detail all important institutions, norms, and regulations that laid down the legal foundation for these types of settlements.50 As for the Ruthenian law of the peasantry, it was mostly an oral legal process, which was never institutionalized in written form and was therefore much more open to continual negotiation and reconsideration of its norms. This aspect of Ruthenian law seems to be crucial for understanding how it operated in Halych peasant society. To illustrate this trait of Ruthenian law, one can look again at some instances of peasants moving between lords. In these cases, the application of Ruthenian law to individual peasants or even whole communities was not self-evident and was therefore challenged in court. In response to contradictory claims about peasants’ legal status, the jurors usually set up a procedure which aimed at elucidating the type of law – Ruthenian, German, or Wallachian – that applied to the involved peasants. The peasants were interrogated and sometimes compelled to take oaths to confirm their testimonies. Such a legal procedure had an oral character: the norms of Ruthenian law were discussed, established, and re-confirmed via oral communication, through spoken declarations or oath-taking.51 The sources also make clear that the discussions about Ruthenian law held at court proceedings were inextricably linked to uncertainty regarding the basic elements of that law, and to the constant pursuit of collective confirmation of its norms by the peasants themselves. 50 Górecki, »Assimilation, Resistance, and Ethnic Group Formation,« 454. 51 AGZ, vol. 18, no. 3005. 81 Iurii Zazuliak Conclusions The notion of Ruthenian law as found in the fifteenth-century sources from Halych Rus was quite inconsistent and ambiguous. Its usage can be seen as one of the unwieldy attempts to introduce some conceptual order into the chaos of the relationships of lordship, service, and subjection in late medieval Galicia. However, the term not only clarifies but also misleads historians concerning the relationships to which it refers. The authority of the royal captains in the sphere of documenting and controlling legal activities of the local nobility, the status of unfree royal men and servitors, the settlement law of the Ruthenian peasantry – all of these legal and institutional phenomena have been described as manifestations of Ruthenian law. However, they are clearly too diverse to be conceptualized in terms of a unified and comprehensive legal system established before the mid-fourteenth century during the time of the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia. Moreover, it seems that for some of the institutions, such as the Halych servitors, Ruthenian law played a much less important role in determining their status in the fifteenth century than has been suggested by previous historical studies. The legal and social position of the local servitors was strongly affected by the policies of the rulers from the Piast, Angevin, and Jagiellonian dynasties and their captains, who showed much interest in strengthening and extending the institutions of a service and servile population. The Ruthenian law of the free peasants represented a set of specific institutions and customs regulating the cultivation of land, taxation, and justice. This type of peasant law was never put into written form, and the process of oral communication framed the application of its norms. From this point of view, Ruthenian law was nothing but legal practice and oral negotiation about its norms. It is difficult therefore to define the balance between traditions, innovations, adjustments, and manipulations in the making and re-making of Ruthenian law. Furthermore, the boundaries separating Ruthenian law from two other types of peasant law in Galicia – German and Wallachian – were not firmly established. These various legal models for organizing peasants’ lives were constantly influencing and interpenetrating each other, which resulted in the emergence of many hybrid village settlements. In terms of their legal organization, such villages combined elements of different peasant laws. This probably explains the widespread doubts and hesitancies in court rulings regarding claims peasants made about their legal status, as well as about special legal procedures employed to clarify their legal identity as people subject to Ruthenian, German, or Wallachian law. 82 Ius Ruthenicale in Late Medieval Galicia Bibliography Edited Sources AGZ = Akta grodzkie i ziemskie z czasów Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z Archiwum tak zwanego Bernardyńskiego we Lwowie vol. 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18. Ed. by Ksawery Liske, Oktaw Pietruski and Antoni Prochazka. Lwów: Galicyjski Wydział Krajowy, 1878-1903. Jus Polonicum, codicibus manuscriptis et editionibus quibusque collatis. Ed. by Jan Wincenty Bandtkie. Warszawa: Sumptibus Societatis Regiae Philomathicae Varsaviensis, 1831. Scholarly Works Chodynicki, Henryk. Sejmiki ziem ruskich w wieku XV. Lwów: Nakładem Towarzystwa dla popierania nauki polskiej, 1906. Fastnacht, Adam. Osadnictwo ziemi sanockiej w latach 1340-1650. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1962. Gąsiorowski, Antoni. »Początki sądów grodzkich w średniowiecznej Polsce.« Czasopiśmo Prawno-Historyczne 26 (1974) 2: 57-77. Górecki, Piotr. »Assimilation, Resistance, and Ethnic Group Formation in Medieval Poland: A European Paradigm?« In Das Reich und Polen. Parallelen, Interaktionen und Formen der Akkulturation im hohen und späten Mittelalter, ed. by Thomas Wünsch, 447-476. Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2003. Grekov, Boris. Krestiane na Rusi z drevneishikh vremen do XVII veka. Moskva: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1946. Hejnosz, Wojciech. Zagadnienie niewoli na Rusi Czerwonej pod koniec średniowiecza w świetle stosunków prawnych Polski i krajów sąsiednich. Lwów: Nakładem Towarzystwa Naukowego, 1933. —. Ius Ruthenicale. Przeżytki dawnego ustroju społecznego na Rusi Halickiej w XV wieku. Lwów: Nakładem Towarzystwa Naukowego, 1928. Heyde, Jürgen. »Lemberg 1440. Ethnizität in der Vormoderne.« In Dekonstruieren und doch erzählen. Polnische und andere Geschichten, ed. by Jürgen Heyde, Karsten Holste, Dietlind Hüchtker, Yvonne Kleinmann, and Katrin Steffen, 32-38. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2015. Hrushevs’kyi, Mykhailo. Istoria Ukrainy-Rusy, vol. 5. L’viv: Naukova Dumka, 1994. Janeczek, Andrzej. »Ethnicity, Religious Disparity and the Formation of the Multicultural Society of Red Ruthenia in the Late Middle Ages.« In On the Frontier of Latin Europe: Integration and Segregation in Red Ruthenia, 135083 Iurii Zazuliak 1600, ed. by Thomas Wünsch and Andrzej Janeczek, 15-45. Warsaw: Institute of Archeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 2004. —. »New Authority, New Property, New Nobility: The Foundation of Noble Estates in Red Ruthenia during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.« Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae 7 (2002): 77-125. Jawor, Grzegorz. Osady prawa wołoskiego i ich mieszkańcy na Rusi Czerwonej w póżnym średniowieczu. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii CurieSkłodowskiej, 2000. Linnichenko, Ivan. Cherty iz istorii soslovij v Juho-Zapadnoj (Halickoj) Rusi XIV-XV vv. Moskva: Tip. E. Lissnera, 1894. Margasz, Władysław. »W sprawie sądownictwa czerwonoruskiego przed r. 1435.« Przegląd Powszechny XXI (1889) 6: 39-54, 191-208. Paszkiewicz, Henryk. Polityka ruska Kazimierza Wielkiego. Warszawa: Nakładem Kasy im. Mianowskiego, 1925. Persowski, Franciszek. Osady na prawie ruskiem, polskiem, niemieckiem i wołoskiem w ziemi lwowskiej. Studjum z dziejów osadnictwa. Lwów: Kasa M. Rektora J. Mianowskiego, 1926. Prochaska, Antoni. Lenna i maństwa na Rusi. Kraków: Nakładem Akademii Umiejętności, 1901. Reynolds, Susan. Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900-1300. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1984. Rundstein, Szymon. Ludność wieśniacza ziemi Halickiej w wieku XV. Lwów, 1903. Sochaniewicz, Stefan. Wójtowstwa i sołtystwa pod względem prawnym i ekonomicznym w ziemi lwowskiej. Lwów: Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1921. Vernadsky, George. »The Royal Serfs (Servi Regales) of the ›Ruthenian Law‹ and Their Origin.« Speculum 26 (1951) 2: 255-264. Zazuliak, Iurii. »Navrokolo polemiky pro feodalizm v Halychyni u XIV-XV st.« Ruthenica 5 (2006): 170-193. 84 Jürgen Heyde Migration and Ethnicity in Medieval Poland »Ethnic Markers« in a Historical Perspective An anonymous poem, preserved in a manuscript in the monastery of Leubus in Silesia, contains a description of several European kingdoms and territories. In the last line of the poem, Poland is described by the line »Poland nurtures people of various origins« (diversi generis homines Polonia nutrit).1 The openness to strangers and the special relation to them in Polish history are mirrored in Polish medieval historiography as well. Especially in the decades after 1989, the history of non-Polish populations and the study of Poland’s multiethnic and multi-religious heritage have played an important role in the historiography of late medieval Poland in particular. This emphasis has been accompanied by new concepts in the history of migration, concentrating less on processes of acculturation and more on ethnic group formation. Leaving behind older polonocentric approaches to a medieval »national history«, scholars have conceptualized a multiethnic history of the late medieval kingdom, adapting ethnologic concepts and intensifying contacts with fellow Ukrainian, Belorusian, Lithuanian and German historians. As long ago as the 1970s, historians such as Benedykt Zientara laid the foundations for this re-orientation, but on a larger scale it became possible only after the transformation at the end of the socialist era. During the Peoples’ Republic, even medieval history in Poland had to conform to informal political guidelines concerning the territory they were supposed to study: the territory of the Peoples’ Republic of Poland. Political considerations encouraged intensive research on the history of Silesia, Pomerania and Prussia. These regions had a highly developed regional historiography, which was far more advanced than studies on Greater Poland or – even more so – Little Poland and Mazovia. The territories east of the rivers Bug and San (kresy), especially the historic province of Red Ruthenia, but also the lands of the late medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania, were only of sporadic concern in occasional case studies. Furthermore, up to the late 1 Monumenta Lubensia, 34; Zientara, »Foreigners in Poland in the 10th-15th Centuries,« 13. 85 Jürgen Heyde decades of the twentieth century, immigrants or foreigners in general were mostly from the point of view of borders and conflicts.2 The year 1989 marks a significant change. The proverbial »Return to Europe« was accompanied by an intensification of academic contacts with the eastern neighbors of Poland, and the kresy received renewed attention from Polish historians as well. In the former eastern territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one could study the co-existence of religiously, linguistically, and culturally diverse groups as in a kaleidoscope. Special attention was paid to processes of migration and the relations among different ethnic groups. As most historical sources in the eastern parts of the Commonwealth date only from late medieval times, there was less emphasis on long-ranging (diachronic) processes of acculturation and dissimilation, and more on the (synchronic) analysis of social relations between various groups. Their ethnicity is treated as a primordial phenomenon that can be described using ethnologic categories to the effect that ethnic groups are identified by sets of socio-cultural markers displaying the uniqueness of any such group.3 These categories have not just been invented by modern ethnological research; they can be found in historical sources as well. The quotation at the beginning of this article derives from a typology of peoples/nations, a literary genre dating back to ancient times, where characteristic features of neighboring peoples were often presented in a polemic and derogatory manner.4 In its wording, however, the poem from Leubus Monastery can be placed in a broader tradition of thinking about social difference. As early as the tenth century, the chronicler Regino of Prüm tried to define markers that allow a distinction between various groups or »nations of people« as he put it: »Different nations of people distinguish themselves by origin, customs, language, and laws« (diversae nationes populorum inter se discrepant genere, moribus, lingua, 2 As an overview of the older historiography, see Gawlas, »Die mittelalterliche Nationsbildung«; Geremek, »Obcość i eksklusja w średniowieczu«; for a critical overview on early medieval historiography see Lübke, Fremde im östlichen Europa, 10-32; idem, »Barbaren, Leibeigene, Kolonisten.« The same holds true for German historiography as well, cf. Ehlers, »Was sind und wie bilden sich nationes.« 3 Posern-Zieliński, Etniczność; cf. the table of ethnic categories in Janeczek, »Ethnische Gruppenbildungen,« 431 (reprinted also in Heyde, »Ethnische Gruppenbildung,« 397). 4 Stanzel, »Zur literarischen Imagologie. Eine Einführung.« 86 Migration and Ethnicity in Medieval Poland legibus) he wrote in a letter to Archbishop Hatto of Mainz.5 The categories Regino referred to can be traced back to early medieval writers, such as Isidore of Seville, and they can also be found in similar ways in late medieval chronicles.6 Comparable categorizations are used in ethnologic research (Posern-Zieliński) and have been applied by Andrzej Janeczek to the history of medieval Poland.7 This leads to a certain quandary. The categories themselves are anthropological, but they are applied in a historical function. They appear to provide an unchanging, ahistorical basis for historical analysis, but if they are used in a historical context, they have to be treated as mutable as well. Regino and other medieval authors found themselves in the same dilemma as a contemporary researcher: Every definition, even one based on ancient templates, represents an attempt by the author to create a definite order. Any such attempt has to be studied in its own historical context, which is what this article tries to do. It places the categories – origin, customs and religion, language, and law – in their context within the history of medieval Poland, and asks about their historical relevance for processes of social demarcation and ethnic group building. Origin Awareness of a common heritage, shown in medieval legends of origin, is considered to be one of the most fundamental criteria of medieval national consciousness. In Poland, a highly developed genealogical memory can be found as long ago as the early Middle Ages, but at the same time, some of the most important noble families ascribed their origins to foreign (especially Scandinavian) ancestors, and their descendants still emphasized this in later centuries.8 5 »Epistula Reginonis ad Hathonem archiepiscopum missa.« In Reginonis Abbatis Prumiensis Chronicon, XX; West, »Knowledge of the past and the judgement of history.« 6 Janeczek, »Świadomość wspólnoty słowiańskiej;« Pohl, »Sprache und Identität: Einleitung;« Bartlett, The Making of Europe, 197-220; on political instrumentalization of ethnic categories, ibid., 221-242. 7 Posern-Zieliński, Etniczność; Janeczek, »Ethnische Gruppenbildungen im spätmittelalterlichen Polen.« 8 Zientara, »Społeczeństwo polskie X-XII wieku,« 75; cf. Bieniak, »Polska elita polityczna XII wieku (Część III A. Arbitrzy książąt – krąg rodzinny Piotra 87 Jürgen Heyde Similarly, the first Polish chronicles do not present a concise legend of origin, but rather dynastic tales in which foreigners play an important role. In Gallus Anonymus’ account, it was the guests who predicted the future glory of Piast. Wincenty Kadłubek told about the »hero« Gracchus/Krak as the forefather and founder of the dynasty.9 Fourteenth-century chronicles then included origo gentis tales relating to the biblical motif of Noah’s sons and the development of peoples and languages after the Deluge,10 while the Kronika Wielkopolska (Chronicle of Great Poland) adopted the tale of the three brothers Czech, Lech and Rus from Bohemian sources, displaying a sense of Slavic unity.11 In the fifteenth century, Jan Długosz further elaborated on this motif, presenting Rus, however, not as a brother but as a nephew to Lech. Długosz dismissed the idea of equality among the Slavic forefathers and assigned a subordinate role to Rus, hinting in the legend of origin at the incorporation of Red Ruthenia (Galicia/Halich) into the Polish kingdom in the fourteenth century.12 The concept of »communities of origin« can nevertheless only be understood as a deliberate construct and an attempt at integrating the political elite. In everyday life, the idea of an ethnic community based on common origin did not play a decisive role. In thirteenth-century sources, which already prominently displayed »ethnic« differences, classifications such as Polonus or Germanus were used only in a contemporary context. Marek Cetwiński has shown this in the example of the »Pole« Albert and the »German« Mroczko, who both stood in the service of Silesian dukes.13 Albert was a descendent of Sorbian nobility, whereas Mroczko belonged to the Silesian noble family Pogarell, but for their contemporaries in Meißen (in the case of Albert) and Great Poland (in the case of Mroczko) their »origin« from a different territory appeared more important than their family roots. 9 10 11 12 13 88 Włostowica),« 19-32; Bieniak, »Awdańce«; Wołoszyn, »Ze studiów nad obecnością ruską i skandynawską,« 602-603. Banaszkiewicz, Podanie o Piaście i Popielu, 122-155; idem, Polskie dzieje bajeczne mistrza Wincentego Kadłubka, 7-43. Kersken, Geschichtsschreibung im Europa der »nationes,« 527-533. Ibid., 531-532; Graus, Die Nationenbildung der Westslaven im Mittelalter, 130-137. Joannis Dlugossii Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae, Liber I et II, 89-90; Kłoczowski, »Polacy a cudzoziemcy w XV wieku,« 47. Cetwiński, »Polak Albert i Niemiec Mroczko«; Górecki, »Assimilation, Resistance, and Ethnic Group Formation in Medieval Poland,« 472-476. Migration and Ethnicity in Medieval Poland Customs and religion The issues of customs and religion transcend the sphere of elite culture and touch upon aspects of everyday encounters among the general public. In early medieval Europe, a degree of religious unity was seen as one of most important factors for the integration of subjugated populations. In pagan times, such formal unity could be achieved by identifying the gods of the conquered territory with the victors’ own pantheon, or by substituting the »defeated« gods with the »victorious« ones. In the confrontation between Christian and pagan powers though, only the destruction of the pagan gods and their places of worship as a precondition to Christianization appeared as a way to end the confrontation permanently.14 The first Piast rulers to be documented in historical sources, Mieszko I and Bolesław Chrobry, used the Christianization of their lands and the formation of an institutionalized church to strengthen and perpetuate the power they had built in numerous military conquests. By founding the Gniezno archdiocese in 1000, Bolesław safeguarded not only the political independence of the Piast core territories, but also underlined his claims to Silesia, Cracow, and Pomerania.15 Domestically, the monarch unconditionally enforced subordination to the new cult (which even the ever-critical chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg felt compelled to acknowledge), thereby securing his reign and eliminating potential opposition.16 Yet the relations between church and monarchy did not remain so close. Throughout the Middle Ages, no member of the Piast dynasty achieved the status of a saint – a striking contrast not only to the neighboring dynasties in Bohemia and Hungary, but also to the Scandinavian monarchies in Sweden and Norway, and to numerous other dynasties of the »Younger Europe«.17 Under the influence of the ecclesiastical 14 Lübke, »Before Colonization«; idem, »Das ›junge Europa‹ in der Krise«; Urbańczyk, Władza i polityka, 39-46; Samsonowicz, »Więzi społeczne we wczesnym średniowieczu,« 60-62. 15 Kurnatowska, Początki Polski, 106-118; Labuda, »Die Gründung der Metropolitanorganisation der polnischen Kirche«; Kłoczowski, »Chrześcijaństwo w Europie Środkowowschodniej i budowa organizacji kościelnej.« 16 Michałowski, »Christianisation of the Piast monarchy in the 10th and 11th centuries«; idem, »Post dziewięciotygodniowy w Polsce Chrobrego.« 17 Kłoczowski, Młodsza Europa, 452-459; Gieysztor, »Więź narodowa i regionalna w średniowieczu,« 28-30. 89 Jürgen Heyde reform movement, the Polish clergy tried to achieve libertas ecclesiae18 and distance themselves from the monarch. The cult of Saint Stanislaus, the Cracow bishop-martyr executed by King Bolesław II, was in essence republican and consciously not associated with the dynasty, being structured analogously to the English martyr Thomas Beckett.19 Later, the new saint also appeared as patron of those who propagated the idea of national unity against the dynastic divisions in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the »Life of Stanislaus« by Vincenty of Kielcza (died around 1270), the fragmentation of the land into various duchies was depicted as God’s punishment for the monarch’s killing of the bishop, a situation that only the church was able to redeem.20 During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the increasing adoption of European cultural patterns changed not only the relations between church and ruling dynasty. Western European knightly culture served as an integrating factor for the developing nobility. While the members of the monarch’s retinue did not separate themselves from other knights to form an aristocracy, the boundaries between warriors and peasants nevertheless became more accentuated than in the early Middle Ages. Some of the lower-ranking warriors who could not afford the necessary equipment sank into the ranks of the peasantry. This development was most advanced in regions where the new noble culture had taken root most intensively.21 Not just the leading elites proved to be open-minded towards new cultural trends. Within the broader population, a similar trend can be observed in the reception of fasting habits. In the mid-thirteenth century, newcomers to Silesia observed the fast before Easter for a shorter period than the resident population (forty instead of seventy days), and the locals adopted the new custom quickly. When the church hierarchy intervened in this matter, a conflict broke out between clergy and parishioners that had to be mediated by papal intervention – ultimately in favor of the parishioners’ right to embrace the new custom if they wished to.22 In the second half to the fourteenth century, after the duchy of Galicia had become part of the Polish kingdom (and known from that 18 Irgang, »›Libertas ecclesiae‹ und landesherrliche Gewalt.« 19 Wünsch, »Kultbeziehungen zwischen dem Reich und Polen,« 374-376. 20 Samerski, »Stanislaus von Krakau«; Kuzmová, »Preaching on Martyr-Bishops in the Later Middle Ages.« 21 Lalik, »Społeczne gwarancje bytu,« 156-158. 22 Menzel, »Die Akzeptanz des Fremden in der mittelalterlichen deutschen Ostsiedlung,« 210-211. 90 Migration and Ethnicity in Medieval Poland time on as Red Ruthenia),23 the unity of religious culture eroded further. Although the Catholic Church maintained its privileged position and the rulers continued to vigorously support the spread of Catholic institutions within the new province, there were no plans for a systematic Catholicization of the land. The Catholic hierarchy had to be content with permanent co-existence alongside the Orthodox Church.24 The changing relations between religion and secular power since the thirteenth century became most strikingly visible towards the Jewish population. When Duke Bolesław the Pious of Great Poland had issued the first general privilege in 1264, the church reacted almost immediately, demanding the marginalization of the Jewish economic elites and strict separation between Jews and Christians. From the synod of Wrocław in 1267 to the synods of the fifteenth century, the bishops emphasized again and again that anti-Jewish measures were necessary, because Christianity, so they claimed, was not yet sufficiently rooted within Polish society. In practice, however, those demands by the Catholic hierarchy were not even partially implemented, but rather totally ignored. During the deep social and economic transformation that accompanied the era of colonization, religious uniformity no longer appeared to be an asset for the consolidation of power, but rather as a burden that might impede peaceful co-existence among the increasingly diverse population of the kingdom. Language One of most salient aspects in the perception of foreigners is their strange, incomprehensible language.25 The distinction between Słowianie (from słowo – word) and Niemcy (from niemy – mute) for their western neighbors is very old. In contrast to other similar constructions, e.g. the Greek barbaroi, it was not emotionally charged to start with.26 On the other hand, linguistic unity appears not to have played a decisive role for the construction of group identities. Linguistic communities are not congruent with archaeological cultures, and common 23 Janeczek, »Red Ruthenia.« 24 Mironowicz, Kościół prawosławny w państwie Piastów i Jagiellonów, 134138, 162-177; Strzelczyk, »Auf dem Weg zur Republik vieler Völker und Konfessionen«; Janeczek, »›Exceptis schismaticis‹.« 25 Armstrong, Nations before Nationalism, 4-5. 26 Panic, Zachodniosłowiańska nazwa ›Niemcy‹ w świetle źródeł średniowiecznych; Graus, Die Nationenbildung der Westslaven im Mittelalter, 26-27. 91 Jürgen Heyde cultural features proved to be more important than linguistic ones.27 For example, the oldest Polish chronicle, by Gallus Anonymus, emphasizes the linguistic proximity between Poles and Czechs, yet the image he creates of Bohemia is far more negative than his opinion of the Teutonici.28 During the colonization period, when the contacts with foreign immigrants became closer and more common, the term »lingua« appeared in settlement privileges often as a synonym for »origin«. However, in many cases it is not used as a criterion of demarcation, but rather in an inclusive sense, not restricted to a certain group of immigrants (e.g. homines cuiuscumque linguae collocare,29 Polonus vel cuiuscunque ydiomatis homo liber).30 Frequently, immigrants entered into marriages with local families after just a short time, and their choice of names showed a linguistic integration into their new environment. In the foundation book of Henryków Monastery in Silesia, there is mention of a local nobleman, Albertus cognomine in Polonico Łyka,31 and the register of miracles of St. Stanislaus show similar developments among Cracow burghers: Rinerus married Radlava, and they christened their daughter Pribislava.32 Even in this period, language was seldom used as an argument for constructing a common group identity. This changed, however, as Polish, which as the vernacular language had previously received very little attention, slowly became more important. The sermons of the clergy, especially the monks of mendicant orders settling in the Polish lands since the thirteenth century, helped to establish the Polish language as a means of public and learned communication.33 In the struggle for the renovation of a unified Polish kingdom in the second 27 Brather, Ethnische Interpretationen in der frühgeschichtlichen Archäologie; Zientara, »Społeczeństwa słowiańskie w starożytności i wczesnym średniowieczu,« 18-19; Wenskus, Stammesbildung und Verfassung, 87-89. 28 Strzelczyk, »Die Wahrnehmung des Fremden im mittelalterlichen Polen,« 207-208. 29 Menzel, Die schlesischen Lokationsurkunden des 13. Jahrhunderts, 7 and 218. 30 Ibid., 218 with note 230. 31 Liber fundationis claustri sancte Marie virginis in Heinrichow czyli Księga Henrykowska, 121; Jurek, Obce rycerstwo na Śląsku do połowy XIV wieku, 106-110; Cetwiński, »Polak Albert i Niemiec Mroczko.« 32 Zientara, »Die deutschen Einwanderer in Polen vom 12. bis zum 14. Jahrhundert,« 341. 33 Klemensiewicz, Historia języka polskiego, vol. 1, 63-77. 92 Migration and Ethnicity in Medieval Poland half of the thirteenth century, Polish elites used linguistic proximity and difference as arguments to lend their respective political options further legitimacy. The chronicle of Great Poland, around 1300, hints at the linguistic kinship of Czech and Polish as an argument for the suitability of Vaclav (Wacław) II of Bohemia as king of Poland,34 but one has to bear in mind that the chronicle did not reach a wider audience at that time.35 More attention was given to conflicts that arose from the use of Middle High German as a »trendy language« – the language of troubadours and minnesingers – at the courts of Polish dukes, especially in Silesia.36 The most prominent example of the political use of language as criterion for the exclusion of others relates to the suppression of the »uprising of Bailiff Albert« in Cracow by Władysław Łokietek in 1311/12. The victorious troops of the future Polish king were reported to have killed anybody not being able to pronounce the words »soczewica, koło, miele, młyn« correctly (et qui nesciebant dicere soczovycza, koło, myele, młyn decolati sunt omnes). The problem with this account is that the oldest manuscript with this description stems from the sixteenth century (Rocznik Krasińskich), and there is no mention of it at all in contemporary sources.37 By the sixteenth century, the Polish vernacular was prominently present in public discourse, in contrast to the early fourteenth century. Yet older historiography, in Poland as well as in Germany, has treated this passage as crucial evidence for the national character of this conflict; younger works have, however, distanced themselves from such arguments.38 In everyday life, particularly in towns with a larger immigrant population, different languages continued to be used side by side without separating various groups permanently. In contrast to Livonia or Pomerania, for example, in Poland-Lithuania the churches in a town were not divided according to linguistic lines: instead, the magistrates sought to employ additional preachers representing the various lan34 Zientara, Frühzeit der europäischen Nationen, 365. 35 Janeczek, »Świadomość wspólnoty słowiańskiej w pełnym i późnym średniowieczu«; Strzelczyk, »Westslawische Reminiszenzen der Großpolnischen Chronik.« 36 Jurek, Obce rycerstwo na Śląsku do połowy XIV wieku, 126. 37 Rocznik Krasińskich do r. 1351, 133; cf. Wyrozumski, Dzieje Krakowa 1, 202. 38 Gawlas, O kształt zjednoczonego królestwa, 92-94; Zientara, »Foreigners in Poland in the 10th-15th Centuries,« 18-21; Wyrozumski, Dzieje Krakowa 1, 199-211. 93 Jürgen Heyde guages of the parishioners. It seemed to have been indeed important to be able to hear sermons in one’s own language, as the Catholic immigrants in Red Ruthenia employed Polish as well as German preachers in their churches in Lviv and Przemyśl.39 Doubtlessly, language as a symbol for belonging to a community became more important in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as can be seen in the chronicle of Jan Długosz, who frequently used lingua as a synonym for natio in his ethnographic descriptions.40 In public life, Polish became increasingly important,41 and Długosz reckoned the knowledge of the Polish language was essential for the secular and the spiritual elites.42 In his memorandum on the reform of the Polish kingdom, »Monumentum pro Reipublicae Ordinatione Congestum« (around 1475 and written in Latin), Jan Ostroróg, the castellan of Międzyrzec, categorically demanded that sermons in German should be prohibited, as anybody willing to live in Poland should be required to learn the Polish language.43 It was not only the elites who showed awareness that language could be used as demarcation of belonging to a community. During the conflicts between Poland and the Teutonic Order in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, witness testimonies again and again point to language – embodied in the ijdioma Polonicum as well as in the names of people and places – as a sign for belonging to the Regnum Polonicum.44 In the new kingdom, the Polish language had become a bond transcending social groups and boundaries, and gained importance for communication across the kingdom at the cost of Latin and German as traditional instruments of elite communication. The constant need to translate between the elite and vernacular language increasingly came to be seen as a burden. Around 1450, Jakub Parkosz, a scholar at Cracow University, wrote a book on orthography so that Polish 39 Kapral, »Legal Regulation and National (Ethnic) Differentiation,« 212-213; Krochmal, »Ethnic and Religious Integration and Segregation,« 201. 40 Gawlas, »Świadomość narodowa Jana Długosza,« 19-37; Koczerska, »Łaska królewska, czyli kontakty władcy z poddanymi w Polsce późnośredniowiecznej,« 438. 41 Adamska, »Od łaciny do języków wernakularnych – i z powrotem.« 42 Gawlas, »Świadomość narodowa Jan Długosza,« 27, Kłoczowski, »Polacy a cudzoziemcy w XV wieku.« 43 Pawiński, Jana Ostroroga żywot i pismo »O naprawie Rzeczypospolitej«; Kłoczowski, »Polacy a cudzoziemcy w XV wieku,« 64. 44 Lübke, »Demonstrating Unity in History,« 169; Bieniak, »Przebieg procesu polsko-krzyżackiego z 1339 roku.« 94 Migration and Ethnicity in Medieval Poland could receive due recognition as a written language and not just one for everyday communication.45 The work of Parkosz and other humanist scholars increased the role of the vernacular in politics and culture, but their pan-European networks also emphasized the continuing importance of Latin and other common languages in transregional communication. Law In the early Middle Ages, a person’s legal status was linked to his or her place within a group, and a foreigner was basically seen as lawless.46 When contact with foreigners was desired, formalized hospitality and its unwritten laws created circumstances in which people were able to move freely, even beyond their usual legal environment. In principal, the law of hospitality allowed the foreigner to become a member of his host’s household, and the host became legally responsible for a guest in court, just like he or she would be for an unfree servant.47 In some early medieval societies, monarchs institutionalized hospitality towards foreign merchants by issuing general guarantees of protection to hospites, and they substituted the original gifts to the host with tolls and fees to the monarch.48 Hospites could also be warriors, offering the monarch their services in warfare and administration, or even – mentioned in the sources from the twelfth century on – artisans and peasants coming to settle on the land of the monarch or other landlords.49 As the migration of individuals without guaranteed legal protection to a foreign land always bore the risk of being classified as lawless and taken into slavery,50 such migrations of peasants and artisans had to be organized in groups and in advance. Some documents contain passages obliging the local pop45 Klemensiewicz, Historia języka polskiego 1, 73; Gawlas, »Die mittelalterliche Nationenbildung,« 141-142; Jakuba Parkosza traktat o ortografii polskiej; Kowalczyk, »Jakub Parkosz z Zorawic.« 46 Schipp, »Römer und Barbaren«; Lübke, Fremde im östlichen Europa, 114115. 47 On the position of unfree persons within the household cf. Lalik, »Społeczne gwarancje bytu,« 119. 48 Lübke, Fremde im östlichen Europa, 157-159. 49 Ibid., 136-144; Główka, »Hospites w polskich źródłach pisanych XII-XV wieku.« 50 Lübke, Fremde im östlichen Europa, 142. 95 Jürgen Heyde ulation to grant immigrants board and food; the duty is interpreted as relating to such forms of organized migration.51 Letters of protection by a monarch safeguarded the legal position of a foreigner, especially a merchant, while he stayed far from the centers of royal influence. In those letters, the monarch granted a group of hospites – merchants organized in a guild – the right to judge lesser offences amongst them, although such privileges regulated only those few cases that were deemed necessary for a temporary stay and conducting business.52 If merchants-hospites intended to settle permanently, other solutions had to be found. In this respect, the immigrants contributed their own legal templates that were later collectively known as Ius Teutonicum. The »German law« consisted not just of legal terms transferred from the original territories of the settlers, it was a compilation of laws that had to provide specific qualities. Ius Teutonicum guaranteed the personal freedom of the immigrants, their right to possess and inherit property, and a certain amount of self-government in order to solve problems and quarrels within the immigrant group. Templates consisted of the rights granted to liberi hospites in the case of merchants willing to establish themselves permanently, but also of the rights of the settlers’ territories or towns of origin: Flemish, Franconian, Madgeburg, Lübeck Law and other legal codes aimed to safeguard a legal position such as what the settlers had possessed in their countries of origin.53 The provisions granted in these laws were supplemented with legal conditions necessary for functioning in the host country, and together they formed a new legal entity: Ius Teutonicum.54 In the course of time, German Law became less and less associated with specific groups of settlers, and it evolved from an ethnic term into a functional one which involved the mentioned guarantees of personal freedom, possession, and self-government.55 Initially, some privileges contained clauses limiting the new right to immigrants, e.g. the Cracow privilege of 1257,56 and the »Exceptis schismaticis« clauses in 51 52 53 54 55 Zientara, »Społeczeństwo polskie XIII-XV wieku,« 96-97. Zientara, »The Sources and Origins of the ›German Law‹,« 182-184. Menzel, Die schlesischen Lokationsurkunden, 6-7 and 225. Zientara, »The Sources and Origins of the ›German Law‹,«182. Ibid., 203-204 points to analogous developments of Ius Hollandicum in the Lands of Duke Henry the Lion in the 12th century; Bartels, Deutsche Krieger in polnischen Diensten, 12. 56 Codex Diplomaticus Civitatis Cracoviensis, no. 1, 1-4; cf. Zientara, Heinrich der Bärtige, 142-143, 179-180, 199-200; Piskorski, Kolonizacja wiejska, 76-77. 96 Migration and Ethnicity in Medieval Poland Red Ruthenia,57 but essentially these provisions should not be read as ethnic categorizations but rather as attempts to keep the old structures from collapsing before the new ones bore fruit. If the implementation of Ius Teutonicum did not endanger existing structures nearby, no provisions excluding the local population were issued. On the contrary, sometimes the founders of new settlements (locatores) were explicitly called to »hominibus cuiuscunque status aut sexus condicionis et generis collocare«.58 Moreover, clauses separating the newcomers from the local population concerned only the legal admission to the town or village community, not personal (especially marriage) contacts between immigrants and locals, as mentioned above in the example in Cracow from the second half of the thirteenth century.59 Beyond Ius Teutonicum, the era of colonization knew other »ethnic« rights as well, such as Wallachian Law for pastoral people settling in the Carpathian region.60 In this case, too, the initial ethnic connotation soon evolved into a functional one, as peasant-shepherds identified as Poloni or Rutheni were allotted Wallachian Law as well. Apart from those »immigrant rights«, the terms Ius Polonicum and Ius Ruthenicale were established as secondary designations for the customary rights and obligations of the local populations.61 At the same time, there were other laws with an »ethnic« character that did not evolve into functional laws. The most important example was the laws concerning the Jewish population. Like Ius Teutonicum, the general privileges the Jews in Poland obtained as of the thirteenth century (the first in 1264 from Duke Bolesław the Pious of Great Poland) were based on templates from neighboring Germany and Bohemia and adapted to the Polish legal system.62 They also allowed the Jewish population an amount of sociocultural and juridi57 Janeczek, »›Exceptis schismaticis‹.« 58 Akta grodzkie i ziemskie z czasów Rzeczypospolitej polskiej, vol. 2, no. 45, 75-76; cf. Menzel, Die schlesischen Lokationsurkunden, 218. 59 Zientara, »Die deutschen Einwanderer,« 339 and 341. 60 Jawor, »Ius Valachicum în Polonia medievala«; idem, Osady prawa wołoskiego i ich mieszkańcy na rusi czerwonej w późnym średniowieczu; idem, »Wspólistnienie grup etnicznych na Rusi Czerwonej w XV-XVI wieku«; Dąbkowski, »Wołosi i prawo wołoskie w dawnej Polsce.« 61 Janeczek, »Ethnische Gruppenbildungen«; idem, »Ethnicity, Religious Disparity and the Formation of the Multicultural Society.« See also the article by Iurii Zazuliak in this volume. 62 Zaremska, »Statut Bolesława Pobożnego da Żydów;« Kowalska, »Die großpolnischen und schlesischen Judenschutzbriefe des 13. Jahrhunderts.« 97 Jürgen Heyde cal autonomy, granting protection to Jewish synagogues and cemeteries, acknowledging the status of the community elders (kahal) and the Jewish court (bet din) as a first instance court in internal affairs.63 The general privileges, however, did not evolve into an analogy of the Ius Teutonicum, and they remained exclusively for the Jewish population. Yet the reason for that was not a form of discrimination. On the contrary, when King Kazimierz in 1356 granted Magdeburg Law to the burghers of Lviv, he offered the Jews in the city, together with other non-Catholic groups, the same opportunity. Ten years later though, the Jews of Lviv received from the same king a separate copy of the general privilege issued to all Jews in Little Poland and Red Ruthenia. The Jews of Lviv would have been included in this »regional« general privilege anyway, but they thought it necessary to underline that they were not willing to take up the earlier offer of Magdeburg Law.64 Two other communities in medieval Lviv accepted the Magdeburg Law and organized autonomous structures according to it. The small group of Karaites is documented only in much later sources as having their own bailiff under the Magdeburg Law. More can be said about the Armenian community. From the late fourteenth century on, the Armenian elders organized their community according to Magdeburg Law and obtained a number of royal privileges confirming their autonomy. This was necessary because the Lviv magistrate on several occasions called this autonomy into question, claiming that anyone under Magdeburg Law should be subjected to the magistrate’s jurisdiction. After a long series of legal battles, the Armenian elders asked the Polish king to confirm their own »Armenian Law«, because without such a confirmation the magistrate would not recognize their legal autonomy. The document, confirmed by King Zygmunt I in 1519, was far more than just an »Armenian version« of Magdeburg Law: it was based on an Armenian legal codex from the twelfth century, the Dastanagirk, but also contained numerous elements from Magdeburg Law and the statutes of King Kazimierz the Great.65 The latter elements allowed the Armenian community to function within the Polish legal system, 63 Cygielman, »The Basic Privileges of the Jews of Great Poland.« 64 Heyde, »The Jewish Economic Elite in Red Ruthenia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.« 65 Idem, »Ethnische Gruppenbildung in der spätmittelalterlichen Gesellschaft«; Kapral, »Legal Regulation and National (Ethnic) Differentiation in Lviv,« 219-223; Oleś, The Armenian Law in the Polish Kingdom (1357-1519), 23-25. 98 Migration and Ethnicity in Medieval Poland while the former constituted an ethnic fundament, enabling the Armenians to emphasize their right to be different – and thus to maintain their own autonomy instead of being subjects of the magistrate. All immigrant laws shared important features: legal regulations taken from abroad constituted a basis for the social status of the immigrants in their new environment, and they were adapted to the legal conditions of the land they settled in. In part, they quickly lost their exclusivity and were taken up by local people, whereas in some cases they developed into an ethnic law, exclusive to a certain community. Such ethnic laws came into existence not just because a monarch granted one to a group of immigrants, but also because it developed in a political process, enabling a community to defend its autonomy against others. Thus, neither German nor Wallachian Law may be regarded as ethnic laws, as they lost their link to immigrant groups and became transpersonal functional laws. Neither can Ius Polonicum and Ius Ruthenicale be categorized as ethnic, because they constitute secondary terms coined to mark a contrast to other legal systems.66 The Jewish and Armenian laws on the other hand became fully developed ethnic laws, a fact that should not be misunderstood as conferring a lesser or »minority« status of these groups, as the impulse to maintain an exclusive status came from within these communities in order to strengthen their cohesion as social and political entities. Conclusion The article discusses a set of »ethnic markers« – categories used to describe differences between ethnic groups, such as origin, customs/religion, language and law – which appear in historical studies as an interdisciplinary borrowing from anthropologic research, but that are already present in medieval sources. Medieval historiography usually applies these categories to describe differences between pre-conceived ethnic groups, such as Poles, Germans, Ruthenians, Armenians, etc. This article reverses the question by querying the relevance of each category for defining such difference. This brief study already shows that each of them functioned in a highly fluid field of historical context. In early medieval Poland, the concept of common origin appears to be almost irrelevant. On the contrary, archaeological sources indicate that representations of a foreign origin were fully compatible with so66 On Ius Ruthenicale cf. the article by Iurii Zazuliak in this volume. 99 Jürgen Heyde cial status as a member of the political elite, and annalistic traditions emphasized the role of foreigners in the development of dynasty and territory. From the thirteenth century on, sources displayed the notion of common origins more prominently – yet not as a prerequisite for belonging to the »in-group«, but as a deliberate construct devoted to integrating a diverse political elite. Customs and religion present a different historical dynamic. In the period of Christianization, religious unity among the political elite is shown in the sources as a high priority of the monarch who used drastic measures to enforce it.67 The era of colonization and large-scale, organized immigration, on the other hand, exhibits a great measure of flexibility by immigrants and native populations in adapting new customs. Demands, mostly by representatives of the ecclesiastic hierarchy, to enforce religious unity no longer found political resonance. Language appears to be one of the most obvious criteria for distinguishing foreigners as people with whom no communication is possible, exemplified in the Slavic word for their western neighbors, Niemcy, yet linguistic proximity was not interpreted as political familiarity. From the twelfth and thirteenth centuries on, when contacts between speakers of different languages became more frequent and documents show a consciousness of these differences, one has to carefully analyze the various political contexts presented in these texts. Generally, language came to be more prominent in late medieval sources, as the Polish vernacular slowly moved into the focus of the political and cultural elites, aspiring to become a tool of inter-strata communication along with the established languages of power, learning and commerce, Latin and German. Very few sources describe the legal structures of early medieval Poland. Basically, a person’s status was defined by belonging to a social group. Without a definite social position, one could be regarded as lawless. There were, however, conventions of formalized hospitality that facilitated the inclusion of foreigners within the legal frameworks. Here as well as with the other categories, the perception of law changed fundamentally during the era of colonization. Instead of unwritten customs or individual letters of protection, privileges were issued for groups of settlers which enabled them to establish themselves in their destination. Laws initially reserved for groups of immigrants were later extended to the local population as well. German 67 Nothing, however, is said about the broader population. Cf. the article by Stanisław Rosik in this volume. 100 Migration and Ethnicity in Medieval Poland and Wallachian Law developed into functional laws regardless of the origins of the people it covered. Yet some »immigrant« laws remained exclusive to the groups they had initially been assigned to. They developed into »ethnic« laws, which later on played a role in defining socio-cultural identities as well. In this way, a historical contextualization of ethnic markers reveals possibilities and problems in the analysis of medieval migrations and the development of multiethnic societies. It shows the importance of framing ethnic analysis within the broader movements of each epoch and their socio-political frameworks. Bibliography Edited Sources Akta grodzkie i ziemskie z czasów Rzeczypospolitej polskiej z archiwum tak zwanego bernardyńskiego we Lwowie, vol. 2. Ed. by Galicyjski wydział Krajowy. Lwów: Księgarnia Seyfartha i Czajkowskiego, 1870. Bielowski, August, ed. »Rocznik Krasińskich do r. 1351.« In Monumenta Poloniae Historica, vol. 3, 127-133. Lwów: Księgarnia Gubrynowicza i Schmidta, 1878. Codex Diplomaticus Civitatis Cracoviensis / Kodeks dyplomatyczny miasta Krakowa 1257-1506, vol. 1. Ed. by Franciszek Piekosiński. 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Multiple Loyalties: Coexistence of Political, Territorial and Religious Self-Conceptions in Early Modern Communities Yvonne Kleinmann and Tomasz Wiślicz Introduction to the Early Modern Section Up to the present day, imaginations of early modern Poland-Lithuania have been strongly influenced by partly contradictory historiographical topoi, most prominently »anarchy«, »freedom«, and »tolerance«. It is therefore worthwhile to examine how historiography on the Commonwealth received its present shape. The basic problem is that when great historical writings about the past of nations appeared, which were intended to help establish a civic community in nineteenth century nation-states,1 the Commonwealth no longer existed as a political entity. Therefore it was impossible to pursue any »historical policy« coordinated by the state and its institutions.2 One of the Commonwealth’s nations adopted its history as their own – the Poles, who started to build their identity (including historical identity) while they were devoid of statehood and in opposition to the propagation of imperial and national identities by and in the states which had divided Polish territory among themselves as a result of the partitions of Poland-Lithuania at the close of the eighteenth century.3 From the very beginning of modern historical writing, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the object of two narrative patterns which affected the interpretation and description of its past. The first option was the depiction of early modern Poles as a backward, anarchical and fanatical nation, unable to function in a Europe of nations. This picture was painted not only by the propaganda of the partitioning powers and their later nationalist as well as imperialist historical writings,4 but also by critical Polish historians who discussed 1 Among others by Leopold von Ranke, Jules Michelet, and Thomas B. Macauley. 2 On the historiographical consequences see: Górny, The Nation Should Come First, 202-214. 3 In the 19th century the most important syntheses of the history of Poland were: Lelewel, Dzieje Polski (1829); Szujski, Dzieje Polski (1862-1866), Schmitt, Dzieje narodu polskiego (1863), and Bobrzyński, Dzieje Polski (1879). 4 Hüppe, Verfassung der Republik Polen; Treitschke, Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, vol. 1; Solovyov, Istoriia padeniia Pol’shy; Umanec, Vyrozhdenie Pol’shy, S.-Peterburg 1872. 111 Yvonnne Kleinmann und Tomasz Wiślicz the causes of the collapse of the Commonwealth.5 These debates led to deliberations about the inefficacy of the political system of a state run by the nobility, or about the individual faults of the nobles, especially magnates, in bringing about the weakening and destruction of the Commonwealth. These deliberations, though conducted in a hypercritical climate rare for nineteenth-century national historiography, also employed patterns of interpretation shaped by a nationalist outlook on history. Hence, too, the frequent references to the civic obligations of the nobility and debates on loyalty and treason. The key topics of discussions were the inability of the ruling nobility to carry out the necessary reforms of the state, the continuous conflicts with the elected kings, servitude of Polish-Lithuanian politicians to foreign powers, inefficiency of the political and economic system and – last but not least – the circumstances of the collapse of the Noble Republic at the end of the eighteenth century.6 The second narrative pattern searched in the past for evidence of the greatness of a people that felt itself heir of a non-existent state. On the one hand, this process assumed forms similar to other great historical narratives of the nineteenth century, and led to the »Polonisation« of the history of the Commonwealth. On the other hand – contrary to the national as well as imperial histories of the partitioning neighbors – Polish historiography created a picture of the Commonwealth as a free, civil, and law-governed country, tolerant of »foreign« religions and cultures, and in a certain sense a utopian alternative to the political reality of Europe after the Congress of Vienna.7 During and after World War I, former greatness as well as the multi-ethnic structure of the Commonwealth became a point of reference for the so-called Jagiellonian idea, 5 An important point of departure was O ustanowieniu i upadku konstytucyi polskiey 3go Maia 1791 by Franciszek K. Dmochowski, Hugo Kołłątaj, and Ignacy and Stanisław Potocki, fervent supporters of the May constitution, published simultaneously in Polish and German in 1793. This position was elaborated by the influential, politically conservative Cracow historical school in the last quarter of the 19th century, namely Walerian Kalinka, Józef Szujski, Stanisław Smolka, Michał Bobrzyński and others. 6 For a concise summary of these debates see: Mączak, »National Traditions in the Historiography of the State.« 7 The most prominent historians of this so called »romantic« current were Joachim Lelewel, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Karol Szajnocha, and Leonard Chodźko. A generally favorable, although very critical view on the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was later typical also for the positivist »Warsaw historical school,« namely Tadeusz Korzon, Władysław Smoleński, and Adolf Pawiński. 112 Introduction into the Early Modern Section promoted by Oskar Halecki, when a new independent Polish state was conceptualized.8 Later, in the People’s Republic of Poland as well, the imagination of an exceptionally tolerant early modern commonwealth was attractive at least to some historians, most visible in the writings of Janusz Tazbir, namely his Państwo bez stosów (State without Stakes).9 In this essay on the Reformation in Poland he stressed that – ideological intolerance of Catholics and Protestants notwithstanding – religious conflict did not escalate into a war, as it did in other European countries. Despite having been undermined or sensitized by historians over the past few decades, the above-mentioned two narrative patterns in historical writings on the subject of the Commonwealth of Two Nations still serve as the main point of reference, especially in public history.10 Recent historiography of the Commonwealth has been proceeding towards a deeper understanding of the social structure and functioning of the state in a strictly historical context. Perceived this way, the Commonwealth could cease to be a political issue and become a subject of research.11 The early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is a good example of a premodern multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-confessional state, where questions of identity and loyalty were extremely complex and fluid at the same time. We can look for the sources of those personal or group identities in different spheres such as ethnicity (whatever it means), language, social estate, and religion – to mention only the most obvious factors. We should also take into account gender, kinship (genealogy), occupation – especially in towns where crafts were inherited and also determined a person’s place in local society – and the legal system. The last was an important factor for village communities, for burghers as well as for Jewish communities, as in a single town different legal systems could function parallel to each other.12 There were even more factors determining one’s place in society: the 8 Bömelburg, Zwischen imperialer Geschichte und Geschichtsregion, 99-133. 9 Tazbir, Państwo bez stosów. 10 During recent years emblematic for this controversy were the writings of two renowned authors who are based in sociology, cultural studies and philology rather than in historiography: Sowa, Fantomowe ciało króla; Koehler, Boży podżegacz; idem, Palus Sarmatica. 11 The most recent important work in this area: Kriegseisen, ed. My i oni. 12 The legal institutions of the Christian burghers and town lords as well as of the Jewish community in early modern Rzeszów can serve as one example. See Kleinmann, »Rechtsinstrumente in einer ethnisch-religiös gemischten Stadtgesellschaft.« A different case is early modern Kamieniec Podolsk 113 Yvonnne Kleinmann und Tomasz Wiślicz position on the feudal ladder,13 geographic locality and environment which strongly affected the type of agriculture or trade in towns, and – last but not least – personal experience. All those factors shaped the identity of a person, but despite the number of possible combinations, early modern society must not be understood as a chaotic network of atomized identities. A crucial role was played by social conformism, which constituted local as well as wider communities. The characteristic feature of early modern identities was the absence of an overwhelming national identity which would become the focal point of the nineteenth-century nation-state whose representatives believed that national identity would shape personal loyalties of citizens.14 However, it is very confusing that premodern people did use words that denote ethnicities or nationalities today. Well known is the problem of the so-called Dutch villages, which numbered up to 1,700 in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Only initially were they inhabited by Dutch colonists, mostly Mennonites; later they were taken over by a mixed population of German, Polish, Czech and Hungarian descent, who, however, still called itself Dutch. In that case, being Dutch did not mean an ethnical or cultural identity, but was a socio-economic status, since the Dutch villages enjoyed privileged rights to land and property, and cultivated difficult terrain, such as flood plains and forest clearings.15 The same is true for cities and towns under »German law« that only originally emerged from medieval colonization of Eastern Europe by settlers from German lands who were granted specific rights based in various German cities, most prominently Magdeburg. Later these rights could be modified and extended to Slavic inhabitants of the same towns,16 and also to the Jewish population.17 In other cases 13 14 15 16 17 where a joint Polish-Ruthenian jurisdiction coexisted with an Armenian one. See Król-Mazur, Miasto trzech nacji, 206-224, 234-251. For example for peasant communities it was important whether they were subjects of a Church institution or a nobleman, or of the King himself. See Wiślicz, »Naród chłopski?« 60-64. Anderson, Imagined Communities; Hobsbawm, »Mass-Producing Traditions«; Ferro, The Use and Abuse of History. Rusiński, Osady tzw. »Olędrów«; Chodyła, »Zarys dziejów osadnictwa olęderskiego«; idem, Zarys najstarszych dziejów osad olęderskich. One indication is the translation of the articles of Magdeburg law into Polish in the 16th century. See Groicki, Artykuły prawa majdeburskiego. On the concept of transfer and adaptation see Lück, »Das sächsisch-magdeburgische Recht.« Wizimirska, »Żydzi przed sądami Rzeszowskimi.« 114 Introduction to the Early Modern Section Magdeburg law and other German laws were granted to towns without any German inhabitants.18 Although it is today generally accepted that prior to the nineteenth century there were no nations in the contemporary meaning of this term, we can still identify communities, some of them even calling themselves »nations«, which later were transformed into mature modern nations.19 In the case of the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, historians sometimes distinguish two proto-nations: the Jews, who due to their common language, religion, customs and institutions fitted quite well the modern definition of nation,20 and, with more hesitation, the Ukrainians, who date the emergence of their national identity to the Cossack uprising led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1648, which is still open to debate.21 Still, most important and unique was the political nation of the nobility. It fulfilled the political aspect of the definition of the modern nation, but did not have an ethnic or religious integrity. In fact, the Rzeczpospolita belonged to the nobles. It was their state: it guaranteed their freedom, and they had the political power to decide on the Commonwealth’s shape. From the two above-mentioned historiographical patterns, we can easily understand why one of the key questions of Polish historiography in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was how it was possible that there were noblemen who were not loyal to this common good, the Republic. Nevertheless, if we aim at a historicization of the early modern Commonwealth, there are other options of interpretation. Karin Friedrich examines this question in her article »Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands: Bogusław Radziwiłł (16201669) and the Problem of Treason«. The subject of her analysis, Bogusław Radziwiłł, was turned into an emblematic magnate-traitor of the nation by the influential nineteenth-century historical writer Henryk Sienkiewicz in his novel Potop (Flood), which is set in the time of the Swedish attack on the Commonwealth in the second half of the seventeenth century. Bogusław Radziwiłł becomes a symbol of the treason of the magnates who, for their personal advantages and bloated 18 Lück, »Magdeburger Recht in der Ukraine.« 19 Gorski, »The Mosaic Moment«; Greenfeld, Nationalism; Trencsényi and Zászkaliczky, eds. Whose Love of Which Country? 20 Hundert, Jews in Poland-Lithuania, 1-20. 21 Sysyn, »Recovering the Ancient and Recent Past«; Plokhy, The Origins of the Slavic Nations. 115 Yvonnne Kleinmann und Tomasz Wiślicz ambitions, are prepared to deal with hostile monarchies and dismantle the Polish-Lithuanian state. Sienkiewicz’s view, based on historical research of his time, not only perpetuated such an image of Bogusław Radziwiłł in the public eye, but also had an impact on the later work of historians. Friedrich shows why, out the ranks of similar nobles, it is Bogusław Radziwiłł who has earned such a huge dislike both among his contemporaries, and later among historians. A contributing factor was his Protestant faith and the fact that he represented the most important dynasty of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, whose ambition was to impart international significance to the ducal title. But, as Friedrich stresses, the circumstances of that time – financial calculations, family ties, and thoughts on the role of the aristocracy – also exerted significant influence. Ultimately, they led to a multilayered pattern of loyalty which may appear mutually contradictory only in anachronistic perspective. Nevertheless, Friedrich indicates Radziwiłł’s genuine »betrayal« of the ideals of the Commonwealth when, in the service of the Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm, he assumed the language of command and subservience, a language fundamentally alien to the Commonwealth even during its greatest disintegration. A broader view of political discourse in the Commonwealth of Two Nations is provided by Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz. Her article »The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Towards an Analysis« shows the Commonwealth as a forum of continuous political discourse which found expression in the theoretical and political writings of the nobility (and of some burghers) for the nobility, in the state’s official languages – Polish and Latin, or a mixture of both. The source of political discourse describing the action of the estate of nobles – just like in other European countries in the sixteenth century – was ancient writings, with particular reference to Aristotle and Cicero, whose works were a part of the basic education of nobles in the Commonwealth. Unlike in countries in western and southern Europe, the theories borrowed from classical works were applied to describe the political reality of the Commonwealth. In this way a political discourse was formed that not only described republican ideals, but also the political reality of the nobility at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. However, in line with the change of the domestic situation as well as of international relations, this discourse lost its ability to describe social reality and identify dangers to the state. Nevertheless, it continued in this ossified form until the second half of the eighteenth century. Only then, in the opinion of Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, this outdated and ineffective discourse 116 Introduction to the Early Modern Section underwent a far-reaching change under the influence of enlightened thought that permitted a fresh definition of the aims and principles of noble policies. Though rooted in humanist tradition, this new political discourse was, to a certain degree, the result of the changes and new challenges at the end of the eighteenth century. The renewed discourse itself rendered these changes visible. Poland-Lithuania was to be a country of political liberties for the nobility, but also a home for people of various religions and faiths. In a certain sense, the absence of significant religious persecution was attributable to the huge ethnic and religious diversity of the population. Under these conditions peaceful mutual relationships, religious dissent notwithstanding, were of common interest.22 Research, even more recent studies, focuses on individual communities while comparative perspectives occur rarely.23 For example, the many buildings of worship of the various religious and confessional communities still wait for a comparative analysis in terms of numbers, architecture, and function. Bogumił Szady in his article »Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century« takes a quantitative approach. Applying methods of historical geography he examines the location of Catholic, Lutheran, Uniate, Orthodox, and Jewish buildings of worship on the territory of the Polish Crown Lands. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Crown Lands were a geographically much diversified area, extending from the southern shores of the Baltic Sea through Lesser Poland, Volhynia and Podolia, and on to the Dniepr River and the Khanate of Crimea. Nevertheless they constituted a single administrative unit. Szady’s statistical-geographical examination of the dispersal of buildings of worship in this area surprisingly shows that at the local level, the Crown Lands were religiously quite homogeneous, except for the quasi omnipresent Jewish buildings of worship. A multiplicity of confessions and religions was an urban phenomenon rather than a rural one, and occurred mainly in border areas. Considering the buildings of worship, Szady identifies the west of the country as a zone shared by Lutherans and Roman Catholics, and the east as the area where adherents of the Uniate faith and of Orthodoxy coexisted. In addition he traces an internal religious boundary extending from Podlasie through eastern Lesser Poland and to the Carpathians, which formed a narrow zone shared 22 Müller, »Toleranz vor der Toleranz.« 23 See Kaźmierczyk et al., eds. Rzeczpospolita wielu wyznań; Ciesielski and Filipczak-Kocur, eds. Rzeczpospolita państwem wielu narodowości i wyznań. 117 Yvonnne Kleinmann und Tomasz Wiślicz by Roman Catholics and Uniates. This differentiated manner of perceiving the multiplicity of faiths and religions in the Commonwealth provides a strong foundation for further research into the state’s social and religious structure. Bibliography Edited Sources [Dmochowski, Franciszek K., Hugo Kołłątaj, Ignacy and Stanisław Potocki]. O ustanowieniu i upadku konstytucyi polskiey 3go Maia 1791. Lwów [Warsaw: Drukarnia Pijarska], 1793. Groicki, Bartłomiej. Artykuły prawa majdeburskiego. Postępek sądów około karania na gardle. Ustawa płacej u sądów. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Prawnicze, 1954 (Orig. Kraków 1558). Scholarly Works Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Bömelburg, Hans-Jürgen. »Zwischen imperialer Geschichte und Ostmitteleuropa als Geschichtsregion: Oskar Halecki und die polnische ›jagiellonische Idee‹.« In Lost Greatness and Past Oppression in East Central Europe: Representations of the Imperial Experience in Historiography since 1918, ed. by Frank Hadler and Mathias Mesenhöller, 99-133. Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 2007. Bobrzyński, Michał. Dzieje Polski w zarysie. Warszawa: Nakład Gebethnera i Wolffa, 1879. Chodyła, Zbigniew. »Zarys dziejów osadnictwa olęderskiego w Polsce (15471864).« In Olędry. Przestrzenie obok nas, ed. by Zbigniew Chodyła et al., 3274. Poznań: Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu, 2006. Chodyła, Zbigniew. Zarys najstarszych dziejów osad olęderskich w Puszczy Pyzdrskiej 1746-1793. Pyzdry: Puszcza Pyzdrska, 2015. Ciesielski, Tomasz, Anna Filipczak-Kocur, eds. Rzeczpospolita państwem wielu narodowości i wyznań, XVI-XVIII wiek. Warszawa, Opole: Wydawnictwo DiG, 2008. Ferro, Marc. The Use and Abuse of History: Or How the Past Is Taught to Children. London: Routledge, 2003. 118 Introduction to the Early Modern Section Górny, Maciej. The Nation Should Come First: Marxism and Historiography in East Central Europe. Frankfurt a.M. et al.: Peter Lang Edition, 2013. Gorski, Philip S. »The Mosaic Moment: An Early Modernist Critique of Modernist Theories of Nationalism.« American Journal of Sociology 105/5 (2000): 1428-1468. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3003771. Greenfeld, Liah. Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. Hobsbawm, Eric. »Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe 1870-1914.« In The Invention of Tradition, ed. by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, 263-307. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Hüppe, Siegfried. Verfassung der Republik Polen. Berlin: Schneider, 1867. Hundert, Gershon David. Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004. Kaźmierczyk, Adam, Andrzej K. Link-Lenczowski, Mariusz Markiewicz, Krystyn Matwijowski, eds. Rzeczpospolita wielu wyznań. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2004. Kleinmann, Yvonne. »Rechtsinstrumente in einer ethnisch-religiös gemischten Stadtgesellschaft. Der Fall Rzeszów.« In Konkurrierende Ordnungen. Verschränkungen von Religion, Staat und Nation in Ostmitteleuropa vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, ed. by Johannes Gleixner et al., 159-199. München et al.: BiblionMedia, 2015. Koehler, Krzysztof. Boży podżegacz. Opowieść o Piotrze Skardze. Warszawa: NCK, 2012. —. Palus Sarmatica. Warszawa: Muzeum Historii Polski, 2016. Kriegseisen, Wojciech, ed. My i oni. Społeczeństwo nowożytnej Rzeczypospolitej wobec państwa. Warszawa: IH PAN, 2016. Król-Mazur, Renata. Miasto trzech nacji. Studia z dziejów Kamieńca Podolskiego w XVIII wieku. Kraków: Avalon, 2008. Lelewel, Joachim. Dzieje Polski Joachim Lelewel potocznym sposobem opowiedział. Warszawa: Drukarnia J. Węckiego, 1829. Lück, Heiner. »Magdeburger Recht in der Ukraine.« Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 12 (1990): 113-131. —. »Das sächsisch-magdeburgische Recht als kulturelles Bindeglied zwischen den Rechtsordnungen Ost- und Mitteleuropas.« In Rechts- und Sprachtransfer in Mittel- und Osteuropa. Sachsenspiegel und Magdeburger Recht, ed. by idem and Ernst Eichler, 1-28. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008. Mączak, Antoni. »National Traditions in the Historiography of the State: The Case of Poland.« In Visions sur le développement des États européens. Théories et historiographies de l’État moderne, ed. by Wim Blockmans, 235-248. 119 Yvonnne Kleinmann und Tomasz Wiślicz Rome: École Française de Rome, 1993. http://www.persee.fr/doc/efr_00000000_1993_act_171_1_3042. Müller, Michael G. »Toleranz vor der Toleranz. Konfessionelle Kohabitation und Religionsfrieden im frühneuzeitlichen Ostmitteleuropa.« In Kommunikation durch symbolische Akte. Religiöse Heterogenität und politische Herrschaft in Polen-Litauen, ed. by Yvonne Kleinmann, 59-75. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010. Plokhy, Serhij. The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Rusiński, Władysław. Osady tzw. »Olędrów« w dawnym woj. poznańskim. Kraków: PAU, 1947. Schmitt, Henryk. Dzieje narodu polskiego od najdawniejszych czasów potocznie opowiedziane. Lwów: Nakł. Autora, 1863. Solov’ev, Sergei M. Istoriia padeniia Pol’shi. Moskva: Grachev, 1863. Sowa, Jan. Fantomowe ciało króla. Peryferyjne zmagania z nowoczesną formą. Kraków: Universitas, 2012. Sysyn, Frank E. »Recovering the Ancient and Recent Past: The Shaping of Memory and Identity in Early Modern Ukraine.« Eighteenth-Century Studies 35/1 (2001): 77-84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30054127. Szujski, Józef. Dzieje Polski. Lwów: Nakł. Karola Wilda, 1862-1866. Tazbir, Janusz. Prace wybrane, vol. 1: Państwo bez stosów i inne szkice. Kraków: Universitas, 2000, 1-252 (orig. 1967). Treitschke, Heinrich von. Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, vol. 1: Bis zum zweiten Pariser Frieden: Leipzig: Hirzel, 1879. Trencsényi, Balácz and Márton Zászkaliczky, eds. Whose Love of Which Country? Composite States, National Histories and Patriotic Discourses in Early Modern East Central Europe. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2010. Umanec, Fedor M. Vyrozhdenie Pol’shi. Sanktpeterburg: Khan, 1872. Wiślicz, Tomasz. »Naród chłopski? Społeczna, religijna i narodowa tożsamość chłopów we wczesnonowożytnej Polsce.« In Między Barokiem a Oświeceniem. Społeczeństwo stanowe, ed. by Stanisław Achremczyk and Jerzy Kiełbik, 5265. Olsztyn: OBN, 2013. Wizimirska, Barbara. »Żydzi przed sądami Rzeszowskimi w XVII i XVIII wieku.« Pracy Historyczno-Archiwalne 3 (1995): 91-103. 120 Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Towards an Analysis1 The notion of »discourse«, in particular in the political context, has been gaining popularity in the social sciences and the humanities, yet at the same time, the inflationary misuse of the term has aroused understandable misgivings. However, a survey of the research done by Anglophone (Cambridge school) and German historians – although the Begriffsgeschichte school does not actually use the term, many of its postulates do cover the same ideas – shows that the issues the term attempts to address are important for gaining an insight into the political language of a given era, as well as the political reality which shapes the discourse, while being shaped by it at the same time.2 Henry T. Dickinson put it well when he wrote: They [politicians] need to be able to describe and evaluate their apparently selfish and untoward actions by using ideas and terms which are accepted and approved by others […] the way in which they seek to do it does cast light on how they and their contemporaries view certain political ideas and certain forms of political action.3 Herein, we will seek to use precisely such an analysis of the ways in which the political reality and the political ideals that were professed by participants in 200 years of debate in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were described to help shed some light on how they perceived the state and community which they themselves formed – or rather, on how they imagined it, because the picture they painted was frequently not so much a reflection of the reality as a product of their own imaginings. On the other hand, shifts in the discourse and the concepts used in it will also be seen as a good indica1 This article was written under a research project funded by the Polish National Science Centre, grant 2012/07/B/HS2/02115. 2 For reviews of the concepts of both schools see Hampsher-Monk et al., History of Concepts; Trenscenyi, »Conceptual History and Political Languages.« 3 Dickinson, Liberty and Property, 4. 121 Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz tor of shifts taking place in the society and political situation in the Commonwealth. Political discourse has been defined in a variety of ways, frequently using rather complex terminology;4 however, for the purposes of my research I have taken the liberty of defining it in simple terms, as the means of expressing oneself publicly about topics concerning the wide-reaching political community. In this article, I would like to examine just one such understanding of discourse in the context of the thoughts and beliefs of participants in the public debate of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. I will delve into the concepts they used and how they understood them, the values they appealed to or rejected, the political ideals they proclaimed, and the image of the world as revealed by their pronouncements. Beforehand some remarks on the notion of »participants in public debate«: It has to be stressed that the political discourse of the Rzeczpospolita – a state commonly known in English as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as the First Polish Republic or the Republic of the Two Nations – was not driven purely by authors of extensive theoretical treatises, but also by little-known or forgotten participants in actual discussions and disputes. A key assumption of my research – against what is asserted by certain authors5 – is the belief that both the theorists and the participants in political life used the same political language; that they shared similarly understood ideas and a system of political values. In any case, in Polish and Polish-Lithuanian deliberations on the state, the boundaries between theoretical discussion and public commentary were rather blurred. Freedom of expression, combined with the participants’ belief in their own ability to shape the real here-and-now, meant that mere contemplation of certain general ideas about how society should be governed often immediately led to attempts to apply those principles in practice, with the aim of advancing the state. 4 For instance, as »a sequence of speech acts performed by agents within a context furnished ultimately by social practises and historical situations, but also – and also in some ways more immediately – by the political languages by means of which the acts are to be performed.« Pocock, Political Thought and History, 67; »Political discourse is, or at any rate purports to be a bridging language, a supra-discourse spanning and connecting the several sub-languages, it is the language that we supposedly share in our common capacity as citizens.« Ball, »Conceptual History and the History of Political Thought,« 79. 5 Pietrzyk-Reeves, Ład rzeczypospolitej, 203. 122 The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Authors who are today seen as leading theorists of their time, including Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski, Wawrzyniec Goślicki, and Andrzej Wolan in the sixteenth century, Łukasz Opaliński and Andrzej Maksymilian Fredro in the seventeenth, and Stanisław Dunin Karwicki, Stanisław Konarski, and Hugo Kołłątaj in the eighteenth, very rarely wrote about the state in the abstract, but discussed it through the lens of their own Rzeczpospolita. In fact, the situation was frequently reversed: the authors of manifestly opinion-driven texts, heavily rooted in facts and verging on the interventionist, would move towards more general contemplation of the political and social system as well as fundamental political values of the time. This mainly concerns writings from the turn of the seventeenth century, marking the time of debates over the future shape of the Commonwealth, and the late eighteenth century, when a period of stagnation was followed by a heated debate on how the state should be rescued.6 In a way, from the sixteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century, the entire political life of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the subject of never-ending discussion; the Rzeczpospolita was a state where not only the ruler, but also part of society, namely the nobility, had a say in political decisions – or at least it believed it had such a say. The political culture of the Commonwealth was one of dispute and discussion. It is accurate to say that during the first half of the eighteenth century, the Sejm – paralysed by the liberum veto principle – became a theatre of shadows, with no real political decisions being taken anymore. But it is also accurate that during the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century, when the Sejm was still an efficient chamber deciding on the affairs of the state, the need for unanimity meant that it was better to be able to win one’s opponents over with arguments, than to out-vote them. This practice of ucieranie materii (roughly: talking matters through), the constant negotiations among envoys, in the parliamentary chambers and beyond, were of course subject to a range of factors, including political and economic horse-trading and even banal bribery; but it was equally important to be able to formulate one’s thoughts clearly, and the ability to persuade one’s opponents was seen as one of the most valuable political skills. The relatively high degree of freedom of speech enshrined in law – at least for the noble classes, known as the szlachta – from around the turn of the seventeenth century, combined 6 Opaliński, Kultura polityczna polskiej; Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, O formę rządu czy o rząd dusz. 123 Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz with the belief that vocally expressing opinions on affairs concerning the Commonwealth was a civic duty, gave rise to a deluge of political texts, not to mention oratory performances such as speeches at the Sejm, local councils and tribunals, and so on.7 The main source of my analysis is this wide-reaching political literature, from extensive general essays backed with theoretical annotations to short pamphlets written during ongoing debates. Although records of vast numbers of oratory performances have been preserved, I tend to avoid them here, since I believe them to be a source requiring somewhat different research tools; while they may appear uniform, their language deserves to be analysed separately. One thing should be made clear here: the political discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was in fact a noble discourse, created by the szlachta for the szlachta. This does not mean that during the two centuries separating the Union of Lublin (1569) and the third partition of Poland-Lithuania (1795) discussions of matters of the state took no notice of the voices of burghers (naturally, peasants had to stay excluded entirely). A handful of authors of theoretical dissertations were of burgher origin, such as Sebastian Petrycy in the sixteenth century; during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a few valuable treatises were written in the cities of Royal Prussia by Christoph Hartknoch, Bartholomäus Keckerman, and Gottfried Lengnich. Finally, during the Great Sejm (1788-1792), burghers joined the national debate concerning reforms of the Commonwealth, namely Józef Pawlikowski and Stanisław Staszic.8 However, even if, like in the case of Staszic, their writings did affect political opinion, they did not have a major impact on the shape of the discourse itself. Many texts, in particular those written in Prussia, re7 The vastness of this material is demonstrated by the size of the collections published by researchers. For example, the political letters from the first free election (1573) alone fill a hefty tome, those from the period of the nobility’s struggle against Sigismund III in 1606-1608 (known as the Zebrzydowski rebellion) fill three volumes of several hundred pages each, the political commentaries from the reign of John Casimir do likewise, and the documentation of just a small fragment of the disputes from the Four-Year Sejm (1788-1792) comprises six full volumes. See Pisma polityczne z czasów pierwszego bezkrólewia; Pisma polityczne z czasów rokoszu Zebrzydowskiego 1606-1608; Pisma polityczne z czasów panowania Jana Kazimierza Wazy 1648-1668; Materiały do dziejów Sejmu Czteroletniego, vols. I-VI. 8 Staszic, Przestrogi dla Polski; idem, Uwagi nad życiem Jana Zamoyskiego; [Pawlikowski], Myśli polityczne dla Polski. Pawlikowski’s authorship was ascertained by Rostworowski, »Jakobin Józef Pawlikowski autorem słynnych pism politycznych.« 124 The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth mained on the fringes of the discussions without affecting their form. Those that did become part of the mainstream largely recalled a common political language, either using it to express their views, or – more rarely – to polemicise with it.9 Political topics were mainly being discussed – as they are today – by people who had, believed they had, or wished to have influence on political decisions.10 During the days of the Commonwealth, those people were citizens of the szlachta class, and it was they who shaped the state’s political discourse for over two hundred years. I continue to use the term »discourse« in its singular form, although it may be worth asking whether instead of talking of a single discourse we should not follow the Anglophone example and differentiate it into individual political »languages«.11 Without revealing the final answer, I have set it as the agenda of my research to carry out an analysis of common topics in this discourse. If I uncover differences, they tend to be those that have arisen with time. This means that I am seeking answers to the question of how political discourse evolved during the two centuries of the Rzeczpospolita. Incidentally, in a philological sense there were indeed at least two languages of this discourse, even if we dismiss Ruthenian, which was significant in Lithuania and in the eastern reaches of Poland, and German, used in Royal Prussia. Latin maintained its status as being equal to Polish for a long time; until the mid-eighteenth century, it was still used in significant dissertations – e.g. those of Modrzewski, Wolan, Goślicki, Fredro, Stanisław Lubomirski, and Karwicki – and ongoing political missives, although these were less common, and also to deliver florid speeches. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, there were periods when it was grafted into Polish texts on its own merit, to create Polish-Latin writings. However, we can be fairly confident in saying that both languages constituted a single political dis9 Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, O formę rządu czy o rząd dusz, 72-77, 145-150. 10 »the study of political language takes its departure from the languages of ruling groups, which articulate their concerns.« Pocock, »The Concept of a Langue and the Métier d’historien,« 24. 11 For instance Pocock enumerated in seventeenth century England: »the language of the Elect nation,« »the language of civic humanism or classical republicanism,« »common law,« »renaissance emblematic.« Pocock, Political Thought and History, 75-76. Anthony Pagden wrote about four languages of Early Modern Europe – »political Aristotelianism,« »classical republicanism,« »language of political economy,« and »language of science of politics.« Pagden, »Introduction,« 3. 125 Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz course, heavily influenced by classical models. It has been noted that the szlachta displayed certain Latinate aspects to their language and culture as a way of internalising the traditions of antiquity.12 This also applies to the language of politics. The influence of Latin was particularly marked during the sixteenth century, when the political discourse of the Commonwealth was originally being shaped. From around the first free elections, participants in political discussions were conscious of the changes taking place within the system. At the same time, aiming to extend its sphere of influence, the szlachta sought tools that could be used to describe the political reality and their own political ideals. They looked to the ancient philosophers, recalling first and foremost Roman traditions, as well as the heritage of Ancient Greece, in particular Aristotle.13 This is evident in political treatises from the 1560s and 1570s, whose authors strived to sketch a relatively complete image of an ideal state, such as had actually come to fruition, according to Stanisław Orzechowski, or could or should exist in their own Commonwealth, according to Goślicki and Wolan. It is even more fascinating to analyse texts written during the ongoing political battles taking place from the first free elections (15731576) until Zebrzydowski’s rebellion (1606-1608).14 The latter date marks a clear boundary closing the period when the political language of the Commonwealth was being shaped. It was the authors of this epoch who tried to define – at times on the margins of very specific issues of the day – the basic concepts of discourse concerning the state, government, freedom and law. They searched for new words describing the changing reality, modified the meaning of seemingly well-known concepts, or ascribed to them new, changing contexts. And it was the classical traditions that served as their basic support and provided tools. Authors reached for definitions first coined by 12 Axer, »Latinitas jako składnik polskiej tożsamości kulturowej,« 74; idem, »Kultura polska z punktu widzenia mechanizmów recepcji tradycji antycznej,« 15-81. 13 Opaliński, »Civic Humanism and Republican Citizenship,« 156-159; Pietrzyk-Reeves, Ład rzeczypospolitej. 14 In 1606-1608 a sizeable share of the szlachta, dissatisfied with Sigismund III’s rule – accusing him of failing to abide by obligations he swore after his election, and even worse, of striving towards absolutism – came out against him, forming a confederation (rokosz) against the king. The movement is referred to either as »Zebrzydowski’s rebellion,« after the name of its leader, Mikołaj Zebrzydowski, or as the »Sandomierz rebellion,« after the place where it began. 126 The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Aristotle, or – more frequently – »Cicero the Wise«;15 even more commonly, they used these definitions to create their own vision of political spheres. Classical texts served as a source of political terminology, concepts of the state and the individual’s place within it, and of ways of perceiving politics. Drawing upon the languages of antiquity was not unusual in Renaissance Europe; in fact, in Italy they shaped the language of civic humanism, also defined as classical republicanism.16 In a sense, this trend became a part of the political discourse as it was being shaped in the Commonwealth. However, there are two marked differences. The first was the unusual constancy of the discourse as it was formed around the turn of the seventeenth century. Scholars are in general agreement that classical republican discourse in Europe started to vanish from deliberations on the state around the mid-seventeenth century. The first blow was delivered by Machiavelli, followed by Bodin seriously undermining its foundations, until finally Hobbes made a conclusive break with the classical way state and politics had been discussed.17 However, in Polish discourse, any momentous changes would be difficult to find until around the 1770s, and those that are notable – largely negative, it should be said – were an evolution of the same political language. It is likely that these changes were fostered by the mounting political crisis, combined with growing resistance to outside influences and standards, and the accompanying fossilizing of political thought and its expression. Of no lesser importance was the fact that political discourse built on the foundations of the languages of Cicero and Aristotle turned out to be a perfect tool for describing the political reality and ideals of the szlachta. This is the second factor differentiating Polish discourse from republican European discourse. In a sense, contributors to political discussions in the Commonwealth of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century were able to achieve something that proved impossible for both Italian civic humanists and republican participants 15 As the author of one anonymous letter wrote about the Roman philosopher, citing Cicero’s definition and applying it to his own state: »The Rzeczpospolita is nothing other than the thing of the people, and the people is a society united and joined by a common law for the common good and utility.« Pisma polityczne z czasów pierwszego bezkrólewia, 244. 16 For a recent analysis on civic humanism and a revision of earlier discussions on this subject see Hankins, Renaissance Civic Humanism; Honohan, Civic Republicanism. 17 Rahe, »Antiquity Surpassed«; Skinner, Hobbes and Republican Liberty. 127 Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz in Cromwell’s revolution: they created a discourse that was perfectly suited to the needs of the participants in public life in the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth. So much so, in fact, that they felt no need to alter it for almost two centuries. It seems that this success was largely due to a certain appropriation of antique traditions, a feedback loop between political language and reality. On one hand, ascribing names taken straight from antique sources to events, actions or institutions of a different era had a clear influence on their perception and estimation, while on the other, the realities of the era affected the understanding and interpretation of many concepts and ideas. Perhaps the best example is the word Rzeczpospolita itself, meaning Commonwealth or Republic. The term was a calque from the Latin res publica, »public thing« or »common thing«. Statistical research shows that it was the most commonly used term in political discourse between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.18 It was indispensable, serving as a focal point for many of the political ideals of the szlachta, expressing in a single word concepts of the state and the citizens’ place in it, as well as structures of government.19 At its foundation was the antique concept of civitas or polity – a commonwealth governed by laws for the benefit of individuals. This was how the Commonwealth was defined – as a certain theoretical construct – by Renaissance political authors including Modrzewski, Wolan and Petrycy.20 Very soon, the concept was extended to specific political realities, initially referring to the Kingdom of Poland21 and after 1569 to the entire Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It also appears in this specific context in political writings from the period of the great interregnum, although their authors were known to support it with definitions proposed by Cicero or even Aristotle – like the anonymous author of a leaflet from 1573 who cited Cicero: »The Republic is nothing other than a thing of the people, and the people is an assembly united and gathered by the permission of one law for the common useful good.«22 Although such 18 Bem-Wiśniewska, »Wizja Rzeczpospolitej w epoce staropolskiej,« 15. 19 Bem-Wiśniewska, Funkcjonowanie nazwy Polska w języku czasów nowożytnych, 168; Augustyniak, »Polska i łacińska terminologia,« 53. 20 Pietrzyk-Reeves, Ład rzeczypospolitej, 200-227. 21 In a letter under the title »Dyalog około egzekucyi« Orzechowski wrote: »The Rzeczpospolita is a gathering of citizens bound together by a community of law and an association of utility, so that it should remain free and enduring in Poland for centuries.« Orzechowski, Wybór pism, 314. 22 Pisma polityczne z czasów pierwszego bezkrólewia, 244. See also Schofield, »Cicero’s definition of Res Publica.« 128 The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth theoretical citations were relatively rare in political commentary of the time, eventually to be replaced entirely by more specific references, the vision of the Commonwealth being at once both a political construct and the society forming it remained the foundation of Polish political discourse.23 It also proved to be extremely enduring: it was only in the late eighteenth century that voices describing the state as an institution external in relation to its citizens started to appear. Even then they remained on the margins of the main trends of political discourse, without effecting a change in the language.24 It is worth stressing here the integrating role of the commonwealth concept, at least for those individuals who saw themselves as its members. This was particularly significant during the early days of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, given the state’s enormous ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. The issues of attitudes to the Union and the integration of Poland and Lithuania’s political systems are complex, and they concern social, political and economic questions. The role of political language should not be underestimated, since it gave a name to this newly formed organism, as well as allowing the nobility to identify with it regardless of their own native language or belief system. As the Act of Union expressed it, it gave rise to »not differing ones, but to a single common Republic, which brought together and joined two states and nations into one people.«25 The exclamation uttered by a participant in the 1573 debate – »Tota Respublica – us, us alone«26 – is particularly telling. »Us« describes all of the szlachta, but only the szlachta and no other group. For its citizens, the Rzeczpospolita was an integrating ideal; and yet the concept soon took on another function of excluding those who found themselves outside the Commonwealth. Modrzewski and Wolan stated that the res publica comprised all its inhabitants, but for Orzechowski and participants of the electoral debate this meaning had shifted to include the noble classes only.27 This narrowing of the definition did not defy antique traditions, and in reality it wasn’t even a narrowing per se; it was a selective reading of only some of its aspects. According to Cicero and republican Roman authors, the antique res publica was a common 23 Backvis, Szkice o kulturze staropolskiej, 475, 492; Opaliński, Sejm srebrnego wieku, 193. 24 Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, »Rzeczpospolita.« 25 Volumina legum. Vol. II, 89. 26 Pisma polityczne z czasów pierwszego bezkrólewia, 215. 27 Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, »Rzeczpospolita,« 16-18. 129 Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz institution of its citizens – them and only them.28 Western European authors, including Bodin and his successors (as far as Hobbes), identified the republic with each »legal« state and assumed that citizens are all participants in and members of the state’s community; this view was shared by certain Polish theorists of the Renaissance, including Modrzewski, Petrycy, Aaron Aleksander Olizarowski and to some extent Wolan.29 However, political discourse ended up following a different route, identifying citizens as those individuals who participate in political life, yet agreeing, in accordance with not just Roman thought but also the Ancient Greek concept of participation, that members of a commonwealth have the right to make decisions about it, and only those who do so are its rightful members. It is notable how quickly and emphatically the term civis/cives was embraced by Polish political discourse, both in its Latin form and its Polish equivalent obywatel/obywatele (citizen/citizens). The concept, rooted in antique traditions, referred to the szlachta class or its individual members and it was integrated in the discourse smoothly. As a consequence, peasants and burghers found themselves no longer regarded as full members of the Commonwealth; this pushed them beyond the boundaries of perception of actual participants in political life, and they were effectively erased from the political discourse for almost two centuries. This undoubtedly affected the socio-political reality of the time; the choice of this particular discourse, rather than any alternative, was also significant. This is not the only example of the political reality and discourse mutually shaping one another. The situation was similar with the perception of the term Commonwealth becoming increasingly limited to states whose peoples were able to influence how they were governed – states with a system combining the state’s stability with its citizens’ liberties. Libera respublica quae sit? asked the author of perhaps the most famous pamphlet published during Zebrzydowski’s rebellion in the title of his writing, answering, 28 As Mikael Hörnqvist summarises: »Republics, like princes, ruled over subjects who lacked the privileges and positive rights that full citizenship carried.« Hörnqvist, »The Two Myths of Renaissance Humanism,« 112. 29 Grodziski, Obywatelstwo w szlacheckiej Rzeczypospolitej, 43-54. 130 The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth We call it rempublicam liberam when not one but three estates govern there and rule simul et semper [together and always] […] and they govern through a common law, so called since everyone voluntarily ordains that law upon themselves, so that the law be not burdensome upon him who ordains it upon himself.30 It is worth stressing that this was not simply a description of the Polish reality, but rather a more general definition formulated under the influence of classical theories, and it was only later in his deliberations that the author sought to adapt it to the Polish reality. This understanding of what a republic is, rejected by theorists of sovereignty led by Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes, formed the basis of discourse of the Italian and later English republicans.31 In Poland, the trend was supported as early as the sixteenth century by political participants in the first free elections. Forming an important element of this concept, the Polybius vision of mixed government was, in the szlachta’s discourse, adjusted to fit the Polish reality so precisely that it survived until the 1770s, when it evolved relatively smoothly to resemble Charles Montesquieu’s formulation of the separation of powers.32 The phrase Libera respublica, used by the anonymous insurrectionist, points to another key element of the political discourse in the Commonwealth: that of liberty. In any case, the Rzeczpospolita and liberty were inseparable ideas, described by another anonymous author in 1733 as two »blood sisters.«33 The liberty that is mentioned in the szlachta’s discourse is defined by Anglophone scholars as a republican or neo-Roman liberty, which combined individual freedom to pursue one’s goals with the individual ability to make decisions about themselves and the commonwealth.34 Such liberty could only be achieved in a state in which citizens participated in government rather than being subjects to the whims of a monarch – that is to say, in a republic. 30 Pisma polityczne z czasów rokoszu Zebrzydowskiego 1606-1608, vol. II, 403. 31 Bouwsma, »Venice and the Political Education of Europe«; Cipriani, »Republican Ideology and Humanistic Tradition: the Florentine Example«; Mager, »Respublica chez les juristes, théologiens et les philosophes«; Skinner, »The Italian City-Republics«; Scott, Commonwealth Principles. 32 Ochmann, Rzeczpospolita jako »monarchia mixta«; Opaliński, Kultura polityczna polskiej, 40-42; Ekes, Trójpodział władzy i zgoda wszystkich, 11-39. 33 Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kórnik, Ms 434: Relacyja śmiesznej komedyi, co się stała w karczmie na Pradze temi dniami po zakończonej elekcyi w Warszawie (1733), 353. 34 Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism. 131 Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz It was not regarded as an innate human right, but rather resulted from the individual belonging to a political community, which in turn made them a citizen. This way of perceiving and discussing liberty proved to be enduring and flexible: during the second half of the eighteenth century, it was appended with certain elements from modern concepts of liberty, such as liberty as a natural right, and the division of liberty into political and civil components. However, individual freedom remained tied to the form of government, and the requirement for citizens to play an active role continued to be stressed.35 This last point brings us to an issue without which the image of political discourse in the Commonwealth would be incomplete, and the discourse itself would be incomprehensible. It concerns not simply terminology and political ideas, but also a certain way in which politics was perceived. I am talking about a close intermingling of ethics and politics, defined by Jerzy Michalski as »a moralistic perspective of governmental issues«.36 Descriptions of the desired civic behaviour were as extensive in political discourse as contemplations of the system of government. This was, once again, a throwback to antique traditions, and resulted from this particular concept of the state and liberty having been adopted. Apart from the rule of law, in the free Commonwealth there were no external forces that could coerce citizens into performing any actions or prevent them from any activities. Conversely, it was the attitude of the citizens that drove the functioning and the very existence of the Commonwealth, and in turn the liberties it afforded. In this situation, the problem of character and attitude of members of the community was not only a political issue, but a key to understanding both the functioning of the state and the individual’s place in a free society. This was not peculiar to the Polish noble conscience, but rather formed a part of traditions recalled in Europe by civic humanism.37 The difference lies in the persistence of this approach, which had been rejected in most of Europe since the mid-seventeenth century. The first author in the Commonwealth to bypass the issue of civil attitudes was Stanisław Karwicki around 1707,38 and the first to attempt to make a clear distinction between morality and politics was 35 Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Queen Liberty, 41, 51-55. 36 Michalski, Rousseau i sarmacki republikanizm, 19. 37 Oldfield, Citizenship and Community; Viroli, For Love of Country, 18-94; Vetterli and Bryner, In Search of the Republic, 19-35. 38 Dunin-Karwicki, De ordunanda Republica seu. 132 The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Stanisław Konarski in the 1760s.39 It is quite another matter that the lively discussion during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, concerning what exemplary civic behaviour was and how it could be achieved eventually turned into an empty bemoaning of lost virtues. In turn, this was regarded as an explanation or even excuse for why state institutions functioned poorly or not at all. Since there was apparently a dearth of virtue, it was the people who had to be changed rather than the laws. But this shift was symptomatic of a deeper problem. Until now, I have tried to show the unusual endurance – in European terms – of the political discourse in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In reality, on a superficial level, the concepts and political values did not change a great deal. The political language formulated at the turn of the seventeenth century remained largely unchanged, and it was not until at least the mid-eighteenth century that it would come to include new concepts being used in Western Europe. Somewhat paradoxically, this fact itself is symptomatic of the change which occurred during the time. The political discourse created during disputes in the early days of the Commonwealth originated from a living language. It was used to outline political plans rooted in a given political reality, and to describe newly constructed political structures. It had its foundations in European traditions, enhanced with relevant experience and brand new concepts to shape a nuanced discourse with extensive terminology, allowing participants to formulate their thoughts with great precision to create an accurate vision of the political situation. And yet something changed over time, even though ostensibly the same concepts were still being used in the same context. This was not so much due to the renouncement – or at least a far-reaching weakening – of ties with the rest of Europe, but rather because of the political language becoming fossilised. The same concepts and phrases which had once contained important political truths had become empty platitudes uttered purely because they were expected to be. One telling example was the bemoaning of lost civil virtues, which displaced discussion of state institutions or the condition of government. When Andrzej Wolan wrote in the sixteenth century that »in vain would someone forcibly pressed into virtue and decent duty complain of having his freedom taken away«,40 it served him as a point of departure for an agenda of reforming Polish law and thorough analysing the rules 39 Konarski, O skutecznym rad sposobie. 40 Wolan, De libertate politica seu civili, 147. 133 Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz of Polish liberty. Yet when Andrzej Maksymilian Fredro wrote in the mid-seventeenth century that »the laws are good, but it is we ourselves who are bad; very nearly have we overturned God’s commandments. I would praise not him who wants to [reform] the Rzeczpospolita, but him who endeavours to improve us ourselves, because by allegedly improving the laws we are ruining them further«,41 he was adopting a wholly passive stance, averse to any sort of change to the existing laws and governmental mechanisms. The same happened with proclamations of defending liberty until the last breath, or assertions of one’s love for one’s homeland, which were perhaps the most marked during the first half of the eighteenth century, but which continued to appear all the way until the demise of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Here there are telling examples of impassioned entreaties by conservative defendants of the existing state of affairs, during the largest political dispute of the eighteenth century, during the Four-Year Sejm (17881792). Two quotations are worth citing, one from a letter by Hetman Seweryn Rzewuski: […] he who was born free should also die free, and he cannot be just a disgrace if he should ever want to cease to be free, but a traitor of the homeland if he should dare to lead others to captivity.42 The other originates from a brochure by an anonymous commentator in 1790: »our ancestors spared nothing so as to bequeath to us our freedom, being less concerned for their whole property, blood, and life itself«, suggesting that the decedents have betrayed the ideals of their ancestors.43 Although both authors might seem to be referring to some imminent and vital danger to their country and very liberty, both statements were merely part of a debate over whether a hereditary throne should be introduced in Poland. The same kind of words which in the sixteenth century and first half of the seventeenth had expressed serious concern for state affairs had by now become just exalted platitudes for those involved in the disputes of the eighteenth century. This does not mean there were no exceptions among the most eminent writers and anonymous participants in political battles of the era, but the overall picture is rather bleak. 41 Fredro, »List do poufałego przyjaciela,« 237. 42 Rzewuski, O sukcesyi tronu w Polszcze, 30. 43 Przeciwko tym, którzy myślą o sukcesyi tronu polskiego, 5. 134 The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth In a sense, it could be said that as the state fell deeper into crisis and the political debate became increasingly barren, the discourse served ever less to describe reality or to formulate political projects. Instead, it had become a tool allowing speakers to articulate certain political myths which would obscure reality to a lesser or greater degree. Additionally, the idea of »the past« had greatly gained in significance. Simply recalling the good old days, or the good old laws, had been an element of the language of politics across most European countries already in the sixteenth century, and perhaps even earlier. However, in Poland by the first half of the eighteenth century, »the past« had become equivalent with »good«, whether it concerned laws, institutions, or civil attitudes. It was a symptom of a reluctance to enact any real change, as well as of a nostalgia for a supposedly lost ideal – this myth of the finest of all Commonwealths. The example also shows that while the understanding of issues key to the discourse remained unchanged, a shift had occurred in the widely adopted system of political values. Liberty had risen to the fore; it had of course been cherished since the earliest days of the szlachta’s Commonwealth, but previously it had appeared alongside values of peace, security – which it was supposed to guarantee – and the Commonwealth or homeland itself. With time, it came to be the most highly prized commodity, and eventually simply the only meaningful value. The duty of citizens was no longer to protect their country, but to safeguard liberty itself. In a way, the traditional republican order had been turned upside down: it was not the Republic that was the guarantee of her citizen’s freedom, but rather this freedom which decided that a given state could be regarded as a Republic. The assessment of all proposed political changes was no longer defined by their effect on the functioning of the state or community, but the threats they could pose to individual liberty. This shift was rather dangerous, because it meant the political language was no longer able to describe or even recognize the threats truly faced by the Rzeczpospolita. It was also not capable of describing and proposing the various changes that were underway or which needed to be effected within social and governmental structures. And yet it was this language that made possible an encounter between republicanism as perceived by the szlachta and one of the most outstanding philosophers of the Enlightenment: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His engagement with the Bar Confederation is a well-known fact,44 but it was 44 Michalski, Rousseau i sarmacki republikanizm. 135 Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz only possible precisely because both sides used a similar vocabulary and took a similar approach to politics, tying it inseparably to ethics. Rousseau even regarded the Poles as the last people who understood the language of liberty. In many ways the similarities were superficial, which frequently led to major misconceptions. The fact remains that they did appeal to the same political values and used a similar language to describe the state, although they frequently understood individual concepts – such as those of a nation and citizens – quite differently.45 It should be noted here that even during its deepest crisis, the language of the political discourse of the Polish szlachta became fossilised, but not defunct. When from 1764 the era of Stanisław August Poniatowski brought with it an enlivened political movement, participants in the discourse once again sought new tools for describing the political reality and outlining plans for changing it, although hardly any author took the step of breaking ties with traditions. Sporadic suggestions were made of introducing a radical change to the way affairs of the state were discussed, treating it no longer as a commonwealth of citizens but as an institution external to them; of replacing the idea of the common good with a vision of mutual obligations between the sovereign government and society, and viewing liberty in categories more akin to today’s liberal circles than republican traditions. The most interesting representative of this line of thought was undoubtedly Hieronim Stroynowski, who even put it this way: […] the freedom of the citizen does not rest (as many believe) in not being subject to laws that he himself did not enact, but in only being subject to laws imposed by the natural order of things, those absolutely necessary for his own good, those good and just in their nature.46 Although his book Nauka prawa przyrodzonego, politycznego, ekonomiki politycznej i prawa narodów (Science of natural and political law, political economy and law of nations) was no autonomous treatise, being very strongly modelled on the concepts of the French physiocrats.47 However, these were rare exceptions, generally formulated as adaptations of foreign utterances. 45 Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, »Rousseau et les valeurs politiques de la noblesse Polonaise,« 125-135. 46 Stroynowski, Nauka prawa przyrodzonego, politycznego, ekonomiki politycznej i prawa narodów, 108. 47 Opałek, Prawo natury u polskich fizjokratów, 78-81. 136 The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth The direction of reform was, to a degree, set forth by Konarski. While he categorically separated ethics and politics – in this respect staying far closer to Machiavelli and Montesquieu than Hobbes and the liberal circles – he remained true to a discourse we can loosely call republican, and in his writings terms such as Rzeczpospolita and liberty were not empty words but regained their older, deeper meaning. Similarly, he strived to return to an earlier hierarchy of political values, explaining that without a free and powerful Rzeczpospolita there could be neither liberty nor citizens.48 Konarski remained true to traditional concepts of the szlachta’s republican discourse. His successors, namely Józef Wybicki, Antoni Popławski, Hugo Kołłątaj, and Stanisław Staszic, added to this language, adopting ideas from Enlightenment-age philosophers. To begin with, in the 1770s, in the publications of such authors as Wybicki49 and Popławski50 this was limited to fairly direct copying, to give a kind of a mosaic of miscellaneous ideas found in many diverse discourses. And yet even then the choices were not strictly accidental: far more originated from authors using a political language that was similar or ostensibly similar to traditional, principally from Rousseau and Montesquieu. This was a transitional stage; in time, authors including Kołłątaj, Staszic and other lesser known participants in the political debate of the Great Sejm maintained the former discourse while appending it with new concepts such as social contract, separation of powers, natural freedom, the ideas of civil and political liberty, and so on. They introduced deeper, frequently new meanings to existing terms like nation and citizen, allowing them to describe phenomena and problems that had remained outside the former discourse, e.g. freedom as an inalienable human right. They also formulated certain concepts with great precision and explained misunderstandings resulting from certain concepts being combined or confused, such as civil liberty for all and political liberty for citizens.51 There can be no doubt that the political discourse underwent major changes. It was no longer the language of Renaissance humanists, nor was it the fossilised language of the republican szlachta from the turn of the eighteenth century. Once again it was a living language of politics which had absorbed certain new con48 Łukowski, Disorderly Liberty, 77-90; idem, »Stanisław Konarski – polski Machiavelli.« 49 Wybicki, Listy patriotyczne; idem, Myśli polityczne o wolności cywilnej. 50 Popławski, Zbiór niektórych materyi politycznych. 51 Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Regina libertas, 98-100. 137 Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz cepts and ideas while not rejecting traditions, in particular those concerning the vision of the state as a commonwealth of all free citizens – now no longer limited to the szlachta – whose duty was to take care of the common good: of the Rzeczpospolita. And so we can see that there was a distinctive kind of feedback loop at work here. On the one hand, the modification and modernization of language showed that far-reaching changes were occurring in reality: the estate-based structure of society started to be questioned, the political situation was changing drastically. All of this in a sense necessitated the redefinition of older political concepts and the introduction of new ones, necessary for describing new phenomena. On the other hand, these very modifications in the discourse made it possible to perceive the changes that were playing out in the political and social situation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had not been capturable in the old linguistic framework, and which had generally remained beyond the perceptive horizon of participants in public life. Translated by Daniel Sax Bibliography Archival Sources Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kórnik: Ms 434, 353-354: Relacyja śmiesznej komedyi, co się stała w karczmie na Pradze temi dniami po zakończonej elekcyi w Warszawie (1733). Edited Sources Dunin-Karwicki, Stanisław. De ordinanda Republica seu de corrigenda defectibus in statu Reipublicae Polonae. Ed. by Stanisław Krzyżanowski. Cracoviae: Drukarnia »Czasu,« 1871. 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Warszawa: OBTA UW, 1995. Ball, Terence. »Conceptual History and the History of Political Thought.« In History of Concepts Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Ian H. Monk, Karin Tilmans, and Frank van Vree, 75-86. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1998. Backvis, Claude. Szkice o kulturze staropolskiej. Warszawa: PIW, 1975. Bem-Wiśniewska, Ewa. »Wizja Rzeczpospolitej w epoce staropolskiej. Od historii języka do historii kultury.« In Rzeczpospolita w XVI-XVIII wieku. Państwo czy wspólnota?, ed. by Bogusław Dybaś, Paweł Hanczewski, and Tomasz Kempa, 11-42. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2007. —. Funkcjonowanie nazwy Polska w języku czasów nowożytnych. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo DiG, 1998. Bouwsma, William J. »Venice and the Political Education of Europe.« In Renaissance Venice, ed. by John R. Hale, 445-465. London: Faber & Faber, 1973. Cipriani, Giovanni. »Republican Ideology and Humanistic Tradition: the Florentine Example.« In Republiken und Republikanismus im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. by Helmut G. Koenigsberger, 19-25. München: Oldenbourg, 1988. Dickinson, Harry T. Liberty and Property. Political Ideology in EighteenthCentury Britain. London: Methuen, 1979. Ekes, Janusz. Trójpodział władzy i zgoda wszystkich. Naczelne zasady »ustroju mieszanego« w staropolskiej myśli politycznej. Siedlce: Instytut Historii Akademii Podlaskiej w Siedlcach, 2001. Grodziski, Stanisław. Obywatelstwo w szlacheckiej Rzeczypospolitej. Warszawa, Kraków: PWN, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, 1963. Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Anna. »Rousseau et les valeurs politiques de la noblesse Polonaise.« In Jean-Jacques Rousseau, entre Savoie et Pologne, ed. by Pascal Bouvier, Éric Brunat, Florence Clerc, Annie Barthélémy, and Michael Kohlhauer, 125-135. Chambery: Éditions de l’Université de Savoie, 2014. —. Queen Liberty. The Concept of Freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2012. —. Regina libertas. Wolność w polskiej myśli politycznej XVIII wieku. Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria, 2006. —. »Rzeczpospolita – pojęcie i idea w dyskursie politycznym Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów. Rekonesans.« Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce 56 (2012): 5-35. 140 The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth —. O formę rządu czy o rząd dusz? Publicystyka polityczna Sejmu Czteroletniego. Warszawa: IBL, 2000. Hampsher-Monk, Iain, Karin Tilmans, and Frank van Vree. History of Concepts: Comparative Perspectives. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1998. Hankins, James, ed. Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Honohan, Iseult. Civic Republicanism. London, New York: Routledge, 2002. Hörnqvist, Mikael. »The Two Myths of Renaissance Humanism.« In Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections, ed. by James Hankins, 105-142. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Łukowski, Jerzy. »Stanisław Konarski – polski Machiavelli.« In W cieniu wojen i rozbiorów. Studia z dziejów Rzeczypospolitej XVIII i początków XIX wieku, ed. by Urszula Kosińska, Dorota Dukwicz, and Adam Danilczyk, 181-196. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Neriton, 2014. —. Disorderly Liberty: The Political Culture of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Eighteenth Century. London, Continuum, 2010. Mager, Wolfgang. »Respublica chez les juristes, théologiens et les philosophes à la fin du Moyen-âge: sur l’élaboration d’une notion-clé de la théorie politique moderne.« In Théologie et droit dans la science politique d’État moderne, 229239. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1991. Michalski, Jerzy. Rousseau i sarmacki republikanizm. Warszawa: PWN, 1977. Ochmann, Stefania. Rzeczpospolita jako »monarchia mixta« – dylematy władzy i wolności. In Kultura – polityka – dyplomacja, ed. by A. Bartnicki et al., 264278. Warszawa: PWN, 1990. Oldfield, Adrian. Citizenship and Community: Civic Republicanism and the Modern World. London: Routledge, 1990. Opaliński, Edward. »Civic Humanism and Republican Citizenship in the Polish Renaissance.« In Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage. Vol. I: Republicanism and Constitutionalism in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, 147-166. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. —. Sejm srebrnego wieku. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe, 2001. —. Kultura polityczna szlachty polskiej w latach 1587-1652. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe, 1995. Opałek, Kazimierz. Prawo natury u polskich fizjokratów. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1953. Pagden, Anthony. Introduction to The Languages of Political Theory in EarlyModern Europe, ed. by idem, 1-18. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. 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Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Scott, Jonathan. Commonwealth Principles: Republican Writing of the English Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Skinner, Quentin. Hobbes and Republican Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. —. Liberty before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. —. »The Italian City-Republics.« In Democracy: The Unfinished Journey 508 BC to AD 1993, ed. by John Dunn, 57-69. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Trenscenyi, Balazs. »Conceptual History and Political Languages: On the Central-European Adaptation of the Contextualist-Conceptualist Methodologies of Intellectual History.« In Prague Perspectives (I): The History of East Central Europe and Russia, ed. by Petr Roubal and Vacláv Veber, 142-166. Prague: National Library of the Czech Republic, Slavonic Library, 2004. Vetterli, Richard and Gary Bryner. In Search of the Republic: Public Virtue and the Roots of American Government. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, (rev. ed.) 1996. Viroli, Marco. For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. 142 Karin Friedrich Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands Bogusław Radziwiłł (1620-1669) and the Problem of Treason Ah, there is nonsense in this Commonwealth, nonsense! [...] Hear me, Pan Kmicic. If we Radziwiłłs lived in Spain, France, or Sweden, where the son inherits after the father, and where the right of the king comes from God himself, […] we should serve the king and the country firmly, being content with the highest offices which belong to us by family and fortune. But here, in the land where the king has no divine right at his back, but the nobles create him, where everything is in free suffrage, we ask ourselves with reason, Why should a Vasa rule, and not a Radziwiłł? […] To all the horned devils, Cavalier, it is time to finish with this! Look meanwhile at Germany, how many provincial princes there are, who in importance and fortune are fitted to be understarostas1 for us, still they have their principalities, they rule, […] and take precedence to us, though it would be fitter for them to bear the trains of our mantles.2 This is one of the key passages in the novel Potop (The Deluge) of 1886, part of a trilogy by the Nobel-prize winning Polish novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) on the wars of Poland-Lithuania during the mid-seventeenth century, characterising one of the novel’s more colourful, ambitious and arrogant figures, the Lithuanian magnate Bogusław Radziwiłł (1620-1669). In Sienkiewicz’s literary imagination, Bogusław appears as a particularly selfish opportunist and an arch-traitor. He clearly leads Sienkiewicz’s league of villains together with his cousin Janusz (1612-1655), Lithuanian hetman and palatine of Wilno, who negotiated the treaty of Kiejdany on October 20, 1655 subjecting Lithuania to Swedish protection, and who died unreconciled at Tykocin castle in December 1655, under siege from troops loyal to the Polish king, Jan Kazimierz. Not only had the Radziwiłł cousins infamously sworn allegiance to the Swedish king Charles X Gustav while planning to break the Polish-Lithuanian union, they also 1 Deputy of the burgrave or administrative head of a county. 2 Sienkiewicz, The Deluge, 377-378. 143 Karin Friedrich plotted to benefit from a private duchy that would have included large areas of Belarus and Lithuania – a scheme that ultimately failed. Sienkiewicz’s negative image of the Radziwiłł cousins was not constructed out of thin air. In 1878, Bernard Kalicki penned a biography of Bogusław Radziwiłł, who in 1657 had advanced to the position of governor of Ducal of Prussia under the rule of the Elector of Brandenburg Friedrich Wilhelm. Kalicki explained from a nineteenth-century perspective of lost statehood why this last male heir of the Radziwiłłs of Birże and Dubinki had become a hate-figure for many Polish noblemen even during Radziwiłł’s own lifetime. Within three months of the Swedish invasion in July 1655 Charles X Gustav controlled Poland, the Cossacks had sworn allegiance to the tsar in the 1654 treaty of Pereiaslav, and Alexei Mihailovich (1629-1676) occupied most of Lithuania.3 Many of Radziwiłł’s noble peers, including some prominent senators, had signed the treaties of Ujście or Kiejdany in 1655, asserting their allegiance to the Swedish monarchy. Unlike Radziwiłł they swiftly regained honours and offices after the king of Poland returned from exile at the end of 1656 and granted them amnesties. Kalicki wondered why among all the famous politicians and magnates of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who had collaborated with the enemy Bogusław Radziwiłł was singled out by historians: In comparison with other historical figures, it seems, [Bogusław Radziwiłł] was treated with particular harshness. In many respects he was better than others: he did not have the bad faith of Opaliński,4 the meanness of Radziejowski,5 nor did he have the arrogant air of Janusz Radziwiłł. […] they were bad Poles and very bad Poles, but at least they were Poles, they had Polish hearts, even if they were crooked, and despite their massive crimes, one can still find a Polish spirit.6 3 Frost, After the Deluge, 26-52. 4 Krzysztof Opaliński, 1611-1655, palatine of Poznań and one of the leaders of the Great Polish (Wielkopolska) nobility that signed the alliance with the Swedes at Ujście, July 25, 1655. 5 Hieronym Radziejowski, 1612-1667, crown vice-chancellor and palatine of Livonia, accused of lèse-majesté and corruption, was convicted and declared under ban and infamy. In opposition to the Polish king from 1651, he fled to Sweden in 1652. After the Deluge he was reinstated and his properties returned in 1662; having been thus disciplined, he became a supporter of the court’s policies but was never quite trusted again. 6 Kalicki, Bogusław Radziwiłł, 3-4. This and all following translations of quotations into English are mine (KF). 144 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands Apparently not so Bogusław Radziwiłł: »He was perhaps the first Pole who had a Polish name, used Polish words, called himself a Pole, but a Pole he was not. He did not even feel hatred for his fatherland, only indifference.«7 The contrast to Lithuanian historiography could not be greater. The Protestant Radziwiłłs have been celebrated as positive heroes of Lithuanian self-assertion against Polish oppression and expansionism, both as eminent military leaders as well as powerful opposition politicians.8 As Henryk Wisner has pointed out, despite such polarised opinions, research – with the exception of Wisner’s own revisionist biography of Janusz Radziwiłł – is patchy on the last two male heirs of the Protestant line.9 The force of Sienkiewicz’s image of the cousins is the more powerful as it is built on the positive stereotype of the patriotic »Pole-Catholic«, promoted by the Catholic Church during the period of decline of the Commonwealth. It was first formulated in Jan Kazimierz’s 1656 oath to the Virgin Mary as queen of Poland in Lwów,10 amidst accusations that the traitors of the fatherland were Protestants and »heretics« – despite overwhelming evidence that the majority of Polish-Lithuanian followers of Charles X at Ujście and Kiejdany in 1655 had been Catholic nobles. Yet the temptation to shift the blame and accuse the leaders and protectors of Lithuanian Calvinism, the Protestant branch of the Radziwiłł family, of treason seemed irresistible. It took political form in the legislation pushed through the Sejm in 1658 that decreed the expulsion of all Antitrinitarians (Polish Brethren) from the country who refused to convert to Catholicism by 1662.11 Bogusław also had a hereditary handicap: his father Janusz I (15791620) had been one of the leaders of the anti-monarchic Zebrzydowski uprising in 1606-1607, which opposed king Zygmunt III’s12 plans for hereditary monarchy. Zygmunt’s pro-Habsburg policies had met fierce resistance not only among the Commonwealth’s Protestants. The uprising was led by the Catholic palatine of Cracow and grand crown marshal Mikołaj Zebrzydowski, and opposition to the policies of Zygmunt III reached across confessional allegiances. The rebellion resisted the Lipsian principles of a centralised mono-confessional 7 8 9 10 Ibid., 4. Kiaupa, Kiaupienė, and Kuncevičius, The History of Lithuania, 314-317. Wisner, Janusz Radziwiłł, 245-247. Bömelburg, »Maria als Garantin,« 85-87; Tricoire, »Die diskursive Konstruktion.« 11 Korolko, »Topos zdrady ojczyzny,« 61. 12 Ruled 1587-1632. 145 Karin Friedrich kingdom,13 Zygmunt III’s programme of counter-reformation and his promotion of the influence of the Jesuits. As a consequence Janusz spent many years in exile. His brother Krzysztof (1585-1640), Bogusław’s uncle, was suspected of treason in the Polish-Swedish wars of 1621-1629,14 partly due to his close contacts to the Orthodox dissidents (including the increasingly rebellious Cossacks), his correspondence with the Swedes and with the Transylvanian princes Gábor Bethlen (1580-1629), who like Janusz I had married a Hohenzollern princess.15 Again, it was convenient to declare the dissidents scapegoats for the country’s troubles. Even during Bogusław’s own lifetime this background became part of the Radziwiłł czarna legenda (black legend) and held great allure for the Radziwiłłs’ magnate rivals, such as the Pac family, who were hoping to discredit and break the traditional supremacy of the family among the Lithuanian grandees in the realm and to put themselves in their place.16 In the longer term the black legend intensified and was reconfigured by hindsight after the partitions of Poland-Lithuania at the end of the eighteenth century. Polish historians of the nineteenth and twentieth century continued to paint a picture of conspiracy and treason of the Radziwiłłs’ contacts to international Calvinist networks, especially to the Reformed Palatinate and to the rebels who in 1620 fought at the White Mountain against the Habsburgs in Bohemia.17 More recently, counter-voices have emerged. Next to Wisner’s work on Janusz II, Urszula Augustyniak’s analysis of Krzysztof Radziwiłł’s role in a suspected Protestant plot against the Polish king presented a fundamental revision of the previously prevailing negative image of the Radziwiłł family.18 Finally, her work on Krzysztof Radziwiłł’s patronage networks has given impetus for a re-evaluation of the role of the Calvinist Radziwiłł line as a whole.19 Another problem for the Radziwiłłs was their grandeur. Emperor Charles V, in 1542, first honoured the family for their military service with the title of imperial princes, which became hereditary in the next generation. While the Radziwiłłs shared the title with other magnates 13 Bömelburg, Frühneuzeitliche Nationen, 196. 14 Augustyniak and Sokołowski, ›Spisek Orleański‹, introduction, esp. 8-56. 15 Janusz I’s (second) wife and Bogusław’s mother was Elisabeth Sophie of Hohenzollern (1589-1629). 16 Codello, »Rywalizacja Paców i Radziwiłłów.« 17 Mrocewicz, Małe folio, 135-163. 18 Augustyniak and Sokołowski, ›Spisek Orleański‹. 19 Augustyniak, Dwór i klientela; Augustyniak, W służbie hetmana. 146 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands such as the Ossolińskis and the Lubomirskis, Bogusław doggedly tried to capitalise on this international mark of recognition, noting even in his testament: Since it pleased God to give us the title and status of imperial princes, it is obligatory that we endeavour to gain territorial properties in the Empire. […] May every Radziwiłł buy or build a castle in a duchy. That would be a major boost for our house […].20 In Bernard Kalicki’s verdict, such focus on the self-interest of the dynasty brought the old Commonwealth to its knees. When the fatherland needed the support of good patriots, its »sons looked for friends abroad.«21 The claim of a few eminent families to be ranked above other nobles was not just the later invention of historians identifying scapegoats for the Commonwealth’s demise. The outwardly egalitarian ideology of the Polish nobility, which banned elevated foreign titles, was demonstratively flaunted by the Radziwiłłs, who would always be addressed as »princes.« The Polish concept of an equal brotherhood of all nobles, with equal political voice and citizenship, had attracted the lower Lithuanian nobility to the union of 1569 and the Polish model. Despite recent evidence that the Lithuanian szlachta was not quite as passive and subordinate as older historiography had suggested,22 the power of the magnates in terms of client networks, wealth and political influence remained strong and often met Polish nobles’ disapproval in the Sejm.23 The Radziwiłłs, from both the Catholic and the Protestant lines, held three of the Commonwealth’s six entails and their economic wealth and patronage surpassed that of other mighty Lithuanian clans such as the Sapiehas and the Chodkiewiczes. Jealousy and the delight to see an eminent family punished were strong motivations for the hostility that Janusz and Bogusław experienced among the humbler members of the Polish nobility. As vociferous defender of the Lithuanian Reformed church in the Sejm and before law tribunals, Bogusław Radziwiłł was particularly vulnerable to accusations of prioritising religious goals over loyalty to the fatherland. Yet what was his fatherland? He never thought of 20 AGAD, Archiwum Radziwiłłów (AR) XI, no. 51, 355-356. 21 Kalicki, Bogusław Radziwiłł, 160. 22 See Vasiliauskas, »The Practice,« and Zójdź, Jan Mierzeński, 116-117, who both revise this older view. 23 Frost, »The Nobility,« 274. 147 Karin Friedrich himself as a Pole in the sense that Kalicki or Sienkiewicz demanded of him in the context of the nineteenth century – and why should he? He could not betray Polish national identity, because his identity was either with Lithuania, of which he spoke as his fatherland, or the Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita), as his political home; most of all, however, his allegiance was to his religion, his co-religionists and his patrimonial territories on either side of the Prussian-LithuanianPolish borders. The following analysis of Bogusław Radziwiłł’s life and political activities, based on correspondence and ego-documents, explores the self-image of a powerful magnate who repeatedly crossed geographical, cultural and political borders in the pursuit of his own glory and the interest of his dynasty’s preservation, and examines the meaning of »treason« in the constitutional, legal and political context of the seventeenth-century Commonwealth’s decline. The making of a traitor? Born in Danzig in 1620, shortly before the death of his father Janusz I, Bogusław Radziwiłł spent his earliest childhood in Franconia with his mother Elisabeth Sophie of Hohenzollern. As observer to the Protestant league of princes of the Holy Roman Empire in Berlin, the Radziwiłł court poet and diplomat Daniel Naborowski met the boy in 1627 and accompanied him to Lithuania. Bogusław arrived at his uncle’s court in the midst of the alleged conspiracy against King Zygmunt III, of which the king and the royal party suspected Krzysztof Radziwiłł (1585-1640) to be guilty.24 Neither Krzysztof’s contacts to Transylvania, France and other centres of anti-Habsburg forces, nor his correspondence, which fell into the king’s hand, however, could prove any crime. Yet the accusation temporarily tainted his reputation and influenced Bogusław’s childhood, set into a context of rivalry with the Sapieha clan and in opposition to the Catholic forces around the king and the court. Still, Krzysztof’s political acumen, his reputation as military leader, his connections through intermarriage with other influential magnates of the realm, even across confessional boundaries, and the decline of Sapieha influence guaranteed that Bogusław, next to Krzysztof’s own son Janusz II, looked set to follow in a successful magnate position. 24 Augustyniak, ›Spisek Orleański‹, 50. 148 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands Pieter II de Jode (1606-1674), Johannes Meyssens, (1612-1670): Bogusław Radziwiłł (16201669) koniuszy litewski, generalny gubernator Prus Ksi˛a z˛e cych (copperplate, 17 × 11.9 cm, Antverp, c. 1650, nr inw. III -ryc.-28709). From the collections of the Muzeum Narodowe, Kraków (Pracownia Fotograficzna Muzeum Narodowego w Krakowie). 149 Karin Friedrich The Protestant Radziwiłłs fared better under the reign of King Władysław IV (1632-1648) who had a more favourable opinion of them than his father. Władysław’s brother Jan Kazimierz, an ex-Jesuit and a more ardent Catholic than his brother, was elected and succeeded him on the throne in 1648. He knew Bogusław from his educational tours abroad, where the Lithuanian magnate assisted him in his release from a French prison in 1639, for which Jan Kazimierz showed him great gratitude. Thus Bogusław Radziwiłł accumulated a high starting capital for his future prospects.25 Having spent almost twelve years travelling the Netherlands, France and England, he was heading home after news of the Cossack uprising reached him. It took several increasingly angry letters from his cousin, Janusz II, reminding him of his duty to be a good citizen »in Sejm and Synod« and not to »sit in foreign parts and distract yourself from watching the ruin of your fatherland and your faith«, before he followed the call.26 His prospects had been helped by his appointment as Koniusz litewski (Master of the horses in Lithuania) in 1646. He rejected an army commission from the French king and returned to Lithuania to raise hussar and foreign infantry units for his king. Not having forgotten Radziwiłł’s services of friendship, Jan Kazimierz appointed him general in the royal guard. Even if we keep in mind that Radziwiłł’s later writings were intended as a justification of his political actions, with the hope of rehabilitation in Sejm and at court, the affection expressed in his memoirs sounds genuine: »as the war with the Cossacks heated up I did not want to abandon the prince Jan Kazimierz, and I supported him and the fatherland, by having voted for him in the election.«27 Ordering his estates, which the king augmented with several gifts and appointments, he took up political activity in the Sejm, to which he was repeatedly elected by his noble followers and client networks in Podlasie and Lithuania, particularly from the palatinate of Nowogródek. His life, however, was increasingly interrupted by war with the Cossacks and, from 1654, by Moscow’s attack on the Commonwealth, which threatened Radziwiłł’s patrimonial lands. He fought in the Battle of Beresteczko in June 1651, followed his king to Lublin, Lwów, Kamieniec Podolski and Zwaniec, and fought at Bar in 1653. Modern psychological profiles build on what the sources say: 25 Radziwiłł, Autobiografia, 23-24. 26 Kotłubaj, Życie, 379-382. 27 Radziwiłł, Autobiografia, 128. 150 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands Bogusław Radziwiłł was courageous and even daring in battle, particularly against the Cossacks.28 More research is needed on his relationship to his cousin Janusz II, a figure whose political motivations have attracted great controversy among historians. While Henryk Wisner’s portrait of the hetman shows a complex man with a strong sense of justice, who suffered many wrongs by his rivals,29 Tadeusz Wasilewski and Maciej Matwijów follow the black legend. Matwijów sees in Janusz an opposition politician who defended »noble liberty« against all efforts to modernise the Polish monarchy, to the extent that he regarded every detail of the king’s policy an attack on that liberty. More problematically, Matwijów accuses the Protestant line of dishonesty in religious affairs and of using faith merely as a cover for their selfish power games.30 Given as proof is Janusz’s memorandum addressed to George Rákóczi of 1654, in which he laid out his plans for a post-Vasa Commonwealth led by a Protestant prince in alliance with Brandenburg, Transylvania, the Cossacks and Tatars, in defence against Austrian and Muscovite plans of the Commonwealth’s destruction. If we give credit, as Robert Frost does, to Janusz Radziwiłł’s political and confessional vision for a continued Polish-Lithuanian union and his fierce criticism of Polish disengagement in Lithuania in the context of external threats, Matwijów’s picture of treason does not add up. It rather distracts, in Frost’s words, from the insight that the Lithuanians were deeply divided among themselves.31 The example of the treaty of Ujście of July 25, 1655, signed by a large group of nobles from Wielkopolska, seemed to vindicate Janusz Radziwiłł: Lithuanian resistance against Sweden and Moscow had been betrayed by the Poles. The king fled to Silesia. With the Swedish invasion, however, the Lithuanian hetman’s plan, to which he alluded in letters of 1653-1654 to Bogusław, to mobilise a Protestant-Orthodox alliance for war against Muscovy, had also failed; nor would the Elector of Brandenburg want to lead such a coalition.32 The choice of a Swedish alliance, even if it involved Lithuania’s subjection, seemed not only preferable to the Radziwiłłs but to a number of other Lithuanian 28 Zuba, »Bogusław Radziwiłł,« 135. 29 Wisner, Janusz Radziwiłł. 30 Matwijów, »Koncepcje polityki,« 33-42; see also Wasilewski, »Zdrada Janusza Radziwiłła.« 31 Frost, The Northern Wars, 43-45. 32 Wisner, »Rok 1655 w Litwie,« 86-93. 151 Karin Friedrich noblemen and dignitaries, although Frost points out that it never attracted the large numbers Radziwiłł had expected.33 It is not Janusz Radziwiłł’s motives, however, that are the focus here. What interests us are the divided loyalties of Bogusław Radziwiłł, a ›king’s man‹, who was called back to his country to take up his role within a family that for generations had dominated Lithuanian politics. Would he take up the mantle of opposition to the king and the intrigues of the »court party« (dworskie praktyki)? A consensus has emerged around Ewa Dubas-Urwanowicz’s judgement that no aristocratic family that went into opposition did so comprehensively.34 Karol Zójdź has taken this even further and, in agreement with Henryk Lulewicz, considers the Catholic and Protestant branches of the Radziwiłłs as separate factions.35 On which side would Bogusław settle? Family solidarity is reflected not only in letters within the Protestant branch but between family members across denominations, such as the large correspondence between Bogusław and Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł (1625-1680), Lithuanian vice-chancellor, field hetman from 1668, and a member of the Radziwiłłs’ Catholic Nieświeź branch.36 Bogusław’s political support for his Catholic and pro-royal relative demonstrates again that the promotion of the dynasty was uppermost on his mind. He petitioned the court for Michał Kazimierz’s advancement and made him one of the executors of his will. Among the Radziwiłłs the division between regalists and oppositionists was far from clear-cut. During the early 1650s, confused loyalties also tortured Bogusław Radziwiłł’s conscience. The king had shown him favours and trusted him as commander of the royal guard. Yet he had been raised in friendship with – and in awe of – his cousin Janusz, whose opposition to King Jan Kazimierz, based on mutual dislike, was well known. As a result, he tried to keep all parties happy, following Janusz’s advice: »you will not show to the king that you are with me.«37 For most of the summer of 1655 Bogusław Radziwiłł had tried to avoid the issue. He fortified Słuck against the Muscovites,38 and when it came to signing the original offer of collaboration sent to the Swedes from Kiejdany Frost, The Northern Wars, 50. Dubas-Urwanowicz, »Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł,« 118-119. Zójdź, Jan Mierzeński, 38. Correspondence between Bogusław and Michał Kazimierz is included in AGAD, AR IV, esp. teka 26, koperty 363-368. 37 Kotłubaj, Życie, 388, letter from Kiejdany September 26, 1655. 38 Volkaǔ , »Arhanizatsyia i zabecpiachėnne,« 189. 33 34 35 36 152 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands at the end of August, he absented himself, eloping to Podlasie, so that his enraged cousin bitterly complained that »my hair stands up, seeing how long your princely grace are spending time in Podlasie.«39 For a short period, in November 1655, he even genuinely cooperated with and supported royalist troops, when he joined Paweł Sapieha in the effort to keep the Muscovites at bay. To the king he addressed assurances of loyalty, asking him for further offices in the Wilno palatinate and the post of regimentarz in the Lithuanian army, while sending his servant, the Polish Brethren Gabriel Lubieniecki, to Magnus de la Gardie in Riga to negotiate a larger size of income under Swedish rule.40 When news of Bogusław’s cooperation with the Swedes reached the king, however, the double game was up. Jacek Wijaczka has suggested that despite Radziwiłł’s attempts to keep all options open, one should »not forget his good intentions«, and that he wanted to save his properties and inheritance, as any nobleman would have done, which should not be held against him.41 It certainly appears that Bogusław found himself in a dilemma. Janusz succeeded in convincing him that he was on the right course: Before God and the world, we are justified that we took on this [Swedish] protection, when Lithuania was abandoned and the Muscovite stood in Wilno […] and we only had to do it for being so poorly.42 From the perspective of the Lithuanian battlefields this logic had some force. Wisner agrees that resistance to the Swedes in Wielkopolska (Great Poland), where several magnates invited the Elector of Brandenburg to face the Swedes as early as May 1655, would indeed have been much easier to organise than in battle-torn Lithuania, with the Muscovites pressing across the border.43 The situation had spun out of control. In October 1655 Janusz and Bogusław Radziwiłł agreed to a treaty with Sweden that broke Lithuania’s union with Poland and recognised the Swedish Vasas as hereditary rulers over the Grand Duchy. The king had gone into exile in August, which later enabled Bogusław the technically correct statement that he signed the treaty 39 40 41 42 43 Kotłubaj, Życie, 387. Zójdź »Zajęcie Nieświeża,« 162. Wijaczka, »Vaterland oder Familie,« 92. Kotłubaj, Życie, 388. Wisner, Janusz Radziwiłł, 84. 153 Karin Friedrich with Sweden only after learning that Jan Kazimierz had abandoned the country.44 Following the fall of large parts of eastern Lithuania to the Muscovites, Bogusław Radziwiłł made himself general of the Podlasie forces hoping to defend his lands with the help of the noble levy. This ultimately failed due to the allegiance of a considerable part of the Podlasian szlachta to the Polish king’s cause, which was supported by vigorous anti-Radziwiłł propaganda. A particularly notorious pamphlet45 originated either from the camp of the Sapiehas, who possessed influence and political networks in parts of Podlasie, or from the Radziwiłłs’ new rivals, the pro-monarchic newcomers of the Pac family. Accusations against the prince are contained in several points: that, as a Lithuanian and a Calvinist, he has no right to represent Catholic nobles from the Crown; that he organises his own army, a task that should remain with the hetman and the king; that he occupies land in breach of the will of the king, and with treacherous motives and lacking in love for the fatherland – »suspectus in amore patriae«; that he wants to invite the Swedes into the Commonwealth, to oppress the nobility and deprive them of their liberties by making himself duke of Podlasie; and that he was a bad soldier – the least convincing of these accusation. Even most of his enemies would have disagreed with it.46 Considering the prominent position of the Radziwiłłs in Podlasie, this propaganda demonstrates the limits of magnate influence over szlachta clients. The struggle for the client nobility’s hearts and political voices between the factions was not fought on the back of a passive service nobility, easily manipulated by the grandees. The political polarisation went across all lines. Several of Radziwiłł’s clients decided to remain loyal to the king and leave the troops he tried to gather in Podlasie. On the other hand, some of Radziwiłł’s most loyal allies in the counties (powiaty) were Catholics having served his house for generations and preferring Swedish to Muscovite occupation. To stick with the Radziwiłłs throughout the war could not have been motivated by mere mercenary motives, particularly when it became clear that the territorial and political gains Bogusław expected from Swedish 44 Radziwiłł, Autobiografia, 136. 45 »Refleksyje, dla których jaśnie oświecony książę Bogusław Radziwiłł nie może być obrany wodzem generalem województwa podlaskiego,« (Reflections on why the highly illustrious prince Bogusław Radziwiłł cannot be elected general leader of the Podlasie palatinate), Biblioteka Narodowa, BOZ 1201, 8-11. 46 Kossarzecki, »Próby tworzenia,« 25. 154 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands collaboration did not materialise and the Protestant Radziwiłłs no longer held the winning ticket. During their negotiations with the Swedish general, chancellor and governor of Livonia Magnus de la Gardie in August 1655, the Radziwiłł cousins had hoped to carve out their personal principalities as part of the Kiejdany agreement. The scheme included the palatinate of Minsk, part of Nowogródek, Słonim and Słuck in Belarus, Podlasie on the Lithuanian border, and the district of Bar in Ukraine. In return they would have ceded Birże to the Swedes. This plan, which remained on paper, would have given them a status similar to imperial princes – the title they so cherished and which they wanted to augment with actual territorial possessions. The letters between Bogusław and Magnus de la Gardie reveal that such territories were to be bestowed on them as fiefs by the Swedish king, as »royal oeconomia« to benefit his »descendants and male heirs of his line to sustain the honour attached to this position.«47 The actual Swedish offer, however, when it came, was limited to Podlasie, Bar, Bobruisk, Strasburg and Gollub in Prussia. This was less than Bogusław Radziwiłł had wished for,48 especially as his richest and most important principality, Słuck in Belarus, was in the way of the Muscovite offensive. Radziwiłł feared that the Swedes lacked interest in defending it, although Boris Florya provides evidence of Swedish-Muscovite negotiations that demonstrated Swedish commitment to protect Słuck against Muscovite incursions.49 Radziwiłł’s worries about Swedish reliability are reflected in numerous attempts to force de la Gardie to commit himself to the defence of Radziwiłł properties threatened by Muscovite troops: »I am convinced that [the house of your Excellence] has affection for mine in the course of the calamities that fall on this State as a result of the barbarous behaviour of the Muscovites.«50 The question that this situation raises, then, is to what extent we can define Bogusław Radziwiłł’s behavior as treason, and if we do, whether treason was the result of unfortunate circumstances or a conscious decision. The concern for his hereditary lands certainly turned him into the traitor the nineteenth-century world of 47 LMAB, Fond (F.) 233, no. 93, folios (ff.) 35, 95. 48 Swedish sources show that Radziwiłł’s negotiator Lubieniecki ceded to pressure more quickly than intended: »habe er den schwedischen Konditionen schneller beigestimmt als ursprünglich beabsichtigt, und wardt der Abgeordnete darüber sehr kleinmütig.« LMAB, F. 233, no. 93, ff. 40-41. 49 Florya, »Bogusław Radziwiłł a Rosja,« 27-28. 50 LMAB, F. 233, no. 93, October 7, 1655. 155 Karin Friedrich »dulce and decorum« imagined him to be. We could easily dismiss this judgement as the imagination and configuration of romantic nationalism. What is rarely asked, however, is whether the legal definition of treason of state can be applied against Radziwiłł in its historical and constitutional context. Defining treason Most European legislation since the Middle Ages defined treason as an act of conspiracy with an enemy, an attempt to overthrow a country’s constitution and ruler, and to separate permanently parts from a realm’s territory. In Poland-Lithuania the Sejm of 1588 distinguished between the crimes of lèse-majesté and perduellio (high treason). The second was more important, as it was a crime against the republic, a conspiracy or secret alliance aimed »contra Rempublicam,« not just the person of the king.51 It was based on the principle of corona regni (crown of the reign) which clearly distinguished between the permanent reign (regnum), and the temporary person of the ruler, who was bound by his oath of allegiance to protect the regnum. If he failed to do so, the republic of the »noble nation« could cancel its allegiance to him.52 Ironically, during the 1660s, it was mainly deputies from Poland who continued to accuse Bogusław Radziwiłł of treason against his king: according to Polish law the king’s abandonment of the country absolved the noble nation from its allegiance to the king, which would have cancelled out the magnate’s offence. Even Władysław Czapliński, not known as a historian who thought very highly of the Protestant Radziwiłłs, concedes that under the circumstances of the summer of 1655, the abandonment of the Lithuanian army by Polish troops led to an untenable situation. In desperation, Janusz Radziwiłł wrote to Jan Leszczyński: As we are abandoned by Your Excellences, after the king called back his units, we have no more help and power than a few thousand troops who are paid with borrowed money and can hardly be maintained […] without divine miracle we will not be able to save either Wilno or the Republic or our liberty […] [we] must decide which among two bad things is the lesser evil.53 51 Volumina Legum, vol. II, 252. 52 Augustyniak, »Potworne konspiracje,« 93. 53 Czapliński, Glosa do Trylogii, 91. 156 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands In Lithuania, more strongly influenced by Roman law than Poland, the Second Statute of 1588 did not focus on the principle of corona regni but declared treason committed against the ruler (lèse-majesté) and that against the »state« (zdrada stanu) as equally punishable.54 Switching to the enemy’s side was an act of high treason, and was punishable by death. Zdrada, according to the Metryka Litewska, is defined as »lasting and stubborn insistence on serving in the army of the enemy,« a clause that was added to Polish law in 1601 due to Lithuanian influences.55 According to Urszula Augustyniak the treaty of Kiejdany was not zdrada but a temporary and necessary submission to the protection of the only army able to withstand the Muscovite onslaught in the face of abandonment by the Polish army and king; nobody who signed it could be categorised as traitor.56 The interpretation of the Swedish alliance at Kiejdany in 1655 as treason was exploited, however, by nobles after the end of the Swedish war who frequently used evidence of their peers’ service or allegiance to the Radziwiłłs as a pretext to occupy their lands as »lands of traitors,« particularly if they were also Protestant.57 The definition of »treason« rarely followed the books. As early as in the sixteenth century it was occasionally extended to the betrayal of sensitive information. During the siege of Pskov in 1581, Krzysztof Pioruń Radziwiłł reported that someone had been caught communicating information to the Muscovites: »We punish such a traitor (zdrajcego) with death.«58 The word also became synonymous in a religious context with dissidents who as »heretics« automatically became suspected »traitors,« particularly after the 1658 legislation against Antitrinitarians.59 It was often used interchangeably for »adversary« or »those not with us but against us.« Janusz’s letter of August 26, 1655 branded nobles who hoped to negotiate an armistice with the Muscovites, or those who returned to the king’s side, as »traitors who escaped from our side […], intent on joining the king.«60 In none of these instances was the letter of the law on how to define treason strictly applied. As Mirosław Korolko has shown, the accusation of treason became an increasingly empty or abstract concept, 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 Lityński, »Zdrada kraju,« 10. Volumina Legum, vol. II, 388-389. Augustyniak, W służbie hetmana, 282. Ibid. Lopatecki, Organizacja, 266. Kriegseisen, Stosunki wyznaniowe, 597. Kotłubaj, Życie, 387. 157 Karin Friedrich one that shifted away from an individual act of personal responsibility and a political choice of loyalties, to a crime supposedly committed by the »opposite party« or a whole religious group, stigmatised for their Protestant faith or their allegiance to an influential family.61 The accusation of treason thus became a political instrument wielded at times with consequences that had little to do with actual legal reality. Self-interest and the imagination of the self In a first attempt to answer accusations of treason, Bogusław commissioned his court poet Samuel Pryzpkowski (1592-1670) to compose a rehabilitation of Janusz’s role in the Deluge, paying homage to his memory. According to the resulting work, Apologia, it was his cousin’s love for the Republic that in adversity forced him to rescue Lithuania from servitude and maintain the fatherland through collaboration with the Swedes. Echoing Janusz’s letter to Leszczyński, Przypkowski justified the hetman’s actions by necessity and compulsion by factors beyond his control.62 There is no doubt that Bogusław wanted to be included in this apology. He expressed similar views in October 1656, in a letter to one of his trusted subordinates, the commander of Słuck, Jan Gross: We have, from earliest youth, learned and tried to live without lies and it was not for reckless intention but extreme emergency that separated us from Our Royal Majesty, after the whole of Poland and Lithuania was compelled through divine intervention to take on foreign protection […] Should it please the Lord God to return us through legal means again to His Majesty the King, as we hope it will happen when peace arrives, we want to do our duties towards the Republic and serve faithfully as before. Meanwhile our pure conscience consoles us that we have not caused this war either by advice or deed, but have been entangled in it through the general misfortune.63 The search of his own conscience that shines through such a personal statement, written to those who were closest to him among the admin61 Korolko, »Topos zdrady,« 62. 62 Przypkowski, Apologia, ff. F3v-F4. 63 AGAD, AR IV, teka 4, kop. 47, no. 51, 1-4, October 5, 1656 from Rajgród. 158 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands istrators and governors on his war-ravaged estates, should not be easily dismissed as rhetorical. In his best known document of self-justification, which he composed after being captured by Tatars at the battle at Prostki on October 8, 1656, Informacja K.s Bogusława Radziwiłła do traktowania amnestyą (Information of Duke Bogusław Radziwiłł concerning his amnesty),64 Radziwiłł stresses that he »did not abandon the kingdom (Regni) with a light heart« and only »coerced by extreme necessity,« thereby concealing some of the truth when he states that this only happened »at the end of December.« He complains bitterly about being made a scapegoat by a council of theologians who conspired against him for his religion, and who wanted to poison him, proof of which he found in a letter captured by the Elector of Brandenburg’s agents.65 To believe the rhetoric we need to examine his behaviour. It seems unlikely that Bogusław had prepared his betrayal with cool consideration. In the battle of Warsaw in 1656, where he fought on the Swedish side, he specifically asked Charles X Gustav not to require him to »face my king« (Jan Kazimierz) on the same side of the field.66 Having been allied with the Swedes for almost two years, he later fought against them for more than three. In an instruction for his clients during his visit of Tykocin in February and March 1656, Bogusław already assigned large sums of cash to the crown prosecutor in a first attempt to clear Janusz’s and his own name and to »cancel the royal condemnation through an eternal amnesty.«67 As prize for his freedom from Tatar captivity at Prostki in the same year, Radziwiłł had been forced to assign his territories of Birże and Kiejdany to field hetman Gosiewski, break with the Swedes and promise never to raise arms against the Lithuanian army and the Polish king again.68 These were conditions he could not meet. As he was barred from returning to his confiscated estates, it was hardly surprising that he turned to family for help: Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg (1620-1688), who, as grandson of Bogusław’s cousin Elector Johann Sigismund (1572-1619), was on the lookout for a governor over his newly sovereign Duchy of Prussia with the capital in Königsberg, 64 In Radziwiłł, Autobiografia, 178-189, and in the original: AGAD, AR XI, no. 48, 103-110 and copied as AGAD, AR II, księga (ks.) 64, 205-213. 65 AGAD, AR II, ks. 64, 208. 66 Radziwiłł, Autobiografia, 138. 67 NHAB, F. 694, vopis 1, no. 146, f. 7-7v. 68 Ibid., 69. 159 Karin Friedrich came to the rescue. The accusation that Bogusław remained longer on the Swedish side than anyone else ignores that by the end of 1656 he was quite eager to abandon the Swedes, but he was now bound to the wishes of the Elector and his policies, who, also fearing Muscovite aggression, did not want to abandon the Swedes quite yet. Without Brandenburg support Bogusław would have been an outcast without means, as his properties (and those inherited from Janusz) were either occupied by the Muscovites or the Lithuanian army, which treated them as conquered territories. He urgently needed sources of income, since Janusz’s inheritance brought him a great number of law-suits based on real or invented debt claims, some fabricated on blank cheques found by the Lithuanian army in Tykocin after Janusz’s death.69 Some of the most severe accusations against Bogusław go back to events in November 1655, when he interrupted his campaign against the Muscovites, allegedly granting the military commander of Słuck free reign over neighbouring territories, including Mir and Nieświeź, owned by the Sapiehas and the Catholic line of the Radziwiłłs respectively. Paweł Sapieha had an eye on Słuck, considering it a useful instrument for bargaining with Muscovy. As a result, William Patterson, who as commander had staunchly defended the fortress but had cooperated with Sapieha and declared himself loyal to the Polish king, lost his job. Radziwiłł replaced him with Adam Wallax. Wallax did not hesitate to occupy, tax and plunder szlachta properties in Mir and Nieświeź, seizing the estates of Bogusław’s Catholic relative Michał Kazimierz. This occupation appeared unnecessary as Muscovite troops had retreated at the time and posed no direct threat to the fortresses. In December 1655 Wallax went on to declare himself – in the name of the Swedish king – governor over the whole palatinate of Nowogródek. The question here is whether Bogusław, in Podlasie and Prussia during December, commanded or colluded in Wallax’s offence, or whether he was just too removed to control him effectively. Krzysztof Kossarzecki stresses that Wallax’s mission was part of the larger Radziwiłł plan to carve out principalities in Lithuania. This might well have been the ultimate intention, but Radziwiłł disapproved of Wallax’s methods.70 It might be difficult to believe that a magnate’s servant could act so independently. In this case all the indications are that Wallax could and did abuse his powers. In fact, during most of Bogusław’s itinerant 69 Zójdź, Jan Mierzeński, 53-54. 70 Kossarzecki, »Próby tworzenia,« 32. 160 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands life, often distant from his properties, his local governors had great influence over decision-making. In times of war and confusion this could have hardly been less so. There is no proof that Radziwiłł ordered the plunder of Michał Kazimierz’s estates. In fact, his record of detailed instructions of how best to protect subjects during war and unrest are manifold and well documented. Before and after the war Bogusław strongly promoted his younger cousin’s career and as early as 1654 sent him to the Imperial Diet to Regensburg to pursue the Radziwiłł claim to turn their imperial title into an actual seat.71 Russian archival materials demonstrate that Radziwiłł intervened with the Swedes to reach a guarantee for Nieświeź’s protection against Muscovy despite the fact that the soldiers in the fortress had already sworn an oath of allegiance to the tsar.72 It is partly due to Swedish countenance to the occupation of Nieświeź that RussianSwedish diplomatic relations deteriorated at the end of 1655. If he was unhappy about Wallax’s high-handed commando, he gained support from his major Jan Gross and the soldiers of Słuck who rebelled against Wallax’s eccentricities. Radziwiłł sacked Wallax and replaced him with Gross in March 1656. Announcing his appointment, Radziwiłł wrote to Gross: We protest that we have not consented to or ordered the attack, […] and will not condone it in the least, […] Concerning Nieświeź and Lachowicz, the reason of war dictated to take these places to prevent them from falling into Muscovite hands, which would have put Słuck under gravest danger. No order given by us, however, will prove that we ordered to shoot at or besiege them, even less that we wanted to plunder the neighbouring nobility so that we would make ourselves hated and enemies […] and have no other thoughts than to restore Nieświeź to our cousin as soon as fortune and time allow; we want to deprive Wallax of the command over Słuck and appoint you, Major Gross, as our commander of our fortress and city of Słuck.73 Cynicism aside, this explanation makes sense. After the death of Janusz in December 1655, Radziwiłł’s main interest was to secure – 71 Dubas-Urwanowicz, »Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł,« 116. 72 Florya, »Bogusław Radziwiłł a Rosja,« 28; Zójdź, »Zajęcie Nieświeża,« 164. 73 AGAD, AR IV, teka 4, kop. 46, no. 40, 32-34, from Tykocin, February 28, 1656. 161 Karin Friedrich for himself and as guardian of Janusz’s daughter – Janusz’s inheritance. Michał Kazimierz, as member of the family, albeit on the Catholic side, was present in Tykocin after Janusz’s death and tried, not entirely successfully, to protect Radziwiłł property from being looted.74 Family ties did matter to Bogusław, particularly in the face of the Muscovite threat. He would gain nothing from provoking the Sapieha faction or loyal followers of the king such as Michał Kazimierz by turning them against him. Gross, who became Bogusław’s trusted commander of Słuck, agreed that his master did not revel in violations of others’ properties. The inventories also demonstrate that Wallax’s interventions had not caused as much damage as Bogusław Radziwiłł’s accusers later claimed before the tribunal where they appeared with claims for compensation.75 Radziwiłł already had enemies galore and did not need more of them. The »well-governed police-state« of a cross-border prince The above quoted letter shows that a well-ordered and well-defended commonwealth, including good government on his landed properties, was uppermost on the prince’s mind. The archival materials on the duchy of Słuck, both in Warsaw as well as in Minsk, reflect one dominant impression: Radziwiłł was deeply concerned for the inviolability of the local population, the protection of burghers and subjects in the city, the fortress and its rural hinterlands, as he considered them, in his role as Pater Familias (Hausvater), as his main basis of wealth.76 His voice on this matter, in his economic instructions, correspondence, his diaries, and particularly his testament, is consistent. It is also cognisant of the mobility of the Commonwealth’s noble estate: »it is not allowed to oppress poorer nobles, but one must defend them against all wrongs, because who is poor today might be rich and influential tomorrow.«77 The loyalty of his own subjects to his person and his properties mattered greatly to him. In his instructions to his heirs he echoed his preference for foreigners in important administrative or military posts on his estates: 74 75 76 77 Dubas-Urwanowicz, »Michał Kazimierz,« 117. Zójdź, »Zajęcie Nieświeża,« 166. Miluński, »Zarząd dóbr Bogusława,« 260-262. AGAD, AR XI, no. 51, 353. 162 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands Since we have important and good fortresses, it needs people who staff and arm them, ammunition, provisions and most importantly good commanders, who are above all suspicion, faithful and acquainted with the martial arts, and if possible, foreigners; because a foreigner, who has no house or relative, must rely only on his lord without any other considerations, which our brother related by blood must have, who must always think about his conditions, and, if he has them, about his relatives, children and similar things.78 It was the refusal of his foreign commanders in Słuck to swear an oath either to the Muscovites or the Swedes and their fierce loyalty to him alone that preserved the fortress under Radziwiłł rule during the Deluge.79 This underlines once more Bogusław’s image of himself as a prince who considered himself unrestricted by political borders. For the construction and preservation of his European aristocratic identity, he looked to models beyond the Commonwealth, to France’s »princes étrangers« such as the Guise, Rohan and the house of Lorraine,80 whose way of life he had encountered as a young man on his travels abroad.81 When he accepted his appointment as governor of Ducal Prussia by the Elector of Brandenburg on 14 October 1657, he took on the role of the useful foreign prince himself.82 Radziwiłł presents his choices as carefully calculated and motivated by loyalty to his employer, but in reality the Elector saved him from difficult circumstances and possibly from bankruptcy. He had first met the Elector as a young man during his European travels. Based on a shared interest in supporting the beleaguered Calvinists in Poland-Lithuania and opportunities to maintain via Brandenburg a link to the Imperial Diet, where Radziwiłł asked the Elector to represent his interest in gaining a foothold, political and religious contacts to Brandenburg remained close. The treaty of Wehlau (Welawa) of 5 November 1657, which sealed a renewed alliance against the Swedes between Brandenburg-Prussia and Poland-Lithuania, removed the overlordship of the Polish crown, 78 AGAD, AR XI, no. 51, 343-344, and printed in Syrokomla, »Informacya domowa,« 43-60. 79 Kossarzecki, »Próby tworzenia,« 30-31. 80 Spangler, »Those in Between,« 133. 81 Radziwiłł, Autobiografia, 38; Scott, »The Line of Descent,« 226; Chachaj, Zagraniczna edukacja, 75-88. 82 GStAPK, XX. Hauptarchiv, Ostpreußische Folianten (OF) 1251, 3-5; Wachowiak, »U źródeł genezy,« 83-94. 163 Karin Friedrich to which every Duke in Prussia had sworn allegiance since Albrecht of Hohenzollern’s genuflection before Zygmunt I Stary in 1525. The Elector now considered himself sovereign ruler over the Duchy of Prussia.83 Article 20 of the treaty specified the consent of the Polish king and Sejm to grant Radziwiłł an amnesty and the full restitution of his properties, including Janusz’s inheritance, although it took many years before this clause could be implemented.84 Another important result for Radziwiłł was the treaty’s mutual guarantee of religious liberty and the Elector’s acceptance of his role as protector of Poland-Lithuania’s Protestants.85 Radziwiłł’s governorship over Ducal Prussia sparked the vociferous protest of the Prussian estates, who had been excluded from the negotiations with Poland-Lithuania.86 The estates’ refusal to recognise the Elector as their sovereign, a function they still attached to the Polish monarch, clashed with Radziwiłł’s assigned task: to make them pay contributions and homage to the duke as sovereign lord, to introduce the excise tax, to build up the army and curb the self-government of the local nobility – in short, a governmental style under the name of directum dominium which the Prussian estates resisted. From this opposition Radziwiłł soon received much of his own medicine: »this country is full of intrigues and malcontents who secretly make a lot of noise,«87 he wrote after he faced grievances from discontented Königsberg burghers and the noble council (Oberrat) in the Duchy of Prussia, who resented their new governor. Towards the beginning of his governorship he was keenly aware of the estates’ parliamentary traditions and practices and the loss of the Prussian citizens’ civic powers, which he so cherished in his own country. After particularly thorough military executions to collect contributions, a storm of petitions was directed at him. In reply he wrote to Otto Schwerin, the Elector’s first minister, in 1657: »I pity them for not being able to help them to the degree they believe me capable.«88 He spoke of a moving petition by many inhabitants who suffer famine and starve from misery, being found dead in the streets, and those still alive 83 84 85 86 87 88 Volumina Legum IV, 239. Um die Souveränität, 43. Article 16 in ibid., 37. Kamieński, Stany Prus Ksiąźęcych, 81-86. Jacoby, Boguslaus Radziwill, 61. Ibid., 105. 164 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands ruined in the extreme by the war and its depredations, turned into beggars […] I assure you that the peace is more worrying to me than the war, and indeed I do not know what shall become of the country which is impoverished and the people not in favour of the Elector.89 Over time, however, his rhetoric hardened. In 1662, Bogusław Radziwiłł faced the opposition of the magistrates and councillors of Königsberg led by Hieronymus Roth, who sent his son to Warsaw to seek military help against the Elector’s demands for excise tax. Radziwiłł’s response was that the estates should resign themselves to the loss of their former liberties and accept the Elector’s sovereignty.90 After agonising in his diary about the conflict, which betrayed his anxiety over the case, Radziwiłł had Roth seized and delivered to the justice of the Elector. Friedrich Wilhelm found little opposition to his act from the Polish king, who hoped to win Brandenburg military support against Muscovy. With some satisfaction Radziwiłł notes in his diary that, as a result, the inhabitants sent to the Elector and obediently congratulated him, recognising his supreme rule.91 His political multi-tasking continued. Although he had gained Jan Kazimierz’s formal consent to accepting the position of Prussian governor, his decision to serve a foreign prince, particularly a non-Catholic one, annihilated any chance he might have had to return to grace and favour among his peers, who were happy to eliminate a competitor for higher office. As the court championed the Pac family among the rising Lithuanian clans, Radziwiłł was denied appointment to vacant royal lands and offices. Half-heartedly he supported the rebellion of the crown grand marshal Jerzy Lubomirski against the plans of a vivente rege election,92 promoted by the Polish royal couple, to put the French prince of Condé on the Polish throne. He was elected deputy to the Warsaw Sejm of 1662 to take his seat among opponents of the plan but had to fight for his right of presence in the Sejm against protests that as a traitor and a lord in foreign service he should be denied entry.93 His double life hardly appeared strange to a prince of the Holy 89 90 91 92 93 Ibid., 105-106, 116. Ibid., 65. Radziwiłł, Autobiografia, 151. An election of the king during the reign of the previous one. As early as 1661 Bogusław notes: »immediately the court faction wanted to deny me a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, arguing that as a minister of a foreign prince I could not be admitted to the negotiations of the Respublica.« Radziwiłł, Autobiografia, 146. 165 Karin Friedrich Roman Empire, but it clearly did so to the regalist Catholic szlachta, who eyed him with great suspicion. Jan Pasek’s diatribe in his memoirs of the year 1661 against the senate reflects this attitude: »What good are such men to the Commonwealth? Good but to obstruct the Diet […] with their private concerns, promoting their own interests, stealing time from civic affairs with superfluous luxuries. More likely I’d sooner uncover stepfathers among the fathers of the fatherland whose conspiracies have enfeebled the commonwealth.« Citing the example of the Swedish war, Pasek asks: Who paved the way for the Swedish war? The bad counsel of the senatorial estate […]. Never have I been a stepson, being of ancient Polish stock, of native blood, not a foreigner with a title from abroad.94 Radziwiłł was not the only one accused here. He was part of a pro-Brandenburg network in the Commonwealth: Chancellor Jan Leszczyński, Primate Mikołaj Prażmowski, Castellan of Poznań Krzysztof Grzymułtowski, Palatine of Kalisz Jan Opaliński, Treasurer Andrzej Morsztyn, Lithuanian Field Hetman Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł, and even Lithuanian Chancellor Michał Kazimierz Pac – they all took large Brandenburg »salaries.« This rankled with Pasek’s regalist definition of patriotism. Like many of his peers in the chamber of deputies, he perceived the mixed monarchy under threat from the influential Lithuanian magnateria. The time was not far off when magnates would be elected kings of Poland: Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki achieved it in1669, still in Radziwiłł’s lifetime. In a letter to Friedrich Wilhelm, Radziwiłł reported that he had reliable information that 18 Lithuanian senators would back his election to the Polish throne if only he attended mass and pretended to be a Catholic, but he was quick to distance himself from such counsel.95 The knowledge of the extent and limits of magnate power also guided Jerzy Lubomirski in 1665 when he replied to Jan Hoverbeck’s96 question to him why Radziwiłł was singled out for rough treatment – the same question Kalicki asked 94 Leach, Memoirs of the Polish Baroque, 110-112. 95 NHAB, F. 694, vopis 8, no. 2, f. 6v, October 5, 1668. 96 The Elector of Brandenburg’s envoy to Warsaw. 166 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands two centuries later: »A cat is happily admitted into the bedroom, but a lion is being kept in a cage or a cave, although they are similar due to the fact that they both have claws.«97 Radziwiłł was well aware of his family’s status as one of the »lions.« Identification with his Hohenzollern relative could not have been difficult for him. Both bore princely titles, both were proud of their illustrious ancestry. Both managed scattered and disparate territories, well aware of the difficulties such governance entailed, particularly under conditions of war and fragile loyalties. Pasek’s condemnation of Radziwiłł’s and other magnates’ »private interests« must ultimately be judged as hypocritical. Pasek proudly reports about his own property deals and the defence of his self-interest by marrying a rich widow, not unlike Radziwiłł who in the Sejm fought to hold his estates together and to preserve and support the livelihood of his clients and subjects, including the dissidents on his estates. It is in his testament that he admonishes future descendants that civic duties should not be taken on slightly: »not for show, but for the liberty and the public good, not for promotion or a pension.«98 Radziwiłł’s regret about the decline of civic virtue to some extent echoes Pasek’s lament. In a letter to his confidant, the marshal of Wiłkomierz, Radziwiłł condemned corruption: »As we squander our time for political consultation with untimely drinking feasts and banquets, one needs not be a prophet that palpably and inevitably the Fatherland must perish.«99 His panacea was to appeal for the restitution of the republic’s liberties.100 Rather than being in conflict, Radziwiłł’s two public roles fertilised each other. His instructions for his estates, just like his correspondence on practical and political tasks with the Elector, reveal the same language of aristocratic patrimonialism: to order and govern well, in the interest of the proprietor, who knows what is best for his subjects. In his will, Bogusław stressed his admiration for his ancestor Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł Sierotka (1549-1616), a convert to Catholicism from the Nieśwież line. Sierotka had introduced a »well-ordered government, with a good archive [so] that all property should, with the grace of God, be kept together,« a practice Bogusław recommended.101 97 GStAPK, XX. Hauptarchiv, Etatministerium (Em) 111 h, no. 168, f. 30, Hoverbeck Relationen March 15, 1661. 98 AGAD, AR XI, no. 51, 352. 99 AGAD, AR IV, teka 8, kop. 82, undated, no. 947, 75. 100 Jacoby, Boguslaus Radziwill, 194. 101 AGAD, AR XI, no. 51, 352. 167 Karin Friedrich From 1657 to his death in 1669, the well-governed police state of Ducal Prussia was Bogusław Radziwiłł’s responsibility. He used family tradition to transfer economic and administrative practices from Lithuania across the border. Shortly before his official nomination he wrote to one of his officials in Słuck: »I try and work for the common good, but I will not undertake to convince the Elector of that, so that he does not interfere with my way […].«102 As governor he would not always see eye to eye with Friedrich Wilhelm’s style of rulership, but the fact that Elector’s trusted him in turn enhanced Bogusław’s support for the Hohenzollern cause. Conclusion This leads us back to Kalicki’s original question: why was Bogusław Radziwiłł singled out by contemporaries as well as historians? Why did he have to fight so hard in courts of law and in the Sejm to gain what came easy to most other »traitors« of Ujście and Kiejdany? Sienkiewicz’s fictitious quote at the start perceptively captures the aspirations of magnate families. Historians of Poland-Lithuania need to have a second look at the projects magnates planned for the Commonwealth, particularly in borderlands which were under pressure from external enemies. For Bogusław Radziwiłł the alternatives were not royalism versus szlachta republicanism. He looked across borders to emulate the European aristocracy and their territorial ambitions. Pasek, representing the average Polish nobleman, surmised and rejected such plans, while Radziwiłł realised that his circumstances hampered their full realisation. Ducal Prussia became the territory over which Radziwiłł exercised quasi-princely power after being excluded from the career he desired in the Commonwealth. Did this make him a traitor? His testament paints him as a regalist at heart. He admonished future generations of his family to hold the king always in high esteem, serve him faithfully, and if he is a bad king, still patiently to bear his defects, in the knowledge that he was given to us by God, and ab extremis he may be a foreigner, who never fits in well, but patience overcomes everything.103 102 AGAD, AR IV, kop. 47, no. 72, July 21, 1657. 103 AGAD, AR XI. 51, 353. 168 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands This comes from the pen of a man who knew exactly that the king was not chosen by God but by the Commonwealth’s citizens. Radziwiłł’s testament does not sound like a traitor’s last stand, but the testimony of somebody very much aware of his own limits and the limitations that royal policies could impose on magnate power in general. His king raised homines novi, newcomers such as the Pac family, against the older magnateria, triggering the conflict that alienated Radziwiłł, the king’s man, from his king. Radziwiłł did not commit treason against his king; he felt betrayed himself. In contrast, Friedrich Wilhelm conceded to his governor the power of creative rulership and an autonomy that strengthened Radziwiłł’s loyalty to the Elector. Over time, in his role as Prussian governor, his commonwealth discourse of liberty, virtue and the common good became tainted by the language of command and subjection and the self-interest of the state. This, in the end, was the real betrayal that Radziwiłł committed against the Commonwealth and its civic ideals. 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Scott, Hamish M. »›The Line of Descent of Nobles is from the Blood of Kings‹: Reflections on Dynastic Identity.« In Dynastic Identity in Early Modern Europe: Rulers, Aristocrats and the Formation of Identities, ed. by Liesbeth Geevers and Mirella Marini, 217-241. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015. Spangler, Jonathan. »Those in Between: Princely Families on the Margins of the Great Powers – The Franco-German Frontier 1477-1830.« In Transregional and Transnational Families in Europe and Beyond: Experiences Since the Middle Ages, ed. by Christopher Johnson, David Sabean, Simon Teuscher, and Francesca Trivellato, 131-154. New York, Oxford: Berghahn, 2011. Volkaǔ, M.A. »Arhanizats’ya i zabespiachėnnye budaŭitstva fartyfikatsyĭ u slutsku pry Baguslave Radzivyle (1654-1669 gg.).« In Studia Historica Europae Orientalis. Issledovania po istorii vostochnoı̆ Evropy, vypusk 5, ed. by A.V.Matyniuk, 188-203. Minsk: RIVSH, 2012. Wachowiak, Bogdan. »U źródeł genezy stanowiska namiestnika w Prusach Książęcych w 1657 r.« In Strefa Bałtycka w XVI-XVIII w. Polityka – Społeczeństwo – Gospodarka, ed. by Jerzy Trzoska, 83-94. Gdańsk: Gdańskie Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1993. Tricoire, Damien. »Die diskursive Konstruktion eines katholischen Staats: Die Erfindung der Gottesmutter Königin von Polen (1635-1717).« In Kommunikation durch symbolische Akte. Religiöse Heterogenität und politische Herrschaft in Polen-Litauen, ed. by Yvonne Kleinmann, 229-247. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010. Vasiliauskas, Artūras. »The Practice of Citizenship Among the Lithuanian Nobility, ca. 1580-1630.« In Citizenship and Identity in a Multinational Commonwealth: Poland-Lithuania in Context, 1550-1772, ed. by Karin Friedrich and Barbara M. Pendzich, 71-102. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2009. 172 Political Loyalties in the Commonwealth’s Borderlands Wasilewski, Tadeusz. »Zdrada Janusza Radziwiłła w 1655 r. i jej wyznaniowe motywy.« Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce 18 (1973): 125-147. Wijaczka, Jacek. »Vaterland oder Familie? Das Dilemma des Fürsten Bogusław Radziwiłł (1620-1669),« Biuletyn Polskiej Misji Historycznej 3 (2013): 75-98. Accessed August 27, 2015. doi: 10.12775/BPMH.2013.003. Wisner, Henryk. Janusz Radziwiłł 1612-1655. Warszawa: MADA, 2000. —. »Rok 1655 w Litwie: pertraktacje ze Szwecją i kwestia wyznaniowa.« Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce 16 (1981): 83-102. Zójdź, Karol. »Zajęcie Nieświeża przez oddziały Bogusława Radziwiłła jako element zabiegów o utworzenie własnego księstwa pod szwedzką protekcję wybrane problemy.« In Studia nad staropolską sztuką wojenną, vol. II, ed. by Zbigniew Hundert, 161-168. Oświęcim: Napoleon V, 2013. —. Jan Mierzeński – klient i rezydent Bogusława Radziwiłła w latach 1656-1665. Oświęcim: Napoleon V, 2012. Zuba, Krzysztof. »Bogusław Radziwiłł (1620-1669) – portret psychofizyczny magnata w świetle listów i pamiętników.« Medycyna nowożytna. Studia nad Historią Medycyny, 5 (1998) 1: 113-136. 173 Bogumił Szady Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century A Geographical-Historical Approach1 The historical territory of the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, covering the area of almost all of today’s Poland as well as Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine, is characterized by religious diversity, which constitutes one of the most significant factors configuring the geographic and demographic landscape of the country. To date, in studies delving into the religious and confessional geography of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth two main methodological trends are evident: the organizational (structural) and the demographic. The works of the first category are based on the assumption that the distribution of churches and buildings of worship are the mirror image of the real geographical distribution of confessions, and correctly represent quantitative proportions of individual denominations.2 The books and articles using the second approach refer to demographic resources in order to present the overall confessional make-up of the selected territories.3 The present article follows mainly the first, the organizational approach, but it partially also has a demographical foundation, taking into account statistical information about the population. Nevertheless, we should recognize that there are no comprehensive demographic sources for the entire territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from before the end of the eighteenth century. The main aim of this article is to present the territorial distribution of religions and confessions in the Crown part of the Commonwealth shortly be1 The main findings and conclusions presented in this article were originally published in chapter 3 of my book Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie w II połowie XVIII w. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2010, but reworked according to the topic of this volume. 2 Bieńkowski, »Mozaika religijno-kulturalna Rzeczypospolitej«; Litak, »The Atlas of Religious and Ethnic Relations«; idem, »Mapa wyznaniowa Rzeczypospolitej«; Szady, »Z badań nad mapą wyznań i religii.« 3 E.g. Budzyński, Ludność pogranicza polsko-ruskiego; Budzyński, Kresy południowo-wschodnie. 174 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown fore its first partition in 1772. Special importance will be assigned to determining the geographical reach of particular religions and denominations, and to designating religious borderlands in the Crown’s territory. It is part of a larger project embracing the whole territory of the former Polish-Lithuanian state in this period.4 Any analysis of the territorial and organizational structure of particular religions and denominations should always consider the distribution of basic administrative units. For Christian denominations it was usually the parish; for Jewish communities the kahal, and for Muslims the dzemiat. In order to conduct a proper geographical and statistical analysis referring to religious administration it is essential to determine consistent criteria for confirming the functioning of basic organizational units. There are, however, deep discrepancies between religions and denominations. Some factors form the Latin parish, others the Protestant community, others yet the Jewish or Muslim community. Within the scope and territorial reach of the present research, it was not possible to analyse thoroughly the status of all units of religious administration functioning at the time. Therefore, it was established that the trace of the permanent existence and functioning of an organized religious group or denomination was almost always a building devoted to performing public prayers and religious rites. Still, this assumption does not comprehensively solve the problem as a sacral building fulfilled different functions in the lives of Christian and non-Christian communities. Due to a lack of sources, it was not always possible to confirm the existence and functioning of a building of worship, particularly in the case of the Jewish community that includes the far-reaching oversimplification that the existence of a kahal is concomitant with the functioning of some sort of a place of worship. In this context, the term ›synagogue‹ applied further on will not only refer to a separate building, but will also denote a meeting place for common prayers and studies. My analysis covers buildings of worship of all religious communities and confessional groups present in the area of the Crown that created organizational structures. The group of Christian churches included Catholic churches of three liturgies (Latin, Uniate and Armenian), as well as Orthodox, Lutheran (Augsburg Evangelical), Mennonite, Calvinist (Reformed Evangelical), and the Unity of the Brethren churches. Among non-Christian buildings of worship, Jewish synagogues took the first place, whereas the number of Karaite kenesas and Muslim mosques was small. 4 Szady, Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie. 175 Bogumił Szady The analysis and its results are presented in two sections. The first and principal section delves into the territorial extension of confessions and religious communities, and the distribution of churches and buildings of worship. In the second, an attempt is made to verify the above-declared assumption on the coherence between the organizational and demographic aspects of the denominational landscape of the Crown Territory. In this approach, results from the analysis of the geographic distribution of buildings of worship, as well as their number and density, are randomly compared with demographic data on the respective confessional and religious communities. The analysis of the distribution of places of worship representing all confessions and religions over a very large area, together with the strong regional differentiation present, required introducing inner sub-divisions, thereby making it easier to present the actual situation. Narratives available from individual confessional traditions do not enable a full use of the comparative method. Using the administrational divisions of the Latin Church cannot be logically justified as, although it covered the whole territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Uniate Church played a far more important role in the Crown territories of Ruthenia. Furthermore, this would unintentionally create the risk of comparing other confessions to the Latin Church. Hence, it seems that the most appropriate method is to follow the divisions used by the state administration – provinces and voivodships – within which quantitative, structural and geographical analyses of the individual confessions were carried out. The territory used for geographical and statistical analysis comprises two provinces: Małopolska (Lesser Poland) and Wielkopolska (Greater Poland). The focus is on the second half of the eighteenth century, before the territorial changes caused by the first partition of Poland-Lithuania. In addition, the areas under fief administration – the Spisz (Spiš) and Drahim crown domains (starostwa), as well as the lands of Lębork and Bytów – were taken into consideration. Due to their different administrative structures, collective statistics treat them separately, in that they were not included within any of the 23 Crown voivodships. Warmia, which formally belonged to the Malbork voivodship, was also viewed separately. The total area considered in this study covers 424 358 km2, comprising: Małopolska (Lesser Poland) province – 304 390 km2 – Małopolska – 57 656 km2 (incl. the Spisz area – 679 km2) – Ruś Koronna (Crown Ruthenia) – 235 227 km2 – Podlasie (Podlachia) – 11 507 km2 176 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) province – 119 968 km2 – Wielkopolska – 59 842 km2 (incl. the Drahim area – 651 km2) – Prusy Królewskie (Crown Prussia) – 26 452 km2 (incl. the Lębork and Bytów areas – 1 857 km2 – and Warmia – 4 316 km2) – Mazowsze (Masovia) – 33 674 km2. Due to its huge territorial and documentary scope, this article is based mainly on sources and studies that provide systematic information about the structures and distribution of buildings of worship representing various religions and confessions. Considerable effort was put into creating statistical and cartographic materials, in case they did not exist yet or were outdated. Knowledge about the centralized and well-controlled Latin Church is, without any doubt, the most complete, thanks to the preserved records of canonical visitations, lists of benefices and other types of records necessary for efficient administration.5 Protestant communities for their part systematically prepared descriptions of their organizational structure, although the importance of the Protestant Church shrank continuously in the eighteenth century.6 As knowledge about the organization of the Eastern Churches is more limited, the exploration of sources is still the main form of research.7 The Jewish communities did not create systematic registers of their buildings of worship, or, if they did, they have not survived. This results from a completely different organizational structure of the Jewish population, whose ritual life was characterized by a lower degree of centralization in comparison to Christian denominations. The first complete list of Jewish kahals on the territory of the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania resulted from the state’s undertaking to change the taxation of the Jewish population in the 1760s.8 Many regional historical studies and maps also provide important material for the reconstruction of the confessional map showing the 5 Litak, Atlas Kościoła łacińskiego w Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów; Szady, Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie. 6 Merczyng, »Zbory i senatorowie protestanccy w dawnej Polsce«; Kizik, Mennonici w Gdańsku, Elblągu i na Żuławach Wiślanych; Klemp, Protestanci w dobrach prywatnych w Prusach Królewskich; Kriegseisen, Ewangelicy polscy i litewscy. 7 Kołbuk, Kościoły wschodnie w Rzeczypospolitej; Skochylias, Heneral’ni vizytatsii Kyivs’koi uniinoi mytropolii. 8 Spector and Wigoder, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life; Kalik, Scepter of Judah. 177 Bogumił Szady territorial distribution of churches and buildings of worship in the eighteenth century.9 The lack of systematic inventories and geostatistical data in many cases forced us to gather the requested information dispersed in both published and unpublished historical sources – mainly in reports of canonical visitations, lists of benefices, court rolls, etc. Apart from the written sources that contributed to the preparation of attributable data for all buildings of worship and administrative units, the cartographic materials (old maps) played a significant role in the process of identification and localization of each analyzed place.10 Geographical coverage of religions and confessions Among the determinants crucial to the territorial extension of confessions and religious communities, we distinguish three elements: – political conditions and international relations – religious and confessional changes – settlement processes and migrations In the case of the eastern and southern outskirts of the Crown Territory up to Bukovina (Bukowina), the political and administrative frontier with the Russian and Ottoman Empires more or less coincided with the confessional borders of Orthodox and Muslim populations respectively. However, while political borders can be characterized as stable and geographically precise, the confessional frontier became more blurred and fluid in the second half of the eighteenth century as a result of increasing tensions between the Orthodox Church, supported by the Russian Empire, and the Uniate Church, backed by the Polish authorities. Many of the eastern churches situated in the Bracław and Kiev voivodships changed their denominational affiliation two, three or more times during the Koliyivshchyna in 1768, a peasant rebellion that had not only socio-economic, but also religious dimensions.11 Ever since the Union of Brest in 1596, the rivalry between the Orthodox and Uniate Churches con9 E.g. Ruprecht and Jähnig, »Die kirchliche Organisation«; Budzyński, Ludność pogranicza polsko-ruskiego; idem, Kresy południowo-wschodnie. 10 Szady, Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie, 7-16, 255279. 11 Skinner, »Borderlands of Faith,« 90. 178 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown stituted a permanent characteristic of the Ruthenian voivodships of the Crown.12 The widest transitional zone, and the most interesting from a confessional point of view, was situated in the territory of the so-called Wild Fields (Loca deserta, Dzikie Pola). The Russo-Turkish wars in the second half of the eighteenth century had a strong influence on the relations between Uniate Christians, Orthodox Christians and Muslims. In this frontier area, the structures of the Uniate Church abutted on those of the Orthodox Church, which dominated in Zaporizhia (Zaporoże), the area between the Southern Bug (Boh) and the Dnieper (Dniepr). Adherents of Islam prevailed in the territory of the Crimean Khanate, between the Dniester (Dniestr) and the Southern Bug.13 Political as well as religious elements were decisive factors in the confessional make-up of the Carpathian Foothills (Pogórze Karpackie), where Uniate Christians in the southern parts of the Crown Territory met their co-religionists from Transylvania (Siedmiogród), Carpathian Ruthenia (Ruś Zakarpacka) and Bukovina (Bukowina). Some of the Orthodox inhabitants of Carpathian Ruthenia followed the example of the Orthodox bishops in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in recognizing the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome in the Unions of Uzhhorod, Mukachevo, and Maramureș in 1646, 1664, and 1713, as did adherents of Orthodoxy in Transylvania in the Union of Baia Mare in 1700.14 Nowadays, the Lemko, Hutsul and Boyko highlanders can be viewed as a symbol of ethno-confessional continuity of this region.15 In the eighteenth century, the western border of the Uniate ecclesiastical structures corresponded with the borders of Orthodox dioceses from before 1596, which in turn coincided with the western border of the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.16 On the other hand, the development of the Latin Church dioceses from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century reflected the military and political expansion of the Polish state to the east. The geographical range of the Latin Church within the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was definitely more far-reaching 12 Bieńkowski, »Organizacja Kościoła wschodniego w Polsce,« 784-785. 13 Fisher, The Crimean Tatars, 30, 79-80; Skochylias, »Pivdenna mezha Halits’koi (L’vivs’koi) ieparkhii,« 321-322. 14 Lacko, Unio Užhorodensis Ruthenorum Carpaticorum cum Ecclesia Catholica; Pekar, The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus’, 18-35; Magocsi, »Adaptacja bez asymilacji.« 15 Magocsi, »The Carpatho-Russyns.« 16 Magocsi and Matthews, Ukraine, map 8. 179 Bogumił Szady than that of the Uniate Church, which did not manage to create an ecclesiastical organization beyond the areas of dense settlement of the Uniate population (Crown Ruthenia). In contrast, the Roman Catholic Church, despite being rooted in the central and western parts of the Crown Territory, did develop its organizational units to a limited extent in Crown Ruthenia and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: in 1375, the archdiocese of Lviv was established with six dioceses; in 1636, the diocese of Smolensk was added.17 During the early modern era, the political powers of Europe were always directly involved in modeling confessional relations in their dominions. The religious policy of the Polish-Lithuanian state was particularly notable for its strong support of the Union of Brest and of the Latin Church throughout the Counter-Reformation activities of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the second half of the eighteenth century, with the exception of some areas bordering the Kingdom of Prussia, Protestant communities prevailed primarily in the large cities of Royal Prussia (Prusy Królewskie): Gdańsk, Toruń and Elbląg. Just as the political border with the Russian Empire separated the Orthodox inhabitants in the border area of Crown Ruthenia from their co-religionists in the dioceses of Pereiaslav and Chernihiv,18 the frontier with the Kingdom of Prussia separated Lutherans in the western borderlands of Greater Poland and Royal Prussia from their fellow believers in the Kingdom of Prussia. Other Protestant religious groups – Calvinists and Bohemian Brethren – before the first partition in 1772 were of minor importance and possessed only a few dozen churches dispersed over the whole area of the Crown.19 The new Protestant branch of the Mennonites settled and developed its communities along the Vistula from the sixteenth century.20 Economic factors and migration affecting the geography of religion in early modern Poland are especially notable in the case of the Jewish and Armenian communities as well as the above-mentioned Mennonites. The frontier location along the Dniester River of most Armenian churches indicates the Moldavian and Crimean context of their presence on the territory of the Crown. The Dniester marked the state 17 18 19 20 Müller, »Diecezje w okresie potrydenckim,« 65-74. Titov, Zapadnaia Rus’, map; Lastovs’kyi, Pravoslavna tserkva. Kriegseisen, Ewangelicy polscy i litewscy w epoce saskiej, 57-88. Penner, Die ost- und westpreussischen Mennoniten, map: Die Mennoniten-Gemeinden in Ost- und Westpreussen; Kizik, Mennonici w Gdańsku, Elblągu i na Żuławach Wiślanych, 128. 180 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown border in the eighteenth century and served as an important shipping route from Poland to the Armenians living on the Black Sea coast, thus playing an important role in the Black Sea trade. The Armenians, who had been the first to make Christianity an official state religion in the fourth century, did not acknowledge the dual nature of Christ (monophysitism) and practiced their own Christian faith, separate from both Catholicism and Orthodoxy. In 1635, Armenians inhabiting the eastern rims of the Commonwealth recognized the suzerainty of the Holy See, following in the footsteps of the Orthodox Church, which had already done so in 1596. Lviv, the center of the Black Sea trade, became the capital of the Catholic archdiocese of the Armenian order. After 1715, the archdiocese of Lviv expanded its jurisdiction to include the Moldavian and Transylvanian Armenians,21 although most Armenians populating territories south of the Dniester remained monophysite and subject to the Catholicoi of all Armenians in Echmiadzin.22 The entire early modern period – except 1648 and its aftermath – shows a demographic increase in and expansion of Jewish settlements on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. With the exception of Warmia, Jews – as did Roman Catholics – lived in all areas of the Polish Crown. Of particular importance was the internal colonization to the east and southeast caused by the demographic and economic growth of the Jewish population.23 In the eighteenth century, strict anti-Jewish policies in Russia (the edicts of 1727, 1742 and 1744), along with more tolerable conditions in Moldavia, the Habsburg Monarchy, and in the Kingdom of Prussia, fostered the direction of trade routes to the west and to the south. One example were the trade relations of Judah Bolechower and his son Ber with Hungarian Jews.24 Apart from Christian and Jewish communities, organized groups belonging to two other monotheistic religions, Karaite Judaism and Islam, were also present in the area of Crown Ruthenia in the second half of the eighteenth century. The settlement of Karaites and Tartars in the Polish-Lithuanian territories was situated within the borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Abraham Szyszman developed an interesting thesis relating to the location of these communities. Based 21 22 23 24 Obertyński, »Kościół ormiański,« 478-479. Smirnow, Katedra ormiańska we Lwowie, 51. Baron, Social and Religious History of the Jews, 164-213. Schwarzfeld, »The Jews of Moldavia,« 113-114, 116, 122-123; Vishnitzer, »A Jewish Diarist,« 4-6; Meyer et al., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, 102; Ducreux, »Czechy i Węgry w monarchii habsburskiej,« 343. 181 Bogumił Szady on geographical analysis, he claimed that for the purpose of military defense, Witold, Grand Duke of Lithuania, intentionally deployed the Karaite colonists along the border with the Livonian Brothers of the Sword (Zakon Kawalerów Mieczowych), and the Tartars close to the frontier with the Teutonic Order (Zakon Krzyżacki).25 The cartographic presentation of the territorial range of these minorities is unsatisfactory due to the small number of religious buildings – three kenesas and two mosques.26 To date, we have to rely on methods of cartographic presentation showing the geographical coverage of confessions and religious communities observed in the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that are limited to small-scale maps. The works prepared by the Institute for the Historical Geography of the Church in Poland at the Catholic University of Lublin (Instytut Geografii Historycznej Kościoła w Polsce), for example maps by Jerzy Kłoczowski and Stanisław Litak, present the spatial distribution of denominations in a very general way on a scale of 1:7 000 000.27 The technical possibilities offered by geographic information systems (GIS) tools and spatial databases in terms of geospatial analysis have enriched the variety of methodological options for studies and visual presentations of discrete phenomena such as churches and buildings of worship. In fact, there is no possibility of drawing a precise border or line which would express the territorial range of a given religion or confession. Two main factors help to determine the approximate territory of a selected denomination: believers and buildings of worship. As the first general census registering the religious affiliation of the people on the territory of the former Polish state dates from the nineteenth century, a unique method to identify the area occupied by a confession or religious community should refer to the territorial distribution of active buildings of worship. The irregular and complex character of the phenomenon in question impeded the usage of simple functions such as the convex hull to specify the area occupied by an individual religious or confessional community. Taking into account a variable distribution of churches and other buildings of worship, more promising 25 Szyszman, »Osadnictwo karaimskie i tatarskie«; Gąsiorowski, Karaimi w Koronie i na Litwie, 168-169. 26 Kryczyński, Tatarzy litewscy; Tyszkiewicz, Tatarzy na Litwie i w Polsce; Gąsiorowski, Karaimi w Koronie i na Litwie. 27 Kłoczowski »Stosunki wyznaniowe w Polsce«; Litak, Atlas Kościoła łacińskiego w Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów, 168. 182 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown results could be achieved by applying the concave hull method. However, the level of generalization remains an open problem. Geospatial analysis allows the use of three methods for the creation of a concave hull for a group of points: by expansion, by contraction (alpha shapes, alpha hulls), and by density contouring.28 Table 1 presents space occupied by particular denominations and religious communities, achieved through applying the concave hull method on the basis of density contouring for particular denominations. The process of density estimation will be described later. To put it simply, territorial range is determined by a concave hull the outer rim of which is outlined along the border of a region or regions where sacral buildings were located. Table 1: Number of buildings of worship and their territorial range on Crown territory in the second half of the eighteenth century. Uniate churches 8311 263545 62.1 Average area for one building of worship (in km2) 31.7 Roman Catholic churches Jewish synagogues Armenian Catholic churches Orthodox churches Lutheran churches Calvinist churches Bohemian Brethren churches 5720 380073 89.6 66.4 841 377379 88.9 448.7 22 23319 5.5 1060 35 35080 8.3 1002.3 276 60867 14.3 220.5 14 20480 4.8 1462.9 10 14023 3.3 1402.3 Number of buildings of worship Territorial range (in km2) Share of the total Crown territory (in %) 28 De Smith, Goodchild and Longley, Geospatial Analysis, chap. 4.2.13. 183 Bogumił Szady Mennonite churches 19 14186 3.3 746.6 Tartar mosques 2 - - - Karaite kenesas 3 - - - Source of information: Szady, Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie, 188-204. Table 1 illustrates a strong differentiation, both in terms of the number of religious buildings and their territorial range, between the three predominant religious groups. The Uniate Church owned the largest number of churches, while the Roman Catholic Church, followed by the Jewish communities, dominated from the perspective of surface area. The remaining religious communities played a minor role, mostly along the borders. A territorial perspective on the individual religions, confessions and rites divides eighteenth century Crown Poland into two parts: eastern and western. This regionalization reflects not only the domination of the Latin Church in the west and the Uniate Church in the east, but also the characteristic distribution of religious minorities. We should stress that the Protestant organizational structures did not reach beyond Wielkopolska and Małopolska proper, just as the eastern denominations (Orthodox, Armenian, Karaite and Muslim) did not cross the borders of Crown Ruthenia. In addition, note that the outermost borders of all of the abovementioned confessions and religious communities were situated within a huge territory of 424 358 km2 – the western reach of the Orthodox Church, the eastern reach of the Latin Church, Protestant and Jewish communities, the northwestern reach of Armenian and Uniate Catholicism – while the borders of the Karaite and Tartar territories were situated within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Density of churches and buildings of worship The analysis presented above provides only a general picture of the range of confessional and religious communities within the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth in the second half of the eighteenth century. Information on the territorial extension and number of buildings 184 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown of worship representing the three largest groups enable us to undertake more advanced studies and investigations concerning density differentiation (point pattern analysis). Two cartographical and statistical methods were selected: the quadrant count method and the kernel density estimation. In the first case, the examined territory was divided into squares (25 km by 25 km, surface – 625 km2). As for the Jewish communities, because of the lower density of synagogues, the size was quadrupled (surface – 2 500 km2). In the next step of the analysis, the quadrants were grouped into classes according to denomination and average surface area of each site. The calculations (table 2) permitted us to compare the density of Roman Catholic, Uniate and Jewish buildings of worship, and to estimate the area of the highest, medium and lowest density of each confession, whereas GIS maps facilitated the spatial interpretation of those coefficients. The kernel density estimation allows us to verify the above-mentioned statistical findings, indicating the geographical centers of the individual denominations. To make geostatistical data comparable, both the search radius (25 km) and the classification method (defined interval) were synchronized for all religious communities. The proposed analytical proceedings can be elaborated upon and extended in relation to each voivodship in the Małopolska and Wielkopolska provinces.29 Table 2: Density classification of buildings of worship on the Crown territory around 1772. Classes Average area for one building of worship (km2) Roman Catholic churches Uniate churches Jewish synagogues 63125 17.66% 13125 4.82% 106250 29.72% 60000 22.02% 135000 30.51% 87500 19.77% 175000 39.55% 45000 10.17% Quadrant count method (km2/percentage share) a. above 1000 Class I b. 1000-500 a. 500-250 Class II b. 250-100 29 Szady, Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie, 216. 185 Bogumił Szady a. 100-50 Class III b. 50-25 c. 25-10 d. below 10 70625 19.76% 91250 25.52% 25625 7.17% 625 0.17% 40625 14.91% 70000 25.69% 87500 32.11% 1250 0.46% - 87236 22.96% 18372 6.97% 93486 24.78% Kernel density estimation (km2/percentage share) a. above 1000 Class I b. 1000-500 a. 500-250 Class II 104948 27.82% 108552 28.57% 46415 17.61% b. 250-100 Class III 135696 35.97% 42740 11.33% a. 100-50 65006 17.11% 41129 15.60% b. 50-25 94155 24.78% 72944 27.67% c. 25-10 24304 6.40% 83751 31.77% 382 0.10% Source of information: Szady, Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie, 208. In the areas where the Roman Catholic Church was present, the most common density level was class II b (around 30%), where one church served 100 to 500 km2 on average. Classes III c-d, which embraced regions with a frequency of one church to less than 25 km2, accounted for the smallest area. Two centers of Latin Church structures related 186 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown to settlement concentration were quite visible: in the latitudinal belt of Cracow bordered by Pilica in the north, Oświęcim in the west, Sącz in the south and Brzozów in the east, as well as in Wielkopolska around the cities of Poznań, Gniezno, Pyzdry, Środa and Kalisz. The most uniform pattern, that is to say, one with a regular network of Latin churches, was to be found in the voivodship of Brześć Kujawski – with its whole territory in class III b (one church to an average of 25 to 50 km2). The most variable area in terms of church density was the Cracow voivodship, where both natural and political conditions – the Carpathian Mountains and the city of Cracow, respectively – influenced the location of villages and towns, as well as the development of confessional structures. A similar analysis carried out in relation to the Uniate Church revealed a completely different point pattern – around 60% of the territory with Uniate churches fell into classes III b-d, i.e. regions with one church to less than 50 km2. The surface area of classes III c and III d, where there was one church to less than 25 km2 on average, was several times greater than for the Latin Church. In spite of the fact that the Uniate Church covered a smaller area in comparison to the Roman Catholic Church, its structure was more condensed. The area that stood out as having the highest concentration of Uniate churches was located to the north of Przemyśl, delineated in the north by the villages of Hnatkowice and Trójczyce, by the village of Radochońce in the east, by the small town of Dobromil in the south, and by the villages of Krzeczkowa and Mielnów in the west. In turn, the vast Kiev voivodship was particularly complex with regard to the location pattern of Uniate churches. In the southern region, along the border with the Bracław voivodship, churches occurred at higher frequencies (class III b) but in the eastern and central districts, as well as those closer to Minsk, the network of churches became less concentrated. The most regular and developed structure of the Uniate Church (60% of the area in classes III c-d) was found in Podolia and in the southeastern parts of the Rus and Bełz voivodships. A lower number of synagogues than of Christian churches renders a comparison difficult to attain with the use of the same classification criteria as those specified above. In the case of Roman Catholic and Uniate churches, the first two classes (I and II) comprising territories with one church for more than 100 km2 included around 50% and 25% respectively of the area populated by these denominations. As far as Jewish communities are concerned, the same classes covered the whole territory where synagogues were present, except the city 187 Bogumił Szady of Lublin, which had the greatest number of synagogues in the early modern era. Hence, Lublin is called »the Jerusalem of the Polish Kingdom«.30 Taking into account the class pattern in individual regions and provinces, the most concentrated Jewish structures can be found in the Małopolska province (Bełz, Lublin, Podolia, Rus and Sandomierz voivodships). It is interesting that the maximum distance between two neighboring synagogues on the Crown territory – 57.8 km between the synagogues in Chernobyl (Czernobyl) and Brahin – was smaller than that calculated in the case of Roman Catholic and Uniate Churches. This is an indication of the high regularity of the kahal network. This conclusion can be strengthened by the smaller difference (45.1 km) between the average (12.7 km) and greatest distances (57.8 km) between neighboring synagogues than is true for churches. For Roman Catholic and Uniate churches, which were more developed from a structural point of view, this coefficient has the respective values 66.4 km and 55.5 km. The density of churches had a significant influence on the picture of pastoral work organized by the clergy. The data in table 3 expresses the average distance between religious buildings which, when divided by two, represents the average longest route that any given believer had to cover. Table 3: Average distance between religious buildings around 1772 Roman Catholic churches: Uniate churches: Jewish synagogues: Voivodship Parish churches (meters) Parish and filial churches (meters) Parish churches (meters) Parish and filial churches (meters) Kahal synagogues (meters) Nonkahal synagogues (meters) Bełskie 8050 5174 2832 2744 10045 10045 Bracławskie 20630 16326 3146 3142 15351 15351 30 Kuwałek and Wysok, Lublin. 188 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown Brzesko- 4479 2879 - - 13863 13863 5898 4476 - - - - Chełmińskie 4584 3221 - - 13458 13458 Drahim 20641 3920 - - - - Gnieźnieńskie 4862 2833 - - 11527 11527 Inowrocławskie 4914 3138 - - 14034 14034 Kaliskie 3934 2448 - - 11844 11844 Kijowskie 30882 21797 3970 3953 19595 19595 Krakowskie 4036 2094 2905 2650 17176 11307 Lębork 19889 6302 - - - - Łęczyckie 4985 3249 - - 13300 13300 Lubelskie 6747 3256 8820 8820 10813 8943 Malborskie 5182 2877 - - - - Mazowieckie 5757 3939 - 85657 15305 16013 16441 kujawskie Bytów Płockie 5204 3049 - - 16441 Podolskie 12135 8437 2450 2449 9980 9980 Podlaskie 8067 5328 6789 6621 17508 17006 Pomorskie 7043 4042 - - 11453 11453 Poznańskie 5028 2706 - - 13057 13057 Rawskie 4892 3352 - - 15238 15238 Ruskie 7013 4015 2310 2257 11388 10745 Sandomierskie 4921 2811 3879 3879 11894 10709 Sieradzkie 4801 2754 - - 20917 20917 - Spisz 3687 2129 4934 3068 - Warmia 5298 3322 - - - - Wołyńskie 13024 8223 3048 3035 13343 13343 Source of information: Szady, Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie, 217. 189 Bogumił Szady Religious homogeneous and heterogeneous territories – the problem of borders and borderlands The analyses and investigations presented so far have tackled all religious and confessional groups separately. However, a comparative approach requires that the denominations should be examined collectively to describe the confessional regionalization of the Crown in the second half of the eighteenth century. The problem of regionalization is interrelated with the question of confessional borders and borderlands. Let us recall that – from a cartographical point of view – it is impossible to specify the precise limits of confessional boundaries and borderlands,31 as a linear division between religious communities does not occur in practice. On the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ethnic, religious and linguistic interpenetration was especially visible, both on a macro and on a regional level in small cities and villages. With reference to the geography of religion on the Crown territory in the eighteenth century, the concept of homogeneous and heterogeneous areas seems more appropriate than that of borderlands. Due to the difficulties in precisely defining the criteria for confessional borderlands,32 the approach according to which territories are viewed on a variable scale of heterogeneity seems more suitable. The existence of buildings of worship affiliated to one particular denomination does not imply that the given village or town was homogeneous. However, comparative analysis of confessional structures studied alongside demographical sources confirmed the general convergence of the organizational and demographic aspects of the selected regions. The first case study concerns a number of villages and towns in Crown Ruthenia, where religious variety was particularly apparent. Table 4 contains information on Roman Catholic and Uniate churches as well as on demographic proportions between believers in 34 places in the Rus voivodship. In turn, table 5 presents the confessional proportions in places where the numbers of Latin and Uniate churches were the same. As can be seen from these examples, in villages with one church, except a few cases, the population of the same confession was dominant (over 80%). Consequently, in villages with an equal number of Roman Catholic and Uniate churches, the quantitative proportions between Roman Catholics and Uniates were also more balanced. 31 Manteuffel, »Metoda oznaczania granic w geografii historycznej.« 32 Janeczek, »Między sobą,« 53. 190 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown Table 4: Confessional relations in selected places in the Polish-Ruthenian borderland around 1772 (neglecting the Jewish population and its synagogues). Place name Confessional affiliation of church Between Jasło and Strzyżów Oparówka Uniate Dobrzechów Latin Łączki Jagiellońskie Latin Rzepnik Uniate Wojkówka Latin Bonarówka Uniate Węglówka Uniate Krasna Uniate Żyznów Latin Lutcza Latin Gwoździanka Uniate Blizianka Uniate Niebylec Latin Konieczkowa Latin South of Sanok Nowotaniec Latin Nagórzany Uniate Wolica Uniate Pobiedno Uniate Zboiska Latin Prusiek Uniate Ratnawica Uniate Niebieszczany Latin Poraż Latin South of Lviv Rudno Uniate Zimna Woda Latin Obroszyn Uniate Hodowica Latin Skniłów Uniate Sokolniki Latin Sołonka Wielka Uniate Zubrza Latin Sichów Uniate Percentage share of Latin population Uniate population 4.8 98.8 100.0 0.0 98.3 1.8 4.0 1.4 98.7 97.8 14.2 5.2 88.7 98.9 93.5 0.0 0.0 98.1 0.0 96.4 94.0 96.6 0.0 0.0 83.4 89.1 0.0 0.0 83.6 82.9 18.0 69.1 100.0 35.3 3.3 91.2 98.9 6.6 15.5 74.0 28.3 0.0 63.0 91.5 7.4 0.0 29.1 81.9 17.9 66.4 13.6 97.6 1.4 97.5 54.9 66.8 0.0 80.6 32.6 85.4 1.6 97.0 1.2 41.0 191 Bogumił Szady Krotoszyn Żyrawka Latin Uniate 97.6 0.5 0.0 99.5 Sources of information: Budzyński, Ludność pogranicza polsko-ruskiego, vol. 2; idem, Kresy południowo-wschodnie, vol. 1. Table 5: Confessional relations in selected places in the Polish-Ruthenian borderland around 1772 (places with both Uniate and Latin churches; Jewish synagogues are neglected). Place name Region of Sanok Besko Dudyńce Jurowce Trepcza Średnia Wieś Morochów Mrzygłód Leszczawa Dolna Tyrawa Wołoska Nowosielce Kozickie Uherce Mineralne Jasień Wołkowyja Polana Region of Gródek Jagielloński Radenice Stojańce Bruchnal Czarnokońce Rodatycze Milczyce Pohorce Malczyce Rumno Siemianówka Percentage share of Latin population Uniate population 41.6 9.3 36.2 3.0 31.5 12.3 64.2 33.0 31.8 23.8 37.6 29.7 14.8 49.5 56.2 88.4 57.8 94.5 65.6 84.9 25.8 65.2 55.7 74.4 56.9 67.6 83.7 41.2 36.5 55.1 48.6 48.1 72.5 82.3 48.7 6.5 34.5 82.6 61.1 42.8 48.6 48.1 25.5 16.4 49.9 90.3 62.8 16.3 Sources of information: Budzyński, Ludność pogranicza polsko-ruskiego, vol. 2; idem, Kresy południowo-wschodnie, vol. 1. 192 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown Cartographic methods are also useful for verifying the conclusions about the coherence between organizational and demographical structures. For this purpose, an area of around 4 000 km2 was selected (near Jaśliska, Sanok and Krosno) which included 306 settlements – villages and small towns – inhabited by Roman Catholics and Uniates. The comparison of maps showing the number of Latin and Uniate believers and the number of churches confirmed our previous assumptions. Additionally, analysis of detailed information for each settlement leads to interesting conclusions regarding the demographic relationships between Latin and Uniate Christians coexisting in this zone. Notably, there was a significantly higher number of Uniate believers than Latin in most locations, where followers of two rites of the Catholic Church lived side by side. There were no Uniate Catholics in the 66 places out of the 108 (61%) dominated by Roman Catholics. Whereas of the 198 villages and towns with a higher number of Uniate Christians, there were only 57 (28.8%) with no Latin believers. It was much easier for Roman Catholics to function as a minority than for Uniates, which resulted from their privileged and thus stronger social standing, and the political and economic support they were receiving from the state. At the same time, the Uniate population living together with Roman Catholics frequently underwent processes of Latinization.33 The second case study concerns the Catholic-Lutheran borderland in Wielkopolska. Data on the organizational structures of the abovementioned confessions were compared with the information derived from the population census of the Poznań diocese (1765-1769), which was undertaken alongside the 1765 Jewish census.34 The total number of churches in the diocese gives an approximate image of the quantitative relationships between confessional groups. In fact, the actual advantage of Roman Catholics was not as significant as it appears to be looking only at the statistics on buildings of worship. Regions where the number of Protestant believers amounted to less than 15% of the population lacked organized Lutheran or Bohemian Brethren communities. Lutheran churches appeared relatively regularly when the percentage share of Protestants in the population grew over 30%, namely in the westernmost and northernmost part of the Poznań voivodship. Three determinants explain this phenomenon: legal limitations in the 33 Szady, Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie, 105, 241. 34 Mahler, Żydzi w dawnej Polsce w świetle cyfr; Kędelski, »Przedrozbiorowy spis ludności diecezji poznańskiej,« 222-235; Szady, Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie, 144-146. 193 Bogumił Szady development of Protestant structures, especially after 1717, dispersion of Protestants in small groups incapable of maintaining buildings of worship, and attitudes of the landlords and nobles, who preferred to support the Catholic Church.35 Drawing on the assumption about the proportion between the confessional groups and the conclusions relating to the coherence between organizational and demographic structures, I am able to present a differentiation of all religions, confessions and rites on the basis of the density and distribution of buildings of worship. Both the density of buildings of worship and the number of confessions should be taken into account. Methods such as ethnolinguistic fractionalization (ELF), which are applied in contemporary research on ethnic, linguistic and religious differentiation, can also be effectively applied to historical phenomena. With the help of the GIS toolkit (quadrant count method) and a specific mathematical formula, it is possible to specify the coefficient defining the level of religious differentiation in a given area or territory (confessional fractionalization – CF).36 In this way, based on the confessional affiliation of the buildings of worship, we calculated the CF coefficient for each of the 744 quadrants of 625 km2 drawn by the GIS application in the territory of the Crown. The results were grouped into the following classes: I – CF = 0-0.15 – the most homogeneous area II – CF = 0.15-0.35 – territories of medium differentiation III – CF – 0.35-0.67 – the most heterogeneous area (borderlands) Table 6: The Confessional Fractionalization (CF) coefficient on Crown territory around 1772. Voivodeship Warmia Sieradzkie Bracławskie Brzeskokujawskie Płockie CF coefficient 0.00 0.06 0.12 0.12 0.13 35 Kriegseisen, Ewangelicy polscy i litewscy. 36 Fearon, »Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country«; Alesina, »Fractionalization«; Campos and Kuzeyev, »On the Dynamics of Ethnic Fractionalization.« 194 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown Mazowieckie Rawskie Łęczyckie Kaliskie Inowrocławskie Kijowskie Sandomierskie Chełmińskie Krakowskie Podolskie Wołyńskie Gnieźnieńskie Ruskie Drahim Bełskie Poznańskie Lubelskie Pomorskie Spisz Lębork and Bytów Malborskie Podlaskie 0.13 0.15 0.16 0.16 0.19 0.19 0.20 0.23 0.24 0.25 0.25 0.28 0.33 0.34 0.34 0.35 0.39 0.49 0.50 0.50 0.57 0.60 Source of information: Szady, Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie, 232. The CF coefficient for the total territory of the Crown amounts to 0.56. In comparison, in present day Poland, it amounts to around 0.17 and is among the lowest in the whole of Europe, which means that Poland can be seen as one of the most homogeneous countries in confessional and, consequently, linguistic and ethnic regards.37 In the late eighteenth century confessional differentiation (table 6) was evidently the highest in Podlachia and Crown Prussia. The coefficient for each of the Crown provinces was established as: – Lesser Poland (Małopolska): 0.26 – Crown Ruthenia (Ruś Koronna): 0.27 37 Alesina, »Fractionalization,« 187; Campos and Kuzeyev, »On the Dynamics of Ethnic Fractionalization,« 635. 195 Bogumił Szady – – – – Podlachia (Podlasie): 0.59 Greater Poland (Wielkopolska): 0.22 Crown Prussia (Prusy Królewskie): 0.42 Masovia (Mazowsze): 0.13 The surface area with the most homogeneous characteristics (class I) amounted to 204 375 km2 (around 44%) of the total area of the Crown, the quadrants of class II CF (medium differentiated areas) accounted for 175 625 km2 (around 38%), and the area interpreted as borderlands (class III CF) covered 85 000 km2 (around 18%). Class III CF is comparable to the current situation in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Belarus, Slovakia and Ukraine, where this coefficient comes in above 0.35. In the area of the Crown, two centers of confessional heterogeneity can be clearly distinguished: the first, Latin-Uniate, and the second, Catholic-Lutheran, whereas a third, Uniate-Orthodox center is less apparent. 196 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown 197 Bogumił Szady The first borderland, of a 50-kilometre width, ran along the border of the Rus voivodship with the region of Małopolska proper (Cracow, Lublin and Sandomierz voivodships). To illustrate this border zone, the quadrants with a percentage share of over 20% in the number of at least two denominations’ churches were selected. This allowed us to isolate territories where the Latin and the Uniate Churches were relatively equally represented. West of this zone, Roman Catholic structures were dominant, while in the area stretching east of this region, Uniate churches predominated. The Latin-Uniate borderland ended suddenly (closed, separating) in the west, where the CF coefficient declines rapidly, but was relatively open (transitional, connecting) to the east, where the CF coefficient declines gradually. 198 The border belt shared by Lutherans and Roman Catholics came into existence because of the confessional, political and social changes in the western and northern part of Wielkopolska. The image of this borderland is less distinctive than the one of the Latin-Uniate confessional frontier. This has to be attributed to a wider dispersion and a smaller number of Protestants, and not to underdeveloped organizational structures. The highest percentage share of Protestant churches existed in the triangle formed by Gdańsk, Elbląg and Malbork, where the number of Lutheran churches exceeded the number of Catholic churches. 199 Bogumił Szady Confessional fractionalization deals with intensity in religious differentiation. A comprehensive view of this issue should include qualitative elements and the relationship between the CF coefficient and other factors such as type of settlement (village, town) and structure of ownership. There were just over one thousand settlements – predominantly towns and cities (78%) – with buildings of worship representing more than one religion, confession or rite. In the light of the overall number of villages and cities, this indicator confirms a clear tendency towards religious heterogeneity as a town and city phenomenon. Buildings of worship of more than one confession were located in 844 or 59.7% of the cities, and only in 227 villages, a mere 2.2% of the Crown’s rural centers. Conclusions The main framework of the spatio-confessional structure of the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth took shape during medieval times.38 The following elements came into play: the territorial extent of the first Christianization of the Slavs, the policy of state authorities, and the international situation, which affected changes not only of political but also of religious borders. In early modern times, the political union of the Polish Crown with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was of particular importance, as was the Church Union of Brest that changed the religious picture of the Crown by including areas dominated by Eastern churches. The Protestant Reformation also had a significant influence, especially in Greater Poland and Royal Prussia. Jewish self-administration, related to processes of external and internal colonization, was fostered by the development of the kahal organization on the community level, as well as the supra-communal Council of Four Lands. Differentiation in the density of buildings of worship was closely connected to the ownership and settlement structure in each voivodship, as well as to the inner organizational regulations of church hierarchies and religious communities. I conducted geostatistical analysis of 15 253 buildings of worship. This included 8 311 Uniate churches, 5 722 Latin churches, 841 synagogues, 276 Lutheran churches, 35 Orthodox churches, 22 Catholic churches of Armenian liturgy, 19 Mennonite churches, 14 Calvinist ones, 10 belonging to the Bohemian Brethren, 3 Karaite kenesas, and 38 Samsonowicz, »Grupy etniczne w Polsce,« 462. 200 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown 2 mosques. Based on their geographical distribution, the analysis focused on a range of confessions and religions, differentiation in their density, as well as the religious regionalization of the Crown. When distinguishing areas of varying degrees of religious heterogeneity, several aspects should be stressed: – Domination of religiously homogenous territories on the Crown territory in the second half of the eighteenth century (class I CF, 44%) or of territories with a visible predominance of a single group (class II CF, 38%). Even though this homogeneity was not complete (i.e. 100%), areas with a predominance of one confession are clearly visible. – The Latin-Uniate borderland covered a relatively narrow belt of around 50 km in width along the frontier of Lesser Poland and Crown Ruthenia, crossing Podlachia (Podlasie). In these areas, both the towns and villages frequently had a mixed profile in terms of religious affiliations of inhabitants. – The broad western and northern areas of the Crown, dominated by Lutheran structures, were connected with neighboring regions in the west and in the north, where Lutherans enjoyed the status of official state religion, i.e. the Kingdom of Prussia. In this context, the western areas of Wielkopolska and Crown Prussia became the transition zone and a sui generis link between the Lutherans in Silesia, Brandenburg and Western Pomerania, with their co-religionists in the Duchy of Prussia. This view was confirmed by the actions of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, when he unified the structures of the Polish Lutheran Church with the ecclesiastical organization of the Kingdom of Prussia, immediately following the first partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1772.39 – The political Union of Lublin in 1569 and the confessional Union of Brest in 1596 led to the creation of a Uniate-Orthodox borderland on the territory of Crown Ruthenia. An unstable situation with multiple changes in confessions was caused by the regular development of the Uniate infrastructure at the cost of the Orthodox one as well as by political conflicts. This second aspect merits separate research. – From a social perspective, the phenomenon called »religious heterogeneity« mainly occurred in towns, whilst from a geographical 39 Hubatsch and Gundermann, Geschichte der evangelischen Kirche Ostpreussens, 220-229. 201 Bogumił Szady perspective, it was found in the Latin-Uniate, Latin-Lutheran and Uniate-Orthodox borderlands. Viewing the problem in most general terms, the towns in the borderlands were the most heterogeneous. There, the Latin Church was losing its dominant position to the east, causing an increase in membership of the Uniate Church, and to the west and north, losing believers to the Lutheran Church. Our geographical-historical analysis points to a religious differentiation of the Crown and its division into two parts, Latin and Uniate, and three distinct borderlands, Latin-Uniate, Latin-Lutheran and Uniate-Orthodox. 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Ossolińskich, 1994. Kłoczowski, Jerzy. »Stosunki wyznaniowe w Polsce około 1580 r. i w XVIII w.« In Kościół w Polsce, vol. 2: Mapy – wiek XVI-XVIII, ed. by Jerzy Kłoczowski. Kraków: Znak, 1968. Kołbuk, Witold. Kościoły wschodnie w Rzeczypospolitej około 1772 roku: struktury administracyjne. Lublin: Instytut Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, 1998. Kriegseisen, Wojciech. Ewangelicy polscy i litewscy w epoce saskiej (1696-1763). Warszawa: Semper, 1996. Kryczyński, Stanisław. Tatarzy litewscy: próba monografii historyczno-etnograficznej. Warszawa: Wydanie Rady Centralnej Związku Kulturalno-Oświatowego Tatarów Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, 1938. Kuwałek, Robert, and Wiesław Wysok. Lublin: Jerozolima Królestwa Polskiego. Lublin: Stowarzyszenie »Dialog i Współpraca«, 2001. Lacko, Michael. Unio Užhorodensis Ruthenorum Carpaticorum cum Ecclesia Catholica. Roma: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1965. Lastovs’kyi, Valerii Vasyl’ovych. Pravoslavna tserkva u suspil’no-politychnomu zhytti Ukrainy XVIII st.: Pereiaslavs’ko-Boryspil’s’ka Ieparkhiia. Cherkasy: Cherkas’kyi in-t upravlinnia, 2002. Litak, Stanisław. Atlas Kościoła łacińskiego w Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów w XVIII wieku. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego Jana Pawła II, 2006. 203 Bogumił Szady —. »Mapa wyznaniowa Rzeczypospolitej około 1772 roku (Religie – Wyznania – Kościoły – Metoda opracowania).« In Jezuicka ars historica: prace ofiarowane Księdzu Profesorowi Ludwikowi Grzebieniowi SJ, ed. by Marek Inglot and Stanisław Obirek, 345-354. Kraków: Wydawnictwo WAM, Wyższa Szkoła Filozoficzno-Pedagogiczna »Ignatianum«, 2001. —. »The Atlas of Religious and Ethnic Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Second Half of the 18th Century.« In Churches, States, Nations in the Enlightenment and in the Nineteenth Century / Eglises, états, nations a l’époque des Lumières et au XIXe siècle, ed. by Mirosław Filipowicz, 54-59. Lublin: Instytut Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, 2000. Magocsi, Paul R. »Adaptacja bez asymilacji: fenomen greckokatolickiej eparchii w Mukaczewie.« In Polska – Ukraina. 1000 lat sąsiedztwa, vol. 4, ed. by Stanisław Stępień, 233-238. Przemyśl: Południowo-Wschodni Instytut Naukowy, 1998. —. »The Carpatho-Russyns.« Carpatho-Russyn American 18 (1995) 2. Accessed July 13, 2015. http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/cra/chap1.html. —, and Geoffrey J. Matthews. Ukraine, a Historical Atlas. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985. Mahler, Rafał. Żydzi w dawnej Polsce w świetle cyfr: struktura demograficzna i socjalno-ekonomiczna Żydów w Koronie w XVIII wieku. Warszawa: Idisz Buch, 1958. Manteuffel, Tadeusz. »Metoda oznaczania granic w geografii historycznej.« In Księga Pamiątkowa ku uczczeniu dwudziestopięcioletniej działalności naukowej prof. Marcelego Handelsmana, 221-228. Warszawa: Wydana staraniem i nakładem uczniów, 1929. Merczyng, Henryk. »Zbory i senatorowie protestanccy w dawnej Polsce.« In Zarys dziejów powstania i upadku reformacji w Polsce, ed. by Walerjan Krasiński, 125-263. Warszawa: Zwiastun Ewangeliczny, 1905. Meyer, Michael A., Michael Brenner, Mordechai Breuer, and Michael Graetz. German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 1: Tradition and Enlightenment: 1600-1780. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Müller, Wiesław. »Diecezje w okresie potrydenckim.« In Kościół w Polsce, vol. 2, ed. by Jerzy Kłoczowski, 57-258. Kraków: Znak, 1969. Obertyński, Zdzisław. »Kościół ormiański. Kryzysy XVIII wieku.« In Historia Kościoła w Polsce, vol. 1-2, ed. by Bolesław Kumor and Zdzisław Obertyński, 478-481. Poznań: Pallottinum, 1974. Pekar, Atanasii V. The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus’. New York: Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center, 1992. Penner, Horst. Die ost- und westpreussischen Mennoniten in ihrem religiösen und sozialen Leben, in ihren kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Leistungen. Weierhof: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein, 1978. 204 Religious Regionalization of the Polish Crown Ruprecht, Ronald, and Bernhart Jähnig. »Die kirchliche Organisation um 1785.« (map) In Historisch-geographischer Atlas des Preußenlandes, Lieferung 2, ed. by Hans Mortensen, Gertrud Mortensen, and Reinhard Wenskus. Wiesbaden: Steiner: 1969. Samsonowicz, Henryk. »Grupy etniczne w Polsce XV wieku.« In Ojczyzna bliższa i dalsza: studia historyczne ofiarowane Feliksowi Kirykowi w sześćdziesiątą rocznicę urodzin, ed. by Jacek Chrobaczyński, Andrzej Jureczko and Michał Śliwa, 461-469. 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Facing a Fantasy: Concepts of Community in the Imperial Setting of the Nineteenth Century Dietlind Hüchtker and Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov Introduction to the Nineteenth-Century Section The nineteenth century was long regarded as the quintessential century of nations, national movements and nation states. It was in this same period that history was constructed as an academic scientific subject.1 Historians invented ›national history‹ as the master narrative of history and implemented historiography as a scholarly narrative about nation states and their history. As far as the nineteenth century was concerned, the history and historiography of nations appeared inseparably intertwined. This is also true of Polish history and historiography. The dominant narrative of a Polish nation was based on a Polish-speaking community within all three partitions by means of a shared Catholic confession and Polish-language literature. Despite the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the eighteenth century, the narrative was related to a space which was imagined as the future Polish nation state. Nevertheless, the imagined geography varied with the time, location and political ideas of the historical actors. It included ideas from Piast Poland in the Middle Ages to the late Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.2 At the same time, it neglected non-Polish and/or non-Catholic communities living with and among Poles on these imagined territories. The traditional Polish narrative about the long nineteenth century was a story of a nation divided among three enemy states, a nation whose points of reference were memory and hope – memory of a Polish state which had once existed and hope for its rebirth one day.3 For a long time, historical and hence also historiographical debates were dominated by questions of how to become a nation, who belonged to it, and how and where a nation state was to be established. Nowadays, the story of national history and the nation state seems to have lost its fundamental significance for historiography (although 1 There are countless works on the meanings of nation and nationality, one of the most influential being Anderson, Imagined Communities; see also Hroch, Das Europa der Nationen. 2 Struve, »Räume.« 3 Topolski, Historia,189-218; Kieniewicz, Historia. 209 Dietlind Hüchtker and Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov less so for politics). Different stories and different concepts now take precedence: regions, empires, multiculturalism, transnational and global history. The same can be said for nineteenth-century Polish historiography. Recent works question the strong relationship between space, community and nation which dominated historiography for so long. Some studies focus on the history of one partition and emphasize the peculiarities of this territory.4 They compose a narrative with different stories of different ethnic groups. They address strategies and identities running counter to the idea of a national community, such as gender or class, to mention but the most obvious ones.5 Furthermore, this imagined nation state comprises not only the three partitions, but émigrés and Polish-speaking groups outside the borders as well.6 Nevertheless, the studies often assume a territory as given, which is imagined as the former and the future Polish state. Deconstructing nation and nation states is not an easy task, especially with regard to their fundamental significance for nineteenth-century history. Just as nineteenth-century historians faced problems while constructing the national master narratives, nowadays researchers find overcoming and deconstructing it heavy going. To understand the nation as a constitutive idea of the nineteenth century means taking it seriously as a principle of historical fantasy: strong, aggressive, organized, modern, etc. Research on the nineteenth century should focus on the historical meaning of nation without assuming it to be the main foundation of history. Instead of assuming a given national community and a given national narrative, the question of how communities were made and where loyalties worked could be used as starting points to conceptualize the history of the nineteenth century: how they were built, how they were imagined, and how they invented political and social meaning.7 In the nineteenth century, political movements such as the socialist, feminist, nationalist and peasants’ movements emerged, representing new forms of organization, participation and community-building.8 They constructed common or collective identities which claimed to 4 This is the case especially for Galicia, the Habsburg partition, see Stępnik, »Pogranicze;« regarding for Prussian Poland see for example Serrier, Eine Grenzregion. 5 See for example Żarnowska, Robotnicy; Żarnowska and Szwarc, Kobieta. 6 Chwalba, Historia; Markovits and Sysyn, Nationbuilding. 7 Hüchtker, Geschichte, 302-315. 8 Stegmann, Die Töchter; Bohachevsky-Chomiak, Feminists; Janiak-Jasińska, Sierakowska and Szwarc, Działaczki; Jobst, Zwischen Nationalismus und Internationalismus. 210 Introduction to the Nineteenth-Century Section represent all Poles, Ukrainians, women, peasants, workers, etc. Generally speaking, these collectives or communities tried to integrate themselves into an imagined nation or to integrate national perspectives into their agendas and practices. Nevertheless, they overlapped, opposed and competed with each other. And neither the nations nor the territories they referred to were stable. For example, women’s movements conceptualized themselves as Polish or Ukrainian and regarded themselves as part of these nations. The territories they had in mind overlapped, especially in Galicia. Even so, they still referred to gender as a transnational category of identity and loyalty, and conceptualized transnational women’s politics. Another obvious example is Jewish history. During the nineteenth century, various possibilities of constructing new Jewish identities emerged: assimilation, Bundism and Zionism in addition to religious orthodoxy.9 Nevertheless, the historiography of Jewish history was mainly understood as distinct, as an exception from an assumed general history. Nowadays, historiography places more emphasis on the parallel structures of these community-buildings. Taking the overlapping and antagonized developments into consideration, the dynamics of nation-building should not be treated as self-evident. Instead, analysis should concentrate on how different historical actors managed to construct essential differences between social groups, and how they used space while operating in an international field of politics. The history of peasants and peasant movements poses important questions as well. On the one hand, the peasantry (lud) was constructed as the main basis of the Polish nation; on the other hand, peasants were treated as backward, uncivilized, as an object of education and civilization politics. The circumstances of peasants’ living conditions and peasants’ politics varied significantly: in Galicia the debate revolved around the problems of exploitation by the landlords; in Prussian Poland, however, Polish peasants as landowners faced different challenges and employed different political strategies.10 This leads us to the importance of empires (Prussia, Austria, and Russia) for the history of the nineteenth century. From a national viewpoint, empires are often identified with oppression and restrictions, 9 See for example Gitelman, »A Century;« Guesnet, Polnische Juden; Shanes, Diaspora Nationalism; regarding some similarities in the Ukrainian case see Himka, »The Construction.« 10 Molenda, Chłopi; Struve, Bauern; Stauter-Halsted, The Nation; Molik, »Polnische Landwirtschaftsvereine.« 211 Dietlind Hüchtker and Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov and therefore perceived as enemies of national communities. Nevertheless, there is no clear-cut juxtaposition between empire and nation, as empires represented a space in which nations and nationalist movements could be constructed. The languages of the empires were used as a point of reference for inventing ethnic differences, which were consequently politicized and presented as national differences. The empires also produced administrative and political structures, which offered opportunities for integration, social uprising and forming new communities.11 From these perspectives, new strategies to imagine innovative narratives of Polish history can be derived, emphasizing questions of competing identities, the construction of meanings and the problem of center and periphery.12 Moreover, they share one important aspect: the mobility of geography.13 The space they relate to differs depending on actors and their agendas, communities and their entanglements, problems and their relevance. They include national as well as regional, transnational and international ideas. The following articles explore three examples related to fields which underline the above-described perspectives on the histories of the nineteenth century: empire, nation and communities; empire, nation and politics; and empire, nation and loyalties. They present different perspectives using diverse concepts of narrative about the nineteenth century. The section shows various ways of community-building and different possibilities to illuminate communities in the history of partitioned Poland during the nineteenth century. What the communities presented here have in common is their marginal position within the traditional nation-centered narrative of Polish history. The section starts with a look at the nineteenth century from Kyiv, which hosted an important Polish community. In his article, Ostap Sereda presents the history of Kyiv’s theatres in the urban cultural sphere. He shows how cultural activities simultaneously fostered national competition as well as intercultural and interethnic interaction. Polish pieces coexisted alongside Russian ones and included Ukrainian language as well. Theater troupes were composed of actors of different origins speaking different languages. Sereda tells a story about intercultural history and a crossroads of an imagined Polish-Lithuanian 11 Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries. 12 Representing the debate see McClintock, Mufti and Shohat, Dangerous Liaisons. 13 Appadurai, Modernity. 212 Introduction to the Nineteenth-Century Section Commonwealth, the Russian Empire and an evolving Ukrainian space. He concludes that the theatre was indeed a space which contributed to the multicultural character of the city and the coexistence of a Polish identity loyal to the Russian Empire. The second contribution changes the perspective – geographically and socially – to the Prussian part of partitioned Poland and to the village. Karsten Holste offers a story on peasants’ politics during the first half of the nineteenth century, the times of Prussian Reforms. He sheds new light on the question of how Polish peasants were integrated into the project of a Polish nation. Criticizing the dominant narrative stressing the role of Polish politics and German nationalism, Holste argues that legal change, economic development and social structures must be taken into consideration to explain a specific form of political organization and integration into the Polish national movement. The last article directs our attention to the very end of the long nineteenth century. Maciej Górny discusses the experiences of World War I in local communities in the mixed Polish-Ukrainian regions of Galicia and the Russian Empire. He focuses on the transition of loyalties to the empire into national loyalties through the experience of violence during the war. In spite of harsh nationalist propaganda on all sides after years of violence, the yearning for order in local communities was often stronger than the yearning for a national community. The transition of loyalties did not clarify the complex social situation – the tensions between an imagined national community, a Polish independent state, and the invention of a now dominant Polish nation in combination with various ethnic and language groups as new minorities. Therefore, according to Górny, violence remained virulent. The contributions to this section cover different geographical areas. Some of them may have been peripheries from one perspective, but central from other points of view. This kaleidoscope, however, pays special attention to social, political and ethnic differences. The three examples lead to a new concept of telling Polish history of the nineteenth century: the history of partitioned Poland appears as a series of inventions of different, overlapping and competing communities. Histories about choices of loyalty or identity, but also about moments of power, inclusion and exclusion take shape as an alternative to the wellknown teleological story from hopeless beginnings to a hopeful end in a new nation state. Nevertheless, the three articles show as well that such inventions and fantasies were real and had consequences. Connecting all three contributions, we have to consider the importance of nations and nationalisms and the importance of the fantasies 213 Dietlind Hüchtker and Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov of nation states for the history of the nineteenth century. Emphasizing different aspects and perspectives does not mean excluding the nation from history or historiography. Instead, it suggests taking into account the tensions between nation, nationality, empire and politics, as well as transitions to new orders of identities and loyalties. What do all these deconstructions and relativisms, what does the pluralization of history mean for Polish history or the historiography of (whichever) Poland? Is there a Polish history at all? To use the metaphor of a 3,000-piece jigsaw: the stories fill some parts of the puzzle, but we all know we will never finish it. And even if we think we have found the last piece, some others are already lost. To put it bluntly: the fact that there are many stories of the nineteenth century which overlap, differ from and contradict each other is no surprise, for we have to remember that there is no single perfect, true historiography of Poland. It depends on time and place, on perspectives and communities, for, following the concept of mobile geographies, history should also be regarded as mobile (never-ending) narratives. 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Ein Beitrag zur Nationalitätenfrage im Habsburgerreich. Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz Verlag, 1996. Judson, Pieter M. Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire 1848-1914. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Kieniewicz, Stefan. Historia Polski: 1795-1918. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1998. Markovits, Andrei S., and Frank Sysyn, eds. Nationbuilding and the Politics of Nationalism: Essays on Austrian Galicia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982. McClintock, Anne, Amir Mufti and Ella Shohat, eds. Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Molenda, Jan. Chłopi, Naród, Niepodległość: Kształtowanie się postaw narodowych i obywatelskich chłopów w Galicji i KrólestwiePolskim w przededniu odrodzenia Polski. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Neriton, 1999. Molik, Witold. »Polnische Landwirtschaftsvereine im Großherzogtum Posen im 19. Jahrhundert.« In Aufsteigen und Obenbleiben in europäischen Gesellschaften des 19. Jahrhunderts: Akteure, Arenen, Aushandlungsprozesse, ed. by Karsten Holste, Dietlind Hüchtker, and Michael G. Müller, 115-130. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2009. Serrier, Thomas. Eine Grenzregion zwischen Deutschen und Polen: Provinz Posen, Ostmark, Wielkopolska, 1848-1914. Marburg: Verlag Herder-Institut, 2005. Shanes, Joshua. Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Stauter-Halsted, Keely. The Nation in the Village: The Genesis of Peasant National Identity in Austrian Poland, 1848-1914. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 2001. 215 Dietlind Hüchtker and Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov Stegmann, Natali. Die Töchter der geschlagenen Helden: »Frauenfrage,« Feminismus und Frauenbewegung in Polen 1863-1919. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 2000. Stępnik, Andrzej. »Pogranicze jako przestrzeń badawcza.« In Galicja 1772-1918: Problemy metodologiczne, stan i potrzeby badań, ed. by Agnieszka Kawalec, Wacław Wierzbieniec, and Leonid Zaszkilniak, 12-20. Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu rzeszowskiego, 2011. Struve, Kai. »Räume der Nation – Polen im 19. Jahrhundert.« In Dekonstruieren und doch erzählen. Polnische und andere Geschichten, ed. by Jürgen Heyde, Karsten Holste, Dietlind Hüchtker, Yvonne Kleinmann, and Katrin Steffen, 256-262. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2015. —. Bauern und Nation in Galizien. Über Zugehörigkeit und soziale Emanzipation im 19. Jahrhundert. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005. Topolski, Jerzy. Historia Polski. Poznań: Wydawnictwo poznańskie, 2003. Żarnowska, Anna. Robotnicy Warszawy na przełomie IX i XX wieku. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1985. — and Andrzej Szwarc, eds. Kobieta i […] Warszawa: Wydawnictwo DiG, 19942006. 216 Karsten Holste Reform from Above and Politics from Below Peasants in the Prussian Partition of Poland Polish historiography has been discussing for a long time how to integrate the history of the peasantry into the historical narrative of Polish nation-building. This seems especially complicated concerning the eastern parts of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under Russian and Austrian rule. Nikodem Tomaszewski recently argued that the independence of the political peasant movements that developed during the last quarter of the nineteenth century was rooted not only in social conflicts between peasants, large landowners and townspeople, but also in far-reaching cultural differences between them.1 The specificity of peasant culture seems to explain why it proved so difficult to mobilize peasants for the national cause in the eastern parts of the Polish lands.2 In the western Polish lands under Prussian rule it seems to have been different. Polish-speaking peasants were to a much larger extent integrated in the Polish national movement. At the end of the nineteenth century nearly half of the peasant population eventually became engaged in nationally defined associations led by noble landowners and the intelligentsia. Though political leanings were far from homogenous, the idea of national solidarity provided the framework for all Polish national organizations and seems to have covered all possible political, cultural or social differences. Historical research has explained these observations mostly by referring to the politics of the Prussian government.3 Prussian agrarian reform is said to have substantially reduced social tension between peasants and large estate owners over the first half of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, the attempts by the Prussian bureaucracy to exclude the Polish nobility from political power are considered to have motivated Polish noble activists to promote new 1 Tomaszewski, »Polskojęzyczne chłopi.« 2 Chwalba, Historia, 154-156. For an analysis of Polish peasant culture cf. Stomma, Antropologia. 3 Molik, »Entwicklungsbedingungen«; Makowski, »Polen«; Kieniewicz, Historia, 312; Chwalba, Historia, 157 and 449. 217 Karsten Holste forms of national organization open to all social groups. At the first sight this situation seems to explain convincingly that Catholic Polish-speaking peasants became members of these organizations when the Prussian government enforced its anti-clerical and Germanizing efforts during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. However, this line of arguments is not completely persuasive if the development in Prussian Poland is compared to that in France, as discussed by Eugen Weber.4 As a result of the Revolution peasants were emancipated in France much earlier and more radically than in Prussia, and new forms of local self-government were installed much earlier as well. For many peasants, these changes didn’t lead to their integration in national politics.5 In huge parts of France, the peasantry was as unfamiliar with French as their counterparts in the former Polish parts of Prussia were with German, and they clung to religious tradition in the same way. However, historiography argues that in contrast to the Prussian East the anticlerical politics of the French government and its enforcement of French as the only acceptable language turned peasants into Frenchmen who would eventually form an active part in French national politics in the late nineteenth century. Hence, the argument is not really convincing that – given the lack of feudal bondage – the threat to native language and religious tradition would somehow inevitably lead to a concept of national solidarity shared by peasants, clerics and lords. To explain the form of political participation that peasants of the former Polish Prussian East chose, more factors need to be taken into consideration than just the emancipation of the peasantry and the politics of Germanization and secularization. Up to now, the political history of the Prussian part of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth has mainly been written as a history of imperial rule and national conflict with Prussian officials and German large estate owners acting on one side, and Polish noble landowners and the intelligentsia acting on the other.6 Peasants, though much discussed as objects of nationalization or denationalization, rarely appear on the scene as political actors themselves. To develop a more differentiated perspective it seems necessary to focus on the transformation of village culture and the visions of a future political role of the peasantry associated with it, if the form of political organization chosen by Polish-speaking peasants shall be explained. 4 Weber, Peasants. 5 Smets, »Südfranzösische Gemeinde,« 169-178. 6 Makowski, »Polen,« 53-54. 218 Reform from Above and Politics from Below In an attempt to outline a historical narrative which takes this into account I will start with some remarks about the legal status and shared culture of different groups of peasants in the late eighteenth century. Then, I will outline the Prussian reform policies in the first half of the nineteenth century and their impact on the economic situation and culture of the peasantry. Next, I will discuss the attempts to integrate peasants into nationalist politics and the peasants’ own agenda. Finally, to describe the integration of peasants in the eastern parts of Prussia in Polish and German nationalist political movements I will address the concepts of self-determination and self-representation developed by peasants in the course of ongoing political and economic change. Legal status of peasants in late eighteenth century and its legacy At the end of the eighteenth century, the word »peasant« (Polish chłop/włościanin, German Bauer) in its broadest legal meaning – as used for example in the Polish Constitution of May 3 (Konstytucja 3 maja), 1791, or the Prussian General State Laws (Allgemeines Landrecht) from 1794 – referred to all people living in the countryside (lud rolniczy / Bauernstand) as long as they did not belong to the nobility or another legally distinct group (such as townspeople, state or private officials, clerics or Jews). However, this legal differentiation between peasants and other groups didn’t mean that the peasantry was more or less legally homogeneous. It was rather strongly differentiated into a complex variety of subgroups.7 The most numerous group were peasants personally subjected to their lords, cultivating their holdings only with the right of use, and being obliged to carry out unpaid labor on the manorial estate. Though this group was socially and economically differentiated between full-holders, half-holders, smallholders and the landless, all these peasants took part in the life of the village community and shared specific cultural patterns. Historical writing has quite often seen the conditions of these peasants as the norm with some minor exceptions. However, there were other important groups of peasants. During the eighteenth century, many peasants had received personal contracts with better property rights, which in most cases obliged them to pay rent in money instead of carrying out compulsory labor on the estates. 7 Żytkowicz et al., »Okres,« 247-507; Borowski, Rozwarstwienie, 34-65; Topolski, »Procesy.« 219 Karsten Holste Furthermore, about 30 percent of the villages in the western part of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth were so-called colonial settlements, where inhabitants were only obliged to pay monetary rents. These villages were often referred to as German settlements. Though the inhabitants mainly were not immigrants from Germany and even not necessarily descendants of immigrants from Germany, the German language was probably in use in a lot of these villages, and the inhabitants certainly shared a distinct culture from that of other villages. Finally, there was a small but economically strong group which owned or rented estates connected with the office of a sheriff (sołtys / Schulze) or attached to a mill. Hence, whether the term »peasant« in late eighteenth-century Poland was associated with subjection to the will of a noble landowner or rather with the possibility to participate in the village culture depended on context. The meaning of peasantry could be linked with poverty and illiteracy, but also with successful farming. A hundred years later, when the legal differences between various groups of peasants had been obsolete for several decades due to agrarian reform, the meaning of the word »peasant« still differed depending on the social context it was used in.8 Smallholders, though depending on extra income as hired laborers, wanted to be accepted as »peasants« and members of the village community. At the same time, the richest strata of the peasantry preferred to be seen as »farmers« (gospodarze/Landwirthe) or »estate owners« (obszarnicy/Gutsbesitzer) to stress their higher social standing. Reform from above: envisaging peasants as loyal subjects During the first decades after Prussia had occupied the western parts of Poland-Lithuania in the late eighteenth century, the situation of the peasantry did not change much, except for the fact that all peasants gained the right to apply for Prussian jurisdiction, which, at least formally, limited the personal subjection to their lords. Furthermore, the peasants on crown lands in West Prussia, one of the provinces formed after the partitions, were granted personal freedom and better property rights in the first years of the nineteenth century.9 All peasants gained personal freedom only after the defeat of Prussia by Napoleonic troops 8 Wajda, Wieś, 213-221; Kowal, Społeczeństwo, 133-135; Troßbach and Zimmermann, Geschichte, 190-194 and 210-215. 9 Michalkiewicz, »Historia,« 55-62. 220 Reform from Above and Politics from Below in 1807: in the newly erected Duchy of Warsaw, where personal freedom was guaranteed by the constitution, and in the areas which remained Prussian, due to the so called October Edict. However, only in Prussia did a structural reform process start, in 1811. In 1823 the reform was applied to the Polish lands occupied due to the decisions of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 with a special law in 1823. It reached its height in the 1830s, and was completed between 1848 and 1864.10 Peasants gained full ownership of their holdings, and all economic connections with the manorial estates were abolished. Furthermore, the land of the villagers was separated from that belonging to the estate, and the land of the peasants and the former common ground were completely divided into separate plots. No rights of use or servitudes were left behind. In the former Polish lands, whole villages were abandoned, and new ones were built to separate villages from estates.11 It is well known that peasants lost a lot of land to the estate owners in the course of the reform process and later in the course of free trade with land. However, this overall loss consisted of large losses by many peasants but also of enormous gains by others.12 The mentors behind Prussian agrarian reform originally envisaged as its final effect a liberal community of property-owning, self-conscious state citizens, actively taking part in local, regional and national administration. However, the real reason for the rapid implementation of the agrarian reform laws was not the idea of forming citizens, but the interest of the bureaucracy in getting rid of noble landowners’ influence on tax collection and military conscription. For this purpose, the reforms were quite successful. Furthermore, the reform laws helped to increase agricultural production and to transform rural society more quickly than in other European regions.13 The plan for a national constitution and for a reform of the rural local administration, which originally accompanied the plan of agrarian reform, was abandoned after the restorative shift of Prussian politics at the beginning of the 1820s. The old form of the village community was preserved, as well as its supervision by the estate owners or their leaseholders, while the economic basis of this system quickly disappeared due to the effects of agrarian reform. The old order came to an end, but neither new bureaucratic control nor 10 Ibid., 70-90; Kieniewicz, Emancipation, 58-71; Borowski, Rozwarstwienie, 66-74. 11 Sczaniecki, Pamiętnik, 24. 12 Borowski, »Okres 1815-1870,« 89-91. 13 Eddie, Freedom’s Price, 195-328. 221 Karsten Holste new forms of local self-government were established. Restorative Prussian politics aiming at the preservation of social order fostered socioeconomic change in a brutal way at the village level by enforcing the development of free market relations without adjusting the administrative system in compensation.14 A similar combination of reform politics and conservative political aims was the basis of the development of military service and primary education. Prussia had introduced universal compulsory military service and abandoned corporal punishment in 1813. Because of financial restrictions and the fear of the political power of a people’s army, military conscription was far from universal until the 1860s, especially in the former Polish parts of the monarchy. Many exemptions were made, and active service – with three years quite short compared to European standards – was often shortened further in practice, and between 1833 and 1848 it was officially reduced to two years. Military service became a regular feature in many villagers’ lives and was often not experienced as an especially hard duty but rather as an occasion to live in social hierarchies and cultural contexts different to those in the villages.15 Primary education policies were basically as conservative as the rest of Prussian policies of the time. Pupils in rural schools were taught to love their king, to accept social order, to go to church, and finally, to be able to read and write as much as was needed for military service, the peasant economy and local administration. This was not a program of national education, and the principle of Prussian elementary education that children should be taught in their mother tongue – valid until the 1860s and often seen as liberal – should rather be understood as subservient to this conservative idea of education. Despite the disadvantages Polish pupils had, because of bigger classes, lower payment of their teachers and smaller chances of higher education,16 literacy spread quickly among the population of the former Polish provinces. While less than 60 percent of the army recruits in the province Grand Duchy of Poznan and less than 75 percent in the Province West Prussia were able to read and write in 1836, literacy rates of army recruits rose to 80 percent and nearly 90 percent respectively in 1848.17 In 14 Wagner, Bauern, 111-157. 15 Walter, Preußische Heeresreformen, 325-361; Boysen, Preußische Armee, 20-27. 16 Truchim, Historia; Grześ, »Schulprobleme.« 17 Block, Alphabetisierungsverlauf, 182-186. 222 Reform from Above and Politics from Below 1871, in both provinces about 60 percent of the whole population were able to read and write—much less than in the other Prussian provinces, but significantly more than in most parts of Europe, in many parts of France and especially in the other parts of the former PolishLithuanian Commonwealth.18 In 1871 the military statistics revealed that nearly half of the army recruits in the former Polish provinces who could read and write had had education only in Polish: 49 percent and 28 percent in the districts Poznan (Regierungsbezirk Posen) and Bydgoszcz (Regierungsbezirk Bromberg) respectively and still 17 percent in the West Prussian district of Marienwerder (Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder).19 Hence, during the fifty years between the 1820s and 1870s, Prussian policies towards the peasantry aimed at turning them into loyal subjects, regular taxpayers and able soldiers who were mainly concerned with economic matters and had an appropriate basic education. In terms of these aims, Prussian policy could be called quite successful in the former Polish regions. In the late 1840s, observers started to write about an impressive change of the villages, where basic wealth had spread and housing had improved.20 At the same time, journals addressed to peasants and edited by Polish national activists or by Prussian officials reached a print run of more than a thousand copies.21 Furthermore, in the 1860s, Franciszek Gajewski, a Polish nobleman and officer of the Polish armies in Napoleonic times and during the November rising, had to admit that peasants had not only gained elementary education in Prussian schools and basic wealth due to the agrarian reform, but had also become self-confident during the compulsory military service in the Prussian army. He noted that peasants even stopped showing respect to the noble landowners.22 After 1860, the Prussian government, changing its political course to a more national and liberal direction, had to face an economically 18 Ibid., 166; François, »Alphabetisierung,« 757-758; Kieniewicz, Historia, 466. For Austrian Galicia and the Russian Kingdom of Poland literacy rates are sometimes estimated as low as 44 percent and 31 percent around 1900. Even if these figures are probably too low there is a huge difference to the Prussian Partition of Poland, where illiteracy had already nearly disappeared at that time. 19 Block, Alphabetisierungsverlauf, 204. 20 Michalkiewicz, »Historia,« 88. 21 Jakóbczyk, »Prasa, 249 and 255-257;« Jakóbczyk, »Z dziejów pruskiej propagandy.« 22 Gajewski, Pamiętniki, 42-44. 223 Karsten Holste thinking and conservatively minded peasantry well aware of its social status. At this time there are nearly no signs of a distinct peasant culture as described by Ludwik Stomma or Nikodem Tomaszewski for the eastern parts of former Poland-Lithuania or by Eugen Weber for southern France.23 But this doesn’t mean that peasants had become fully integrated in communities defined by Polish or German nationality. Spoken language was still changing in the course of social mobility, migration, marriages and assimilation processes. While the proportion of German-speakers increased due to migration and assimilation processes, parts of the Catholic German-speaking population were adopting the Polish language of their neighborhood.24 The majority of the population in the province of Poznan and in some parts of West Prussia was still Polish-speaking at the end of the nineteenth century – and later the proportion of Polish speakers even started to rise again.25 German names of Polish-speaking peasants and Polish names of German-speaking peasants at the end of the nineteenth century give us a hint as to the dimension of language change in the rural society.26 Johannes Bobrowski refers to this situation in his novel Levins Mühle: 34 Sätze über meinen Großvater (Levin’s mill, 34 Stories about my grandfather) about a village in West Prussia: And I should say, the fattest peasants were Germans, the Poles in the village were poorer, even though surely not as poor as in the Polish wooden villages placed around the big village. But I do not say that. I say instead: the Germans had the names Kaminski, Tomaszewski and Kossakowski and the Poles Leberecht and Germann.27 Politics from below? Envisaging peasants as activists in politics of national identities The fact that peasants seldom raised their voices in disputes on questions of nationality and constitution during the first decades of the nineteenth century does not mean that they did not have a political 23 Stomma, Antropologia; Tomaszewski, »Polskojęzyczne chłopi«; Weber, Peasants. 24 Molik, »Procesy«; Szczepaniak-Kroll, Tożsamość. 25 Belzyt, Sprachliche Minderheiten, 17-22. 26 Chwalba, Historia, 442. 27 Bobrowski, Levins Mühle, 6. This and all following translations of quotations into English are mine (KH). 224 Reform from Above and Politics from Below agenda. It seems rather that they were simply concentrated on different matters and took their own stand whenever it seemed necessary. The countryside was affected by hard and often violent conflicts between estates and villages about matters of agrarian reform in the 1820s and 1830s.28 Hence, peasant representatives at the diet of the provincial estates in Poznan did not sidestep conflict with the representatives of the large estate owners and the towns when questions of obligations, duties or compensation were debated.29 However, they were much more subdued in disputes on national and constitutional questions. In the 1830s, the conflicts between peasants and large estate owners made some of the leading Prussian officials hope the peasantry could become a backing for their policy against the Polish nobility.30 But even the wealthiest German-speaking peasants, who could afford to buy former noble estates, showed little interest in politics of national identities if it did not concern their economic situation. It is revealing to read the final report on the results of the Prussian policy to enforce the transfer of landed estates from Poles to Germans undertaken in the 1830s: most of the new German owners were not deemed able to take part in political debates of the estates, due to their lack of education and manners.31 The poorer strata of the peasantry clamored for land and reduced obligations, which the conservative bureaucracy itself could not offer. In addition, it had to face confessional riots of Catholic peasants, which spread during a time of conflict between the Prussian government and the Catholic clergy, about the form of confessional mixed marriages in late 1830s and early 1840s,32 and it had to suppress hunger riots in 1846 and 1847 as well.33 Parallel to the attempts of the Prussian bureaucracy to win support for their policies amongst the wealthier and German-speaking peasants, parts of the Polish nobility tried to activate Catholic, Polish-speaking and poorer peasants as supporters of their national agenda. In the 1830s and 1840s this seemed to be a successful strategy due to the confessional and social riots of peasants which were suppressed by Prussian officials, and also due to the growing literacy amongst the peasants, which made it possible to direct printed Catholic and 28 29 30 31 32 33 Michalkiewicz, »Historia,« 90-92. Holste, »Landständische und nationale Partizipationsforderungen,« 82-83. Paprocki, Wielkie Księstwo Poznańskie, 146-151. Laubert, Der Flottwellsche Güterbetriebsfonds, 133-134. Pletzing, Vom Völkerfrühling zum nationalen Konflikt, 80-95. Michalkiewicz, »Historia,« 1972, 92-93. 225 Karsten Holste Polish agitation at them.34 Indeed, in the 1848 revolution Catholic and Polish-speaking peasants, mostly smallholders or the landless, quickly took up national slogans, despite the fact that their practical claims were of a rather material kind. They were directed – depending on the circumstances – as much against the dominant position of the Polish nobility as against that of the Prussian authorities, and sometimes against German or Jewish townspeople.35 The situation of Polish noble landowners was not comfortable. While hoping for autonomy of their province and a Prussian war against Russia which should eventually lead to a new independent Polish state, they had to consider the much more radical claims of the peasantry once it was activated. The Polish nobleman Tytus Działyński, organizing the uprising around his estates, wrote to a relative in Warsaw that the nobility had to join the revolutionary movement as the Prussian king had done in Berlin several days before, otherwise they would vanish altogether.36 While peasants took part in the Polish national movement Polish League (Liga Polska), founded to strengthen the Polish position in the general elections later in 1848 and in 1849, there were only few signs that the peasants were seriously interested in the Polish national cause during the quiet years of reactionary politics after 1850, despite the ongoing efforts of Polish activists. The above mentioned veteran of the November uprising, Gajewski, noted in his memoirs written around 1860 that the Prussian politics against the interests of the Polish nobility would probably lead to a Germanization of the Grand Duchy of Poznan during the next half of the century – his only hope being the growing influence of the Polish Catholic clergy.37 He could not know that the political situation would change completely a few years later. The organization of agrarian interests, and the integration of the peasants into nationalist politics In the last decades of the nineteenth century, a process started in which an ever-growing number of peasants in the provinces of West Prus34 Gzella, »›Pisma dla ludu‹«; Molik, »Procesy,« 235. 35 Kieniewicz, Społeczęstwo polskie, 210-216; Makowski, »Das Großherzogtum Posen,« 164. 36 Kieniewicz, Społeczęstwo polskie, 203. 37 Gajewski, Pamiętniki, 35 and 39. 226 Reform from Above and Politics from Below sia and of Poznan participated in Polish national organizations led by noble landowners and the intelligentsia. Historiography normally refers to the anticlerical politics of the Kulturkampf and to the Germanizing of schools and public life as reasons for this development. Given the ongoing confessional tensions between Protestants and Catholics in West Prussia and Poznan, the attack on the positions of the Catholic Church might indeed have been recognized by parts of the peasantry as an attack on their Catholic faith. There is no doubt as well that peasants regarded the politics of Germanization as a form of alien domination. However, as mentioned before, this alone cannot fully explain the spread of national solidarity between peasants, nobles, clerics and townspeople. Thus, I would like to point out three other developments of the 1870s which might be considered as additional reasons for the political option chosen by the peasants in West Prussia and the Grand Duchy. In 1872, a new arrangement of local self-government was introduced in the Prussian eastern provinces, with the exception of the province of Poznan. This created new political conditions at a local level and major changes to the social structure of the villages. New local elites, consisting of wealthy peasants and owners of smaller estates, quickly established themselves on this basis.38 The situation in the Grand Duchy was a bit different. The new form of provincial and county diets envisaged by the law of 1872 was not introduced here – the representation by estates with only few rights formed in the 1820s continued with minor changes until 1918, and to gain power as an official in the local administration depended on approval by the state authorities.39 Here officially, and in West Prussia by unofficial means, the bureaucracy prevented Polish noblemen and activists of Polish organizations from becoming a part of the new local power structures, and this was the reason that the new elites were mainly German-speaking. Polish nobility and the mass of peasants with small or middle-sized holdings were left out of the new administrative structures. The wealthiest peasants, irrespective of their confession, had a good chance of being incorporated into the new local administrative elites, as long as they stayed outside of Polish national organizations, what they often did.40 Furthermore, it was much easier for wealthy peasants to be accepted as equals by German-speaking estate owners, as those were mostly 38 Wagner, Bauern, 329-375 and 543-567. 39 Unruh, »Provinz (Großherzogtum) Posen,« 406-414 and 435-436. 40 Wierzchoslawski, Elity, 185; Wajda, Wieś, 310. 227 Karsten Holste non-noble, while Polish large estate owners were overwhelmingly noble.41 Less wealthy Polish-speaking peasants who weren’t incorporated in the new local power structures started to regard themselves as Poles rather than as Catholics and peasants.42 The second factor that should be mentioned was the increasing market pressure on agriculture in the 1870s. While countries like France introduced protective duties on agricultural products, Prussian and German policy offered little help for agricultural producers until the 1890s. This forced agricultural producers into cooperation to modernize their economies, to invest in mineral fertilizers or machines and to exert pressure on administration and politicians.43 During the last decades of the nineteenth century, a network of credit and trading cooperatives was established throughout the eastern provinces of Prussia – though not necessarily defined as national at the beginning, Polish and German organizations separated quite quickly.44 The traditional organizations of agrarian credit and communication as well as the first cooperatives were dominated by German-speaking large estate owners and wealthy peasants and were not very attractive for Polish-speaking less wealthy peasants and smallholders – especially because the willingness to make concessions to Polish-speakers was quickly decreasing due to the nationalization of political and economic discourse. This was an area where the organizational efforts of the Polish nobility met the needs and interest of peasants. From the 1870s onwards, the so-called »agricultural circles« – founded by peasants themselves during the 1860s but quickly controlled by noble landowners – were provided with capital and organizational knowledge by noblemen, the clergy and the intelligentsia, and a strong network of Polish savings and credit cooperatives developed.45 Polish nationalist organization at the local level in the countryside basically consisted of these agrarian circles, and of farmer cooperatives and cooperative banks. Though attempts by state officials to establish strong German counter-organizations were not very successful in the pre41 Wajda, Wieś, 217-221 and 301. About the social structure of large landowners cf. Molik, »Polnische und deutsche Großgrundbesitzer,« 67; Stępinski, »Społeczeństwo wiejskie,« 306-314. 42 Wajda, Wieś, 299-300. 43 Stępiński, »Przemysł rolny,« 253-304; idem, »Społeczeństwo wiejskie,« 349365; Lorenz and Müller, »National Segregation,« 185-188. 44 Lorenz and Müller, »National Segregation, 189. 45 Hagen, »National Solidarity,« 50-54; Molik, »Wieś,« 237-241; Lorenz and Müller, »National Segregation,« 188-196. 228 Reform from Above and Politics from Below dominantly Polish province of Poznan,46 in the rest of Prussia the national organization of German peasants followed similar patterns. The German Union of Farmers (Bund der Landwirte) established in the 1890s was quickly developing into a powerful pressure group led by noble landowners and middle class activists.47 National slogans such as »Stay with your own!« had a very practical meaning in this context. The last factor to be mentioned here is the practice of parceling out land into peasant holdings. During the last decades before World War I, the share of land belonging to large estates in the provinces of West Prussia and province of Poznan was reduced from more than a half to about 40 percent.48 The Prussian Settlement Commission (Preußische Ansiedlungskommission) aimed to strengthen the German share of the peasant population; the state-owned organization for tenant property aimed generally to increase the number of peasant holdings, and finally, Polish parceling-out associations, backed by cooperative Polish banks, aimed to acquire land for their members. All these activities are often recognized only as part of the national struggle, but it should be stressed that the Prussian and Polish organizations aimed at different social groups. The intention of the Prussian state was to establish new farms large enough to make their owners economically independent and potentially a part of the local administrative elite. These farms were financially unaffordable to most of the land-seeking population, even if they were not excluded because of their nationality. The Polish parceling-out associations focused much more on small plots suitable for the poorer parts of the population. Furthermore, Polish large estate owners backed this kind of parceling out, not only for national but also for economic and social reasons: it provided their estates with a stable local labor supply and it could be seen as a protection against a possible political radicalization of the landless rural population. Finally, the new peasants on these smallholdings fitted perfectly into the structure of Polish agrarian organization in which Polish noblemen played a key role. German large estate owners like their Polish counterparts in the Prussian east preferred parceling out parts of the estate land into smallholdings rather than forming new, strong peasant farms as advised by 46 Lorenz and Müller, »National Segregation, 196-199; Spickermann, »Contradictions of Nation-Building.« 47 Puhle, Agrarische Interessenpolitik. 48 Müller, »Modernisierung«; Stępiński, »Społeczeństwo wiejskie,« 336-348; Borowski, »Okres 1871-1918,« 374-377. 229 Karsten Holste liberal economists convinced of the economic shortcomings of agriculture on too large and too small farms.49 To summarize: although there was an enormous social and economic differentiation between several groups of the peasantry, the lines between them were fluent, at least in theory. While wealthier peasants had a chance to become estate owners due to the free market of land, the landless could hope to become at least smallholders due to the ongoing parceling out of the large estates. In addition, traditional prejudices and the still existing idea of a unified village community worked against a political differentiation along economic lines and against the emancipation of the rural underclasses.50 It should be added that the key role of large landowners in farmer organizations alone did not ensure peasant support for their politics. Their political statements had to satisfy the expectations of the peasants influenced by the propaganda of radical activists. It can be observed that Polish noble politicians had to give up their traditional positions and to look for compromise with more radical nationalist activists connected with the Peasants’ Movement (Ruch Ludowy) or the National Democrats (Narodowa Demokracja).51 This meant that they had to accept populist xenophobic and especially anti-Semitic political agitation as well.52 The same can be said about the traditional conservative German large estate owners in the Prussian east, who also had to accept the rising influence of radical activists.53 Conclusions At the beginning of the nineteenth century, several legally and culturally quite distinct groups of peasants existed in the western parts of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Due to the Prussian agrarian reform, these distinctions seem to have vanished over the following 60 years, while the differentiation of economic power and wealth 49 Puhle, Agrarische Interessenpolitik, 254. 50 Hagen, »The German Peasantry,« 285-286; Friedeburg »Dörfliche Gesellschaft,« 340-342. 51 Wajda, Wieś, 308-310; Wierzchosławski, Elity, 40-123; Molik, »Postawy,« 104-106. 52 Marczewski, Narodowa Demokracja, 209-226; Porter, When Nationalism Began to Hate. 53 Puhle, Agrarische Interessenpolitik, 125-140 and 255-261; Eley, Reshaping the German Right; idem, »Anti-Semitism.« 230 Reform from Above and Politics from Below was strengthened. Prussian bureaucracy originally aimed at combining agrarian reform with turning peasants into national citizens, but redirected its expectations in the 1820s and aimed only at turning peasants into regular taxpayers and rational farmers. It seems that the reform politics were quite successful in this respect. When Prussian policy changed in the 1860s, the government had to cope with a self-confident and economically consolidated peasantry which it had helped to create over the last decades. In the second half of the nineteenth century, much less cultural difference can be seen between peasants and social elites in the eastern parts of Prussia than in the eastern parts of Poland and in large parts of France. Political activity of peasants during the first half of the nineteenth century was mainly concerned with financial obligations, costs of the agrarian reform and confessional disputes. All attempts by the Prussian bureaucracy or by the Polish nobility to activate peasants in the cause of Prussian imperial rule or the cause of Polish national aspirations were either in vain or became a threat for social order. During the last third of the century, the situation changed completely: while a smaller and rather wealthier group of peasants became part of the local German elite, a much larger group started to take part in the Polish national movement led by the nobility and the intelligentsia. The most common explanation of this development refers to the anti-Catholic and Germanizing politics of the Prussian government. Additionally, I propose considering the administrative reform of 1872, the increasing market pressure on agriculture and the enforced parceling out of estates into peasant holdings as reasons for this change. The specific social, economic and cultural conditions in the countryside of the eastern parts of Prussia led to a situation quite different from that in France, where secularization and the pressure to use French went along with alphabetization, republican ideology and protectionism for agricultural products. The situation was also different to that in the eastern parts of former Poland-Lithuania, where the social and cultural gap between peasants and noble large landowners persisted until the twentieth century. In Germany and especially in the east of Prussia, big parts of the rural population and lower middle classes in the towns became members of organizations led by noble landowners and right-wing political activists. These organizations were mainly based on administrative structures and on the imagination that all villagers shared the same economic interests. However, under the influence of the dominating national discourse, their establishment led to the nationalization of 231 Karsten Holste the peasantry. The discourse of »solidarity« which successfully united peasants and nobility in the Polish national movement of Prussia paralleled the successful organization of peasants in powerful agrarian pressure groups by German noble landowners and nationalist activists. Hence, the emergence of a nationally defined Polish community including peasants as well as noble landlords, urban middle classes and the intelligentsia in the eastern parts of Prussia was strongly connected to the specific Prussian development of organized politics in the countryside during the nineteenth century. Though the history of the peasantry in the Prussian Partition of Poland can be integrated much more easily into the historical master narrative of Polish nation building than that of the peasantry in the other partitions, it should not be taken as the ›normal‹ way of national integration of the peasantry, but rather as one specific form of political organization. This could help in writing about the emergence of national conflicts during the nineteenth century without referring to somehow naturally given national belongings. Bibliography Edited Sources Bobrowski, Johannes. Levins Mühle. 34 Sätze über meinen Großvater. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1970. Gajewski, Franciszek z Błociszewa. Pamiętniki Franciszka z Błociszewa Gajewskiego, pułkownika wojsk polskich (1802-1831). Vol. II, ed. by Stanisław Karwowski. Poznań: Zdzisław Rzepecki, 1913. Sczaniecki, Kazimierz. Pamiętnik. Wielkopolska i powstanie styczniowe we wspomnieniach galicyjskiego ziemianina. Ed. by Witold Molik. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk, 1995. Scholarly Works Belzyt, Leszek. Sprachliche Minderheiten im preußischen Staat 1815-1914. Die preußische Sprachenstatistik in Bearbeitung und Kommentar. Marburg: Herder-Institut, 1998. Block, Rainer. Der Alphabetisierungsverlauf im Preußen des 19. Jahrhunderts. quantitative Explorationen aus bildungshistorischer Perspektive. Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 1995. 232 Reform from Above and Politics from Below Borowski, Stanisław. »Okres 1815-1870: Ludność. Rolnictwo.« In Dzieje Wielkopolski. Vol. II: Lata 1793-1918, ed. by Witold Jakóbczyk, 67-96. 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After all, the theater was an important site of cultural politics in all contested border areas of the empire, and the imperial authorities considered the promotion of Russian theater the best way to foster national feelings and loyalist sentiment.2 Despite direct imperial interventions, the second half of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of the city as modern metropolis, and theatrical life became more inclusive and cosmopolitan. Before the emergence of mass entertainment, sport, and cinema at the turn of the twentieth century, the theater was the main site of urban sociability. Under the political conditions of the Russian Empire, the theater was also the main forum for the formation of an urban public that included both educated elites, and less educated lower classes. Non-Russian as well as Russian theater provided an instrument for surveying and regulating socio-political order and became an important forum for negotiations over contested issues of national identity and political loyalty. In the early nineteenth century, the theatrical stage became a central cultural institution in the city of Kyiv (Kijów, Kiev). After the second (1793) and the third (1795) partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Kyiv became the administrative center of the newly created Russian imperial South-Western provinces (Iugo-Zapadnyi Krai, nowadays the central part of Ukraine), which consisted of the three provinces of Kyiv, Podolia and Volhynia. Because Kyiv played 1 The theatrical sphere is not analyzed in the main studies of imperial and national politics in the region, such as Bovua [Beauvois], Shliakhtych; idem, Bytva za zemliu; idem, Rosiis’ka vlada; Weeks, Nation and State; Rodkiewicz, Russian Nationality Policy; Miller,»Ukrainskii vopros.« 2 Petrovskaia, Teatr i zritel’, 24-27. 238 On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth an important symbolic role in the Polish-Russian and then UkrainianRussian national conflicts, Russian educated elites and authorities increasingly saw it as the »golden-domed« historical center of medieval Riurikid Rus, the »Jerusalem of the Russian lands« and the »mother of Russian cities.« Although the Russian historical and cultural identity of Kyiv was intensively shaped in this period, its everyday cultural practices did not totally correspond to an exclusively national representation. ProRussian elites sometimes lamented the lack of social and patriotic activism in the city and even scornfully called it »characterless and multinational.«3 Through the nineteenth century Kyiv grew significantly from ca. 23,000 in 1817 to 50,000 in 1845, and then to 127,000 in 1874 and 248,000 in 1897; by the end of the nineteenth century the city had become one of Eastern Europe’s metropolises with a vibrant public life.4 This accelerating growth of Kyiv cannot be attributed to its industrial development, but rather to its newly acquired administrative, cultural and commercial functions. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Kyiv also began to play an important role in the empire’s agricultural trade. Jewish migration from the small towns of Right-Bank Ukraine, which had been restricted before the 1860s, also strongly contributed to the growth of Kyiv. Consequently, the growing population of Kyiv had a distinctly heterogeneous character: in 1874, about 46% of city dwellers claimed that they spoke »literary Russian« or »Great Russian,« 32% »Little Russian« (Ukrainian), 10% »Jewish« (Yiddish), and 7.7% Polish.5 Although Poles were a minority in nineteenth-century Kyiv, the key role the Polish landowning elite played in the province made the Polish impact on the political, social, cultural and academic life of the city significant, if not dominant. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Polish nobility (szlachta) made up about 7% of the population of the South-Western provinces.6 Also, the Poles dominated the student body of Kyiv’s Saint Vladimir University throughout the 1830s and into the 1850s. Poles were 62.5% of the student body in 1839 (165 students), 55.6% in 1849 (363 students), and 52.6% in 1859 3 See the telling comment in »Narodnosti i partii.« This and all following translations of quotations into English are mine (OS). 4 On its various aspects see the only English-language study on the history of Kyiv: Hamm, Kiev. 5 These calculations are made on the basis of data provided in Shamrai, »Kyivs’kyi odnodennyi perepys,« 367-368. 6 Bovua [Beauvois], Rosiis’ka vlada, 47. 239 Ostap Sereda (507 students).7 The chief role of the Polish social and cultural elites was recognized and tolerated by the imperial government until the 1860s, when Russian publicists and tsarist authorities began to challenge it. Competition with the Polish nobility over the national character of the South-Western provinces agitated Russian patriotic circles throughout the empire. This article focuses on various dimensions of the equally contested theatrical life in Kyiv in the middle of the nineteenth century, which was then increasingly seen as a terrain of competition between the main nationalities that inhabited the city: Russian, Ukrainian and Polish. The urban cultural sphere could not be easily divided into national segments, and the perspectives of the agents of competing national projects could be quite distorting. Therefore, this article explores the contributions of Kyiv’s Polish theater both to the social life of its national community and to that of the city in the culturally polycentric context of an Eastern European borderland. Particular attention is paid to the period of relative liberalization at the end of the 1850s, when the imperial administration not only tolerated the Polish theater, but tried to involve itself in the cultural and social life of the city’s Polish elites. The shifts in theatrical policy between 1858 and 1863 correspond to important changes in Russian imperial policy. The imperial idea, notions of dynastic and state loyalty, and the common interests of the upper classes gave way to a policy defined as »bureaucratic nationalism« by Polish scholar Witold Rodkiewicz.8 The latter insisted on the direct intervention of the imperial bureaucracy on behalf of the Russian Orthodox people (including Ukrainians) against non-Russians (including the upper classes). Adherents of both conceptions were interested in strengthening the Russian Empire and, in particular, in promoting Russian culture in the borderlands. Yet they chose either integration, or restrictions and discrimination. Beginnings of Polish theater and the annual fair in Kyiv The first permanent theater building in Kyiv was erected around 1803 for itinerant troupes that performed during the annual fair (kontrakty) of the local provincial Polish nobility and city merchants. The fair had regularly taken place from January to March since 1798, when the 7 Tabiś, Polacy, 34. 8 Rodkiewicz, Russian Nationality Policy, 13-16. 240 On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth The First Kyiv City Theater (ca. 1803-1851). Hordii Pshenychnyi Central State CinePhotoPhono Archives of Ukraine, Kyiv. annual fair in Dubno lost its regional significance because of the third partition of Poland-Lithuania.9 The author of a unique study on the Kyiv fair, Henryk Ułaszyn, described the dynamic and vibrant cultural atmosphere that formed in Kyiv during this period. For the two winter months, Polish landowners dominated the Kyiv public sphere, which in other seasons had a mostly Ukrainian-Russian character. The fair provided an occasion for various commercial negotiations that were centered on sugar production and trade and became an important forum for the Polish public by stimulating intensive social, cultural and intellectual communication. Occasionally, prominent cultural figures attended the fair. Adam Mickiewicz, for example, attended one in February 1825.10 It is thus not surprising that the poet mentioned the fair in his famous work Pan Tadeusz (Sir Thaddeus). Thus, according to Ułaszyn, through the 1840s and 1850s Kyiv became the leading Polish cultural center in the Russian-controlled regions of the former Commonwealth. Public events during the fair period could be marked by Polish-Russian polarization or by Polish-Russian rapprochement, 9 Ułaszyn, Kontrakty Kijowskie, 14-15. 10 Koropeckyj, Adam Mickiewicz, 62. 241 Ostap Sereda depending on the political atmosphere and attitude of the provincial administration.11 The City Theater was long embedded in the social environment of the fair. This close connection between the theater and the fair that attracted local landowing nobility was not unique to Kyiv; it also existed in Austrian-ruled Lviv (Lemberg, Lwów).12 It was not surprising that the decline of trade and the repression of the Polish theater in Kyiv occurred in the same short period after the 1863 uprising. Throughout the first decades of the nineteenth century the theater building was used mostly by Polish troupes directed by several private entrepreneurs. More lasting was the role of Aleksander Lenkawski, who first performed in Kyiv as an actor and then directed his own troupe between 1823 and 1829. The original texts of plays did not survive, but a collection of theatrical posters from the 1820s gives information about the theater’s repertory. The posters are mostly in Polish, with only short Russian translations of the plays’ titles. The repertory included various drama performances as well as musical plays, comedies, vaudevilles, operas and ballets. In November 1827, the Kyiv theater troupe under Lenkawski staged for the first time Cyrulik Sewilski (The Barber of Seville) by Gioachino Rossini, only two years after its Polish première in Warsaw.13 The Polish theater in Kyiv continued to be closely connected with Polish theatrical life on the other side of Russian-Austrian imperial border to the extent that the success of Cyrulik Sewilski in Kyiv was considered »a triumph of the actors performed on the Cracow stage.«14 The prominent local Polish writer Aleksander Groza described in his novel Pamiętnik nie bardzo stary (A not very old diary) how attending Cyrulik Sewilski might become the main cultural experience for those who were in Kyiv during the fair. When the protagonist of his novel Władysław N. arrived in Kyiv in order to help his friend sell a village during the fair, he decided to attend the city theater rather than spend time at a restaurant. The theater was badly decorated and lighted, yet the immature audience reacted passionately and sincerely to the unexpectedly powerful performance of Cyrulik Sewilski.15 Groza compared reactions of the audience in provincial Kyiv to those of audiences 11 12 13 14 15 Ułaszyn, Kontrakty Kijowskie, 78-79. Ther, Center Stage, 94. Zahaikevych, »Muzychno-teatral’ne zhyttia,« 21. Estreicher, Teatra w Polsce, vol. 1, 107. Groza, Pamiętnik, 40-42. 242 On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in a capital: in the former »representation is taken for reality,«16 in the latter the public is not dominated by true feelings. But whilst the comic opera entertained and the leading actors were generally admired by the public, a drama performed on the other evening was more educational and displayed the ruining consequences of gambling. As in other Polish provincial theatrical centers, like Austrian Lviv, where »audiences continued to favor light entertainment over heavy intellectual drama,« and the repertory was dominated by farces and comedies,17 the plays on the Kyiv stage were mostly entertaining comedies, often translated from other European languages (mainly French and German) and adapted to local circumstances. But the plays sometimes dealt with serious and controversial issues of Polish historical tradition and political loyalty in the borderlands. In Kyiv the Polish dramas and musical plays of Wojciech Bogusławski, Ludwik Dmuszewski, Józef Elsner, Karol Kurpiński, and other prominent playwrights and composers sometimes received interpretations and meanings that differed from those construed in Habsburg-ruled Lviv or Cracow. On September 27, 1823, the coronation day of Emperor Alexander I, the popular opera Król Łokietek, czyli Wiśliczanki (King Lokietek, or the women of Wiślica) by Dmuszewski and Elsner was performed. The opera was devoted to the early promotor of the Polish-Lithuanian union King Ladislaus the Short (Władysław I Łokietek), who had restored the Polish kingdom in the fourteenth century. The opera had been staged for the first time in Warsaw in 1818, and since then had often been performed on Polish stages in other theatrical centers of former Commonwealth. Jolanta Pękacz argued that in Austrian Galicia the opera was very successful due to the patriotic feelings it evoked in the audience.18 But four years later, in Kyiv, nine new »live pictures« or scenes stressing Polish-Russian rapprochement and loyalty to the empire’s monarchy were added to the play. In one of them, the Russian hero appeared and shook hands with his Polish counterpart. In the last scene the inhabitants of Wiślica went down on their knees before the imperial coat of arms of Alexander I.19 The play under new circumstances stressed the importance of another political union, this time the Polish-Russian union. It is noteworthy that the piece was forbidden in Warsaw after 1822 because it intensified national-patriotic 16 17 18 19 Ibid., 41. Ther, Center Stage, 95. Pękacz, Music in the Culture of Polish Galicia, 97-98. P.T., »K istorii pol’skogo teatra,« 535. 243 Ostap Sereda feelings promoted by performances of Król Łokietek, in particular usage of traditional religious hymns to express a new historical sense of Polishness.20 It has to be stressed that from the very beginning of the theater in Kyiv linguistic division between Polish, Russian and Ukrainian troupes was not entirely fixed. The same troupe could sometimes perform both in Polish and Russian – for example, in 1823 the Polish troupe of Lenkawski performed Russian comic operas and operettas eight times.21 Ukrainian plays were especially ambivalent, as the Ukrainian culture and tradition was incorporated into both pan-Polish and pan-Russian cultural heritage. Therefore, both Polish and Russian troupes in Kyiv performed popular plays in the Ukrainian vernacular. Bilingual Polish-Ukrainian plays with both Polish and Ukrainian characters – such as Ukrainka (1823) subtitled »the great comic magic opera in the Little Russian and Polish dialects« or various versions of Rusalka, an adaptation of the famous Danube Mermaid by Ferdinand Kauer – figured prominently in the repertory of the Polish troupe.22 At the same time the classical Ukrainian operetta Natalka Poltavka was performed by the Ukrainian-Russian troupe of Ivan Shtein (with the famous actor Mikhail/Mykhailo Shchepkin), which visited Kyiv during the fair in 1821.23 All in all, through the first third of the nineteenth century the theatrical stage in Kyiv represented not only social dominance of the Polish elites, but also contested the cultural and political character of the province. Theater and twists of imperial cultural politics between the Polish uprisings After the Polish November uprising of 1830 Polish-Russian relations were marked by growing tensions. As a result, imperial policy in the borderlands was profoundly reassessed, and the local landowning Polish gentry lost its social, educational, and cultural autonomy. In the sphere of theatrical politics, the imperial authorities began to provide regular administrative and financial support for the Russian theater, which henceforth was regarded as an important educational – in fact, 20 21 22 23 Goldberg, Music in Chopin’s Warsaw, 239-242. P.T., »K istorii pol’skogo teatra,« 536-537. Zahaikevych, »Muzychno-teatral’ne zhyttia,« 22-24. Ryl’s’kyi, Ukrains’kyi dramatychnyi teatr, 89; Senelick, Serf Actor, 47. 244 On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth nationalizing – institution. Already in 1842, Emperor Nicholas I had ordered the city of Kyiv to grant 3,000 rubles per year for the »support of a private Russian theater in Kyiv.«24 In reality, the annual subsidy was not paid regularly; some entrepreneurs did not receive the subsidy at all. The official support notwithstanding, the Russian theater was consistently boycotted by the Polish public and, in spite of the subsidy, regularly faced financial problems.25 Probably the most successful company was the Russian-Ukrainian itinerant troupe under the above mentioned Ivan Shtein, which was again invited to Kyiv in the early 1830s.26 In 1835 it was followed by a French troupe that mostly played vaudevilles and musical comedies. This invitation of a foreign company was meant by official circles to reconcile Polish-Russian relations in the city.27 In contrast, at the turn of the 1840s the new Governor General of Kyiv, Dmitrii Bibikov, personally attempted to bring the Russian troupe from Moscow to Kyiv as a permanent Russian drama theater.28 In spite of strong governmental support and guest performances of several famous Russian actors, it faced a cold reception by the Kyiv public and ended in bankruptcy immediately after the first season of 1842/43.29 It was Paweł Rykanowski/Pavlo Rekanovskyi who personalized the multicultural character of theater and society in Kyiv. He had earned a good reputation in both Polish and Russian itinerant troupes and was known for a perfect command of Ukrainian-language roles. As an entrepreneur he brought a Russian-Polish troupe to Kyiv in the 1840s that dominated the Kyiv theatrical stage until the end of the existence of the old wooden City Theater in August 1851. Until 1863 Rykanowski set new standards of theatrical life: His troupe consisted of two parts, Russian and Polish, but sometimes the actors played interchangeably in Polish, Ukrainian and Russian plays. Throughout the second third of the nineteenth century, Russian audiences complained that Polish actors lacked a sufficient command of the Russian language.30 24 TsDIAK, fond (f.) 442, opys (op.) 75/1842, sprava (spr.) 209, arkush (ark.) 1-2. 25 Nikolaev, Dramaticheskii teatr, 24. 26 Lysiuk, »Antrepryza Ivana Shteina,« 26. 27 Lysiuk, »Frantsuz’kyi teatr,« 30-31. 28 »Melochi iz arkhivov,« 85-88. 29 Nikolaev, Dramaticheskii teatr, 29. 30 Quoted in ibid., 30. 245 Ostap Sereda Notwithstanding occasional imperial interventions, the theatrical stage in Kyiv was diverse and multicultural through the 1840s and 1850s. The most remarkable performances were those of a French troupe in the 1841/42 season; those of a Polish-German troupe from Vilnius (Wilno) by Wilhelm Schmidkoff, which some scholars consider »the first professional opera troupe in Kyiv,« in the 1845/46 season;31 and those of an Italian troupe from Odessa in 1848. Imperial modernization of the city saw the construction of the new stone building of the City Theater. The City Theater contributed significantly to the creation of a new cultural and educational urban center around Bolshaia Vladimirskaia Street. The street, which was planned according to the first general plan of Kyiv adopted by the imperial government in 1837, connected Saint Sophia Cathedral and the ruins of the Golden Gates (a symbol of Riurikid Kyiv, discovered in 1832), with the newly built St. Vladimir University. The new district, which grew along the traditional trade district of Podil and the administrative-military district of Pechersk, clearly represented the new Russian identity of the city as being both supra-ethnic and rooted in the pre-Polish past. Several new governmental and educational institutions located along the street, such as the province administration and the first gymnasium for boys, were built in the 1850s in the late Classicist style. The architectural design of the theater by the Russian architect Ivan Shtrom was approved by Nicholas I in 1850. The leading publisher and journalist of Kyiv in the 1850s and 60s, Alfred von Junk, praised the »second« City Theater in Kyiv as an architectural miracle and the best theatrical building among those that existed in the province centers of the Russian Empire.32 The theatre could host about 850 visitors; the majority of them (about 530) were to sit in 76 separate loges.33 This arrangement of the theater’s interior indicated a dominance of aristocratic and noble families that expected to be separated from members of lower social strata. The theatrical curtain represented the »Italian landscape«; musical instruments and theatrical masks were painted on the ceiling; a golden double-headed Russian imperial eagle was depicted above the pit. A contemporary travel book classified the overall style of the theatre as »Italian.«34 The coexistence of Classicist Italian 31 32 33 34 Zahaikevych, »Muzychno-teatral’ne zhyttia,« 25. Quoted in Nikolaev, Dramaticheskii teatr, 39. Ibid., 40-41. Sementovskii, Kiev, 111. 246 On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth The Second Kyiv City Theater (1856-1896). Photo ca. 1885, Hordii Pshenychnyi Central State CinePhotoPhono Archives of Ukraine, Kyiv. and imperial symbols and the lack of clear Russian (or Polish) national references indicated an attempt to locate the cultural space of the City Theatre in a seemingly »neutral« sphere of the universal high arts. The opening of the new theater in 1856 was indicative of new shifts in Russian imperial policy, which underwent another transformation in the 1850s. Anti-Polish measures were reduced in a period that marked the beginning of the imperial Great Reforms. In local politics the shift was associated with the figure of Governor General Prince Illarion Illarionovich Vasilchikov. He was praised by the Polish nobility as well as by urban society as a »kind boy«35 who aimed at closer cooperation of Russian officialdom with the Polish elites. Prince Vasilchikov’s personal soft line represented the general trend in imperial policy associated with the reform-oriented young emperor Alexander II. For a while the tsarist government was trying to find a modus vivendi with the traditional Polish elites of the region, but it did not totally abandon its integrationist Russifying policy. All in all, prior to 1863 imperial rule in the province continued to rely on the integration of local elites, rather than on restrictions or 35 Makarov, Kievskaia starina, 54-55. 247 Ostap Sereda discrimination. Therefore, Polish, Italian as well as other non-Russian troupes were admitted to the main theater building. In fact, the opening program of the new City Theater on October 4, 1856 consisted of both Russian and Polish light plays: Dmitrii Lenskii’s Striapchii pod stolom (The lawyer under the table), Petr Grigoriev’s Doch russkogo aktera (The Russian actor’s daughter), Józef Korzeniowski’s Doktór medycyny (A medical doctor), and a dancing »divertissement,« consisting of tarantella and Cracovienne (krakowiak).36 Interestingly, in the mid-nineteenth century the dance idiom of Cracovienne, popularized by the Polish national operas, was perceived as the expression of the musical Polishness.37 To the dismay of the Russian patriotic public, the opening program included none of the contemporary Russian historical patriotic plays of Nikolai Polevoi or choral singing of the imperial anthem Bozhe, Tsaria khrani (God, save the King). The lightly entertaining and nationally mixed character of plays notwithstanding, the opening evening in the new theater was attended by Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich and Prince Vasilchikov.38 In the imperial capitals, St. Petersburg and Moscow, all public entertainment, not to mention theatrical performances, was managed by the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters. In Kyiv the central governmental figure in cultural affairs was the Governor General. The Civil Governor of Kyiv, a subordinate of the Governor General, was responsible for the day-to-day supervision of the City Theater. In 1856, just before the new building of the theater was finished, Governor General Prince Vasilchikov ordered the Civil Governor to establish a new administrative system for the City Theater and to ensure equal proportions of Polish and Russian troupes.39 Following the order, the Kyiv Civil Governor convened the theatrical committee in March 1856. The committee consisted of six members: four were appointed by the Governor General, one was elected by the provincial nobility, and one by the Kyiv City Duma. Two members of the committee, which existed with some changes until 1868, served as directors of the theater.40 Yet although the Russian administration consolidated control over the Nikolaev, Dramaticheskii teatr, 41. Goldberg, Music in Chopin’s Warsaw, 235. Nikolaev, Dramaticheskii teatr, 42. TsDIAK, f. 442, op. 85, spr. 658/1, ark. 21-22 (Kyiv Governor General Vasilchikov to Kyiv Civil Governor Hesse, March 4, 1856). 40 Nikolaev, Dramaticheskii teatr, 38; TsDIAK, f. 442, op. 85, spr. 658/1, ark. 23-24 (Kyiv Civil Governor Hesse to Kyiv Governor General Vasilchikov, March 12, 1856). 36 37 38 39 248 On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Kyiv City Theater in the middle of the nineteenth century, it did not totally marginalize the Polish theatrical tradition in the province. The unsuccessful attempt at a Polish-Russian theatrical union In 1858 the catastrophic financial condition of the theater prompted the governmental administration to turn to a new private entrepreneur. The Polish marshal of the Kyiv nobility at this point was still powerful, and he could influence the appointment. Consequently the Kyiv Theater was entrusted in December 1858 to a Polish actor and entrepreneur from Austrian Galicia, Teofil Borkowski, who since September 1858 had performed with his troupe in Kyiv.41 Borkowski agreed to pay the huge debt of the theater and was given much leeway regarding the repertory and the composition of the Polish and Russian troupes.42 Borokowski’s tenure opened a short but very dynamic period in the history of both the theater and urban public life in Kyiv, which lasted until the 1863 January uprising. The core of the new Polish troupe in Kyiv consisted of actors who came to Kyiv with Borkowski from Galicia: Emilia Gadomska, Borkowski’s daughter Eugenia Natorska and the latter’s husband, Leon Natorski. Borkowski also directed the Russian troupe, but his relations with the Russian actors soon became very troublesome. As in the previous years, the Kyiv stage hosted several prominent actors from the Russian Imperial Theater, and also a visiting star Ira Aldridge in 1861, who at that time had earned a real fame across Eastern Europe. The official newspaper Kievskie gubernskie vedomosti (Kyiv provincial gazette) provided detailed information on the Polish repertory between January 15 and February 4, 1859, the most intensive three-week period of the fair during Borkowski’s first season in Kyiv. Only one play, the comedy Mieszczanie i kmiotki (City dwellers and villagers) by Fryderyk Kaiser, translated from German into Polish, was staged twice. All other plays – thirteen altogether – were performed only once. Interestingly, the 1859 repertory of the theater in Kyiv consisted of plays that were already a part of the repertory of the Polish theater in Cracow.43 41 Nikolaev, Dramaticheskii teatr, 43. 42 TsDIAK, f. 442, op. 85, spr. 658/2a, ark. 86-90 (contract between the Kyiv theatrical committee and Borkowski, December 18, 1858). 43 Got and Orzechowski, Repertuar teatru krakowskiego. 249 Ostap Sereda The directorship of Borkowski more and more incensed the proRussian elements of the Kyiv public, which used patriotic discourse to become more visible in public life. In the late imperial period the discourse continued to be used by several Russian historians of the Kyiv musical theater, who unconditionally supported Russian art and identity in the region. In his influential book on the late nineteenth century history of dramatic theater in Kyiv, N.I.Nikolaev depicted Teofil Borkowski as a typical treacherous Polish activist who abused the trust of the imperial authorities and exploited the theatrical stage to prepare the anti-Russian uprising.44 In a similar vein the Polish public was portrayed as a consolidated patriotic group, and the Polish-Russian theatrical relations in the city as increasingly conflictual. This discourse originated in the agitated atmosphere of the Polish uprising in 1863 and its aftermath. The following quote gives a vivid example how the unification of Polish and Russian theater troupes under Borkowski, which was meant to symbolize unity and loyalty of both Russians and Poles in Kyiv, was recalled after the uprising by a Russian patriot: [S]treets leading to the theater were brightly illuminated. The theater shone. Poles drove to the theater with a feeling of triumph, the sound of Polish speech […] dominated over the Russian language […] The Polish ladies were the first in the loges. The orchestra played Polish national music. I suffocated in the theatrical hall, I felt sorrow for the Kyiv society and for everything that humiliated the dignity of the Russian people. Finally, the curtain was raised. Borkowski in the black tail-coat, with a long pipe, came to the stage. Like a director he measured it by his steps; after a few minutes the Russian actors began to appear one after another, desiring to join his troupe. Borkowski haughtily received every actor and immediately examined his talent by prompting him to sing or to recite the best monologue from a certain tragedy. Actors who were liked by the public received a cigar from Borkowski […]. When Pan [Sir] Borkowski accepted the last Russian actor to his troupe, the Polish actors came to the stage and standing hand in hand with the Russian actors sang Bozhe, Tsaria khrani. The union in the Kyiv Theater was accomplished, the majority ignorantly triumphed, but truly Russian people deeply grieved […]. They had no other choice but to wait for the better times.45 44 Nikolaev, Dramaticheskii teatr, 56. 45 N. Ch. »Teatral’naia unia v Kieve.« 250 On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Nikolaev created the impression that the repertory of Polish plays – unlike the Russian ones – was rich and diverse, and that even the plays that were prohibited in Warsaw and Wilno could be freely staged in Kyiv. At the same time even the classical Russian plays were ignored by the theater-going public, as for example in February 1860, when the crowd gathered in the theater only at the end of the Revizor (The government inspector) by Nikolai Gogol, just before the play was followed by a masquerade ball. In the opinion of Nikolaev and many other patriotic Russian theater critics, »Russian society« of Kyiv was skillfully deceived by the »Polish patriots« who intended to make the Kyiv Theater a political forum.46 Nikolaev described with clear disapproval how the chief ballet-master Maurice Pion, former director of the Warsaw ballet,47 was called to Kyiv from Warsaw in 1859 with his ballet troupe in order to perform Polish dances, and how the Polish audience was excited to watch Cracovienne and mazurka. According to him, the plays were used by the Polish public as an occasion to discuss the future uprising.48 These complaints were clearly meant to justify the later Russifying measures as a legitimate reaction to the anti-imperial activities of Polish insurgents. Yet before 1863, the attitudes of the Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking public in Kyiv were far from uniform, and the governmental policy towards Polish culture was still not exclusively restrictive. For example, in December 1858, the Kievskie gubernskie vedomosti commented with satisfaction on the variety of »public pleasures« during that winter, and the Polish troupe was favorably compared to the poor Russian one.49 Russian and Polish plays were often performed on the same evening, evidently for the same audience, as on January 16, 1859, when the Russian vaudeville Ketli ili vozvrashchenie v Shveitsariu (Ketli or the return to Switzerland) was followed by the Polish comedy Mieszczanie i kmiotki,50 or on January 21, 1859, when the Polish comedy Pułkownik z roku 1769 (The colonel from 1769) was followed by the Russian vaudeville Doch russkogo aktera (The daughter of the Russian actor) and by a tambourine dance.51 Sometimes the interludes between the 46 47 48 49 50 51 Nikolaev, Dramaticheskii teatr, 44, 55. Pudelek and Kosicka, »The Warsaw Ballet,« 219-273. Ibid. »Kievskaia letopis’.« Kievskie ob’’iavlenia, January 16, 1859, 4. Kievskie ob’’iavlenia, January 21, 1859, 19. 251 Ostap Sereda Russian plays consisted of Polish and Ukrainian dances, as on January 26, 1860.52 Still, Polish was the dominant language, at least during Borkowski’s first theatrical season in Kyiv: there were many evenings when exclusively Polish plays were performed. But the delineation between the Polish and the Russian parts of the troupe was permeable and not directly defined by the national identification of the actors. As mentioned before, the same actors played secondary roles in both Polish and Russian plays, and many of the Polish actors who played in Russian performances could not speak proper Russian. The leading actress of the Russian troupe, Fabianskaia (then Fabianskaia-Nikitina), had acted in the Polish theater in Zhytomyr, before joining the Russian troupe in Kyiv in May 1857.53 Clearly, the imperial administration was worried by the dominance of Polish in public life and wanted to secure the first or at least an equal place for Russian. A typical incident occurred when the Governor General Vasilchikov visited the City Theater on February 7, 1860 in order to attend an amateur charitable concert. The musical numbers were to be played and performed by some local Polish nobility, as well as by an amateur chorus and orchestra. The program included fragments from several operas: the »Great Mazurka« from the opera Halka by Stanisław Moniuszko, selected parts of Il Trovatore (The troubadour) by Guiseppe Verdi, and Der Freischschuetz (The freeshooter) by Carl Maria von Weber, a one-act play by Korzeniowski, and also several Polish songs, and musical pieces by Joseph Haydn and Giulio Alary. The poster consisted of two parts: Russian and Polish; however, the Russian part contained very little information. The titles of the works were not translated into Russian as had been the rule even before the 1830s. Furthermore, contrary to what the poster said, the musical pieces performed were allowed by imperial censorship to be staged in Warsaw and the Polish Kingdom, but not in the SouthWestern provinces of the empire. Disturbed by the fact that theatrical poster, printed in the official gubernia printing house, was predominantly in Polish, and especially intrigued by the fact that the time of the event was different in the Russian (7 pm) and Polish (8 pm) parts of the poster, Vasilchikov arrived in the theater at 7.30 to find the theater building empty and dark. Consequently, by the request of the Governor General an official investigation followed the concert. The Civil Governor, Pavel Hesse, received 52 Dolzhikov, »Zametki teatrala,« July 16, 1860. 53 Nikolaev, Dramaticheskii teatr, 46. 252 On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth an order to convene the theatrical committee and to rule that all posters henceforth shall be printed in Russian including the titles of Polish plays that afterwards could be printed in Polish with the names of the actors. The order was implemented within a couple of days: The theater entrepreneur Borkowski was called in by the theatrical committee and informed on the language regulations, and the poster editor, a certain Chernyshev, was punished for his negligence by a three-day arrest. In addition, Vasilchikov reprimanded the officials who had allowed the poster to be published and demanded that all posters henceforth be published in both Russian and Polish.54 After this incident the imperial government tried to find support against the Polish elites in the growing strata of urban dwellers who generally took a pro-imperial stance. Yet the Kyiv urban cultural public was not a homogenous body. Who constituted the theatergoers in Kyiv and what exactly they prefered to see on the stage of the City Theater remained an open and sometimes much debated question. The official rhetoric tended to ignore the preferences of Kyiv’s rather heterogeneous public. For example, when in June 1857 theater director Nikolai Kobylin in his report to the Governor General justified his attempts at expanding the Russian troupe and reducing the Polish troupe, he argued that »as a Russian city and as the mother of Russian cities, Kyiv has the full right to have only a Russian troupe«, but he admitted that »the majority of the public consists of the Polish nobility.«55 When in 1860 dismissed Russian actors reported to the Governor General on how they were mistreated by the Polish entrepreneur, the Governor General appealed to the Civil Governor, who reminded Borkowski that if the Russian troupe ceased to exist, the Polish troupe would also be banned.56 It is interesting that Borkowski, in his turn, attacked the rebelling actors on Russian patriotic grounds. According to his report, the Russian actors had demanded high salaries, and while he had given them full freedom and expected them to stage »new original Russian plays with patriotic interest,« the Russian actors instead continued to perform translated French vaudevilles that did not satisfy the public. Borkowski then claimed that he had decided to replace 54 TsDIAK, f. 442, op. 37, spr. 150, ark. 1-6. 55 TsDIAK, f. 442, op. 85, spr. 658/1, ark. 91 reverse (report of Kobylin to Kyiv Governor General, June 1857). 56 TsDIAK, f. 442, op. 37, spr. 373, ark. 1 (Kyiv Governor General Vasilchikov to Kyiv Civil Governor Hesse, March 26, 1860). 253 Ostap Sereda them with new young actors who would have greater respect for Russian literature and the Russian audience. Borkowski declared that his main task was »to keep the interests of the theater in total accordance with demands of the government and of local publics.« Characteristically, the last word was used in plural.57 Based on Borkowski’s report, the theatrical committee supported the Polish entrepreneur against the Russian actors.58 After 1860 the political climate began to change substantially under the impact of Polish patriotic demonstrations in Warsaw and the resulting growth of Polish patriotic activities in Kyiv. The whole urban public space became a site of contested demonstrations with clear national-political meaning. At the same time the tone of official documents became more restrictive toward the Polish theater-going public. The discourse of »bureaucratic nationalism« began to dominate in the governmental papers. Also a part of the Polish public, especially students, radicalized at the beginning of the 1860s, had only the Kyiv City Theater as the main public space where they could act as a group. In April 1861, the Civil Governor reported that students of university and gymnasia often shouted and hissed at Russian actors and especially Polish actors who acted in Russian plays. The government intervened, and gymnasia students were no longer allowed to enter the upper galleries of the theater. Henceforth they had to buy tickets for those sectors that were better controlled by the police.59 Ignoring the orders, the student audience continued to »misbehave« in the gallery during the plays – for example, some would loudly demand the mazurka instead of a song at the middle of the Russian vaudeville.60 Nevertheless the audience in the same gallery was praised in a short piece in Kievskie gubernskie vedomosti as the only »theatrical public« and the only »true connoisseurs of art« who were able to enjoy the performance of Aldridge, while other parts of the audience were evidently bored by the famous actor.61 57 TsDIAK, f. 442, op. 37, spr. 373, ark. 3-5 (report of Borkowski to Kyiv Civil Governor Hesse, March 31, 1860). 58 TsDIAK, f. 442, op. 85, spr. 658/2a, ark. 19-20 (Kyiv Civil Governor Hesse to Kyiv Governor General Vasilchikov, July 12, 1862). 59 TsDIAK, f. 442, op. 811, spr. 83 (correspondence between Kyiv Governor General, Kyiv Civil Governor and curator of the Kyiv educational district, April through November, 1861). 60 Nikolaev, Dramaticheskii teatr, 50. 61 Sheikovskii, »Kiev.« 254 On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth In the early 1860s the pro-government and pro-Russian segment of society, which was represented by a growing group of Russian merchants, members of the intelligentsia, government officials, and military officers, became more visible in urban public life. In July 1862, Civil Governor Hesse argued that »in Kyiv a majority of the public is made up of Russians who attend exclusively Russian plays, and the Polish public in the city is rather insignificant. It consists of visitors who gather only during the Christmas Fair period.«62 But the liberal Russian Kievskii telegraf (Kyiv telegraph, established in 1859) was ambivalent about the Polish theater and its director. It promoted anti-Polish rhetoric in regard to the cultural policy in the region, and the standard tone in regard to Borkowski and his troupe was rather dismissive. According to the newspaper, »Mr. Borkowski with his miserable repertory and home-bred actors«63 favored the Polish troupe and ignored the Russian troupe,64 and consequently »oppressed and killed everything Russian and beautiful.«65 In contrast, in January 1863 a contributor to the same journal favourably commented on the bilingual character of the theater in the city, claiming that in no other provincial Russian city one could find two so well-formed troupes as in Kyiv. Borkowski was praised as someone who did not benefit from his entrepreneurial activity, but who in reality subsidized the theater out of his own pocket. The same author favorably announced the forthcoming amateur performance of Jewish students, which was expected to become a public success, bringing a large number of Jewish merchants to the city.66 Although Borkowski succeeded in making the theater financially viable and even paid 2,000 rubles annually to the City Duma during the period from 1858 to 1864, he did not manage to keep his post during the turbulent times of the 1863/64 Polish uprising. In 1863 the authorities sent the Polish troupe to Odessa, and the Russian troupe received another director, who was independent from Borkowski. Nevertheless, the latter kept contractual control over the theater until the end of the 1863/64 theatrical season. Finally he was replaced in June 1864 by the director of the Italian opera, Ferdinand Berger, and an actor of 62 TsDIAK, f. 442, op. 85, spr. 658/2, ark. 17 (Kyiv Civil Governor Hesse to Kyiv Governour General Vasilchikov, July 12, 1862). 63 »Spektakl’ 20 ianvaria.« 64 Junk, Alfred von, »Kievskaia letopis’,« November 16, 1861. 65 Idem, »Kievskaia letopis’,« May 7, 1861. 66 »Slovo o kievskom teatre.« 255 Ostap Sereda the Russian troupe, Nikolai Miloslavskii.67 By that time the Russian troupe again included the above-mentioned actress Fabianskaia. Her reappearance on the Kyiv stage provoked the telling comment from a reviewer of the Kievskie gubernskie vedomosti: »Ms. Fabianskaia (a native Pole) has learnt in Petersburg how to speak Russian correctly and get rid of her Polish accent, which used to be so disgusting on the Russian stage.«68 In the same issue of Kievskie gubernskie vedomosti the residents and citizens of Kyiv addressed a petition to the Emperor. Their declaration of total loyalty to the Russian monarch and to the Orthodox Church included the following statement: »We know in our hearts that our native province is the ancient Russian land.«69 They obviously meant to compensate for the previously ambivalent national identity of the city and its public. The residents of Kyiv were to become Russians very soon, and the rapid Russification of the cultural and theatrical life of the city followed through the 1860s. In February of 1866 the Italian opera troupe left the city, and the next theatrical season consisted mainly of performances of Russian drama and ballet. While ballet was always more popular among the Kyiv public, the situation of the drama theater was close to a catastrophe. The theater was usually only one third filled, and thus the troupe was approaching financial bankruptcy. The main impetus for theatrical reform came from above, which resulted in the establishment of a permanent Russian opera house in the city in 1867.70 As a result of systematic governmental efforts, the Polish theater existed only thirty more years, until 1897, when it disappeared from the city.71 Henceforth Polish opera performances were usually limited to Halka by Moniuszko, which stressed the conflict between Polish nobility and the peasantry, a conflict the Russian government liked to exploit. Although the Polish theater disappeared from the city at the end of the nineteenth century, the main City Theater retained its cosmopolitan character through the 1870s and 1880s. As in other major cities of the Russian Empire, the new urban middle stratum in Kyiv developed intensively in the period of the Great Reforms because of the 67 TsDIAK, f. 442, op. 85, spr. 658/2a, ark. 56 (Kyiv Military Governor to Kyiv Governor General, June 26, 1864). 68 Dolzhikov, »Zametki teatrala,« July 6, 1863. 69 Ibid., 203. 70 Sereda, »Die Einführung der russischen Oper.« 71 Korzeniowski, Za Złotą Bramą, 458. 256 On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth judicial reform and the opening of new educational and public institutions. The theater-going public, which by the mid-1860s mostly consisted of the Polish provincial nobility, integrated these growing groups of professionals, lawyers, doctors and educators. And although the elite Russian opera was promoted by the government and musical critics, such popular European cultural imports as Italian opera and French operetta dominated the musical theater in Kyiv. Conclusion Nineteenth-century Kyiv was a multicultural city that went from being a rather insignificant town located on the Polish-Russian border to being one of the most contested provincial centers of the Russian Empire. The Polish theater in Kyiv played an important role in the development of the Polish community within that modern urban context under the changing imperial rule. Attending Polish theater in the newly established Russian imperial provincial center became a social practice that facilitated belonging not only to a particular public, but also to a broader cultural communicative sphere that persisted within the borders of former Commonwealth, notwithstanding new imperial divisons. Until the 1863 January uprising, Polish musical theater in Kyiv belonged to the cultural map, which was structured around the Polish-dominated cities of Lviv, Warsaw and Cracow. Relations with the Polish theater in Austrian Galicia became especially prominent during the time of relative liberalization at the turn of the 1860s. With the radicalization of Polish-Russian relations, the Polish theater was increasingly seen as a threat to the pan-Russian identity of the city that imperial agents had forged and was expelled from the city after the 1863 January uprising. Consequently, from the late 1860s on, the musical theater in Kyiv became part of a bigger Russian operatic network, which was built around the imperial – both Russian and Italian – theaters in the capitals of St. Petersburg and Moscow. The theatrical life of Kyiv proves that the traditional nation-centered scheme, according to which theatrical life was clearly divided by national criteria, must be rethought into more of a dynamic model. In the mid-nineteenth century the City Theater in Kyiv occasionally provided a forum for political unrest, but it also created a zone of intercultural and interethnic interaction, and often adapted to the changing political contexts of a culturally polycentric imperial borderland. The Polish musical theater coexisted with the Russian theater and even 257 Ostap Sereda included certain elements of the emerging Ukrainian theater. At some points the theatrical stage also helped to facilitate the coexistence of Polish cultural identity with political loyalty to the Romanov Empire. All in all, the theater prominently contributed to the formation of the unique multicultural character of the city, which remained the highly contested urban center of a restive borderland through the course of the nineteenth century. Bibliography Archival sources TsDIAK (Tsentral’nyi Derzhavnyi Istorychnyi Arkhiv Ukrainy, Kyiv): Fond 442: Kantseliaria kyivs’koho, podil’s’koho ta volyns’koho heneral-hubernatora. Edited Sources Groza, Aleksander. Pamiętnik nie bardzo stary (Wyciąg z notat Władysława N.). Wilno: Nakładem Józefa Zawadzkiego, 1858. Sementovskii, Nikolai. Kiev, iego sviatynia, drevnosti, dostopamiatnosti. Kyiv, 1864. Articles in Journals and Newspapers Dolzhikov, Petr. »Zametki teatrala.« Kievskie gubernskie vedomosti, July 6, 1863, 203-204. —. »Zametki teatrala.« Kievskie gubernskie vedomosti, July 16, 1860, 181-184. Junk, Alfred von. »Kievskaia letopis’.« Kievskii telegraf, November 16, 1861, 355-356. —. »Kievskaia letopis’.« Kievskii telegraf, May 7, 1861, 133-135. »Kievskaia letopis’.« Kievskie gubernskie vedomosti, December 20, 1858, 322324. Kievskie ob«iavlenia, January 21, 1859, 19. Kievskie ob«iavlenia, January 16, 1859, 4. »Melochi iz arkhivov iugo-zapadnogo kraia. K zabotam general-gubernatora Bibikova ob ustroistve v Kieve postoiannogo teatra.« Kievskaia starina 74 (1901) 3: 85-88. 258 On the Frontiers of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth »Narodnosti i partii.« Kievskii telegraf, May 31, 1862, 165-166. N. Ch. »Teatral’naia unia v Kieve (iz zapisok russkogo chinovnika 1859-1860).« Kievlianin, May 15, 1865, 221-222. Sheikovskii, K. »Kiev. Mestnyia izvestia i zametki.« Kievskie gubernskie vedomosti, September 9, 1861, 215. »Slovo o kievskom teatre.« Kievskii telegraf, January 6, 1863, 6-7. »Spektakl’ 20 ianvaria.« Kievskii telegraf, February 1, 1863, 33-34. Scholarly Works Bovua [Beauvois], Daniel. Rosiis’ka vlada ta pol’s’ka shliakhta v Ukraini 17931830. L’viv: Kalvaria, 2003. —. Bytva za zemliu v Ukraini 1863-1914. Poliaky v socio-etnichnykh konfliktakh. Kyiv: Krytyka, 1998. —. Shliakhtych, kripak i revizor. Pol’s’ka shliakhta mizh tsaryzmom ta ukrains’kymy masamy (1831-1863). Kyiv: INTEL, 1996. Estreicher, Karol. Teatra w Polsce. Kraków: W drukarni Leona Paszkowskiego, 1873. Goldberg, Halina. Music in Chopin’s Warsaw. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Got, Jerzy, and Emil Orzechowski. Repertuar teatru krakowskiego 1845-1865. Warszawa: Instytut sztuki PAN, 1974. Hamm, Michael. Kiev: A Portait, 1800-1917. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Koropeckyj, Roman. Adam Mickiewicz: The Life of a Romantic. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 2008. Korzeniowski, Mariusz. Za Złotą Bramą. Działalność społeczno-kulturalna Polaków w Kijowie w latach 1905-1920. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 2009. Lysiuk, Olena. »Frantsuz’kyi teatr u Kyievi.« Muzyka 4 (1996): 30-31. —. »Antrepryza Ivana Shteina.« Muzyka 4 (1995): 26. Makarov, Anatolii. Kievskaia starina v litsakh. XIX vek. Kyiv: Dovira, 2005. Miller, Aleksei.»Ukrainskii vopros« v politike vlastei i russkom obshchestvennom mnenii (vtoraia polovina XIX v.). Sankt-Peterburg: Aleteiia, 2000. Nikolaev, N.I. Dramaticheskii teatr v g. Kieve. Istoricheskii ocherk (1803-1893 gg). Kyiv: Izd. Ya. B-go i N. N-va, 1898. P.T. »K istorii pol’skogo teatra v Kieve.« Kievskaia starina 29 (1890): 533-540. Pękacz, Jolanta. Music in the Culture of Polish Galicia, 1772-1914. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2002. Petrovskaia, Irina. Teatr i zritel’ provintsial’noi Rossii. Vtoraia polovina XIX veka. Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1979. 259 Ostap Sereda Pudelek, Janina, and Jadwiga Kosicka. »The Warsaw Ballet under the Directorships of Maurice Pion and Filippo Taglioni, 1832-1853.« Dance Chronicle 11 (1988) 2: 219-273. Rodkiewicz, Witold. Russian Nationality Policy in the Western Provinces of the Empire (1863-1905). Lublin: Scientific Society of Lublin, 1998. Ryl’s’kyi, Maksym, ed. Ukrains’kyi dramatychnyi teatr, vol. 1. Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1967. Senelick, Laurence. Serf Actor: The Life and Art of Mikhail Shchepkin. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1984. Sereda, Ostap. »Die Einführung der russischen Oper in Kiew 1867: Ein Fall imperialer Theaterverwaltung.« In Bühnen der Politik. Die Oper in europäischen Gesellschaften im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. by Sven Oliver Müller and Jutta Toelle, 187-204. Wien, München: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2008. Shamrai, Serhii. »Kyivs’kyi odnodennyi perepys 2-ho berezolia 1874 roku.« In Kyiv ta ioho okolytsia v istorii i pamiatkakh, ed. by M. Hrushevs’ky, 353-384. Kyiv: Derzhavne vydavnytstvo Ukrainy, 1926. Tabiś, Jan. Polacy na Uniwersytecie Kijowskim: 1834-1863. Kraków: Wydawnictwo literackie, 1974. Ther, Philipp. Center Stage: Operatic Culture and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Central Europe. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2014. Ułaszyn, Henryk. Kontrakty Kijowskie. Szkic historyczno-obyczajowy, 17981898. Petersburg: Nakładem księgarni K. Grendyszyńskiego, 1900. Weeks, Theodore. Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1863-1914. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996. Zahaikevych, Maria. »Muzychno-teatral’ne zhyttia pershoi polovyny XIX stolittia.« In Kyiv muzychnyi, ed. by M. Hordiichuk, 17-28. Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1982. 260 Maciej Górny Identity under Scrutiny The First World War in Local Communities As other post-1918 states of East Central and Southeast Europe, independent Poland represented a somewhat contradictory connection of a nation-state with a multiethnic society. While modern in many of its policies, it tolerated large enclaves of pre-modern traditions which had been inherited from the past empires of Russia, AustriaHungary and the German Reich. The First World War and the postwar turmoil proved decisive in renegotiating the balance between such identities and the newly born state. This article will identify some of the mechanisms of the transition from the nineteenth century to the interwar, while focusing on territories of imperial peripheries. Imperial loyalties It would be an overstatement to say that the outbreak of the Great War was accompanied by general enthusiasm of the population of East Central Europe. This does not make this region an exception, though. Since 1918, many historians had painted the image of cheering crowds on the main streets of most European cities, a picture that has been verified in the last decades. But the so called Spirit of 1914 or Augusterlebnis (the experience of August 1914) looked different at Unter den Linden in Berlin or in the German university cities full of nationalist (and loud) students than in the worker districts of the Ruhr area (Ruhrgebiet).1 Even in Europe’s capital cities concern prevailed over enthusiasm as hope mixed with fear. In the multiethnic territory of what would soon become the Second Polish Republic the general mood would probably be best described as one of loyalty. In Lviv (Lemberg, Lwów), the capital city of Habsburg Galicia, rivers of men flooded the streets – reservists were called to arms. Peasants rode bareback on horses unharnessed from plough or cart, then, horses were called up, too. Long columns of men in lines of 1 Verhey, The Spirit of 1914, 31-33. 261 Maciej Górny four with bags in hands, with bundles on backs, dressed as usual in knee-boots, linen white trousers, black or dark jackets and collarless shirts […]. Various people were there, small provincial burghers, craftsmen, workers of all kinds, merchants, intelligentsia and most of all farmers. Everybody joined at the first call, sometimes volunteered, knowing well that the fun is over. They marched through the streets in a rhythm typical of experienced soldiers. No one dragged his feet, there was no need to push anybody, nobody rioted.2 A Polish journalist in the Russian partition described a scene of young soldiers’ farewell with their families in front of the Warsaw University as a heartbreaking moment of unity: »Christian and Jewish families became virtual brothers in the atmosphere of common ill fortune.«3 From different reasons, Tadeusz Hołówko, a socialist, recalled these days as a personal trauma. On August 14th he and his wife Helena stood on the corner of Nowy Świat and Aleje Jerozolimskie in Warsaw. Suddenly a Cossack regiment appeared on the street, greeted by a gathering of mostly Poles: Excited ladies with shiny eyes bought flowers just to run between the horses and give them to the officers, men emptied their cigarettecases to pass cigarettes to the Cossacks who took them while sitting above with an indulgent smile.4 Contrary to the deepest conviction of the Hołówkos and their comrades, the inhabitants of Warsaw were obviously ready to accept the Russian army as »ours,« exactly like their compatriots in Galicia who cheered Habsburg regiments. Although imperial in their outlook and war aims, these armies consisted, to an extent, of neighbors and relatives. The fear of Germans and hopes for an internal liberalization may have played a part in Warsaw, but so did the sheer fact that the conscripts represented almost all nationalities. Furthermore, many thought that a fast victory would elevate the position of their nation within the empire, an attitude not exclusive to Russia. As an Austrian Zionist put it, »This time everyone is having equal rights, even the Jews.«5 2 Dębska, Polski wir, 35. This and all following translations of quotations into English are mine (MG). 3 Jankowski, Z dnia na dzień, 7. 4 Moczulski, Przerwane powstanie, 395-396. 5 »Österreich-Ungarn,« 794. 262 Identity under Scrutiny To the frustration of Polish socialists, the reactionary Russia enjoyed the loyalty of her Polish subjects as much as did other empires in East Central Europe. The campaigns of summer and autumn 1914 supplied sufficient evidence to confirm what Helena and Tadeusz Hołówko had already noticed. In 1914, as the Polish Legions (Legiony Polskie) entered the enemy territory, they met with the indifference of their compatriots in Russian Poland. The frustration of young nationalists expecting a catharsis of another national uprising who were confronted with the loyalism of Polish peasants is best illustrated in letters of enlistment officers of the Polish Legions. Some of them were ready to see this loyalty as a symptom of a degeneration of the local population. In such reports, peasants were typically said to perceive it an honor to host a Russian soldier and have no misgivings about handing him their wife or daughter for the night.6 Even quite late into the German and Austrian occupation peasants were heard to say that they hoped Russians would return and, occasionally, even to cheer »Long live Tsar Nicolas.«7 Some scribbled these words on official Austrian announcements posted on the walls of Polish towns. Decomposition along ethnic lines But in the end the conservative attachment to the empire turned into its opposite. As a matter of fact, this initial loyalty died not through the efforts of the nationalists but because of the failures of the imperial politics. No nationalist agitator spoke as clear as the armies’ brutal acts towards one’s own citizens. In the East, it was the pathologic spy hunt as well as Russian pogroms and Austrian executions that broke the Burgfrieden and finally disillusioned local populations. Thousands of Jews were forcibly transferred from the areas near the front into the shrinking remains of the Pale of Settlement by the overtly anti-Semitic politics of the Russian general staff, during the campaign in summer 1915.8 In the areas recaptured by the victorious Austro-Hungarians many Ukrainians, Poles and Jews were executed for alleged cooperation with the enemy. So long as such politics affected foreigners and minorities, the unity of the empire was not decisively put into question. But soon enough internment and forced migration became a threat that affected 6 Raporty i korespondencja, 173. 7 Rokoszny, Diariusz wielkiej wojny, 85. 8 Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire. 263 Maciej Górny more or less everybody, including the military.9 The process of ethnic decomposition played into the hands of nationalist activists, but they could hardly control it. Moreover, the decline of empires was not synonymous with the rise of the nation states. As the chaotic history of post-1917 Russia and Ukraine illustrates, there were other, more violent possibilities than a swift passage from empire to national state. As shown by Felix Schnell, the post-imperial phase of Ukraine’s history was marked by a chaos of competing political agendas ranging from Ukrainian nationalism to anarchism. All of them contributed to the persistence of privatized violence into the 1920s.10 To make this transition even more turbulent, many of the nonSocialist (nationalist to conservative) parties and organizations in East Central Europe since the beginning of the Great War seemed to identify their enemy primarily among fellow-subjects of a distinct faith and ethnicity. This regional feature of the conflict had emerged already in the first year of the war. In many ways, fragmentation along ethnic lines was the obverse of imperial loyalty. In Lviv Ukrainians and Poles pledged allegiance to the Habsburgs using similar words, but almost always separately. In fact, as early as 1914 both sides excelled in decrying their neighbors’ loyalty inadequate. Ethnic hostilities made coordinating humanitarian aid a political problem. In Warsaw and other Polish cities civic organizations distributing goods to people in need soon divided into those that served only Polish and those that catered only to Jews.11 On a larger scale, the inefficient Russian state repeated this pattern by delegating humanitarian tasks to non-governmental organizations with a nationalist outlook. In effect, Russians were helping mostly Russians, Jewish help went to the Jews, and Polish to ethnic Poles.12 On the Polish territories, the boycott of Jewish trade initiated by the National Democracy (Narodowa Demokracja) before the war continued up to the German occupation of Poland in 1915 (when it was prohibited by the military administration) and had begun again already in 1917. The home front divided along both national and class lines: in Russian Poland, Polish peasants opposed Polish estate owners. Simultaneously with the rise of interethnic and social tensions the war of minds (Krieg der Geister), as it had been called already during the First World War, the war of intellectuals intensified in East Central 9 10 11 12 Borodziej and Górny, Nasza wojna, 115-125. Schnell, Räume des Schreckens. Zieliński, Żydzi. Gatrell, A Whole Empire, 210-234. 264 Identity under Scrutiny Europe. Already in 1914 Polish, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian authors were engaged in a conflict over their nations’ future territories. Like German, French, and British intellectuals, they analyzed the character of their own and neighboring nations, inborn and historical features, racial and social structure, as well as psychology. The aim of this endeavor during wartime was to consolidate the nation and to conserve its distinctiveness from inferior and hostile neighbors. Political organizations of the national movements published and disseminated works written along these lines both among fellow countrymen and in translation in the hope they would influence international public opinion. The main difference between East and West in that regard was that in most cases the eastern front lines of the Krieg der Geister did not correspond to the real trench lines. One of the most brutal chapters of the intellectual war was the conflict between Polish and Ukrainian subjects of the Habsburg Empire. Both sides did their best to attract international attention and support. The degree to which this strategy succeeded varied. Whereas the Ukrainian propaganda in Germany influenced German politics and attracted public attention, Poles clearly dominated the topic in western countries. »The wars of the Pygmies« Many of the ›cold‹ intellectual wars turned ›hot‹ immediately after the ceasefire in the West or even slightly before. That was the case of the Polish-Ukrainian war in Galicia, initiated by the proclamation of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic on November 1, 1918 in Lviv. In a largely regular struggle between the Polish and the Ukrainian army, Poles gained the upper hand in June 1919. Almost immediately thereafter, both former enemies united in an attempt to regain Eastern Ukraine from the Bolsheviks. This short Polish-Ukrainian war in Galicia was, perhaps, closer to the modern western military technique and tactics than any of the numerous postwar conflicts in East Central Europe. Both sides respected the rules and limitations of The Hague and Geneva Conventions, at least in principle. In February 1919 they even agreed to regularly remind the soldiers of their responsibilities in this respect in the army newspapers.13 Linguistic proximity contributed to mutual understanding as shown by frequent cease-fire and prisoner exchange agreements. With one notable 13 Skrukwa, Formacje wojskowe, 534. 265 Maciej Górny exception of the unsuccessful attempt by the West Ukrainian People’s Republic to gain control over Lviv – defended by the local Polish population – the war consisted mostly of regular offensives and counter-offensives followed by the issuing of laws and the organizing of local authorities, conscription to the currently winning national armed forces, and the raising of taxes, all of which largely irrespectively of the local population’s nationality. Internment of some representatives of the local national elites, though sometimes brutal, also mirrored German, French, and British conduct in 1914. In rural areas of Eastern Galicia ethnic boundaries had become blurred and correspondingly the layer of self-proclaimed Polish or Ukrainian nationalists grew thin. Crimes, including the widely discussed pogrom in Polish Lviv that followed the seizure of the city by the Poles, in November 1918,14 were committed mostly either in absence of the government or at the moment of a shifting of power from one side to another. Most civilian victims were prisoners of internment camps operated by both sides of the conflict, with the deaths ascribed to either typhoid or influenza. Analogies between the western front and the Polish-Ukrainian war were not restricted solely to battlefields. Surprisingly, given the region’s educational deficits, they included modern propaganda designed to attract foreign attention and compromise the enemy as well as to homogenize and radicalize the public inside the country. This phenomenon has been discussed broadly by historians in recent decades in reference to the western front. Among the basic tropes of war propaganda the defenselessness and innocence of the victims of the enemy has been identified as the most prevalent (dead children and women killed, raped or mutilated by the Germans in France and Belgium, drowned on the Lusitania, or slaughtered by Austro-Hungarians in Serbia) along with the sexualization of war crimes. Nicoletta Gullace convincingly proves that rape became the central motif of the anti-German propaganda in Britain.15 In time, the difference between the symbolic rape of Belgium (i.e. German aggression against the neutral country and its lawless occupation) and actual rapes or propaganda fabrications concerning Belgian and French women tended to become blurred or disappear altogether. International order has been successfully identified with the safety of the family, both being endangered by the barbaric German masculinity. Sexual (and in many ways pathological) violence 14 Tomaszewski, »Lwów,« 279-283. 15 Gullace, »Sexual Violence,« 714-747. 266 Identity under Scrutiny against women became one of the most popular propaganda motifs, with recurring scenes of cut breasts, crucified nurses and murdered babies. The role of such stories was to mobilize public outrage, thus in publications of the British Parliamentary Recruiting Committee they became almost mandatory.16 There were certain deeper mythical structures underneath this sexualization of the conflict, too. Rada Iveković and Julie Mostov claim that »Gender identities and women’s bodies become symbolic and spatial boundaries of the nation. Women’s bodies serve as symbols of the fecundity of the nation and vessels for its reproduction, as well as territorial markers.«17 Though their study concerns mostly the Balkan wars in the 1990s, this particular observation fits the wartime narratives of 1914-1918 perfectly. The Polish-Ukrainian propaganda war and later developments bore a certain resemblance to the tales of atrocities in the west. Even years after the collapse of the short-lived Ukrainian statehood and land division between Poland and Soviet Union, in 1921 activists struggled to attract the attention of western politicians and opinion-makers with stories of alleged crimes of the Poles.18 The Ukrainian ›bloody book‹ described Polish Legionaries (almost all the alleged atrocities were attributed to this formation) attacking civilian women in the village of Kulchyci with sabers and then burying them alive or, on another occasion, gathering all Ukrainian children of Nahuievychi in a church, setting it on fire and shooting at escaping children.19 In the Polish press, of which Lviv was the second-largest publishing center, particularly in the national democratic journal Słowo Polskie (The Polish word), stories of mutilated wounded and prisoners of war accompanied poorly masked expressions of latent anti-Semitism. The latter culminated in accusations of Galician Jewry of cooperation with the Ukrainian ›barbarians‹ (Słowo Polskie, 1919).20 Typically, Jews were accused of supporting Ukrainian forces in their fight for Lviv. This, in turn, provided a retrospective argument for Polish activists abroad facing international criticism after the pogrom in November 1918. Hence, according to one of the experts of the Polish delegation to the peace talks in 16 The Truth. 17 Iveković and Mostov, »Introduction,« 10. 18 AAN, zespół (zesp.) 463, sygnatura (sygn.) 85, karty (k.) 29-40 (Report of the Polish embassy on Ukrainian participation to the women’s congress in The Hague, 1922). 19 Krvavá kniha, 12. 20 »Wieści z kraju.« 267 Maciej Górny Paris, Jews fell victim to street fighting they themselves had initiated. »They finally got what they claim to have suffered as early as 1914.«21 However, on closer inspection at least some of these atrocities, like other claims, though intended to stir, look amateurish and, as a matter of fact, must have seemed so already in 1919. Suffice it to recall a note in Słowo Polskie describing the killing of a wounded soldier with a pitchfork by an elder woman.22 Two years before a similar story appeared repeatedly in the Austro-Hungarian press serving as an excuse for the cruelty of the military regime in Eastern Galicia. A Polish officer’s comment to this war atrocity, in 1915, was caustic: You must be an Austrian to let yourself be killed by a woman with a pitchfork.23 However bloody, such stories could hardly win over anyone who had not been convinced of Ukrainian brutality long before. Alleged misdeeds of the Jewish population proved to be an equally ineffective argument. Franciszek Bujak, brilliant as an economic historian but mediocre at best as political pamphletist, could hardly convince an international audience conscious of the Lviv pogrom and other instances of anti-Jewish violence that anti-Semitism »is not an aggressive movement displaying itself in consequent deeds, but merely a psychic reaction against damages suffered by the Polish nation from their [the Jews] part.«24 Jan Zamorski’s mission In short: both internal and international Polish and Ukrainian propaganda in Galicia left much to be desired in terms of effectiveness and even logical coherence. But soon a real professional took over at least the Polish part of these efforts. Jan Zamorski, a close collaborator with – and heir to – the patriarch of the agrarian movement, Stanisław Stojałowski, had been editor of the agrarian journal Wieniec-Pszczółka (Wreath-Bee) and a nationalist deputy to the Viennese Reichsrat. In 1914 he was arrested and interned for his pro-Russian and anti-Habsburg attitudes and, in 1915, sent to the Italian front. After being captured by the Italians in 1916 and surviving the catastrophic conditions of the Asinara prisoners of war camp, Zamorski was appointed by the Italian government to run propaganda activities 21 22 23 24 AAN, zesp. 515, sygn. 186, k. 22-23. »Pod rządami.« Składkowski, Moja służba, 154. Bujak, »The Jewish Question,« 407. 268 Identity under Scrutiny among Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war of Polish origin. In this capacity, he published many articles, leaflets, as well as several brochures in Italian, including at least two devoted to his favorite topic of the future partition of Eastern Galicia.25 He may be considered one of the important, though unfairly forgotten, fighters in what Mark Cornwall in his Undermining of Austria-Hungary called »the battle for hearts and minds.« Atrocity propaganda had been one of the main strains of this international campaign financed by the Italian government.26 Zamorski’s political career was at its peak in early 1918. As the only Italian-speaking member of the pro-Entente Polish political representation in Rome (an offshoot of the Paris National Committee), he had the honor to speak to the congress of Austria’s »suppressed nationalities.« He also served as the Polish member of the conference presidium.27 Soon thereafter Zamorski left Italy. Upon returning to Poland, Zamorski was inducted into the Polish Parliament. On July 9, 1919 he presented the first results of the activities of a parliamentary commission on Ukrainian atrocities, with the Diet approving by acclamation the gathering of further data and publishing of the reports, both for Polish mass readership and for the international audience, if possible also for the Paris Peace Conference. His description of the events in Eastern Galicia reads as a repetition of the main motifs of anti-German and anti-Austro-Hungarian wartime propaganda: Particularly girls had been forced into labor, after which they were victims to the lust of soldiers. Commander Klee, a great Ukrainian ataman of German ethnicity herded Polish girls to a military brothel in Żółkiew [Zhovkva] […]. Having satisfied their lust, those soldiers usually murdered their victims. According to the deposition we collected in Chodaczkowo Wielkie [Velykyi Khodachkiv], near Tarnopol [Ternopil], an entirely Polish village, 4 girls were murdered in a garden …; their breasts were mutilated and Ukrainian soldiers cast those breasts about for enjoyment, like you would throw a ball …. It is known that women’s breasts were cut off and they stuck in peppers, placed a grenade in the private parts, and lighted that grenade using a fuse, to blow these nuns or female legionnaires to pieces. Such things continue to happen on a regular basis.28 25 26 27 28 Szablicka-Żak, »O Janie Zamorskim.« Cornwall, The Undermining. Pułaski, Z dziejów genezy, 56-64. Zamorski, O okrucieństwach, 5. 269 Maciej Górny Even more atrocities were reported by the information department of the Polish Foreign Ministry in August 1919 in a brochure issued in Italian most probably by Zamorski himself. Countess Chodkiewicz was claimed to have been raped along with her daughters and then virtually torn apart by a cannibal horde of Ukrainians. The enemy was accused of using Polish women as shields at the front and of crucifying Polish priests. Nuns from Jazłowice (sic!) (Jazłowiec, Iazlovets) were claimed to have been raped before being killed with hand grenades.29 Although Polish parliamentarians accepted Zamorski’s stories unanimously and without additional questions, I can hardly imagine a historian who wouldn’t be curious to see the interviews Zamorski referred to, that is, the original reports of the alleged Ukrainian atrocities. But before I turn to this issue some light must be shed on the model Zamorski intended to copy. Despite or, perhaps, because of the viciousness of the allied propaganda, historians in the interwar period tended to neglect accounts of German atrocities collected and reported in Belgium and France. This was most probably due to the fashion in which these cases of violence were documented and then exploited by French, Belgian and British propaganda. Interestingly enough, there had been some factual evidence behind such bloody narratives. Ruth Harris compared the available accounts of French victims to sexual violence with the ways they were later used in popular publications by the French commission of inquiry. She concluded that the real stories of women proved too commonplace to serve as a symbol for the rape of a nation. They were painstakingly recorded but then ›improved‹ by the commission members.30 The truth was sacrificed to strengthen their dramatic value. So too was the reality behind the appalling stories told by Zamorski. In the materials gathered by the Polish commission, there are, as a matter of fact, only two reports of rape and another two of an attempted rape. None of them ended in death. Perhaps not surprisingly, none of the thrilling stories told by Zamorski in the Polish parliament had been based on an existing testimony. Even the photographs accompanying the report on atrocities published in Italian do not deserve to be trusted. Almost all of them depict victims of only one particular execution, preceded by a regular Ukrainian military court trial and, thus, by no means representing a case of lawless barbarianism. 29 »Raport dyr. Departamentu Informacji,« 695-711. 30 Harris, »The Child.« 270 Identity under Scrutiny Photographs attached to the Report of Juliusz Rómmel, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka w Warszawie, Dział R˛e kopisów, Materiały Stanisława Stempowskiego. 271 Maciej Górny The rest is vague, as in the case of Janina Mroczkowska, who according to Zamorski had been a nurse during the Polish-Ukrainian war in Galicia. If we are to believe his account, Mroczkowska had been brutally murdered by Ukrainian soldiers in Galicia in 1919. In fact, she had been dead for almost eight months when the conflict started. In the unpublished diary of Stanisław Stempowski there is a copy of a report her commander Juliusz Rómmel issued in March 1918 (that is, at the moment when Eastern Galicia was still part of Austria-Hungary). He describes a clash between a group of soldiers of the artillery unit of the Polish Eastern Legion and the population of the village of Kachanivka in eastern Ukraine. Mroczkowska, who had not been a nurse but a volunteer in that unit, belonged to a requisition company which was attacked by peasants on its way with confiscated goods. She was taken prisoner and shot dead. Allegedly the peasants were convinced that the solitary girl among Polish male soldiers was the daughter of a hated local Polish landowner. In response to the attack on the requisition company, the Polish unit burned the village, killing approximately 50 peasants according to the estimate of Rómmel.31 The incident in Kachanivka had grave consequences. The resistance of peasants to requisitioning by formal Polish guests of the Kyiv Ukrainian People’s Republic grew and culminated in the bloody clash at Nemyriv and the withdrawal of Polish units from the decaying and revolted Eastern Ukraine, partly to Archangelsk, partly to Romania, and through Siberia to the East.32 Obviously, in absence of Galician atrocities, other events were re-used and in some cases simply invented. The archive of the atrocities commission bears signs of Zamorski’s frustration with unsatisfactory material, namely his notes and comments written directly on the documents, such as: »not important,« »not to be included in the publication« or »too few atrocities.« Some of the disappointing local reports were simply rejected.33 Neither did the international reaction to Polish and Ukrainian atrocity propaganda bring Zamorski any consolation. In August 1919, Nuncio Achille Ratti reported to the Holy See his embarrassment with stories that were not only exaggerated but simply fake: »The ethnic psychology and the atmosphere of the time are such that the one side claims, believes in and invents the worst, most brutal acts accus- 31 BUW Rps. Stanisław Stempowski, 18 III 1918 r. Raport. 32 Bagiński, Wojsko polskie, 386-391. 33 AAN, Biuro Sejmu RP, 1919-1938, sygn. 56a, k. 162, 165, 171. 272 Identity under Scrutiny ing the other side of committing them.«34 The western addressees of the campaigns were not ready to believe in stories overburdened with fake details, especially since they knew them all too well from their own wartime propaganda. Identities reported But the documents collected by the Zamorski commission tell a more important story. Though biased and focused on individual claims, they represent the attitudes of the inhabitants of south-eastern Poland in what to them was the sixth year of the war. What do they say? In general, peasant victims and witnesses to the military violence, Catholic and Uniate, were very reserved in their accounts of requisitions, theft, violence, and robbery, tending not to distinguish between the deeds of the Ukrainian and those of the Polish units. For some, this distinction seemed unimportant. As a parson in Sarnki Dolne (Sarnky) observed, for the inhabitants of the ethnically mixed territory, national identity was not a stable concept: The local Polish inhabitants suffered less because they are mixed with Ruthenians [i.e. Ukrainians]. Consequently a peasant and particularly a peasant woman in fear would claim to be Ukrainian when faced by Ukrainians and Polish to a Polish soldier.35 Many reports speak to a universal longing for a functioning state, for law and order. Some of the peasant victims seemed to have been inclined to welcome anybody capable of pacifying the region – in other words, of filling the space left by the dissolved empire. Many victims had already offered testimony before in Ukrainian military courts, obviously not seeing them as a farce intended to mask the barbaric character of the Ukrainian state. Moreover, in some cases they succeeded in asserting their rights. Before the Polish investigators, they applied for an additional financial compensation. In such cases, the demand for justice seemed to ignore the national identity of the ever-changing police and court officials. The character of the crimes committed in Eastern Galicia and the civilian suffering did not fit into the narrative so energetically developed 34 »Pismo nuncjusza apostolskiego,« 255. 35 »Pismo ks. Stanisława Cembrucha,« 598-599. 273 Maciej Górny by Zamorski and others. A typical account of the community commissioner in Supranówka (Supranivka) describes how the victim was approached by Ukrainian soldiers demanding to be led to the local deserters from their units: When I told the officer I did not know if there were any deserters in the community, the officer ordered his soldiers to lay me on the bench in the courtyard and beat me with whips. I do not know how many times I was hit neither do I know if there are any bruises on my arse. I can only say that I could not sit on it for a couple of days afterwards.36 At the end of the day, even after years of radicalization and nationalization, a Galician peasant’s perception of his community and his state was far from the image of a Polish national unity painted by Jan Zamorski and his fellow politicians. But the Polish propagandist chose to ignore the reality. In a book summarizing his Galician experience, published in 1922, he claimed: If anybody asked for evidence that an all-Polish [i.e. nationalist] worldview brings profits, let him look with his eyes and his heart at these two years of wars and invasions in Galician Podolia and he will see what miracles of sacrifice, love and national exaltation can an ›endek‹ [i.e. national-democratic], all-Polish education bring about.37 Even at this point, despite being one of the best-informed persons about the true extent and character of Ukrainian repressions, Zamorski claimed there had been ten thousand Polish victims of Ukrainian terror, and well after the Polish-Ukrainian hostilities culminated in an alliance against the Bolshevik threat, he still advocated the closing of Ukrainian gymnasia and declared Ukrainian culture as tending toward barbarianism. But the bulk of criticism and rage of his account was directed towards two other groups of the Polish society: Jews and socialists. According to Zamorski, they had been responsible for the misery of the truly Polish population of Eastern Galicia and for an allegedly pro-Ukrainian current policy of the Polish state. Obviously, in order to preserve the illusion of perfect national unity, the Polish integral nationalist had to identify and exclude people and groups he 36 AAN, Biuro Sejmu RP 1919-1939, sygn. 61, k. 110. 37 Zamorski, Z krainy, 29-30. 274 Identity under Scrutiny deemed guilty of preventing reality from matching up to his dream. Though it may sound paradoxical, it seems to be a rule in the political discourse of the radical right even beyond Poland and Ukraine that one would seek unity at a price of discord and exclusion. On the threshold of the interwar period, the collisions between imagined national community and complexity of the region’s ethnic and cultural structure manifested themselves in a most violent form. Processes inspired by dysfunctional imperial structures during the First World War continued under new circumstances further contributing to the processes of ethnic and political fragmentation of East Central Europe. For some national activists, notably Jan Zamorski, the period of wartime mobilization outlived the formation of the independent Polish state. When – if at all – this mobilization came to a halt remains an open question. Bibliography Archival Sources AAN (Archiwum Akt Nowych, Warszawa): Biuro Sejmu RP, 1919-1938, sygnatura 56a: Działalność Komisji Sejmowej dla Badania Okrucieństw Ukraińskich. Protokoły o postępowaniu z ludnością podczas inwazji ukraińskiej XI 1918 – V 1919. Biuro Sejmu RP 1919-1939, sygnatura 61: Działalność Komisji Sejmowej dla badania Okrucieństw Ukraińskich. Zespół 463, sygnatura 85: Raporty ambasady RP w Paryżu. Zespół 515 Biuro Prac Kongresowych przy Ministerstwie Spraw Zagranicznych. BUW Rps. (Biblioteka Uniwersytecka w Warszawie, Gabinet Rękopisów): Spuścizna Stanisława Stempowskiego, Dowódca 14 konnej baterii 3go Korpusu do Jenerała Porucznika Leśniewskiego, Stara Sieniawa, 18 III 1918 r. Raport (kopia) [no pagination]. Edited Sources Bagiński, Henryk. Wojsko polskie na wschodzie 1914-1920. Warszawa: Wojskowy Instytut Naukowo-Wydawniczy, 1921. Krvavá kniha. Vol. 1: Dokumenty k polské okupaci v ukrajinském území haličském. Rok 1918 až do prosince 1919. Praha: Vyd. Správou Západní ukrajinské národní republiky, 1920. 275 Maciej Górny Raporty i korespondencja oficerów werbunkowych Departamentu Wojskowego Naczelnego Komitetu Narodowego 1915-1916. Ziemia Kielecka. Ed. by Jerzy Z. Pająk. Kielce: Wydawnictwo Akademii Świętokrzyskiej, 2007. »Pismo ks. Stanisława Cembrucha do Kurii Metropolitalnej obrządku łacińskiego we Lwowie o sytuacji w parafii Sarnki Dolne podczas inwazji ukraińskiej 1918-1919, Sarnki Dolne 16 IX 1919.« In Kościół rzymskokatolicki i Polacy w Małopolsce Wschodniej podczas wojny ukraińsko-polskiej 1918-1919. Żródła. Vol. 1, ed. by Józef Wołczański, 598-599. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Papieskiego Jana Pawła II, 2012. »Pismo nuncjusza apostolskiego w Polsce abp. Achille Rattiego do Sekretarza Stanu Stolicy Apostolskiej, kard. Pietro Gasparriego o realiach wojny ukraińsko-polskiej 1918-1919, Warszawa 5 VIII 1919.« In Kościół rzymskokatolicki i Polacy w Małopolsce Wschodniej podczas wojny ukraińsko-polskiej 1918-1919. Żródła. Vol. 1, ed. by Józef Wołczański, 255-257. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Papieskiego Jana Pawła II, 2012. »Raport dyr. Departamentu Informacji w Warszawie dla polskiego MSZ na temat ukraińskich zbrodni podczas wojny 1918-1919, Warszawa VIII 1919.« In Kościół rzymskokatolicki i Polacy w Małopolsce Wschodniej podczas wojny ukraińsko-polskiej 1918-1919. Żródła. Vol. 1, ed. by Józef Wołczański, 695711. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Papieskiego Jana Pawła II, 2012. Rokoszny, Józef. Diariusz Wielkiej Wojny 1914-1916. Vol 1, ed. by Wiesław Caban and Marek Przeniosło, Kielce: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej im. Jana Kochanowskiego, 1998. Składkowski, Sławoj Felicjan. Moja służba w Brygadzie. Pamiętnik polowy, Warszawa: Bellona, 1974. The Truth about German Atrocities. London: Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, 1915. Zamorski, Jan. Z krainy ruin, tyfusu i niedoli. Warszawa: Książnica Polska TSNW, 1922. Zamorski, Jan. O okrucieństwach hajdamackich. Mowa posła tarnopolskiego, prezesa Związku L-N w Małopolsce, Jana Zamorskiego, na posiedzeniu 66 Sejmu dnia 9 lipca 1919. [Warszawa]: [no publisher indicated], 1919. Articles in Journals and Newspapers »Österreich-Ungarn unter Waffen.« Die Welt. Zentralorgan der zionistischen Bewegung, July 31, 1914. »Pod rządami Ukraińców.« Słowo Polskie, January 15, 1919. »Wieści z kraju. Z Drohobycza.« Słowo Polskie, January 3, 1919. 276 Identity under Scrutiny Scholarly Works Borodziej, Włodzimierz, and Maciej Górny. Nasza wojna. Vol. 1: Imperia. Warszawa: W.A.B, 2014. Bujak, Franciszek. »The Jewish Question in Poland.« In Ekspertyzy i materiały delegacji polskiej na konferencję wersalską 1919 roku, ed. by Marta PrzyłuskaBrzostek. Warszawa: PISM, 2002. Cornwall, Mark. The Undermining of Austria-Hungary: The Battle for Hearts and Minds. Houndsmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000. Dębska, Agnieszka. Polski wir I wojny 1914-1918. Warszawa: Ośrodek Karta, 2014. Gatrell, Peter. A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War I. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Gullace, Nicoletta F. »Sexual Violence and Family Honor: British Propaganda and International Law during the First World War.« American Historical Review 102 (1997) 3: 714-747. Harris, Ruth. »The ›Child of the Barbarian‹: Rape, Race and Nationalism in France during the First World War.« Past and Present 141 (1993) 1: 169-206. Iveković, Rada, and Julie Mostov. Introduction to From Gender to Nation, ed. by Rada Iveković and Julie Mostov. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 2002. Jankowski, Czesław. Z dnia na dzień. Warszawa 1914-1915. Wilno: [no publisher indicated], 1923. Lohr, Eric. Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Moczulski, Leszek. Przerwane powstanie polskie 1914. Warszawa: Bellona, 2010. Pułaski, Michał. Z dziejów genezy »Europy wersalskiej.« Współpraca Słowian Zachodnich i Południowych w ostatnim etapie I wojny światowej. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1974. Schnell, Felix. Räume des Schreckens. Gewalträume und Gruppenmilitanz in der Ukraine, 1905-1933. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2012. Skrukwa, Grzegorz. Formacje wojskowe ukraińskiej »rewolucji narodowej« 19141921. Toruń: Adam Marszałek, 2008. Szablicka-Żak, Jolanta. »O Janie Zamorskim i Tarnopolu.« In Na wygnanie do Tarnopola. Wspomnienia Jana Zamorskiego (1874-1948), ed. by Jolanta Szablicka-Żak. Nowy Sącz: Goldruk, 2008. Tomaszewski, Jerzy. »Lwów, 22 listopada 1918.« Przegląd Historyczny 75 (1984) 2: 279-285. Verhey, Jeffrey. The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth, and Mobilization in Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Zieliński, Konrad. Żydzi Lubelszczyzny 1914-1918. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 1999. 277 4. Counter-Narratives of the Twentieth Century? Re-Configurations due to Mobility, Violence and Transformation Dobrochna Kałwa and Katrin Steffen Introduction to the Twentieth Century Section The twentieth-century history of Poland and the whole region of East Central Europe was marked by numerous moments of change, the most significant ones in terms of historiography and collective memory1 being the years 1918, 1945, and 1989. Each of those years marks the start of a new political system in Poland that differed fundamentally from the one previous.2 What we intend in this section, however, is to focus not on the turning points themselves as strict caesura, but rather on the periods of transition that followed. Those periods are analyzed as processes in which the lack of stability itself can be seen as a stable element. This holds true not only for Poland but for several other states in East Central Europe. Whereas the emerging states during those transitional periods were potentially unstable, at the same time such periods constituted certain »enabling spaces« (Ermöglichungsräume), spaces rich in opportunities but also challenges. During each of these periods Polish society underwent complex dynamic processes of reconfiguration of more or less established social, political, economic, family, gender, and spatial relations. Those reconfigurations were often a result of violence, forced migration, or other forms of displacements or movements – mobility of people, but also of norms and ideas. While those reconfigurations presented opportunities for some parts of society, for others they constituted challenges or even severe risks. The first Polish state in the twentieth century emerged in 1918. As a result of the First World War, the peace treaties of Versailles, and the Polish-Russian War, lands that had formerly been partitioned between Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Prussia/Germany underwent an exemplary but contentious transformation into the Polish nation-state. With a population that was 30 percent national minorities, the new Po1 There are other years and caesura almost equally important for Polish society, such as 1905, 1939, 1956, 1968 and 1980/1981, but we would like to concentrate on these three years, since they symbolize fundamental changes in the political system and in society. 2 Borodziej, Geschichte Polens, 11. 281 Dobrochna Kałwa and Katrin Steffen land hardly constituted a nation-state, but rather a nationalizing state.3 The state emerged as an independent republican system but changed, especially after 1926, into an increasingly authoritarian one, making democratic developments limited. Nevertheless, in this respect Poland in the 1930s differed fundamentally from the neighboring dictatorships of National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union. For Polish society this rather short period from 1918 to 1939 represented a phase of rapid change and high social mobility, and the society had to adapt to the requirements of a »normal« Polish state with its representative institutions and framework. Many Poles had previously lived under foreign rulers or in countries far from the Polish territories, all the while often still feeling they were inhabiting the imagined geography of a Polish nation. In contrast, some members of the national minorities within the borders of the new state of Poland perceived this constellation as a threat. Large segments of Polish society, however, had huge expectations and hoped for a better life in their »own« nation-state. An initial atmosphere of enthusiasm and intoxication helped many to prevail, especially in the 1930s, when disappointment over missing or flawed policies such as the agrarian reform and other unsolved problems, including slow industrialization, economic crises, and destructive inter-party quarreling, entered the daily agenda. Nevertheless, Poland from 1918 to 1939 constituted »a living laboratory« for experiments in modern life, generating new models of politics, resourcefulness, culture, and identity.4 This period was disrupted by the catastrophe of German and, in the eastern parts of Poland, Soviet occupation from 1939 to 1945. As a consequence Polish society changed fundamentally. In 1945, its social and ethnic composition differed tremendously from the one in the interwar period. For the first time in its history, Poland was overwhelmingly ethnically Polish. A significant part of Poland’s elites, no matter of which nationality, had been deported or killed and their property confiscated. Most of the Jews had been murdered or had emigrated after the war. Many Germans were expelled (although some stayed) and many Ukrainians were relocated or deported either within Poland from the southeastern parts to new settlements in northern and western Poland or into the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic. Ethnic Poles were also part of the migrations caused by the territorial reshap3 Brubaker, »Nationalizing States.« 4 Kassow, »On the Jewish Street.« Kassow states this for Jewish life in Poland, but his observation can easily be applied to the whole of Poland. 282 Introduction to the Twentieth Century Section ing of the state, which was expanded westward while losing territory in the east. As a result of those massive resettlements, people with varied backgrounds – social, national, or regional – and completely different war experiences and biographies had to live together and form a new society. State socialism as a political system also constituted a challenge. Some people stood in clear opposition to the regime, but many came to terms with the new state-socialist reality and learned how to create and make use of certain »spaces for maneuvering,« though the freedom to do so was limited.5 In postwar Poland agreement and consensus, even if conditional or temporary, were as present as dissent and experiences of violence.6 In turn, after 1989 social practices of daily life that had developed under communism became inadequate or useless. The political and social realities of democracy, such as civil rights, freedom of speech, and an openness towards new and in part radical forms of a capitalist and neoliberal economy, motivated people to acquire new strategies, skills, and knowledge. Above all, however, the new democratic society required a new collective identity, one that was embodied in a firm anticommunism and accompanied by a significant boom in memory culture perception.7 This first led to a pluralization of diverse memories following 1989, before a return to a nationally connoted paradigm took place that has continued to this day. The political regimes in twentieth-century Poland, as much as they differed from one another, all brought fundamental changes in its society, since each system encompassed a continuous processes of transition on many levels. Following the logic of their representatives, each needed to prove its superiority over the previous system – the nation-state of 1918 over the imperial order, the socialist state over the »bourgeois« and authoritarian one of 1918-1939, and the democratic system after 1989 over state socialism with all its supposed social benefits, which were played off by its former representatives against the new and sometimes brutal capitalist economic order. At the same time each had to intensively deal with the legacies of the former order, not only regarding politics and economics, but also on a cognitive level, that is, in the mind of every member of Polish society. Those phases of transition were and still are complex processes. Accordingly, the proposed approaches to history presented in this section 5 Jarosz, Polacy a stalinizm; Świda-Ziemba, Człowiek wewnętrznie zniewolony. 6 Krzoska, Ein Land unterwegs, 17. 7 Main, »Memory of Communism.« 283 Dobrochna Kałwa and Katrin Steffen focus on phenomena and situations that by definition are unstable, unclear, or marginal, and as such violate the axiological, social, or political order. Consequently, the most important research topics regarding a reinvented and methodologically reconceptualized history of Poland in the twentieth century are violence, mobility, migration, sexuality, social relations, regimes of memory, and »imaginary« communities. In this context, cases of local communities and peripheral spaces are of particular interest and importance, because looking at historical processes from a perspective different from the dominant and central one will reveal new aspects of already identified problems and phenomena. The histories of local communities, especially in moments of crisis or in states of liminality and transition, can offer new perspectives based on counter-narratives. Such counter-narratives can be a promising epistemological alternative to dominant historical imaginations or master-narratives in the historiography of Poland, in which chronological order, social structure, and political dynamics are taken for granted. Local or peripheral communities and a translocation of locality, thus situating local experiences into a wider perspective, challenges established historiographical interpretations and undisputed ways of knowledge production. We can see this very clearly in Olga Linkiewicz’s contribution to this section. She demonstrates to what extent the local story of the villagers in the borderlands of Eastern Galicia before World War II differs from the national imagination about the Kresy (›Borderlands‹), and she posits that historical knowledge is also in part a product of hegemonic memory-construction.8 If one takes a closer look at those villages and is receptive to a »history from below,« as Linkiewicz points out, the picture gets much more complex. The perspective of the »local« in this regard requires looking beyond the established and stable structures as defined by disciplinary, cultural, national, or temporal boundaries. As one can conclude from Linkiewicz’s article, such a perspective stresses the fluidity of concepts and categories used in historiography – for example, the often used and maybe even more often misused idea of identity in terms of essentialism – since we always and most everywhere find fluctuating identities or concepts of identities that are not always congruent with a declared or codified national identity. Further terms under question are multiculturalism and multicultural society, being equally in danger of being conceptualized in frames of essentialism or something normatively positive, as is ethnicity. If we 8 Zarycki, Ideologies of Eastness. 284 Introduction to the Twentieth Century Section take the local perspective, ethnicity in many cases seems to be understandable as a concept that is situational rather than stable. This approach questions the prevailing narrative of ethnic differences, which supposes that, in a teleological manner, such differences led to violence in the region. Such a narrative, however, neglects the political, social, or economic reasons for outbursts of violence. To be clear, the postwar reconfigurations of society in Poland in the years following 1918 and 1945 were indeed often a result of overlapping acts of violence (structural and accidental), institutional constraint (physical and symbolical), or forced mobility (spatial and social).9 Not surprisingly, the historiography of East and Central Europe in recent years has turned increasingly to the violence that shattered the region.10 While violence undoubtedly constitutes an important factor in analyzing the history of the region during the twentieth century, we should not neglect social, political, or religious developments that reduced or ended violence.11 The social conditions for a de-escalation of violence were very diverse, and they are worth examining to reveal how and when social conduct was conditioned by institutional or even linguistic frameworks set up by some particular order or conditioned social conduct. Kornelia Kończal’s article demonstrates that the mass phenomenon of the plundering of German property in Poland and in Czechoslovakia after World War II, which was often accompanied by violence, was not something »natural« that simply occurs during times of chaos, but a practice that was functionalized by state authorities in order to help rebuild the destroyed infrastructures of their countries. As Kończal shows by analyzing the semantics used in the postwar period, this practice both informed and indicated the rules of social conduct under the conditions of violence and forced mobility, which ultimately led to the authorities’ consenting to plundering. We have here an interesting example of communication practice between the state and local actors that existed only as a hidden agenda. No historical records indicate an official approval of plundering. Thus the distinction between a productive, nonviolent pioneer and a destructive plunderer that exists in 9 Żarnowski, Państwo i społeczeństwo; Zaremba, Die Grosse Angst. 10 Snyder, Bloodlands; Jochen Böhler, Włodzimierz Borodziej, and Joachim von Puttkamer (Eds.), Legacies of Violence; also Julia Eichenberg, John Paul Newman, »Introduction.« 11 See for example Nijakowski: Rozkosz zemsty. Nijakowski explains why in Poland following World War II violence against the remaining Germans was strong, but also had its limits. 285 Dobrochna Kałwa and Katrin Steffen historiography as well as in memory proves to be a rather imaginary construction, a construction we can unmask if we look not at the level of official condemnation of plundering, but at a different level of cultural practice non-dominant in our memories. It is important to stress that the post-1989 transition was, in contrast to 1918 and 1945, surprisingly peaceful and relatively nonviolent. Since then, the question of »collective memory« has played a crucial role in Polish society. It has indeed become one of the crucial subjects in the Polish humanities and social sciences. We find this concept in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and, last but not least, in history. Interdisciplinary studies on memory offer a variety of theories, methods, and epistemological approaches, or certainly at least simply questions to be examined. Such studies should cross-reference the aforementioned concepts and categories embedded in historiography, such as identity, in order to examine their roles in and impact on the production of historical scholarship, and by doing so to redefine them and put them into a new context. In this respect, we find it especially important to look at the various processes of memory, as well as at memory agents producing the representations of the past and memory actors presenting and performing collective recollections, in order to answer questions about structures, social relations, and political aims. Within the frames of collective memory, there is always a place for the »imagined other« delineating the boundaries of the relevant community. Regarding Polish collective memory, the neighboring or cohabiting nations – especially Germans, Russians, Ukrainians, and eventually Jews, to mention the most significant communities – were assigned to play that role for defining the ethnically Polish nation.12 Relations to those groups have been undergoing reconfiguration since 1989. Along with memorializing the expelled, emigrated, or murdered former inhabitants of certain local communities, the dominant Polish majority had to restructure its everyday life and everyday contacts with the minorities still living in Poland. In this context, peripheral memory communities – for example, in the borderlands of the western and eastern parts of Poland – should not be underestimated, as their counter-narratives and apocrypha have often been a foundation for the restoration of local memory, with some of them eventually entering the official memorial imagination. The same probably holds true for conceptualizing memory or any attempts at creating the »one« national memory, since any memory community is organized 12 Steffen, »Disputed Memory.« 286 Introduction to the Twentieth Century Section by elements perceived to be part of a universal vision of the world, while in actuality such elements are resonating particular contemporary problems, fears, and hopes of the community.13 The concept of the national self becomes problematic as soon as we abandon the central, dominant perspective and go to the borderlands, where the sense of belonging to the local community prevails over and precedes other collective identities. When the area of transition is considered not literally but figuratively, the concept of borderland is efficacious in allowing the processes of interplay between varied types of memories, collective identities, and public discourses to become objects of historical investigation. In biographical research, the borderland perspective deconstructs the myth of stability and coherence of an essentially defined identity of historical actors, who in fact constantly play with remembrance and oblivion and adjust the autobiographical »moments« to make them consistent with contemporary problems, needs, and present self- and collective identities. Winson Chu, in his article examining the autobiographical remembrance of Karl Dedecius, refers to the multidimensional phenomena of memory culture. In Chu’s analysis, this renowned writer and translator appears »only« as a German: one who first experienced the epitome of war in Stalingrad, and then attempted to come to terms with the horrific past, not so much by remembering or forgetting as by reconfiguring his autobiography to make it coherent with German national memory. Chu draws controversial and perplexing conclusions from his thorough analysis of Dedecius’s autobiographical writings, which, when read as a flexible entity, unfold the patterns both of memory-work and self-identity, with family and private values at the core. Dedecius’s case exemplifies how powerful and persistent certain frames – national ones, for example – can be for the self-identification of individuals, communities, and collectives. History analyzed through a lens of memory may lead to unexpected, controversial, and therefore inspiring conclusions on seemingly established and obvious views of the past. The boundary between memory and historiography is blurred as they exist in a continually reciprocal relationship, with both being entangled in socio-political changes, contemporary challenges, and uncertainty about the future.14 The case of post-1989 Poland reveals the complexity and omnipresence of 13 Kwiatkowski, Pamięć zbiorowa. 14 Wawrzyniak, »History and Memory«; Kałwa, »The Split of Identity.« 287 Dobrochna Kałwa and Katrin Steffen consequences of the socio-political transformation, as in the rise of transitional justice and memory wars15 and the establishment of new, imagined communities of memory, which could be national or local, religious or political, and so forth.16 The historiography of twentieth-century Poland has been deeply enmeshed in memory discourses.17 Undoubtedly, the anticommunist paradigm has been instrumental in establishing interpretations of the past. The dominant narratives of the post-1989 historiography on political issues at one time focused on the state and the nation, both of them perceived as being coherent and homogenous. Consequently any inconsistent elements were silenced, or deemed marginal or insignificant. Instead of from a multiplicity of perspectives, Polish society was often portrayed as an agent of permanent anticommunist resistance against the state and the communist regime represented by members of the Party and the state apparatus alienated from that society.18 The historiographical picture leaves little space for the complexity of social structures and the ambiguity of everyday activity. A focus on political history often means neglecting certain theoretical concepts and methods, despite their capacity to expand our understanding of the past. Dietlind Hüchtker’s contribution to this volume illustrates the subversive potential of a cultural approach in the research on Polish postwar history. The author aims not only to reinterpret the history of a socialist society – Poland serves as an example here – in terms of popular culture, everyday life, local style, etc., but also to examine the benefits and the limitations of the chosen theoretical approach. Performative and communication theories applied to the analysis of gender order, the concept of youth, and spaces of popular culture play a central role in this approach. Such a methodological bricolage enables the historian to problematize social history in terms of gender identity, a transnational transfer of life styles, and the relationships between global and local popular culture. It also offers tools necessary to recognize the agency of historical actors and to explain their strategies and practices of communication, consumption, sexuality, or resistance. The emphasis on culture does not mean a disregard for political issues. On the contrary, Hüchtker consequently refers to the political 15 Brzechczyn, »Polish Discussions.« 16 Koczanowicz, »Memory of politics.« 17 Stobiecki, »Historians Facing Politics of History«; Górny, »From the Splendid Past.« 18 Kennedy, Professionals, Power and Solidarity. 288 Introduction to the Twentieth Century Section context, whether it be official propaganda or state policy towards the youth, in order to reveal embroiled relationships and tensions affecting Polish society under socialist reconstruction. The cultural approach allows us to bind two levels of history: local cases of individual performance, and global or at least transnational historical phenomena. Locality, both in its metaphorical and its literal sense, enables us to read into the diversity of meanings, norms, and practices. By expounding historical problems in a transition-oriented way (cross-cultural, trans-disciplinary, trans-local), we question the dominant historical narratives by revealing and reconstructing the mechanisms of knowledge production. It is our main intention to pose new questions to be answered. Bibliography Scholarly Works Böhler, Jochen, Borodziej Włodzimierz, and Joachim von Puttkamer, eds. Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe’s First World War. München: Oldenbourg, 2014. Borodziej, Włodzimierz. Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert. München: Beck, 2010. Brubaker, Rogers. »Nationalizing States in the ›Old New‹ Europe – and the New.« Ethnic and Racial Studies 19/2 (1996): 411-437. Brzechczyn, Krzysztof. »Polish Discussions on the Nature of Communism and Mechanisms of Its Collapse: A Review Article.« East European Politics & Societies 22/4 (2008): 828-855. Eichenberg, Julia, and John Paul Newman. »Introduction: Aftershocks: Violence in Dissolving Empires after the First World War.« Contemporary European History 19/3 (2010): 183-194. Górny, Maciej. »From the Splendid Past into the Unknown Future: Historical Studies in Poland after 1989.« In Narratives Unbound: Historical Studies in Post-Communist Eastern Europe, ed. by Antohi Sorin, Balázs Trencsényi, and Péter Apor, 101-172. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007. Jarosz, Dariusz. Polacy a stalinizm: 1948-1956. Warszawa: Instytut Historii Nauki PAN, 2000. Kałwa, Dobrochna. »The Split of Identity: The Role of a Historian’s Autobiographical Memory in the Research of Contemporary History.« In From Mentalités to Anthropological History: Theory and Methods, ed. by Barbara Klich-Kluczewska and Dobrochna Kałwa, 13-32. Kraków: Historia Iagellonica, 2012. 289 Dobrochna Kałwa and Katrin Steffen Kassow, Sam. »On the Jewish Street 1918-1939.« In Polin: 1000 Year History of Polish Jews, ed. by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Antony Polonsky, 227285. Warsaw: Museum of the History of the Polish Jews, 2014. Kennedy Michael D. Professionals, Power and Solidarity in Poland: A Critical Sociology of Soviet-Type Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Koczanowicz, Leszek L. »Memory of Politics and Politics of Memory: Reflections on the Construction of the Past in Post-Totalitarian Poland.« Studies in East European Thought 49/4 (1997): 259-270. Krzoska, Markus. Ein Land unterwegs. Kulturgeschichte Polens seit 1945. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2015. Kwiatkowski, Piotr. T. Pamięć zbiorowa społeczeństwa polskiego w okresie transformacji. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, 2008. Main, Izabella. »The Memory of Communism in Poland.« In Remembering Communism, ed. by Maria Todorova, Augusta Dimou, and Stefan Troebst, 97-118. Budapest, New York: Central European University Press, 2014. Nijakowski, Lech M. Rozkosz zemsty. Socjologia historyczna mobilizacji ludobójczej. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, 2013. Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books, 2010. Steffen, Katrin. »Disputed Memory: Jewish Past, Polish Remembrance.« Osteuropa: Impulses for Europe. Tradition and Modernity in East European Jewry 8-10 (2008): 199-217. http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-11-27-steffen-en. html. Stobiecki, Rafał. »Historians Facing Politics of History.« In Past in the Making: Historical Revisionism in Central Europe After 1989, ed. by Michal Kopeček, 179-196. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2008. Świda-Ziemba, Hanna. Człowiek wewnętrznie zniewolony. Mechanizmy i konsekwencje minionej formacji – analiza psychosocjologiczna. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 1997. Wawrzyniak, Joanna. »History and Memory: The Social Frames of Contemporary Polish Historiography.« Acta Poloniae Historica 103 (2011): 127-146. Zaremba, Marcin. Wielka Trwoga. Polska 1944-1947. Ludowa reakcja na kryzys. Warszawa: Znak, 2012. Zarycki, Tomasz. Ideologies of Eastness in Central and Eastern Europe. London, New York: Routledge, 2014. Żarnowski, Janusz. Państwo i społeczeństwo Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej. Warszawa: Neriton, 2014. 290 Kornelia Kończal The Quest for German Property in East Central Europe after 1945 The Semantics of Plunder and the Sense of Reconstruction1 The removal of Germans from East Central Europe after the Second World War is considered »the largest internal population migration in recorded European history.«2 Ninety per cent of those who had to move westwards lived in territories that are today part of Poland and the Czech Republic. Understandably, thousands of pages have been written about the experiences and identities of German expellees. Far less is known about the property that they left behind, and the impact that it had on the post-war reconstruction of the social order in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Between 1945 and 1949, German property was taken over by new possessors through legally sanctioned confiscations and through looting. As a Czech journalist observed, plundering »left its mark on almost every village and town« in the former Sudetenland.3 Travellers to the so-called Recovered Territories in Poland had similar impressions. When recalling a legend about the theft of valuables from the Breslau cathedral, a Polish writer noted in 1946: »Were the eye of providence, with its gaze, to be turning raiders and despoilers into stone today, as it once did, then the windows of the Lower Silesian houses would be lined with the heads of those characters, caught red-handed.«4 The voices of other contemporary observers, and even more so the recollections of the expelled themselves, leave no doubt that the plundering of German property was a mass phenomenon. Plundering is typically defined as the illegal takeover of abandoned and heirless property. Yet, as far as Germans in East Central Europe are concerned, only the property of evacuees and refugees could be 1 I would like to thank Tristan Korecki, Ingo Maerker and Andrea Talabér for help with translating quotations from sources in Polish, German and Czech respectively. 2 Stone, »Editor’s Introduction,« 3-4. 3 Trojanová, Nový domov, 12. 4 Jarochowska, Namiętności, 48. 291 Kornelia Kończal considered as such, and only until the laws on confiscation transferring it to the Polish and Czechoslovak states came into force.5 Thus, at least up until the autumn of 1946, when the authorities of both countries declared that the expulsion had been accomplished, the situation was a paradox. Because Germans who were supposed to be expelled had been expropriated, legally speaking, the victims of plunder were not the Germans but the Polish and Czechoslovak states. Nevertheless, instead of considering the illegal takeover of post-German property in terms of »theft,« all categories of contemporary documents focus on »plunder.« This shows how strongly the reference to the former owners – be they present or absent – shaped the Polish and Czechoslovak imaginary of property issues in the post-German territories. The history of plunder was therefore less embedded in the legal framework that existed in post-war Poland and Czechoslovakia and more in a specific way of thinking about property through the lens of cultural difference. This is to say that we cannot understand the history of plunder without considering its semantics. The existing scholarship has interpreted the illegal takeover of German property in a strikingly one-dimensional way: While the narratives of expulsion have described plunder as yet another form of German suffering, the historians of the post-war resettlement have depicted it as an opportunity for easy enrichment, mostly with destructive effects for society and the economy as a whole. In both interpretations, plunder appears as a ›natural‹ epiphenomenon of the post-war chaos.6 As we will see, both the problem and its solution lie in the language used. When dealing with plunder, historians usually refer to practices that were explicitly termed with German, Polish and Czech words to describe looting. Yet, the actual semantics of plunder went far beyond a set of explicit keywords. As a result, large areas of the everyday life history in the post-German territories have remained 5 Kuklík: »Deutschland und die Personen deutscher Nationalität,« 16-27; Janusz, Status ludności, 40-54. 6 Much of this literature concerns the history of Silesia: Ordyłowski, Życie codzienne, 119-125; Madajczyk, Przyłączenie Śląska Opolskiego, 178-183; Kaszuba, »Codzienność powojennego Wrocławia«; Ther, Deutsche und polnische Vertriebene, 126-130; Sauermann, »Fern doch treu«, 48-57, 103-106; Tracz, Rok ostatni, 121-126; Thum, Uprooted, 118-126; Zaremba, Wielka trwoga, 273-313; Hytrek-Hryciuk, »Rosjanie nadchodzą!«, 76-81; the Lubusz Land: Stokłosa, Grenzstädte in Ostmitteleuropa, 96-99; Halicka, Polens Wilder Westen, 170-174, and the Sudetenland: Gerlach, For Nation and Gain, 108-120; Wiedemann, »Komm mit uns das Grenzland aufbauen!«, 89-101. 292 The Quest for German Property in East Central Europe after 1945 unexplored. As we will see, the language of plunder can be understood better with the help of cognitive semantics that, in contrast to objectivist approaches, focus on interactions between speakers and their environment. An inquiry informed by this relational perspective reveals, for instance, that, in specific settings, the popular quest for German property was consonant with the politics pursued by the Polish and Czechoslovak authorities. The aim of this article is to overcome the commonsensical understanding of plunder as a ›natural‹ occurrence of the post-war chaos. Instead, I see it as a meaningful practice that both informed and indicated the rules of social conduct. The first two sections of this article explore the explicit and implicit vocabularies of plunder that existed in post-war Poland and Czechoslovakia. The last section inquires into the messages that were transmitted between the lines. Focusing on the authorities’ consent for plundering, I show how the state functionalised the illegal takeover of German property for the sake of rebuilding the basic infrastructure. This paradox invites us to rethink the well-established views on the post-war reconstruction. Powerful labels Used interchangeably in English, the words »plundering,« »looting« and »pillaging« correspond to the Polish plądrowanie and the Czech plundrování. Yet the discourse on plunder in post-war Poland and Czechoslovakia was shaped by other keywords: szaber and zlatokopectví respectively. Whereas the latter can be translated literally as »gold digging,« the former does not have any suitable equivalent in the English language. Some attempts have been made at translating these local terms into German. Instead of writing about Plünderer, Sudeten Germans have typically used the literal translation of the Czech Goldgräber, i.e. gold digger. German expellees from the territories that were to become part of Poland in 1945 have described Polish plunderers as Beutemacher (literally: booty makers) or Raubritter (robber-knights).7 Yet, while scholars working with expellees’ recollections stick to the neutral vocabularies around the verb plün7 These remarks are based on numerous autobiographies of German expellees and testimonies that were published in: Schieder, Dokumentation der Vertreibung. On the history of this project see Beer, »Im Spannungsfeld von Politik und Zeitgeschichte«; Haar, »Die deutschen ›Vertreibungsverluste‹.« 293 Kornelia Kończal dern (whose Middle High German form inspired its English equivalent), those working mainly with Polish and Czech sources have taken over the contemporary language: their narratives approach plunder in terms of szaber and zlatokopectví. Given the prominent role of these keywords in both historical sources and scholarly works, it is worth taking a closer look at them. Although szaber is recorded in every standard Polish dictionary and ranks among the »100,000 necessary Polish words,«8 its etymology remains unclear. Two different explanations have been advanced to clarify its origin: it is derived either from the Hebrew šābar (to break),9 or from the New High German words schëver (pieces of stones, debris) or Schaber (a tool for scraping).10 What is certain, however, is the transfer of the word into the standard language from the lingo of thieves.11 This shift took place in the first half of the 1940s. Since then the verb szabrować has been used to describe the illegal appropriation of property that was abandoned or heirless or simply perceived as such, while szabrownictwo stands for plundering, and szabrownik means plunderer.12 One of the first records of this new meaning of szaber is from the chronicle of the Warsaw ghetto compiled by the Polish-Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum (1900-1944). In late 1942, he noted that »immediately after someone’s deportation, the neighbours rushed into his flat and took everything. In the jargon of occupation, this was called ›szaber‹.«13 Yet it was only during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 that szaber gained currency.14 In the Recovered Territories, additional new words emerged: the so-called szaberplac designated the marketplace where German goods were sold and exchanged, and the szabrobus was the bus line connecting it with the railway station. This development contrasts with the situation in Czechoslovakia, where the well-known word for »gold digging« (zlatokopectví) was 8 Bralczyk, 100 tysięcy potrzebnych słów, 808. 9 Brzezina, Polszczyzna Żydów, 105-108; Małocha, »Żydowskie zapożyczenia leksykalne,« 151. 10 Kopaliński, Słownik wyrazów obcych, 485. 11 Kurka, Słownik mowy złodziejskiej, 23; Jaworskij, »Kumać po lembersku,« 281; Estreicher, Szwargot więzienny, 80. 12 Rospond, »Nowotwory czy nowopotwory językowe;« Milik: »Nowe słowa;« Kowalska-Leder, »Szaber.« 13 Ringelblum, Kronika getta warszawskiego, 460. 14 Doroszewski, Rozmowy o języku, 93-101. 294 The Quest for German Property in East Central Europe after 1945 charged with an additional meaning.15 The overlap between »gold digging« and »plundering« grew out of two popular associations. One of them was the widespread belief that, as a new inhabitant of Czechoslovakia’s post-German territories put it, Germans had buried their »gold, precious stones and materials because they thought that they would return.«16 The other has its origins in adventure novels about the nineteenth-century gold rushes, which sparked the imagination of pre-war readers. According to press reports from the early post-war weeks, the influx of plunderers into the post-German territories was reminiscent of »a real fever, whose American original gave our ›gold diggers‹ their nickname.«17 Except, the gold-diggers in post-war Czechoslovakia were searching not only for German gold. The term applied rather to people »who, inspired by adventure stories, came to seek their fortune, which was just lying on the streets waiting to be picked up.«18 The word zlatokopectví quickly became synonymous with plundering.19 Accordingly, zlatokop (gold digger) stands for »plunderer« and zlatokopčit (to dig up gold) for »to plunder.«20 Despite the different origins of szaber and zlatokopectví, »Mister Szaberski« and »John Zlatokop« respectively became labels used for particularly ›enterprising‹ plunderers.21 Most importantly, the range of their activities was not limited to the illegal takeover of post-German property. It also included its redistribution on the black market, and various misuses of it commonly referred to as white-collar plunder, such as corruption, embezzlement and squandering. This is due to the fact that szaber and zlatokopectví became umbrella terms for every possible kind of offense against post-German property. As a Polish 15 In Czech, the words šábro (chisel) and šábrovat (to break in), documented in historical dictionaries of the language used by thieves in the Bohemian lands, had already been abandoned by the interwar period. See Zíbrt, »Puchmajerův slovník,« 175; Juda, »Tajná řeč,«141; Bredler, Slovník české hantýrky, 95; Rippl: Zum Wortschatz des tschechischen Rotwelsch, 50. 16 Jedermann, Ztracené dějiny, 11. 17 »»Zlatokopové« na českém severu,« Stráž severu, 1. 18 Adam, »Sabotáž podnikání.« Stráž severu, 1. 19 In contrast, the Slovak semantics of plunder did not revolve around gold. Usually, one used the well-established noun rozkrádanie, which can mean both plunder and theft (I would like to thank Soňa Gabzdilová for elucidating this issue for me). 20 Příruční slovník jazyka českého, vol. 8, 539; Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 769. 21 Miklaszewski, »Z wizytą u państwa Szaberskich,« Przekrój, 12; »Bývalý nár. [odní] dělnik,« Dikobraz, 5. 295 Kornelia Kończal observer put it, szaber »became so trite that any phoney commodity would be so named; and all the dishonest people, and clerks demanding a bribe, were called szabrownik.«22 It is remarkable how quickly the new words replaced the traditional vocabularies related to plunder.23 The only Czech verb that ›survived‹ the advance of the »gold digging« was »to rob« (rabovat). Yet, in contrast to »gold digging,« it does not contain the sense of adventure: rabovat implies violence rather than adventure. For this reason, it was mainly used to describe the activities of the Revolutionary Guards (Revoluční gardy), a paramilitary organisation active around the end of the war, and charged with the task of keeping order. The chapters dealing with security issues will explain why its units were popularly called »the Robber Guards« (Rabovací gardy). In Polish, the dominance of szaber proved to be unrivalled. One expressed the difference between violent and non-violent plunder with the help of different prefixes indicating the time and energy invested in the illegal activity, so that plundering could oscillate between za-, na-, przy-, roz- and wyszabrować. The opposite was also true and a diminutive could transform the plunderer into a mere szabrowniczek, and his illegal occupation could be reduced to szaberek.24 Given that, in the direct aftermath of the war, szaber was often characterised, in both public and private discourse, as »unknown,« »strange« and »incomprehensible,« or simply put in quotation marks, its rapid proliferation suggests that the problem of plunder was one of the most intensively discussed topics in post-war Poland. What makes the Polish and Czech semantics of plunder really different, however, is the realm of associations related to both keywords. To think about plunder in terms of zlatokopectví means to focus on the illegal takeover of German property, whereas thinking about szaber relates to a double-layered history: that of Germans and Jews. This is due to the fact that, during and after the war, three types of looting emerged in the Polish territories, in which the Jewishness of the property in question was undeniable: the looting in the former ghettos; searching for valuables in the territories of the liberated extermination camps; and pogroms – often motivated by material interests. 22 Klin, Horyzont miasta, 106; cf. Ther, Deutsche und polnische Vertriebene, 297-298. 23 The ›traditional‹ verbs related to robbery include grabić, kraść, łupić, plądrować and rabować in Polish, and drancovat, krást, loupit, loupežit, plenit, plundrovat and rabovat in Czech. 24 E.g. Wiesław: »Eldorado«, 4; »Jak szabrownik szabrownikom wyszabrował szabrownika«, 5. 296 The Quest for German Property in East Central Europe after 1945 All these instances of plunder were called szaber.25 None of them had an equivalent in the Czech lands. Thus, in contrast to the Czech »gold digging,« the Polish verb szabrować is automatically associated with both post-German and post-Jewish property.26 When we look behind the words, however, this statement needs a clarification. Because the Nazi authorities had confiscated the property of Czechoslovak Jews, and handed it over to Germans, after the war it was largely considered post-German.27 Thus, in 1945, the houses of the Holocaust survivors in the Czech lands were either occupied by non-Jewish Czechoslovak citizens (who had taken them over from expelled Germans) or had been plundered. The latter type was considered zlatokopectví, but neither the word itself nor the practice that it described was connected to Jewish property.28 This example shows how the wartime transfer of ownership shaped the post-war imaginary of plunder so that its very keywords reveal as much as they conceal. Furthermore, the strong association of the words szaber and zlatokopectví with German wealth reduces the post-war quest for property to a bilateral – Polish-German or Czechoslovak-German – history. However, the imagination of plunderers was boosted by the alleged lack of national or ethnic reliability of several groups of people living in post-war Poland and Czechoslovakia. This (mis)perception served as justification for both legal and illegal takeovers of their property. 25 Polish plunderers searching for Jewish gold were designated not only with the generic term szabrownik. They were also called »diggers« (kopacze) or »gold diggers« (poszukiwacze złota). See e.g. »Obóz oświęcimski pod ochroną państwa,« 1; »Poszukiwacze złota w popiołach ludzkich,« 1; Shallcross, The Holocaust Object; Buryła, Tematy (nie)opisane, 115-240. 26 As Jan T. Gross has observed, other Polish expressions constructed according to this pattern, e.g. »post-French« or »post-British,« »would be considered simply linguistic mistakes.« See Gross, Golden Harvest, 29. Yet, this is less due to philological correctness and more to the fact that, in modern Polish history, the large-scale seizure of abandoned goods was limited to the aftermath of the Holocaust and the expulsion of Germans. Less often used terms are adjectives such as podworski (post-manor), denoting property taken from land owners and nobility, as well as words referring to property that was seized during the post-war transfers of population, such as połemkowski (post-Lemkos), pobiałoruski (post-Belarussian) and poukraiński (post-Ukrainian). 27 Čapková, »Národně nespolehliví?!« 28 The disconnection of property from its former owners was even stronger in Slovakia, where the post-Jewish goods were redistributed not only among Germans but also Slovaks. 297 Kornelia Kończal Especially endangered were those East Central Europeans who had signed the German People’s List: for instance, Polish-speaking Masurians living in the former East Prussia;29 the so-called Moravians from the Hlučín region (lying between Ostrava and Opava);30 and the descendants of Czech Protestants who, in the 1740s, emigrated from north-east Bohemia to the area around Strehlen (today: Strzelin) in Prussian Silesia.31 The experiences of these ›imagined Germans‹ invite us to see the history of plunder as a lens through which we can analyse the East Central European reproduction of Othering. Given the crucial role the Germans played in collective identity-building in East Central Europe and their status as the enemy during the Second World War, the plunder of ›German‹ property is presented as a confrontation with the traditional adversary, and therefore much more than just an epiphenomenon of the post-war chaos. The above overview reveals both szaber and zlatokopectví as powerful labels that crystallise certain occurrences of plunder, without covering its history in a comprehensive way. What is largely absent from the scholarship focused on the explicit semantics of plunder are the voices of the plunderers themselves. This lacuna is due to the fact that people who illegally took over property of German evacuees, refugees and expellees hardly described their own activities in these terms. As will be shown in the following section, to ignore the implicit semantics of plunder results in broad areas of its history being overlooked. Implicit semantics In the scholarly literature, the predominant perspective on post-war plunder is that of the (allegedly) non-plundering others, especially victims, but also bystanders and eyewitnesses. This focus is partly due to the scarcity of ego-documents created by plunderers themselves. On closer examination, however, it turns out that the self-descriptions of plunderers are much more prolific than is usually assumed; the difference is that they have been framed in categories other than szaber and zlatokopectví. 29 Kochanowski, »Giną całe wioski …« 30 For an overview see Plaček, Prajzáci. 31 For an overview see Stěříková, Zemé otců. 298 The Quest for German Property in East Central Europe after 1945 In the accounts of plunderers, we find a series of words related to scouring, digging, searching, cleaning and securing.32 Imprecise and ambiguous verbs, such as »to organize,« »to wangle« and »to arrange,« were also popular.33 As has been rightly observed, these words’ »equivocalness is actually a functional advantage: it enables people to avoid elucidating how they get scarce goods.«34 A good illustration of this approach to plunder is the following recollection of the early postwar period as witnessed by a young Polish boy: Gradually, by hook or by crook, through ›reclamations‹, and by trading with the Russkis, Mum turned the empty house into a household. She won quite a few pieces of furniture for a good-looking although broken wristwatch. A few days later, the aggrieved party came over, complaining rather than making a complaint: ›Khoziayka, ti menya odurachila‹ [›Goodwife, you’ve made a fool of me‹]: but it sounded more like his appreciation of the pretty Polish lady’s business acumen than a spiteful comment. A section of the bedroom had come from the grandma’s room, which her beloved brother had made for her as a wedding gift. A comfortable armchair upholstered in purple plush, had come from somewhere else. Pots, spoons, plates, trays, cups were turning up – the family’s antiquities today […].35 We find similar stories in the recollections of local officials and teachers who plundered equipment that was necessary to run their workplaces, or in accounts on the regions where plunder from post-German territories was used to rebuild the heavily-damaged infrastructure.36 In all these recollections, the post-German objects somehow »turned up.« 32 These euphemisms included the Polish verbs buszować, czyścić, myszkować, szukać, przekopywać, przeszukiwać, przetrząsać and zabezpieczać, as well as the Czech čistit, hledat, překopávat, prohrabat, prohledat, řádit, šantročit, šmejdit and zabezpečit. 33 This applies in particular to the Polish verb kombinować (literally, to combine, in the sense of to wangle), which remains without a proper equivalent in other languages apart from Hebrew (kombina); the Polish verbs organizować, postarać się and załatwić also have similar meanings, as do the Czech verbs organizovat, zařídit si and dohodnout. 34 Pawlik, »Intimate Commerce,« 79; see also: Zaron, »Kupić, sprzedać, zrobić, ukraść,« 184-185; Chaciński, »Kombinieren.« 35 Kuczyński, »Ruskie,« 27. 36 Particularly valuable insights are provided by a collection of ego-documents collected by the Western Institute in Poznań in 1957 (Instytut Zachodni 299 Kornelia Kończal However, the most popular euphemisms for plundering were different types of »taking« and »carrying away.« In the usage of these verbs, Polish and Czech but also German activities are conflated. The writer Anno Surminski, an expellee from East Prussia, observed that during the multiple population movements around the end of the war »respect for other people’s possessions was completely abandoned, not just between the victors and the defeated, but also among the defeated. Everyone took what they could get their hands on.«37 An expellee from Silesia made a similar remark: »›Mine‹ and ›yours‹ had long ceased to mean anything – even for the Germans. […] A German farm woman had the shopping bag of a teacher who had been forced to leave, and her daughter wore the coat of a noble lady.«38 Significantly, when Germans were »taking« German property, their fellow citizens did not call it »plunder.« The latter word was reserved for activities carried out by the Slavic ›others.‹ The »taking« of German property was not confined to the so-called wild expulsions that were carried out in the early post-war months.39 It also continued during the organised expulsions of 1946. Many memoirs from concentration and labour camps, where Germans were detained before their removal, resembled the following recollection from Liberec: »When we arrived, our luggage was emptied onto large tables and the soldiers took what they liked.«40 Germans who were not put into camps were often forced to share their places with the newcomers. This ›cohabitation‹ was usually a time of taking. A Czech priest from the western borderland of Czechoslovakia recalled: »The number of new residents was rising fast. The German people watched their arrival with anxiety. The Czechs, they just occupied whatever they wanted — often disregarding people’s feelings — the houses, businesses, farms, 37 38 39 40 im. Zygmunta Wojciechowskiego, Poznań: Pamiętniki osadników Ziem Odzyskanych); Borkowski, Tak pamiętają to ludzie, 19. Surminski, »Der Schrecken hatte viele Namen,« 70. Bin ich noch in meinem Haus?, 89. Tomáš Staněk and Adrian von Arburg challenged the conventional distinction between »wild« and »organised« expulsions, arguing that the expulsion of Germans had been declared part of the official policy already during the war, that the details of this operation had been systematically organised by political leaders and security forces in the direct aftermath of the war, and that the Czechoslovak Army was responsible for its implementation. See Staněk and von Arburg, »Organizované divoké odsuny?« Engelmann, Mein Lebensbericht, 3. 300 The Quest for German Property in East Central Europe after 1945 property.«41 The same happened to German property that the Polish and Czechoslovak authorities had put in warehouses, as well as that which Germans stored with their neighbours and friends. These arrangements mostly proved futile, as the latter refused to return what had been entrusted to them. Interestingly, we find descriptions of this type of »taking« exclusively in German recollections: none of the numerous Polish and Czech ego-documents I have read mention this way of appropriating German goods. The obvious, yet rarely applied, conclusion that can be drawn from this finding would be to take the lack of evidence seriously, i.e. to explore not only what was said about plunder but also the moments of silence. The unwillingness to describe one’s own deeds in terms of plundering is one source of implicit semantics. Another reason as to why instances of the illegal takeover of German property were often not termed using explicit vocabularies is related to the blurred boundaries of plundering itself. This opacity gave rise to the creative use of a series of euphemisms, which is well illustrated by the example of a specific form of »taking« that emerged in encounters between soldiers and civilians and was known as makhnem (maxhem). Used in Russian and Polish, the word makhnem can be translated as »Let’s make a swap, shall we?« During the war, it served as a leisure activity for the soldiers. As we see in the pictures below: two soldiers meet, one puts his hand into his pocket and clenches it into a fist, asking: Makhnem? The other does the same, or grabs hold of the watch on his left wrist, and replies: Davay, makhnem. This brief exchange was followed by the swapping of the objects in their hands. In this way, one could win a »pocket knife for a button, lose a gold watch for a cotton reel, or win a car for a handful of worthless charges of unused cartridges.«42 Towards the end of the war, makhnem had been transformed into a subtle way of looting, in which constraint was merged with free will. Its central moments were an uneven exchange of goods, the profiting of the Soviet soldier, and the lack of protest from the other party. The bedrock of the setting in which it took place was the superiority of the winner.43 One can but speculate about the number of post-German watches and other commodities that ended up in the possession of Soviet soldiers in this way. 41 SOkA Kladno, Jaroslav Baštář: Byl jsem dvanáct let v pohraničí, folio (f.) 4. 42 Przymanowski: Ze 101 frontowych nocy, 217. 43 Żukrowski, Kierunek Berlin, 148; Pająkowa, Ucieczka od zapachu świec, 68. 301 Kornelia Kończal A scene from the 7 th episode of the Polish television series Four tank men and a dog (1966), directed by Konrad Nał˛ecki and Andrzej Czekalski, written by Janusz Przymanowski, 19661969, which follows the adventures of a Polish tank crew in the 1st Polish Army in 1944 and 1945: Gustlik and Grigori, the main characters in the series, are playing makhnem. Another type of »taking« established in the Polish and Czech semantics of plunder was shaped by the specific usage of the Russian equivalent for trophy: trofey (mpoфeŭ). This term originally related to the so-called trophy battalions: special units within the Red Army that 302 The Quest for German Property in East Central Europe after 1945 were charged not only with dismantling machinery and equipment but also with taking steel, coal and iron ores.44 For instance, in Czech the corresponding Czechoslovak-Soviet agreement was described as an agreement on trophies (trofejní smlouva).45 In everyday communication, however, trophy-related vocabulary was used not only to describe the dismantling but also the plundering carried out by Red Army soldiers. The Polish and Czech Russianisms of trofiejszczyk and trofejník respectively could mean both the member of a trophy battalion and a soldier looting for his own needs.46 The same applied to the Polish and Czech adjectives trofiejny and trofejní: they could designate property that was removed by soldiers both legally and illegally. Over a short period of time, the original meaning of the latter was further broadened: soon after the end of the war, both words could refer to every kind of plunder, no matter whether the looter was a foreign soldier or a fellow citizen.47 What the different uses of the trophy-related vocabularies have in common is a high degree of acceptance: the respective instances of »taking« were rarely conceived as disgraceful offenses against property. On the whole, the implicit semantics of plunder indicates that there were different degrees of social consent for plundering. Obviously, one absolved oneself of one’s own deeds. However, settings in which the illegal activities of the others were socially accepted are more instructive for the exploration of the post-war social order than the realm of subjectivities. As we will see in the next section, it is the tension between the explicit and implicit semantics of plunder that explains when and why the social acceptance of plundering was a widespread occurrence. Hidden messages Already in the early post-war period, the szabrownik in Poland and the zlatokop in Czechoslovakia were being depicted, in contrast with the »pioneers,« as a threat to the rebuilding of the war-damaged economy. 44 Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 166-183. 45 »Záznam státního tajemníka.« 46 Příruční slovník jazyka českého, vol. 6, 237; Bajerowa, Język polski czasu drugiej wojny światowej, 318. Zblewski, Leksykon, 149. 47 Interestingly, examples of this usage of the term can be found in the recollections of ›ordinary‹ people as well as those of high-ranking communist politicians: Chajn, Kiedy Lublin był Warszawą, 158; Cílek, Čas přelomu, 49; Mrowczyk, »Sztab Zaolziański,« 214. 303 Kornelia Kończal A popular slogan reminded people that »there is no pest who loots as best.«48 For many decades, this clear-cut distinction between villains and heroes has informed the political discourse, cultural representations and the images of the post-war reconstruction promoted in the media.49 Strikingly, the opposition between pioneers and plunderers also resounds in the scholarly literature, produced both before and after 1989, where the authorities’ attitude towards plunder is addressed mainly through their attempts at controlling the illegal takeover of German property. Indeed, when focusing only on the explicit semantics, one gets the impression that the authorities’ main concern was to combat plunder. Yet taking the implicit semantics of plunder seriously reveals another layer of communication on plunder that existed in the early post-war period between the state and society: the authorities’ consent for plundering. An attempt to explore the messages hidden behind the official slogans is a difficult task to perform because of the huge volume of political speeches in contrast with the small number of reports from informal settings. This applies in particular to the post-German territories, where several important processes that took place during the expulsion and resettlement were not documented. For instance, the head of the Polish Settlement Office, Władysław Wolski, recalled that, when overwhelmed by pressing requests, he would spend the time around midday in a Warsaw coffee house: every day, he noted, »people would come to me to help them handle their business, which was settled not through official channels but ›just like that‹, privately.«50 Sometimes, the scarcity of sources was the result of a deliberate decision.51 Despite these constraints, certain messages on plunder that circulated between the authorities and individuals can be relatively well reconstructed. For instance, ego-documents from the early post-war period provide information about the ways in which the new inhabitants of the post-German territories sensed the authorities’ attitude towards them. Instructive in this regard is the following recollection of a post office clerk from Pomerania: 48 »Hasło i rzeczywistość,« 4 (in the Polish original: Nie ma szkodnika nad szabrownika). 49 While pointing to the devastating consequences of plunder, parallels were often drawn with diseases or the danger posed by wild animals. This is visible in the frequent use of such verbs as »to ravage« or »to prowl« (in Polish grasować and pustoszyć; in Czech loupit and pustošit). 50 Wolski, Kartki kontrowersyjne, 334. 51 NA, A ÚV KSČ – Předsednictvo ÚV KSČ, svazek (sv.) 1, archivní jednotka (a.j.) 1, f. 4. 304 The Quest for German Property in East Central Europe after 1945 When some people sought a raise on their meagre salary, their superiors gave them a response that boiled down to one statement: you, in the west, have it so easy; seems you manage better than anyone else. Indeed. Whoever managed less well had only himself and his short-sightedness to blame.52 In the same vein, in a report by the city magistrate of Wrocław from late 1945 dealing with the illegal activities carried out by local officials we read that »those plundering referred to the consent of the higher authority for making money on the side in this way.«53 We could easily dismiss similar claims as the offenders’ attempts to find an excuse for their own misdeeds. A closer look at the communication between the authorities and society in the local settings confirms that the popular quest for German property and the politics of reconstruction mutually reinforced each other. For instance, while the governor of Lower Silesia, Stanisław Piaskowski, introduced strict measures to control plunder,54 it was an open secret that, at the same time, he accepted the plundering carried out by his staff members. This brought him sharp criticism from members of the Polish Workers’ Party.55 Himself a socialist, Piaskowski could nevertheless defend his strategy against his political frenemies. Instead of condemning him, the local communists recognised the benefits of the consent to plunder. In the summer of 1945, they agreed that the governor »is a wise man, a sly old fox, he lets you carry the plunder[ed goods] away and he touts for people with this, he believes that people should be allowed to do things these days, as they chase after it, the war has left the Central Voivodships devastated, the people are poor.«56 One can suppose that Piaskowski’s rationale was not much different from the goals pursued at that time by the heads of the Settlement Office57 and the Ministry of Public Security.58 Both considered the temporary consent to plunder a solution to the material shortages of the underpaid employees and underequipped institutions. In other words, plunder was supposed to augment the efficiency of officials and the security forces working in the post-German territories. 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 AZZIP173 (n. pag.). AP Wrocław, ZM, sygnatura (sygn.) 128 (n. pag.). Piaskowski, »Te lata najmilej wspominam.« Kaszuba, PPR i PPS. AP Wrocław, KW PPR Wrocław, sygn. 5, karta (k.) 6. Wolski, Kartki kontrowersyjne, 333. »Odprawa kierowników WUBP,« 82. 305 Kornelia Kończal To be sure, there is no known historical record showing that the Polish government adopted a position of general approval toward the plunder perpetrated by those who were supposed to be building the new infrastructure in the Recovered Territories. One can assume, however, that Piaskowski and his high-ranking colleagues from other state institutions sensed the support of their superiors. Revealing in this regard are the words pronounced in Wrocław by the Polish Prime Minister, himself a socialist, in a meeting with the members of the Polish Socialist Party. As the participants were complaining about their hard working conditions and low wages, Edward Osóbka-Morawski responded: »If they’re in poverty, then they’re butterfingers. When you go to the field, you can always hustle something for yourself.«59 Significantly, this suggestion was made not in the early post-war weeks, but in late 1945. Plunder was also functionalised in Czechoslovakia: until the first post-war parliamentary elections in May 1946, the political consent to plunder significantly shaped the takeover of German property in the former Sudetenland. Given the more sophisticated mode of confiscation applied by the Czechoslovak authorities, the various functions of plunder can be reconstructed more accurately on the basis of institutional documents.60 In Poland, where the confiscation of German property was not as thoroughly documented as in Czechoslovakia, it is only with the help of the implicit semantics produced in semi-formal and informal settings that we can explore when and why the authorities accepted plunder. In both countries, the consent to plunder existed as long as it was economically and politically useful. Thus, in a sense, post-war reconstruction in Poland and Czechoslovakia was carried out through plunder. Accordingly, the interpretation of plundering as a ›natural‹ reaction to the post-war chaos allows us to tell, at best, only half of the story, whereas the western-like distinction between productive and destructive forces proves to be largely imagined. Nevertheless, the opposition between pioneering and plundering continues to organise the East Central European memory of the early post-war period until today. While discussing my research with Polish and Czech friends and colleagues, I have learned much about their grandparents plundering neighbours, about their distant or, at least, disliked relatives profiting from the expulsion of Germans, and about unknown black-hearted villains. According to these interpretations, 59 AP Wrocław, WK PPS, sygn. 10, k. 7. 60 For an overview see Čapka, Slezák, and Vaculík, Nové osídlení pohraničí. 306 The Quest for German Property in East Central Europe after 1945 one’s own family members only observed plundering but were never involved in it. In short, the bad characters were the others. It seems, however, that the collective proclivity to externalise one’s own involvement in the illegal takeover of post-German property has less to do with an »overslept revolution,« as Andrzej Leder has recently termed the Polish lack of acknowledgement of the massive property transfers in the wake of the Holocaust and Stalinism,61 than with a revolution that has been »overwritten.« As far as Poland is concerned, the consideration of plundering as a form of »taking« has certainly made it easier to interpret the incorporation of the post-German territories in terms of recovery – although some areas of the ›Recovered Territories‹ returned to Poland after eight hundred years. Bibliography Archival Sources Archiwum Państwowe we Wrocławiu: Komitet Wojewódzki Polskiej Partii Robotniczej Wrocław; Wojewódzki Komitet Polskiej Partii Socjalistycznej; Zarząd Miejski. Engelmann, Isa. Mein Lebensbericht, May 2013 (unpublished manuscript). 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Małocha, Agnieszka. »Żydowskie zapożyczenia leksykalne w socjolekcie przestępczym.« In Języki subkultur, ed. by Janusz Anusiewicz and Bogdan Siciński, 135-170. Wrocław: Wiedza o Kulturze, 1994. Milik, Józef Tadeusz. »Nowe słowa.« Język Polski, 27 (1947): 21-23. Naimark, Norman M. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995. Ordyłowski, Marek. Życie codzienne we Wrocławiu 1945-1958. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1991. Pawlik, Wojciech. »Intimate Commerce.« In The Unplanned Society: Poland during and after Communism, ed. by Janine Wedel, 78-84. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Pająkowa, Krystyna. Ucieczka od zapachu świec. Warszawa: Iskry, 1965. Plaček, Vilém. Prajzáci, aneb, K osudům Hlučínska 1742-1960. Hlučín: Kulturní dům Hlučín, Kravaře: Kulturní středisko zámek Kravaře, 2000. Příruční slovník jazyka českého, vol. 6: T-Vůzek, and vol. 8: Zaráběti-zžonka, Praha: SPN 1955-1957. Rippl, Eugen. Zum Wortschatz des tschechischen Rotwelsch. Versuch einer lexikographischen Darstellung. Reichenberg: Gebrüder Stiepel, 1926. Rospond, Stanisław. »Nowotwory czy nowopotwory językowe.« Język Polski, 25 (1945): 97-105. Sauermann, Dietmar. »Fern doch treu.« Lebenserinnerungen als Quellen zur Vertreibung und ihrer kulturellen Bewältigung am Beispiel der Grafschaft Glatz. Marburg: Elwert, 2004. Staněk, Tomáš and Adrian von Arburg. »Organizované divoké odsuny? Úloha ústředních státních orgánů při provádění ›evakuace‹ německého obyvatelstva (květen až září 1945).« Soudobé dějiny, 12 (2005): 465-533; 13 (2006): 13-49; 13 (2006): 321-376. Shallcross, Bożena. The Holocaust Object in Polish and Polish-Jewish Culture. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2011. Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, vol. 4: V-Ž. Praha: Nakladatelství Československé akademie věd, 1971. Stěříková, Edita. Zemé otců – z historie a ze vzpomínek k 50. výročí reemigrace potomků českých exulantú. Praha: Kalich, 2005. Stokłosa, Katarzyna. Grenzstädte in Ostmitteleuropa. Guben und Gubin 1945 bis 1995. Berlin: Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, 2003. Stone, Dan. »Editor’s Introduction: Postwar Europe as History.« In The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History, ed. by Dan Stone, 1-33. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 311 Kornelia Kończal Ther, Philipp. Deutsche und polnische Vertriebene: Gesellschaft und Vertriebenenpolitik in der SBZ/DDR und in Polen 1945-1956. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998. Thum, Gregor. Uprooted: How Breslau Became Wrocław during the Century of Expulsions. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. Tracz, Bogusław. Rok ostatni – rok pierwszy. Gliwice 1945. Gliwice: Muzeum w Gliwicach, 2004. Wiedemann, Andreas. »Komm mit uns das Grenzland aufbauen!« Ansiedlung und neue Strukturen in den ehemaligen Sudetengebieten 1945-1952. Düsseldorf: Klartext, 2007. Zaremba, Marcin. Wielka trwoga: Polska 1944-1947. Ludowa reakcja na kryzys. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2012. Zaron, Zofia. »Kupić, sprzedać, zrobić, ukraść (niektóre słowa z elementem „mieć«).« In Semantyka i słownik, ed. by Anna Wierzbicka, 179-190. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich. Wydawnictwo Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 1972. Zblewski, Zdzisław. Leksykon PRL-u. Kraków: Znak, 2000. Zíbrt, Čeněk. »Puchmajerův slovník řeči zlodějské z r. 1821.« Český lid 11 (1902): 172-176. Television »Four tank men and a dog« (1966), directed by Konrad Nałęcki and Andrzej Czekalski, written by Janusz Przymanowski. 312 Dietlind Hüchtker Gender, Youth, and Popular Culture Telling Polish History during Socialism One structural principle of the historiography about socialist societies is the need to distinguish between propaganda or ideology on the one hand and reality (authenticity) or everyday life on the other. This is especially true of the era of Stalinism, whose propaganda of progress, equality and happiness stood in stark contrast to the post-war privations and mass repressions. With gender equality and women’s emancipation for example exposed as propaganda, women’s double and even triple burden is regarded as the true reality which needs to be addressed by historical research.1 Accordingly, socialist societies are analysed as a ›performance‹ in which a (fantasy) play was acted out on stage while the dramas of life took place behind the scenes. The media did indeed play a central role in socialist societies after 1945: not just as a theatrical world of make-believe, but also in the form of performative practices. Cinema, radio, television and records as well as magazines, journals and literature all played a decisive part in shaping politics, the economy, the sense of community and everyday life in Eastern (and Western) Europe, while fashion became a medium of distinction and group formation in all industrialized countries.2 Social attitudes became increasingly dominated by leisure, lifestyles and consumer needs, and were part of the cultural practices of consumerism and production.3 Lately it has been emphasized that a study of contemporary history focusing on cultural aspects can show how socialist societies shared transnational values and notions of order which were open to interpretation and were just as decisive for the orientation of transformations as national events or a history of oppression and resistance.4 1 Massino and Penn, »Introduction,« 2. 2 Pelka, Jugendmode; Krzoska, Ein Land; Stańczak-Wiślicz, Kultura popularna w Polsce w latach 1944-1989: Problemy; Stańczak-Wiślicz, Kultura popularna w Polsce w latach 1944-1989: Między projektem ideologicznym a kontestacją; Schildt and Siegfried, Deutsche Kulturgeschichte. 3 Idzikowska-Czubaj, Rock, 19-30. 4 Brier, »Große Linien,« 385; Krzoska, Ein Land, 25. 313 Dietlind Hüchtker The formation of youth groups is paradigmatic for these transnational phenomena. Globally shared music preferences, the attitude of casualness, the ›American‹ model, and clothing are viewed as youth (sub)cultures or styles.5 Youthful fashions and attitudes represented both consumerism and protest against the lack of personal freedom, the demand for individuality and own forms of expressions, new lifestyles, new spaces and participation.6 In the historiography, the succession of styles is normally presented using the following periodization: the beatniks of the 1950s, followed by the intellectual opposition scenes of the 1960s and 1970s, and the alternative punk and music scene of the 1980s.7 The realm of the media wasn’t just an alternative world which drew a veil over everyday life, nor was it merely part of a segment detached from politics and the economy, for in addition it moulded society, modes of behaviour and areas of social interaction.8 Practices related to the media and aesthetics spreading in the wake of rising consumerist societies are analysed in the context of research into popular and pop culture. Whereas the significance of popular culture ranges from its differentiation from elite culture, through its connotation as a form of seduction, to socialist mass culture directed against market forces and the class society of capitalism,9 pop culture is interpreted as an artistic, political and social practice questioning the boundaries between high and popular culture, between politics and art, and between protest and affirmation.10 Pop and popular culture can be understood as a performative imagery which shapes social spaces. The spaces of images are spaces of communication in which large sections of society negotiate about their needs.11 Seen from this angle, theatricality (i.e. presentation) and performativity (i.e. production) are emphasized as hallmarks of practices of pop and popular culture. This perspective matches that of gender research, which brought the concept of performativity into the debate some time ago. It assumes that gender is repeatedly redisplayed and therefore also repeatedly re-established. Gender marks difference as a central category of social order and also refers to its relationality, for example regarding 5 6 7 8 Maase, »›Stil‹.« Geisthövel and Mrozek, »Einleitung.« Farin, Jugendkulturen. Borsò, Liermann and Merziger, »Transfigurationen,« 13; Geisthövel and Mrozek, »Einleitung,« 13. 9 Stańczak-Wiślicz, »Wstęp«; Srubar, Ambivalenzen. 10 Geiger, »Pop.« 11 Maase, Das Recht; Borsò, Liermann and Merziger, »Transfigurationen,« 24. 314 Gender, Youth, and Popular Culture public and private life as well as politics and consumerism. Gender research has highlighted how these differences structure, convey and constitute power relations.12 Gender as a category of identity, difference and power distribution is consequently also based on mediation between segments of society by means of communication and the media. Pop culture and gender history combine to form a perspective on contemporary history which emphasizes the preconditions and the historicity of categories of difference and identity.13 This means that the practices constituting masculinity or femininity (in short: doing gender) demonstrate how boundaries of morality, norms and tradition are crossed in the course of both deliberate social modernization and subversion. Instead of merely mirroring reality or functioning as negative or positive role models, gender representations in pop culture are above all metonyms representing shifts of differences and productions of social spaces, the anchoring of practices in space and time.14 If gender is understood as a medium of power and change, the reciprocity between conveyance in the media, media practices and social communication spaces can be clearly highlighted. In the following reflections, I will adopt the proposition from pop culture research that media symbolism and imagery – consumerism as an expression and demand, the aestheticization of messages, practices of communication and reception, mechanisms of interaction between star and fan – play a key role in understanding contemporary history.15 Drawing on considerations regarding the performativity of gender, I will attempt to tell Polish post-war history as a narrative of popular culture interpretations and imperatives by considering images of male and female youth as well as depictions of masculinity and femininity. Presentations, manifestations and shifts of what could be thought, said and shown in the People’s Republic of Poland will be analysed.16 In this way, the central narratives of oppression and opposition can be reincorporated into a context of ambiguity, popular culture and differentiated habitual practices. Rather than dwelling on social groups, young men and women, their empirical diversity and the contexts of different 12 Ellmeier, »S/he«; Poiger, »Popkultur.« Poiger explores the questioning of gender norms. 13 Scott, »Geschichte.« 14 Poiger, »Popkultur.« 15 Geisthövel and Mrozek, »Einleitung,« 12. 16 Landwehr, Historische Diskursanalyse, 21. 315 Dietlind Hüchtker styles, I will address discursive shifts in meaning. To discuss this, I have selected relevant, in some cases iconic images of post-war Polish society. I will begin by examining the symbols of a new socialist society, discuss the boundaries and ambiguity of the messages, and close with exemplary considerations regarding the gender-specific practices of the opposition movements. The new human – the new state of affairs After the Second World War, state and society – agriculture, industry and commerce, towns and cities, and infrastructure, as well as social ties, neighbourhoods and families – had to be rebuilt from scratch. Furthermore, Stalinization was accompanied by radical changes from the late 1940s: dictatorship by the Polish United Workers’ Party, the subjugation of social organizations, surveillance, repression and (more or less successful) collectivization. The first few post-war decades were characterized by a complex relationship between restoration and renewal.17 Changes were advocated and supported in ideological campaigns targeted especially at young people and women.18 Young people in particular benefited from the new educational and career opportunities – and they were to be persuaded to help build the new society. They were the main players, the chief beneficiaries and iconic symbols of the new beginning. Gender policy was also an exemplary field of communist values: accordingly, it was a controversial issue, resulting in changes to orientation and aims.19 The pre-war socialist and communist parties had already advocated equal rights and women’s emancipation by promoting female employment. In 1945, the governing coalition dominated by pro-Moscow communists and the Polish Socialist Party introduced civil marriage and anchored gender equality in law. This policy reflected the increasing empowerment of women nurtured by wartime conditions (the underground resistance, forced labour and violence), who had developed survival strategies, supported children, and worked in large numbers in male-connoted industries. The restoration of normality and order was closely associated with the conventionally or naturally defined gender roles of breadwinner 17 Borodziej, Geschichte, 253-300. 18 Ibid., 291-292; Krzoska, Ein Land, 176-177. 19 Fidelis, Women. 316 Gender, Youth, and Popular Culture and the stay-at-home mother. The configurations of the gender order in the post-war period united these opposing trends from the outset.20 The drive to encourage women into traditionally male professions in the early 1950s, launched in response to both the policy of women’s emancipation and the shortage of workers in the industrial sector, may have done more to highlight the socialist new beginning than any other campaign.21 Images in newspapers, magazines and photo journals were dominated by women in grimy, industrial workwear. Not just young women but also ›experienced‹ female workers were shown.22 Women bricklayers were a typical motif as reconstruction proceeded. In the early 1950s, an attempt was made to turn the first policewoman into an icon.23 The first female underground miners were exploited for propaganda purposes, even though their total number never exceeded more than a few hundred.24 But above all, it was the female tractor driver who entered the pantheon of socialist iconography. In 1951, one of the nowadays most famous posters bore the appeal: »Youth – forward in the struggle for a happy, socialist Polish village« (Młodzież – naprzód do walki o szczęśliwą socialistyczną wieś polską).25 It used industrial aesthetics to depict agricultural work. A laughing young woman without a headscarf and with her hair waving in the breeze can be seen driving a tractor. Her Komsomol (Young Communist League) uniform, including her fluttering tie and especially her skirt, are pressed against her body by the momentum, highlighting her curves, unlike in the photographs of female miners and industrial workers. The tractor driver looks young, energetic, erotic and enthusiastic, and embodies youth and the social changes promised by the new society. Large cornfields with additional tractors bringing in the harvest can be seen in the background, although the size of the fields and the number of tractors were unusual for Poland in 1951. The land reform redistributing large estates had been decreed back in 1944, the take-up of cooperative farming was low and the subsequent forced collectivization in the late 1940s was only 20 Ibid., 20-24. 21 Ibid., 17, 130-131. 22 Stańczak-Wiślicz, »Traktorzystka«; here also Jarosz, »Wzory osobowe«; Krzoska, Ein Land, 176, including regarding the study of popular culture since the 1950s. 23 Stańczak-Wiślicz, »Traktorzystka«; Fidelis, »Szukając Traktorzystki.« 24 Fidelis, Women, 142-152; Fidelis, »Equality.« 25 It was produced by poster artist Witold Chmielewski. Kurpik and Szydłowska, Plakaty, 207. 317 Dietlind Hüchtker partly successful; moreover, there were only few tractors in the fields at that time.26 Like mining, mechanized agriculture was not a true reflection of female employment either. Instead, the female tractor driver was a promise to overcome differences between town and country. She did not simply represent women in male-dominated professions working on large machinery and thus gender equality; she also symbolized social equality in general. Her image elevated the village into an industrialized collective enterprise. Accordingly, the female tractor driver became an emblem of the project of modernization and its momentum geared to the future; she represented a socialist society of work – and remains a nostalgic image of socialism and socialist realism.27 Opening up male-connoted professions to women promised the achievement of socialism through both sexes playing an equal role in the workforce. Above all, the femininity of the tractor driver bridged the gap between the modern world of industrialization and the traditional world of agriculture. Her male counterpart, the hero of labour, was the bricklayer.28 In 1950, the internationally successful Polish painter Aleksander Kobzdej depicted the hero of labour in a picture entitled Podaj cegłę! (Pass me a brick). The bricklayer is shown stretching out his hand and requesting another brick; two other men laying bricks can also be seen. But whereas these two are wearing hats, the brash character demanding a brick has a cap on his head, identifying him as a young man. However, the young hero has no individuality. Furthermore, a particular location cannot be made out; all that can be seen are a clear sky and a hint of scaffolding. This is not a traditional hero: he is not emphasized as divine or sacrificing his life. Instead, his lack of individuality makes him an everyday socialist hero, the everyman (and everywoman) overfulfilling the plan. Although the actual hero of plan overfulfilment, the Polish counterpart to the Soviet hero of labour in the Stakhanovite movement,29 was a miner in the Katowice coalfield,30 the picture of the bricklayer beBorodziej, Geschichte, 272, 287-288. Stańczak-Wiślicz, »Traktorzystka.« Zaremba, »Das Heldenpantheon.« The Stakhanovite movement was named after coal miner Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov, who was reported to have exceeded his quota thirteen times over in 1935 and became a celebrity of the hero of labour campaigns in the socialist countries. 30 Zaremba, »Das Heldenpantheon,« 176-177. 26 27 28 29 318 Gender, Youth, and Popular Culture came a symbol of socialist realist zeal. Bricklaying, a traditional trade requiring traditional tools, in contrast to the tractor, represented both the physical reconstruction of post-war Poland, especially historical Warsaw, and the building of a new society, the green-field construction of the brand new town of Nowa Huta.31 A miner would not have been suitable for this purpose. The image links historical Poland to its new future; instead of reflecting reality, it transforms it.32 It became a veritable icon, a »Sozialistisches Gesamtkunstwerk« (socialist total work of art), as media theorist and art critic Boris Groys summed up the close relationship between art and politics under Stalinism.33 The bricklayer, like the tractor driver, is young and good-looking. His muscular body and workwear represent manual labour and proletarian masculinity. What the two figures share is their youthful body and vigour. They both represent a new beginning. In fact, they were implicitly linked by the dawn of a new society coupled with the promise of the restoration of order. New images? Limitations of heroes In 1956, after the crushing of the workers’ uprising in Poznan and with de-Stalinization underway, Bolesław Bierut was dismissed as first Secretary General of the ruling Polish United Workers’ Party. He was replaced by Władysław Gomułka, who, at least in his first few years in power, championed reforms and a national (i.e. Polish) road to socialism. He also approved limited cultural opening and supporting the consumer industry. In 1965, the privations of the post-war period were said to have been overcome, the food supply was stable, and mass media such as magazines and television were on the increase.34 One of the most popular forms of media was the cinema. After de-Stalinization, film production enjoyed more freedom in Poland than in other socialist countries, and Polish post-war cinema became world-famous. Łódź Film School (Wyższa Szkoła Filmowa) founded in 1948 rose to become one of the most important training centres while the city of Łódź became one of the foremost centres of film 31 Smidt, »Über die Geschichte eines Bildmotivs,« 184; regarding Nowa Huta, see above all Lebow, Unfinished Utopia. 32 Smidt, »Über die Geschichte eines Bildmotivs,« 184. 33 Groys, Gesamtkunstwerk. 34 Pleskot, Wielki mały ekran; Borodziej, Geschichte, 321. 319 Dietlind Hüchtker production alongside Warsaw. Students at the film school included Roman Polański, Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Kieślowski.35 The cinema played a significant role in communicating popular culture and transnational practices, such as the cult of stardom. James Dean, the young rebel who died before his rebellion could be put to the test, was probably the supreme idol for many teenagers and young adults. In addition to acquiring characteristics in terms of appearance, taste and behaviour which assigned them to certain groups, in addition to sharing a certain attitude towards life, they were addressees and producers of a consumerist culture geared to idols (be they celebrities, films or songs), i.e. pop culture’s cult of stardom. These practices were distinguished by simultaneous global and local orientation. Zbigniew Cybulski, who rose to become a handsome young film star in the 1950s and suffered a fatal accident at the age of forty, was Poland’s very own James Dean. Similarly, playing with fire and risking death are part and parcel of his legend. Cybulski is an example of the cult of celebrity as well as its multiple embedding in an international language and a tradition of understanding in the national interpretive context. Koniec nocy (The end of the night), one of his first films and hardly known outside Poland, was premiered in 1957. A Łódź Film School production with Polański as assistant director, the film tells the adventures of a group of male teenagers during a single night. They are characterized by their clothes, hairstyles and behaviour as chuligani (hooligans or beatniks).36 They steal vodka and go drinking and dancing. After colliding with a pedestrian while drunk-driving, they are arrested and sentenced at the end of the night. The film closes with most of the gang being driven off in a police van while the significantly older ringleader is taken away separately in handcuffs. The plot, especially the end, can be construed as an educational or ideological message about the consequences of hooliganism. 35 Krzoska, Ein Land, 190-192. 36 In Poland they were referred to as bikiniarze and chuligani. The two groups were united by their references to American elements in terms of music and clothing as group-creating characteristics of a leisure culture: jazz, wide ties and long jackets on the one hand, and jeans and rock ›n‹ roll (Bill Haley, Elvis Presley) on the other. Although in practice the symbols overlapped depending on availability, their differentiation clearly served to distinguish between youth groups. See also Lebow, Unfinished Utopia, 124-151; Chłopek, Bikiniarze, 119-129; regarding their international spread, see also Kaiser, Randalierende Jugend including references to disorder in Polish towns and cities. 320 Gender, Youth, and Popular Culture The aesthetics and conception of Koniec nocy – including its depiction of a single night and the way in which the characters are presented – place it in the genre of film noir or ›black realism,‹ a response to the aesthetics of socialist realism.37 Prominence is given to Romek (Cybulski), who is part of the group, yet also its observer. He acts as lookout when the alcohol shop is raided, but backs out when the effects of alcohol consumption become too much for him; even so, he is arrested and sentenced like the others. Romek represents something like the heroic anti-hero – not a romantic hero of uprisings, rooted in the history of partitions and wars, not even a socialist hero of labour, a role model for everyday work and the construction of socialism, but an aloof individual. Despite the manifest moral condemnation of the group due to the road accident, the film’s subtext underlines the attractiveness of rebellious masculinity, the pop culture movie star and the subculture of petty criminals. It references the transnational codes of youth subversion, the language of James Dean. The heroic anti-hero is an intrinsic part of the history of Polish post-war films.38 One of the most important ones, made by Wajda and also featuring Cybulski, is probably Popiół i Diamant (Ashes and Diamonds, 1958), which deals with the post-war generation’s indecisiveness regarding the new society. Maciek, the film’s hero played by Cybulski, is a ›tragic hero‹ from the uprising tradition, who wants to preserve the memory of the uprising and therefore withdraws from the new reality.39 He represents the continuing tradition of the romantic hero, to whom values are more important than victory or rationality. This attitude repeatedly encountered in Polish cultural production represents the continuity of a narrative of oppression and rebellion historically perceived to be uniquely Polish.40 The commenting antihero of Koniec nocy communicates with this tradition, which he criticizes and yet maintains as a hero of an antisocialist subculture. Apart from conveying socialist realist messages about the consequences of hooliganism and petty crime as well as negative concepts of masculinity in post-war Poland, it combines consumerist culture, social criticism and social values. Being a product 37 Nurczyńska-Fidelska, »A few words«; Kempna-Pienążk, »Polskie adaptacje,« 215. 38 Mazierska, Masculinities, 34; Mazierska, »Eroica«; for West Germany see Poiger, »Popkultur,« 60. 39 Mazierska, Masculinities, 45-53. 40 Janion, »Einleitung,« 41. 321 Dietlind Hüchtker of Łódź Film School, it is an example of the professional training of film-makers, while as a commentary on youth protest practices, it denoted the importance of film for society by showing that works of fiction, not just historical documentaries, could also be meaningful films. In this regard, the film refers to the star, the role model with sexual attraction, pop and popular culture, and the various levels of social reality and historical reflexivity. The practices of filmmaking, of the plot and of its reception can therefore be understood as a performance, as a representation of the contextualization and changing importance of masculinity in Polish society in a manner depicting and shaping reality.41 Magazines were another medium of consumerist culture, performative imagery and debate about social practices. Filipinka, the only girls’ magazine in the People’s Republic, was first published in 1957 with a circulation of 250,000. Dealing with fashion, romance, sexuality and leisure activities, it was read by young females including girls, students and workers. Despite being censored (like all publications), it was considered a non-political fashion, culture and advice magazine. It became so influential that even cafés and girl groups were named after it.42 As Małgorzata Fidelis showed in her inspiring analysis, the magazine presented a new image: dziewczyna, the new young girl, the young woman. Like the female tractor driver, her key factors were youthfulness and femininity. But now, female-connoted practices and themes such as fashion and romance predominated. These shifts in the representation of femininity were accompanied by a change in women’s policy. In 1956, female miners were no longer allowed. This was justified by the end of Stalinist women’s policy and a return to ›natural‹ femininity in order to protect women’s child-bearing ability, which was thought to be harmed by working underground. Interestingly, compared to most other areas in which women worked, mining required more training and was better paid, and in some cases was also perceived as less strenuous.43 Nevertheless, the campaign was successful. The return to ›natural‹ femininity represented traditional values and was one of the symbols of Gomułka’s new national road to communism.44 41 Regarding the term ›performance,‹ see Hüchtker, Geschichte, 18-27. 42 Regarding Filipinka and the following reflections, see above all Fidelis, »Are You a Modern Girl?« 43 Fidelis, Women, 130-169, especially 130. 44 Ibid., 170-202. 322 Gender, Youth, and Popular Culture Consequently, the emphasis on femininity in Filipinka was to some extent the counterpart to a return to a gender order implied as traditional and natural.45 Then again, the new young woman represented anything but motherliness. The ›return to tradition‹ clashed with ›modern consumerist culture‹ – and thus also with youthful femininity. This clash was addressed by the magazine in its 1960 readers’ survey entitled ›Are you a modern girl?‹ About 200 responses were received from young women aged between sixteen and eighteen, some of which were printed. Of course, judging the authenticity of the results is difficult, given that only a selection of answers was published and that we have no way of knowing the degree of censorship exercised. But as Fidelis and others show, there is also some evidence that the ideas contained in the letters were taken up, such as the fashionable clothes, especially the miniskirt.46 Readers’ ideals included cigarettes, cynical smirking, fashionable clothes, a love of jazz but also education, while the main values listed included respect, dignity and ambitions. Some of the readers also gave consideration to the concept of the ›good‹ and ›bad‹ modern girl: too much make-up was deemed a sign of carelessness, while sexuality was regarded as important yet something to be reserved for marriage. Girls’ consumerist desires were also striking, with cars and villas at the top of the list, evidently reflecting the world of capitalist television programmes and magazines. The modern girl was consumerist, conscious of her figure, and independent (including financially), had her own moral values, and prized conventional ideals like education and dignity. She organized her own leisure activities and appreciated her sexuality. Unrealizable desires became a pop culture world of gloss, of unattainable, idolized stars. The consumerist desires, the ideal of financial independence and the leisure activities indicate the transnationalism of popular culture symbols. By contemplating the modern young woman, the magazine sparked debate among its readers about girls’ place in youth cultures. This wasn’t simply a return to ›femininity‹. The magazine was an influential media outlet, but not a normative model. Although the modern girl was part of the official culture, the propagated images caught on and developed a life of their own. The censors and probably also the editorial team were startled by the girls’ consumerist desires which, 45 Fidelis, »›A Nation’s Strength‹.« 46 Ibid., 177. See for example also Pelka, Teksas-land, 71-90; Pelka, Jugendmode, 130-131. 323 Dietlind Hüchtker apart from being unattainable, led to the magazine being accused of spreading Western values. The modern young woman seemed to have slipped out of socialist control. The fact that the letters were nevertheless printed shows that the initial response to the young girls’ remarks was not repression. Only after the suppression of student protests in 1968 did the culture of the new young woman disappear from the magazine. The statements reflected the search for a modernity which was detached from both the Stalinist emancipation model and western connoted liberalism and permissiveness. Seen thus, socialist ideals of modernity were combined with traditional values in the responses and Filipinka was a medium of Gomułka’s ›new‹ national communism. The antihero Romek and the new young woman in Filipinka both originated during the thaw following Stalin’s death and after the suppression of the Poznan uprising. The characters were attempts to push back the boundaries of what could be thought, said and shown: the attractiveness of subcultural freedoms, the world of consumerism and (sexual) desires. Shifting the boundaries was based on a deconstruction and reconstruction of masculinity as well as a reconstruction and new construction of femininity. Cybulski represented the attractiveness of a masculinity of protest, which was based on an international model. The new young girl represented not only a consumerist culture, but also her own wishes and ideas: independence instead of self-sacrifice for socialism, family and husband. Neither can be reduced to role models; instead, they reflected and shaped change throughout society. The milieu of the opposition: New masculinity or youth subculture? Despite the increased production of consumer goods in the 1960s, food shortages were a recurrent problem in Poland. In particular, wages lagged behind price rises, leading to strikes and protests in the early 1970s.47 In 1971, female textile workers in Łódź staged a hunger march. Unlike the recent strikes in a number of coalfields, it was seen as such a threat by the government that it acceded to the women’s demands and retracted the price increases.48 The dominant narrative of the history of the People’s Republic of Poland is that of the singular role played by the political opposition. The lack of an independent Polish state is regarded as a specifically 47 Borodziej, Geschichte, 319-320 and 342-344. 48 Kenney, »The Gender of Resistance,« 410-416; Kraft, »Paradoxien.« 324 Gender, Youth, and Popular Culture Polish continuum dating back to the partitions of the late eighteenth century and continuing until the 1989 Round Table, albeit with a short hiatus between 1919 and 1939. According to the tradition of periodization by uprisings, the history of the People’s Republic is also told as a series of militant strikes and protests in 1956, 1970, 1977, 1980/81 and 1989. This is assumed to have resulted in a tradition of resistance, opposition and insurrection, a feeling of togetherness in society, and a strong Catholic church. Poland’s history of state socialism therefore sometimes appears to be a direct road to the free trade union Solidarity (Solidarność), which became a mass organization from 1980, and the Round Table sessions in 1989.49 This story has been told as a story of men: Adam Michnik and Jacek Kuroń, the intellectual leaders, Karol Modzelewski, who like Michnik and Kuroń had a long oppositional career, Lech Wałęsa, the strike leader at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, etc. Only occasional mention was made of women, such as shipyard worker Anna Walentynowicz, who campaigned in 1980 for the strike to be continued, and tram driver Henryka Krzywonos-Strycharska, who single-handedly stopped her tram in Gdańsk in support of the shipyard workers’ strike. From a gender-historical perspective, a counter-history is told of forgotten women, such as journalists Helena Łuczywo and Barbara Labuda, who participated in the resistance campaigns, began their own strikes, and after the imposition of martial law in 1981 used the underground magazine Tygodnik Mazowsze (Weekly for Mazovia) to rebuild Solidarity after it had been almost completely destroyed.50 These gender-dichotomous narratives of inclusion and exclusion, suppression and forgetting have repeatedly begged the question of why marginalization did not lead to a feminist movement, as had been the case since the 1970s in response to male domination in the symbols and practices of oppositional and protest cultures in many Western societies. Claudia Kraft suggests that the dissidents defined themselves as an autonomous citizenry vis-à-vis state power, a civil opposition movement demanding human and civil rights, i.e. freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, the protection of personal rights and participation, and that there was no room in the autonomous civil opposition for class or gender differences. State penetration of public spaces by means of censorship and surveillance meant that the oppositional milieu was restricted to the 49 Arndt, Rote Bürger, 22. 50 Penn, Solidarity’s Secret, 147. 325 Dietlind Hüchtker private sphere: families, friends and households. Family work disappeared in the privacy of private life.51 Starting from the metonymic significance of doing gender as performances via types and possibilities of behaviour, perhaps yet more answers to the question can be found in the popular cultural representation. The leaders of the opposition movement were not youthful and represented an alternative to socialist youth. Agnes Arndt assessed the leftist opposition milieu as middle-class and intellectual, characterized by academic education and the gender-dichotomous division of labour. One contemporary witness had the following to say about Grażyna Kuroń, Kuroń’s wife: Gaja – as Jacek and all of us called her – was someone you could visit at any time of the day or night for a cup of tea, for dinner, for a chat. … You came to sit with Gaja if you were hungry or in a bad way … You took a break from politics with Gaja, you came to her to talk about friends, about children, about personal problems.52 Gaja’s caring attitude represented the privacy of private life: not just a middle-class gender dichotomy, but in particular the tradition of the intelligentsia with the values of intellectuality, conversation and the home, where the woman built up the rebel. The heroes represented the division of labour of the uprising; in their intellectuality and their gender dichotomy they referenced traditional Poland. This was how they justified their action, and led to the creation of action spaces and shelters. In 1980, during the strikes in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, the Free Trade Unions took charge by setting up an Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee (Międzyzakładowy Komitet Strajkowy) to support industrial action taken elsewhere. During the labour disputes, the inter-enterprise trade union Solidarity was founded independently of the Polish United Workers’ Party. Hugely popular, it became one of the biggest social movements in Europe, with membership of 9.5 million by June 1981.53 One of its heroes was Lech Wałęsa. His presentation followed a different pattern from that of the left-wing intellectual milieu. He represented the respectable workers’ masculinity of old so51 Kraft, »Die Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen«; Kraft, »Paradoxien.« 52 Blumsztajn, Gajka, cited in Arndt, Rote Bürger, 50. Translation into English by Chris Abbey. 53 Borodziej, Geschichte, 360-365; Friszke, Czas KOR-u, 511-577. 326 Gender, Youth, and Popular Culture cialist tradition. Wałęsa dedicated himself to the trade union struggle while his wife took care of their children and coped with his absence and material hardship for the sake of the cause. Wałęsa was presented as a hero, his heroic masculinity appealing for unity, strength, and the tradition of struggle of the labour movement.54 This masculinity also needed a caring femininity – unlike the image of the young woman, which stressed her independence. Neither Wałęsa nor Kuroń were youthful; on the contrary, their ›seasoned‹ masculinity underlined the movement’s respectability. Both concepts of masculinity functioned as symbols of the universality of their demands. Although women were involved, they represented the domain requiring protection: the victim and tradition. The Solidarity movement wasn’t the only medium which constituted its own identity and conceived new social action spaces. Since the 1970s, music festivals had been held in Jarocin, a small town in western Poland, which became a legend of alternative music and festival culture.55 Rock, punk and heavy metal were performed there. Although some rock bands were also played on national radio stations, others, especially punk bands, could only be heard live and had no opportunity to produce records or cassettes – and it was chiefly thanks to them that the festival became an underground legend. Between 1980 and 1987, the festival was attended by between 3.000 and 20.000 visitors, above all young people aged between seventeen and twenty. The rock festivals were organized with the supervision of the local authorities and the Union of Socialist Youth of Poland (Związek socjalisticznej młodzieży polskiej). Bands wishing to appear auditioned with cassettes. These recordings were employed not only to select who would be allowed to play but also for censorship purposes – although this problem was sometimes sidestepped by bands revising their setlist when they performed. Apart from the music, another important element of this event was simply hanging around in a casual atmosphere. Clothing, attitudes and music played a role beyond the festival as a symbol of youth group formation. The attitude of youth culture nonconformity can be equally interpreted as rebellion and counterculture as well as subculture and a valve of discontent.56 Grzegorz Piotrowski describes the music festival in 54 Regarding the competition of new concepts of masculinity, see also Lebow, Unfinished Utopia, 44-74. 55 Regarding the following, above all Piotrowski, »Jarocin.« 56 Idzikowska-Czubaj, Rock, 298-318; see also Ritter, »Jazz.« 327 Dietlind Hüchtker Jarocin as an autonomous space, a counterculture directed against not only state youth policy but also the increasingly conservative policies of the leaders of Solidarity. He associates the festival with the alternative political movements in the West, whose activities focused on autonomy and individual freedom.57 Behavioural and of course musical parallels can indeed be seen with corresponding Western rock concerts, especially when considering the appearance of the genders.58 In contrast to the beatniks in West and East, the rock and punk scene wasn’t just a mixed-gender space but fronted a specific unisex look: long hair and sexless jeans. This style is barely any different from that seen at other rock concerts in the 1970s, even if genuine Levi’s were priced and valued even higher than in the West. The music festival demonstrated a space where prevailing social orders such as the values of work were ignored just as much as a recognizable gender order. Another hero arose from these spaces, the festival areas, the mixedgender groups and the unisex clothing: the rock star. The rock star in the pose of Jimi Hendrix or Mick Jagger (and other role models) perfectly represented youth rebellion and the projection of a life without restrictions. This hero was almost always male with some exceptions like Janis Joplin and Joan Baez. In this respect, the Polish rock scene was no different from its American or British models. Although the Western and Eastern music scenes included women and women’s bands emerging from mixed-gender environments, the opening up of scenes and crossing the boundaries of societal conceptions of order, they didn’t represent the stars. Both figures, the rock star and the star of Solidarity, were heroes. One represented youth culture, music and areas where people could be themselves, the other resistance, unity and political freedom. One represented an attitude related to disorder, subversion and rejection, the other symbolized leadership and an assurance to re-establish social order. Not only femininity and the role of women but also masculinity was a central theme of socialist societies. The divergent presentations of masculinity and femininity and their relationality can be interpreted as public debate about the aims of society as a whole as well as group formation and oppositional attitudes. The question of why there was 57 Piotrowski, »Jarocin,« 303-304; regarding the importance of autonomy in youth practices in the 1970s and early 1980s, see also Reichardt, Authentizität. 58 See for example also the photos in Idzikowska-Czubaj, Rock, appendix, especially from Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (IPN) Po 064/28/35/2. 328 Gender, Youth, and Popular Culture no feminist movement in Poland or the other socialist countries can therefore be answered not merely with regard to women’s policy and concepts of femininity, but perhaps even more so with the divergent significance of masculinity for society and opposition – in a European perspective. The specific structure of resistance in Poland found its counterpart in transnational youth cultures while the pop star was a connecting link – between the opposition groups and in relation to the outside world. Conclusion Looking back at the imagery cited above, including its contextualisation and reception – the female tractor driver and the bricklayer, the new young girl and Romek from Koniec nocy – their significance for what could be thought, said and done becomes clear. All the images summon up multiple levels of meaning and can therefore be equally regarded as a medium of ideology and producers of a socialist society in Poland. Although representing gender patterns, their semantics of masculinity and femininity go beyond the function of role models. Instead, they are performative, i.e. in addition to reflecting social norms or morals, they establish boundaries – boundaries which they can also shift. With Poland having been destroyed in the war, the restoration of order and everyday life was a central motif. This included the gender order, which coincided with the politics of building a new, socialist order. One central paradigm of this reconstruction was the emancipation of women, which was chiefly construed as encouraging them to enter male-connoted occupations. The female tractor driver represented youthfulness and change, emancipation and a new social order. Nevertheless, the motif’s femininity and rurality combined to create a latent message: the maintenance of social order. The bricklayer, a representative of socialist heroes of labour, also young and modern, combined the iconography of proletarian masculinity with the traditional values of craftsmanship – and the reconstruction of Warsaw’s old town with the erection of Nowa Huta as a socialist model city. The iconography from the era of Stalinism shifted under de-Stalinization towards consumerism and a national form of socialism. The new young woman with fashion, girls’ magazines and a culture of leisure acquired transnational elements of consumerism and youth practices. At the same time, the emphasis on femininity could be regarded as a 329 Dietlind Hüchtker contrast to the postulate of equality of Stalinist emancipation propaganda, as a symbol of an independent Polish road to socialism. The diverse interpretations of popular cultural imagery and its transnational origin are shown by not just the readers’ letters to Filipinka but also the attractiveness of transnational youthful masculinity in the film Koniec nocy. The opposition also presented symbols and icons. Respectability and the appearance of (male) leaders not only underlined the movement’s legitimacy, but also represented a counter-model to socialist youth. All the same, Lech Wałesa’s proletarian masculinity, the presentation of a labour leader, harked back to the traditions of socialist movements, while the other leaders’ intellectual middle-class way of life recalled the gender models of uprising history. By contrast, rock festivals were clearly transnational in their iconography with their reference to the unisex appearance of youth cultures of the 1970s – and gave rise to the global (and also mostly male) rock star. In Polish subcultures and opposition cultures, masculinity appears as a central element of not just continuity and respectability but also subversion and transnationalism. Additional analyses of masculinity going beyond the simple question of role expectations therefore hold out the promise of a more detailed picture of socialist and also non-socialist post-war societies and opposition cultures. Popular culture and politics overlap: they are not identical, but nor are they simply diametrically opposed to each other. In this sense, and based on the theoretical considerations of pop culture, the significance of the media and consumerism is not just a question of capitalist markets, and their occurrence in socialist societies does not just represent their demise, the penetration of the free market. In socialist societies, too, popular cultures also took on the function of intermediate spaces, bridging the diversity of experiences and shifting perspectives. Accordingly, theatricality was more than a hallmark of postmodern societies, while socialist propaganda was not just a pretence concealing miserable, oppressive reality. Looking at gender, youth and their iconographic meanings opens up a new perspective on the history of the People’s Republic of Poland emphasizing the transnationality of symbols and thus also their ambiguity. Gender is not a question of roles or stereotypes, but one of presentation, performativity and power. The Solidarity movement managed to put a respectable group of intellectual and proletarian citizens in the limelight and guide it to success. The fact that this was ultimately based on a misunderstanding regarding the importance of industrial work and that the values of the 330 Gender, Youth, and Popular Culture trade union and labour movement rapidly declined after the collapse of the socialist government was an experience shared concurrently with British miners.59 Translated by Chris Abbey Bibliography Scholarly Works Arndt, Agnes. Rote Bürger: Eine Milieu- und Beziehungsgeschichte linker Dissidenz in Polen (1956-1976). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013. Borodziej, Włodzimierz. Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert. München: C.H. Beck, 2010. 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Warszawa: Instytut Badań Literackich PAN Wydawnictwo, 2012. Zaremba, Marcin. »Das Heldenpantheon der Volksrepublik Polen.« In Sozialistische Helden. Eine Kulturgeschichte von Propagandafiguren in Osteuropa und der DDR, ed. by Silke Satjukow and Rainer Gries, 173-182. Berlin: Links, 2002. 334 Olga Linkiewicz Bearers of Local Stories Memories of the Eastern Borderlands and the Grand Narratives of the Polish Kresy1 The term kresy in Polish literally means »fringes« or »peripheries«. For Poles today the term describes the territories of western Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine that, in large parts, formed the eastern borderlands of the interwar Polish state (1918-1939). The borderlands encompassed several regions stretching from Wileńszczyzna (the Vilnius region) in the north, through the Grodno area, Polesie and Volhynia, to Eastern Galicia in the south. Since the nineteenth century, Kresy has comprised the mythology essential to the Romantic vision of Polishness, including the emphasis on the role of Polish culture in the East and the superiority of Poles to other groups inhabiting these multiethnic territories – especially to Ukrainians and Lithuanians. The notion of Kresy gained widespread currency with the rise of nationalism and through popular literature and press, becoming a symbol of pathos, pride, and nostalgia. Narratives that evoke the Kresy typically use principal features of Romanticism: a glorification of the beauties of nature and the idealized vision of peasantry and folk culture. The notion remained central to the Polish political imagination and a recurring literary topos throughout the first half of the twentieth century, although what 1 I am grateful to many colleagues whose thoughtful comments on various stages of my work enriched this chapter. I thank Tarik C. Amar, Hannah Elmer, Anna Engelking, Maciej Janowski, Dobrochna Kałwa, Artur Kinasz, the late Jacek Kochanowicz, Jan Kusber, Katrin Steffen, and Robert Traba. I benefited especially from many conversations with Włodzimierz Mędrzecki. I have had the opportunity to present my ideas at the conference »Imaginations and Configurations of Polish Society,« organized by Yvonne Kleinmann (Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies in Halle) and Dietlind Hüchtker (GWZO Leipzig), the International Max Planck Research School for the Anthropology, Archeology, and the History of Eurasia (IMPRS ANARCHIE) at the invitation of Chris Hann and Michael G. Müller, and the Ukrainian Catholic University at the invitation of Ostap Sereda. I owe a special debt to my students, particularly Magdalena Łuba, Radosław Stryjewski, and Zuzanna Żubka-Chmielewska, whose efforts, dedication, and enthusiasm have given so much to this work. 335 Olga Linkiewicz was understood as Kresy changed along with political transformations, and the term itself was a subject of debate. For instance, in the interwar period some members of the Polish intelligentsia applied the term Kresy or Kresy Wschodnie (Eastern Kresy) to the above-mentioned eastern and southeastern regions of the interwar Poland as well as to the territories further to the east which belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth before the partitions.2 Other public figures objected to the term, pointing out its imprecision and vacuity and, therefore, would prefer to use »Eastern lands« (Ziemie Wschodnie) instead.3 The interest of the Polish intelligentsia in these lands reflected the major concerns of the Second Polish Republic’s internal politics and the challenges arising from its geopolitical situation. With the end of the First World War and the collapse of the imperial order, the eastern borderlands became a subject of dispute and subsequently a battlefield. Although the open fights between Poles and other nationalities came to an end in 1923, when Poland’s borders were settled and internationally recognized, ethnic clashes (particularly between Poles and Ukrainians) lingered on well into the 1930s. In connection with this, Poles who came to the eastern or southeastern provinces as administrative clerks, teachers, priests, and settlers called their new home Kresy in order to portray it as a fortress under siege and to highlight the special demands of their jobs – such as the civilizing mission.4 The Polish victory in the war with the Soviets reinforced the Kresy as a substantial element in the concept of Poland as the »Thermopylae of Western civilization.«5 Similar to the Romanian case, the Polish national myths addressed the nation’s position between »East« and »West.« Thus Kresy in the interwar period was seen as the last bastion of western culture in the East necessary for defending the frontiers against the Soviet revolution. In particular, in Józef Piłsudski’s geopolitical visions of East Central Europe, developed against the expansion of the Soviet Union, Kresy played a key role.6 The eastern borderlands were subject to – using Piłsudski’s words – »the politics of Kresy« (polityka kresowa),7 that is, the state-oriented assimilation project which was meant 2 Baczyński, Kresy Wschodnie; Jasinowski, »Podstawowe znaczenie kresów południowo-wschodnich w budowie polskiej psychiki i świadomości narodowej.« 3 Paprocki, I Zjazd Naukowy poświęcony Ziemiom Wschodnim, 34-35. 4 Ciancia, »Civilizing the Village.« 5 Diner, Cataclysms, 80. 6 Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations, 139-149. 7 Gierowska-Kałłaur, Zarząd Cywilny Ziem Wschodnich, 53. 336 Bearers of Local Stories to bring stability to the region and the peaceful coexistence of various ethnic groups.8 After the Second World War, when the eastern borderlands became part of the Soviet Union, the modern history and vivid memories of Kresy could not be integrated into official discourses in Poland. Until the 1989 transformation, the recollections from Kresy, however, successfully circulated through informal networks of the former inhabitants, who had mostly been resettled into Poland’s new western frontiers. The changes of 1989 instigated a discussion about Polish attitudes toward the »lost territories« in the East. The literary critic Leszek Szaruga9 evokes the Kresy, pointing out the different meanings of the term and the controversies over its use. On the one hand, the notion has been fundamental to the idea of Polish culture having been rooted in Romanticism. On the other, it carries resentments and a sense of Polish cultural superiority. For this reason, the term has been rejected in Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania and subject to post-colonial critique.10 It is true that, as the literary historian Jacek Kolbuszewski11 puts it, the notion of Kresy was created both by Polish culture and for this culture. It should be noted that Kolbuszewski’s book Kresy published in 1995, in a popular series entitled A to Polska właśnie (roughly: »And this is what Poland is«), contributes much to the Kresy mythology. It was in the 1990s when the mythology spread on a large scale through memoirs, non-fiction works of general interest, recordings, photo albums, and guidebooks. Then the former inhabitants and their families took sentimental trips to Kresy which they called »pilgrimages«. This boom also made other Poles visit Kresy for the first time – Lviv and Vilnius in particular. The grand Kresy narratives always referred to these cities as Lwów and Wilno respectively, in order to prolong the Polish symbolical presence there. The Romantic vision of Polishness and the Kresy mythology can thus be seen as very much intertwined. The Kresy narratives refer to notions of patriotism, heroism, martyrdom, and nostalgia – fundamental 8 Mędrzecki, »Polskie władztwo,« 72; Paruch, Od konsolidacji państwowej do konsolidacji narodowej, 152-153. 9 Szaruga, »Literatura po 1989 roku,« 170-172. 10 Bakuła, »Kolonialne i postkolonialne aspekty polskiego dyskursu kresoznawczego;« Beauvois, »Mit ›kresów wschodnich‹;« Ładykowski, »Poland and Its Eastern Neighbours;« Trepte, »Od kresów wschodnich do kresów zachodnich.« 11 Kolbuszewski, Kresy, 204. 337 Olga Linkiewicz in the prevailing interpretations of Polish history.12 Simultaneously, Polishness and Poland as a bulwark of the »western civilization« are central to the Kresy story. But does the romantic, wistful notion overwhelmed by a feeling of loss embrace the full range of Polishness? Is there a homogeneous phenomenon constituting the Polish memory of the eastern borderlands between the wars? This chapter argues that memories of Poles who inhabited the eastern borderlands are more diverse and their experience richer than the grand narratives of the Polish Kresy suggest. The eastern borderlands’ local stories show a variety of Polish experiences and, moreover, contradict the grand narratives of the Kresy in how they essentialize Polishness. From 2002 to 2004, together with a group of students of cultural anthropology from the University of Warsaw, I carried out fieldwork13 in Lower Silesia (Dolny Śląsk, in present-day western Poland) among people who had been forcibly resettled from Kresy in Poland’s new western frontier over the course of the 1940s. Our research topic focused on life in the eastern borderlands between the wars. Reading numerous memoirs published in the 1990s led me to believe that the topic would fit into the narratives of the Kresy: the very sentimental and nostalgic picture of the lost homeland. Contrary to my expectations, most interviews we conducted differed significantly from the Kresy narratives. Our interlocutors were village and small town dwellers of primarily peasant or petty nobility background, born between 1911 and 1937 in a southern part of the borderlands – Eastern Galicia. The interviews introduce their local story, distinctive in terms of its form and content. The story comes from people who did not feel a necessity to preserve it in any way for posterity. Therefore the story remains largely unknown among broader audiences in Poland, except for the interlocutors’ descendants. This article thus recounts the story of ordinary life in the borderlands of interwar Eastern Galicia: »a local reality unto itself«.14 My analysis focuses on memories of social relations in local communities and on collective images of the Other – usually neighbors of other descent (or more precisely: what is seen as other descent). Through 12 Porter, Poland in the Modern World, 3-4. 13 The research was part of the students’ university curricula called »laboratory« – a training course in methodology and practice of ethnography which consists of intensive seminars and field trips. 14 Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations, 153. 338 Bearers of Local Stories the communitas lens our interlocutors recalled the details of their experience. Naturally, these interviews do not bring about a factual and comprehensive account of the past. It would be, however, wrongheaded to dismiss these and similar forms of evidence on the grounds of being created too far from the events they refer to.15 We shall see further in this chapter that utterances coming out impulsively that were not prepared beforehand (i.e., thought over) are, most likely, not refined or transformed to fit into needs of a prospective receiver. These utterances are often unstructured, if not chaotic, and full of pauses, hesitations, and uncontrolled emotions. They form a distinct genre which is very different from the well-crafted memoirs,16 typical of the Kresy narratives. Moreover, this case confirms that village stories circulating from one generation to another tend to be quite resistant to the influence of other narratives, especially when absent from public discourses.17 Therefore idioms and categories used by the interlocutors are often those which were present during the time the stories took place. In the case of Eastern Galicia, such stories revolve around a circle of family and neighbors, and a space practically limited to a neighborhood and a few institutions within a village. Contrary to the grand narratives of the Kresy, the local stories are not full of nostalgia. What is almost completely absent from the descriptions is landscape – a key element of the alleged exceptionality of the Kresy. Only fertile soil is a recurring element. Except for some extraordinary events, memories of our interlocutors mostly concentrate on everyday life. This feature makes it difficult for the local stories to flow. The interlocutors rarely refer to any grand narratives – historical or literary – and do not speak on the behalf of a group larger than their local community. This is why the term Kresy sounded unfamiliar to some of them. As the priest described it […] he writes books and he says […] what we were called. In the past we were called […] »from Galicia«. And now, you see, I forgot, you see. I read it, I was curious … [long silence] interviewer: – Kresy maybe? 15 Bartov, »Communal Genocide,« 400-402. 16 Linkiewicz, »Ta Ukraina to ona w wojnie i w wojnie,« 148-150. 17 Bartov, »Communal Genocide«; Engelking, »Etnograf wobec stereotypu ›Polaka z Kresów‹«; Kałwa and Klich-Kluczewska, »Codzienność peryferyjna«; Kurkowska-Budzan, »Historia samorosła.« 339 Olga Linkiewicz Oh. Kr … kres … kresowiaki. Before the war they said: »From Galicia.« »From where? – From Galicia.« And now kres …kresowiacy, kresy – and so, yes.18 My further analysis focuses on two aspects extracted from the Eastern Galician local stories. First, I show how a community has been articulated through the utterances of our interlocutors. Second, I look at the role of otherness (the images of the Other), which – embedded in cosmology – was crucial for the construction of local identity and social relations. Unravelling the local identity and the dynamics of social relations in the Eastern Galician village brings up two categories central to my argument: cultural affinity and civilization. Instead of treating identity as a separate phenomenon and describing it through ethnic and religious affiliations, I place it within the social life of the village, pointing out the role of ritual hostilities and rivalries between inhabitants.19 Villagers and their cultural affinity Our interlocutors were born in one of the three southeastern provinces (voivodships) of the interwar Polish state: the provinces of Lwów (lwowskie), Tarnopol (tarnopolskie), and Stanisławów (stanisławowskie). As over 90% of the Polish population from the territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, they were resettled to western Poland (Ziemie Zachodnie) mostly between 1944 and 1946. Their former homeland had been a place of coexistence and interaction between people of various religions, cultures, and nationalities. But this coexistence looked entirely different in small towns and rural settings than in the urban centers such as Lwów or relatively big administrative towns, for instance Drohobycz. Among the people we talked to, a considerable part used to live in places which – according to the first Polish census of 1921 – had comprised Roman Catholic and Greek-Catholic residents, and frequently a small Jewish population. Others had inhabited places with either a Roman Catholic or Greek-Catholic majority. Although all the interlocutors came from the countryside, their social background and position in the village hierarchy differed. Even in the 18 Interview 1. 19 Bourdieu, The Bachelor’s Ball; Campbell, Honour, Family and Patronage. 340 Bearers of Local Stories early 2000s some people cherished their petty noble pedigree; others emphasized their special status of a governmental settler. Conversations often began with drawing a map of a village. This was an occasion to learn about local toponymies and more general names for inhabitants of a given community. Three major terms were commonly recalled: »Poles« or »Polish« (Polacy, polskie), »Russky« (ruskie) sometimes replaced by »Ukrainian« or »Ukrainians« (ukraińskie, Ukraińcy), and, finally »mixed« (mieszane). Some interlocutors, especially of the younger generation, found the term »Russky« (ruskie) inappropriate. For instance, a daughter corrected her old mother each time through the conversation, stressing the »error«: »Ukrainians – do not confuse it!«20 All three terms, »Polish,« »Russky«/»Ukrainian,« and »mixed,« appear to have overlapping semantic fields, and they function similarly. This means that, in the interviews, the terms are used to describe a village, its inhabitants, and particular distinctive features of a group such as the language or religion. In other words, each term functions as a category that defines a community and its members. Such a category indicates neither a nationality nor ethnic membership but rather a cultural affinity. In the past, through this cultural affinity villagers recognized and classified their neighbors. These and other examples of the cultural affinity, I argue, demonstrate that the expressions we hear in reference to peasants’ identity – »Polish,« »Russky«/»Ukrainian,« and »mixed« – are far too complex to be reduced to ethnicity. The terms such as »Polish« may sound familiar to us; the meaning of them is, however, different from the one we are used to nowadays.21 It is noteworthy that interlocutors stress changes in affinity in specific expressions, such as: »He went for Ukrainian« (poszedł na ukraińskie);22 »When she came to us [to our family], she agreed to Polish right away« (ona tylko przyszła do nas, to od razu przystała na polski);23 »Yes, it happened, that [some people] turned to (przechodzili) the Ukrainian faith«.24 In these and other examples, the changes are frequently evoked in religious, familial, and, sometimes, political contexts. Interlocutors mention two situations in which such changes involved conversions: the first case refers to Ukrainians who wished 20 21 22 23 24 Interview 2. Engelking, »Etnograf wobec stereotypu ›Polaka z Kresów‹.« Interview 3. Interview 4. Interview 5. 341 Olga Linkiewicz to work in governmental institutions and, for that reason, converted to Roman Catholicism.25 In the second case, some representatives of petty nobility were encouraged by the Polish administration to change their rite and »come back« to Polishness, as the propaganda claimed. The last group was called Poliaki przypisowane, which can be roughly understood as »registered Poles« or »rewritten Poles.«26 However, except for explicit statements, such as »The priest converted him to his [the priest’s] own [faith],«27 it is impossible to say categorically in which cases interlocutors describe the actual conversions. It should be noted that many villagers did not formally adopt a new faith but took part in rites of both Churches. Poles often chose the Greek-Catholic Church for services and became very familiar with the Church’s ceremonies, religious holidays, and spiritual life. Clearly these practices did not lead to a conversion that was seen as a departure from the norm. If someone converted, it was usually the individual’s decision and did not involve his or her family. This is why some interlocutors talk about it with a certain reluctance or derision. »Turncoats« (perekinchiki),28 according to them, were »uncertain,« unreliable people who broke conventional and sacred rules.29 This is also why people disapproved of or deprecated such acts: Something like that did not happen [in my family]. Even, as I said, my uncle married a Pole; her family was Polish, so he became a Pole too. … he followed his wife, but it was not that they moved a birth certificate or something.30 Normally, […] he came into the family and he agreed to this [przestał do tego]. And when he died nobody knew whether he was a Ukrainian or a Pole.31 In the interwar period many people still made their choices on the basis of their families’ will. In this respect, the interviews confirm the historiography: the role of the family was primary, dominant, and decisive. The excerpt above also illustrates how, in a manner typical of the borderlands, distinctions between affinities blur. Being »in-between« 25 26 27 28 29 30 Interview 6. Interview 7. Interview 8. Perekinchiki is a word from the Ukrainian dialect. Interview 9. A conversion involved moving a birth certificate from one Church to another. 31 Interview 10. 342 Bearers of Local Stories is often juxtaposed with an identity easier to determine: »If they were more Polish there, in the house, then all children were going to [Roman Catholic] church.«32 Similarly: »If they were Ukrainians completely, you could not see them in [Roman Catholic] church.«33 Fellow villagers coined special names for cases of very pronounced identity, such as a »real Pole,« »pertinacious Pole,« or a »tough Ukrainian,« and »Ukrainian of blood and bones.« The borderlands practices thus, contrary to conversions, were the norm and were seen as one. Numerous examples from interviews include intermarriages, christening children from such marriages according to a customary tradition34 – girls christened after their mother’s rite and boys after their father’s – double celebrations of religious holidays (following Julian and Gregorian calendars), and collective participation in religious life – usually in connection with the Greek-Catholic Church’s ceremonies: »Our village was mixed; there were more Poles, but in this way, that we went to cerkva, too.«35 The popularity of Greek-Catholic rites and rituals among the peasantry in Eastern Galicia was not only a result of a large number of Greek-Catholic churches in the region or close affinities between inhabitants. The rites’ and rituals’ sensual and emotional character with a strong spiritual element appealed to the peasants’ type of religiosity. A very descriptive example of this phenomenon is the holy day Theophany (Jordan), which in the Eastern Churches includes blessing of waters: When they blessed the waters, a procession marched, Polish marched, and Russky, and they met at the lake; and there these priests were celebrating something, and then they blessed the waters, and Poles and Russky drew it.36 32 Interview 11. 33 Interview 12. 34 The tradition was legitimized by the Concordia – a formal agreement between the bishops of the two Churches signed in Lemberg in July 1863, and soon confirmed by Pope Pius IX. In the interwar period, however, people often decided to replace it with a new customary rule and christened children in accordance with their father’s faith. This was mostly a consequence of the Polish-Ukrainian War of 1918 and 1919, and growing nationalism. See Kinasz, »Postawa duchowieństwa greckokatolickiej metropolii lwowskiej;« Linkiewicz, »Wiejskie społeczności lokalne.« 35 Interview 13. 36 Interview 12. 343 Olga Linkiewicz Holy water was supposed to protect people against ghosts and evil. Therefore all Christian inhabitants, their rite notwithstanding, came to the blessing ceremony: This water […] they drew it, into bottles like that, as if it was holy. Poles somehow, I don’t know: my father always took it [the holy water], then in a barn, you know, before piling corn up, sheaves of corn, he consecrated them, as if this [water] [was] from Jordan.37 Other Greek-Catholic ceremonies popular among Roman-Catholic inhabitants were connected with veneration of the dead. Reasons for choosing the Greek-Catholic Church might have also been pragmatic, and those included celebrating feasts and church holidays with family and neighbors, being within close proximity of a church and cemetery, and paying lower fees for services than those requested by the Roman-Catholic priests. For the interlocutors, sketching a picture of their community was an occasion to comment on a local vernacular. Not surprisingly, the most common answer to inquiries about the language people spoke daily was »mixed«: Mixed, mixed. This [language] and the other – cannot do any harm. […] Ukrainian, we even didn’t know Ukrainian, because Ukrainian and Russky, and Khakhlacki (chachłacki)38 – there is a difference [between them]. We spoke Khaklacki […] We were born like that, we spoke [Khaklacki] to parents. When children went to school, they [learnt] Polish.39 Again, like in the descriptions of the villagers presented above, we hear several expressions for the spoken language, and they are listed one after another: In such a [language], Khaklacki, Russky, Ukrainian. When at school, then in Polish; in church – in Polish, but between themselves [people] spoke in diverse manners. Although the whole village was Polish, they spoke [like that]. Many a time, one from Mo37 Interview 14. 38 A name for a Ukrainian dialect. Probably it derives from khokhol – a haircut attributed to Cossaks. 39 Interview 15. 344 Bearers of Local Stories nasterzyska [a nearby town], such a lord (pan), used to say, that [we were] Poles with Ukrainian tongues [Polacy z ukraińskimi językami].40 »Mixed,« Russky, and Khakhlacki are the most common names interlocutors use for the local vernacular. In some utterances the meaning these terms carry is slightly different. It is fair to assume that in the past the meaning depended on the social situation, and in the context of such a situation the language was evaluated. So-called Khaklacki had rather a pejorative connotation and, by some people, it is still treated with contempt: »Khakly? (chachły) These are the Ukrainians from the east – these who live in the east. And our Ukrainians would be offended if you call them so. They do not belong to something like that.«41 The ambivalence toward Khaklacki and also other popular expressions such as a »simple« or »broken« language has its roots in the ambivalent attitude peasants had toward their culture. The local vernacular was thus »deficient.« As in the past, it denoted a low social status, and »inappropriate« because it was Polish a Pole was supposed to speak. These utterances indicate diglossia – here the use of two languages in different social situations. They also show the prestigious status of Polish. Polish was the language of the non-peasant culture and also the one connected with many rituals and prayers – even for those people who only rarely visited the Roman Catholic church. It is important to note that, from the present-day perspective, the particular aspects of everyday local life, especially intermarriages, may seem awkward or even embarrassing for the former inhabitants of Eastern Galicia. Therefore some interlocutors were not eager to mention such practices, assuming that they would bring into question their Polishness in the presence of the outside observer.42 The ambivalence and uncertainty are the effects of the World War II experience which were compounded by the forced resettlement from the Soviet Union into the western territories. In particular, some migrants were pointed out and called »Ukrainians« and »Banderites«43 by their 40 41 42 43 Interview 4. Interview 16. Interview 19. In this context, a »Banderite« is an offensive name referring to the proponents of the Stepan Bandera movement. Bandera was one of the leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). 345 Olga Linkiewicz neighbors from central Poland because they spoke a Ukrainian dialect and arrived from what became the Ukrainian SSR. After the massacres of the Polish population in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia committed by the Ukrainian nationalists during World War II, in the popular imagery a Ukrainian was virtually synonymous with a nationalist. This conviction was significantly reinforced by the post-war propaganda. A key message about the Galician local communities that emerges from the fieldwork is conveyed in a recurring phrase: »There was no difference« (Nie było różnicy). What do interlocutors mean by that? »I went to school and I went to church, and I went to cerkva [the Greek-catholic church]. It did not make any difference to me.«44 Other person claims: »There was no difference. There was not at all; I did not understand there was any difference and Ukrainians did not understand, did they.«45 »Nobody told you that you are a Ukrainian or a Pole.«46 A plausible explanation as to why this phrase is so frequently reiterated would be to follow its literal meaning and say that villagers were united by the similar social background and culture, and thus to some extent it did not matter which church they attended or which language they spoke. There is, certainly, some truth to such reading. However, the same phrase nie było różnicy can also be understood in a slightly different way. According to the old-fashioned meaning of the verb poróżnić się – »to argue« – we could also read the phrase as reassurance that there was no conflict. »The priest made a difference in our [village],« I was told once.47 In a similar response, the interlocutors describe peaceful coexistence directly: »[We lived] in concord« (zgoda była). »In concord – we visited one another; they come for Christmas, and they invited us, our parents – when there were Russky holidays, [and] to weddings, yes!«48 We may see this illustration as a somewhat affirmative assessment of the past, but it is emblematic of how the interlocutors thought about the life in local communities before the outbreak of World War II. Indeed, in comparison with later events, the interwar coexistence appears to be relatively harmonious. 44 45 46 47 48 Interview 17. Interview 16. Interview 23. Interview 1. Interview 15. 346 Bearers of Local Stories The images of the Other and the rivalry over civilization Notwithstanding distinctions deriving from the cultural affinity, the model community described above looks more like a united than divided society. And yet, the picture of coexistence in Eastern Galicia is multilayered, and its complexity can be read through the interviews. As mentioned, apart from people of peasant background, the local communities comprised some representatives of petty nobility: There were, these nobles – they differed […] they had, as ours used to say, the manner of lords [chodzili po pańsku] – [wore] these berets, hats, and bags. And, ours, people in the village, commonly – a scarf and so. They [petty nobles] lived in the village […] One of the noblewomen married a policeman; they wouldn’t [marry] us.49 Other utterances drawing similar comparisons suggest that the division between nobility and peasantry was experienced even more strongly by people who considered themselves noble: There was no church [in our village] […] we went together to cerkva. But, you see, it was like this: Poles stood on the right side in cerkva, Ukrainians on the left. Because it was [about their] superiority and they chose [to stand] so. […] No, no, there was no mixed [people]; maybe one or two families were [like] that a Ukrainian married a noblewoman.50 A cluster of features perceived as noble was juxtaposed with features of the peasant culture. According to our interlocutors, these two worlds shall remain separate: »That is why we were called Poles, nobility, and they [were called] clogs [chodaczkiwci/khodachkivtsy].51 Simple men, simpletons.«52 The difference was implied by derisive nicknames or epithets and it epitomizes the understanding of otherness.53 Recalling otherness allows a person to indicate which position in the local hierarchies he or she aspired to. By so doing, interlocutors expose 49 50 51 52 53 Interview 19. Interview 20. Chodak – a »clog« meant a simple, poor man. Interview 21. Benedyktowicz, Portrety »obcego«, 178-184; Bourdieu, The Bachelor’s Ball, 64-80. 347 Olga Linkiewicz their concept of civilization and civilizational differences in the local communities. Crossing the boundary which divided peasants and non-peasants would be comparable to the conversion mentioned above. In a similar vein, such a situation posed a threat to the order of society and therefore was to be avoided. The differences between the peasantry and petty nobility existed in many other regions of interwar Poland and still have not disappeared entirely from certain regions. A similar economic situation and nearly identical style of life did not change the profound feeling of separateness and otherness.54 In examples of pointing out the Other, the terms »Ukrainian« or »Pole« were evoked in the context of social hierarchy and attributed respectively to a peasant and a nobleman. Clearly, the meaning of these terms was circumstantial and the evidence from the interwar period confirms this assumption.55 We find further portraits of the Other in the interviews, such as Hutsuls (the Carpathian highlanders) or Mazury (roughly: Polish peasants/settlers), function in virtually the same way: as defining categories. To a certain extent, these terms were interchangeable, and they were applied in accordance with the situation: for instance as an insult or in order to indicate someone with a lower social status.56 Moreover, the meaning of particular defining categories, such as Mazury, transformed over the course of time. At first, this category was used to describe peasants who came from the Mazovia (Mazowsze) region. In the interwar period, however, it was applied to any Polish newcomers who settled in the countryside. Pointing out the Other had an important social function: it expressed a belief in the world’s eternal order and revealed the origins of the universe. Thus, using defining categories in a flexible way allowed the villagers to perceive the surrounding world as coherent. The stories about otherness are therefore quintessentially vernacular and, at the same time, universal. Recounting this indispensable part of the vernacular cosmology57 is frequently accompanied by laughs: Jews, Jews, they are like that: a peasant, goy, has to work, and a Jew deceives him. […] We lived normally, only that they had different 54 Benedyktowicz, Portrety »obcego«. 55 Linkiewicz, »Wiejskie społeczności lokalne.« 56 Linkiewicz, »Peasant Communities in Interwar Poland’s Eastern Borderlands,« 29-34. 57 Campbell, Honour, Family and Patron. 348 Bearers of Local Stories holidays. They were celebrating their Shabbats – Saturdays, every Saturday. […] And such yellow canvas and they prayed, and they swung, oh [imitates swinging] – I went to peep at them [laughs]. […] there, in the garden, they put up these sheds [budy], of bushes, woods, such of leaves, such branches, and they were sitting there, and they lamented [wajkali/vaykali]. […] Like that: waju, waju [laughs].«58 The utterances indicate surprise and incomprehension at the unusual and also simply unacceptable behaviors and customs of the interlocutors’ neighbors.59 The socially fundamental difference between peasants and Jews consisted in a few oppositions: »›These peasants, these boors‹ (chamy) – they called us, these Jews. […] if one didn’t have money, then later one had to work for a Jew, because Jews did not work in the fields, only the people (ludzi) had to.«60 Another person adds: »And Jews, they also spoke Catholic (Żydy po katolicku też mówili).«61 In the recollections of Jews there are stories about both friendly and hostile relations, including the anti-Jewish prejudices. The oppositions Catholic/Jewish, working/not working, a man/ not-a-man, all pertaining to vernacular interpretations of the Bible,62 occurred irrespective of the attitude toward the Jews. Conclusions In the early 2000s, the fieldwork in Lower Silesia drew my attention to the story of the villagers who lived in the borderlands of Eastern Galicia before World War II. As we have seen, this story is in essence very different from the grand narratives of the Polish Kresy. The differences are many but, above all, this local story is not a national one. Moreover, bringing the local story into the picture allows us to explore the Kresy phenomenon beyond the normative, patriotic understanding of Polishness. But the local story offers much more than just this conclusion. The fieldwork data shows that practices of identity in the borderlands of Eastern Galicia were complex and their de58 59 60 61 62 Interview 3. Benedyktowicz, Portrety »obcego«, 185-190. Interview 22. Interview 7. Engelking, Kołchoźnicy; Zowczak, Biblia ludowa. 349 Olga Linkiewicz scription cannot be reduced to ethnic diversity or ethnic differences. Instead of categories that refer to ethnicity and nationalism – Tara Zahra’s well-known »national indifference«63 is a case in point – I propose two notions that capture the particularities and complexity of practices of identity in these borderlands. They both draw on the internal categories as used and understood by the social actors. Cultural affinity describes what is usually labeled as ethnicity. The latter, however, is too narrow to embrace what my actors understood behind such terms as »Polish,« Russky/»Ukrainian,« and »mixed.« Cultural affinity is broader while, at the same time, it stresses the feeling of a natural bond. The second term – civilization – refers to what Pierre Bourdieu aptly called the »constant comparison of judgements about others.«64 The images of the Other and vernacular cosmology these images reflected played a key role in maintaining social hierarchy and social order. In particular, the symbolical rivalry between villagers let them ascribe to the group they represented a civilization of a higher level. The way otherness is employed by the actors provides an insight into the tangled correlation between identity practices and religiosity. Not only the grand Kresy narratives but also the historiography of the interwar Poland’s eastern borderlands have mostly concentrated on grasping ethnic diversity and exploring the impact of nationalism. After all, these territories were at the center of ethnic conflicts and violence. This is especially true for the post-1989 Polish historiography, which frequently draws on the results of the two Polish censuses of 1921 and 1931, and relies considerably on the contemporary political debates and scholarship.65 In the case of Eastern Galicia, the focus of these studies has been the ethnic conflict between Poles and Ukrainians. My research consistently shows that, in order to make sense of the communal response to nationalism, we need to leave aside the assumption about a vital role of ethnic divisions in Eastern Galicia (based on a distinction between Roman and Greek Catholics) which would later be merely reinforced by nationalism. The sources generated from within the local communities reveal that this was the vernacular cosmology on which social relations were built, and moreover, that the nexus between peasants’ religiosity and identity is essential for grasp63 Zahra, Kidnapped Souls. 64 Bourdieu, The Bachelor’s Ball, 12. 65 Linkiewicz, »Peasant Communities in Interwar Poland’s Eastern Borderlands,« 20-28. 350 Bearers of Local Stories ing the reception of the nation-building projects in the village. The idioms and categories present in these sources go beyond language imbued with national rhetoric, and they invite the historian to open up to a »history from below.« Bibliography Field Work Interviews Interview 1: Woman. Born 1922, village Salówka, county of Czortków. Interview 2: Woman. Born 1932, village Brzozdowce, county of Bóbrka. Interview 3: Woman. Born 1937, village Wojutycze, county of Sambor. Interview 4: Woman. Born 1929, village Korościatyn, county of Buczacz. Interview 5: Woman. Born 1921, village Barysz, county of Buczacz. Interview 6: Man. Born 1922, village Plebanówka, county of Trembowla. Interview 7: Man. Born 1920, village Wysocko Wyżne, county of Turka. Interview 8: Man. Born 1926, village Dobrowody, county of Podhajce. Interview 9: Woman. Born 1928, village Szabelnia, county of Rawa Ruska. Interview 10: Woman. Born 1934, village Korościatyn, county of Buczacz. Interview 11: Woman. Bron 1922, village Ostra, county of Buczacz. Interview 12: Woman. Born 1923, village Ostapie, county of Skałat. Interview 13: Woman. Born 1929, village Nadyby, county of Sambor. Interview 14: Man. Born 1919, village Stołpin, county of Radziechów. Interview 15: Woman. Born 1923, village Niżborg Stary, county of Kopyczyńce. Woman. Born 1925, village Trybuchowce, county of Buczacz. Interview 16: Woman. Born 1937, village Wojutycze, county of Sambor. Interview 17: Woman. Born 1912, village Czanyż, county of Kamionka Strumiłowa. Lived in village Stołpin, county of Radziechów. Interview 19: Woman. Born 1921, village Słobódka, county of Brzeżany. Interview 20: Man. Born 1934, village Mochnate, county of Turka. Interview 21: Woman. Born 1919, village Cygany, county of Borszczów. Interview 22: Woman. Born 1916, village Zahajpol, county of Kołomyja. Interview 23: Man. Date unknown, village Dubienko, county of Buczacz. Woman. Born 1934, village Korościatyn, county of Buczacz. 351 Olga Linkiewicz Scholarly Works Baczyński, Stanisław. Kresy Wschodnie. Źródła i perspektywy sprawy rusińskiej w Galicji. Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna/Księgarnia M. Ostaszewskiej i spółki, 1919. Bakuła, Bogusław. »Kolonialne i postkolonialne aspekty polskiego dyskursu kresoznawczego (zarys problematyki).« Teksty Drugie 6 (2006): 11-33. Bartov, Omer. »Communal Genocide: Personal Accounts of the Destruction of Buczacz, Eastern Galicia, 1941-1944.« In Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands, ed. by Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz, 399-420. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013. Beauvois, Daniel. »Mit ›kresów wschodnich‹ czyli jak mu położyć kres.« In Polskie mity polityczne XIX i XX wieku, ed. by Wojciech Wrzesiński, 93-105. Wrocław: Wyd. Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1994. Benedyktowicz, Zbigniew. Portrety »obcego«: Od stereotypu do symbolu. Kraków: Wyd. Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2000. Bourdieu, Pierre. The Bachelor’s Ball: The Crisis of Peasant Society in Béarn. Transl. by Richard Nice. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Campbell, John. Honour, Family and Patronage: A Study of Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek Mountain Community. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964. Ciancia, Kathryn. »Civilizing the Village: Environmental and Human Transformation in Poland’s ›Wild East,‹ 1918-1939.« Paper presented at the 44th annual convention of ASEEES, New Orleans, Louisiana, 15-18 November, 2012. Diner, Dan. Cataclysms: A History of the Twentieth Century from Europe’s Edge. Transl. by William Templer with Joel Golb. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2007. Engelking, Anna. Kołchoźnicy: Antropologiczne stadium tożsamości wsi białoruskiej przełomu XX i XXI wieku. Toruń: Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej/Wyd. Naukowe UMK, 2012. —. »Etnograf wobec stereotypu ›Polaka z Kresów.‹ Z przemyśleń w 10-lecie badań terenowych na Grodzieńszczyźnie,« In Kultura i świadomość etniczna Polaków na Wschodzie. Tradycja i współczesność, ed. by Antoni Kuczyński and Małgorzata Michalska, 231-240. Wrocław: Katedra Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej, 2004. Gierowska-Kałłaur, Joanna, ed. Zarząd Cywilny Ziem Wschodnich (19 lutego 1919-9 września 1920). Warszawa: Neriton/Instytut Historii PAN, 2003. Jasinowski, Bogumił. »Podstawowe znaczenie kresów południowo-wschodnich w budowie polskiej psychiki i świadomości narodowej.« Pamiętnik Literacki 33/1 (1936) 4: 214-220. 352 Bearers of Local Stories Kałwa, Dobrochna, and Barbara Klich-Kluczewska. »Codzienność peryferyjna. Pamięć o PRL mieszkańców Ustronia – studium przypadku.« Konteksty. Polska Sztuka Ludowa LXV (2011) 1: 57-64. Kinasz, Artur. »Postawa duchowieństwa greckokatolickiej metropolii lwowskiej względem nowo powstałego państwa polskiego (1918-1924) w dokumentach Ministerstwa Spraw Zagranicznych II Rzeczypospolitej i Konsystorza Greckokatolickiego we Lwowie.« In Kościół unicki w Rzeczypospolitej, ed. by Wojciech Walczak. Białystok: Instytut Badań nad Dziedzictwem Kulturowym Europy, 2010. Kolbuszewski, Jacek. Kresy. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie, 1995. Kurkowska-Budzan, Marta. »Historia samorosła: narracje o powojennym podziemiu zbrojnym w Łomżyńskiem,« Konteksty. Polska Sztuka Ludowa LXV (2011) 1: 45-57. Linkiewicz, Olga. »Ta Ukraina to ona w wojnie i w wojnie. Wyobrażenia o przeszłości w życiu społecznym zachodniej Ukrainy po 1991 roku.« Kultura i Społeczeństwo 2 (2015): 147-164. —. »Peasant Communities in Interwar Poland’s Eastern Borderlands: Polish Historiography and the Local Story.« Acta Poloniae Historica 109 (2014): 28-34. —. Wiejskie społeczności lokalne na obszarze polsko-ukraińskiego pogranicza etnicznego w Galicji Wschodniej 1918-1939. PhD diss., Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 2009. Ładykowski, Paweł. »Poland and Its Eastern Neighbours: A Postcolonial Case Study.« Baltic Journal of European Studies 5 (2015) 1, 109-132. Mędrzecki, Włodzimierz. »Polskie władztwo.« In Kresy Rzeczpospolitej. Wielki mit Polaków, ed. by Polityka, 68-79. Warszawa: Polityka, 2015. Mędrzecki, Włodzimierz. »Obrazy codzienności.« In Kresy Rzeczpospolitej. Wielki mit Polaków, ed. by Polityka, 92-103. Warszawa: Polityka, 2015. Paprocki, Stanisław J., ed. I Zjazd Naukowy poświęcony Ziemiom Wschodnim w Warszawie 20 i 21 września 1936 r.: Polesie (Sprawozdania i dyskusje). Warszawa: Komisja Naukowych Badań Ziem Wschodnich, 1938. Paruch, Waldemar. Od konsolidacji państwowej do konsolidacji narodowej: mniejszości narodowe w myśli politycznej obozu piłsudczykowskiego (19261939). Lublin: Wyd. UMCS, 1997. Porter, Brian. Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. Snyder, Timothy. The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2003. Szaruga, Leszek. »Literatura po 1989 roku.« In Powinności literatury i inne szkice krytyczne, 166-179. Kraków: Universitas, 2008. Trepte, Hans-Christian. »Od kresów wschodnich do kresów zachodnich. O narracyjnej tożsamości mitu kresowego w polskiej literaturze na obczyźnie.« In 353 Olga Linkiewicz Między Galicją, Wiedniem i Europą: Aspekty twórczości literackiej Andrzeja Kuśniewicza, ed. by Alois Woldan, 149-167. Wien: Stacja Naukowa Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Wiedniu, 2008. Zahra, Tara. Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands 1900-1948. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008. Zowczak, Magdalena. Biblia ludowa. Interpretacje wątków biblijnych w kulturze ludowej. Toruń: Wyd. Naukowe UMK/FNP, 2013 [2000]. 354 Winson Chu »Something has destroyed my memory« Stalingrad and Karl Dedecius’s Second World War Karl Dedecius is known for his prodigious work in translating modern Polish literature into German. He has been a leading figure in German-Polish reconciliation, and especially his prewar childhood is often seen as the touchstone of a lost European multiculturalism. Born in 1921 to a German-speaking family in Lodz, he attended a Polishlanguage high school. During the German occupation, he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht. After being captured at Stalingrad and spending some seven years in Soviet captivity, he went to the German Democratic Republic before fleeing to West Germany in 1952. Settling in Frankfurt a.M., he worked at the Allianz insurance company during the day while translating at night. He is often celebrated for his role in making poets such as Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska better known not just to a German audience but also to Nobel Prize committee members. In 1980, he founded the Deutsches Polen-Institut (German Poland Institute) in Darmstadt, and in 1990 he won the prestigious Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels (The Peace Prize of the German Book Trade). Dedecius’s work in national reconciliation is often ascribed in part to his personal experience in one of the most dramatic events of the twentieth century, the battle of Stalingrad. Although his autobiography is entitled a »European from Lodz,« in many ways he might also be known as a »European from Stalingrad.«1 But surprisingly, Dedecius has spoken relatively little about the war. Even his autobiography does not reveal much about his life on the front.2 One notable exception is a short piece succinctly called »Stalingrad,« which appeared in several German and Polish publications in the mid-1990s. The work represents the most detailed account of the battle written by Dedecius. At first glance the piece seems to break Dedecius’s long silence on the war, but as will be shown, he uses »Stalingrad« to explain 1 Dedecius, Ein Europäer aus Lodz, 134-135. See also Dedecius, Europejczyk z Łodzi. Wspomnienia. 2 See Krzoska, »Karl Dedecius.« 355 Winson Chu this very silence. Moreover, a focus on the battle itself as the most salient wartime experience distracts from his other experiences of »total war.« This article argues that the »broken memory« in »Stalingrad« was not caused by an inability to experience or process events during the war, as Dedecius claims. When read with his other writings on the war, the piece actually reveals his privileging of memories of the home front over those of the battlefield. At the same time, Dedecius’s romanticization of the tensions between Volk Germans (Volksdeutsche) and Reich Germans (Reichsdeutsche) enables him to distance his hometown from the National Socialist regime. Stalingrad – Germans as Victims The hope for a more peaceful European future in the 1990s coincided with a renewed interest in the Second World War. The first half of the decade saw the 50th anniversary of major battles, especially those on the heretofore »forgotten« eastern front. Films such as Joseph Vilsmaier’s Stalingrad (1993), appearing fifty years after the German defeat, depicted the war against the Soviet Union as a war of destruction, and the controversial Wehrmachtsausstellung (Wehrmacht Exhibition) starting in 1995 broadened awareness of purportedly »unknown« German atrocities.3 The critical examination of »ordinary Germans« as wartime perpetrators accelerated in the 1990s – a trend visible in the great public interest in Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1996). Yet accompanying the attention on ordinary German perpetrators was a turn toward seeing ordinary Germans as victims. Wulf Kansteiner and other scholars have emphasized the importance of 1995 as a turning point for the Europeanization and »normalization« of German memory.4 Indeed, the apparent success of re-unification suggested that Germany was on its way to becoming a »normal country,« paving the way for Germany to deal with topics that had allegedly been taboo and not given proper attention – especially the fate of ordinary Germans during the Second World War. Moreover, the rapidly disappearing wartime generation gave added urgency to record the personal 3 On changing views of the German army, see Thamer, »Vom Wehrmachtsmythos zur Wehrmachtsausstellung.« 4 Kansteiner, In Pursuit of German Memory, 280. See also Zehfuss, Wounds of Memory: The Politics of War in Germany, 32-33, 79. 356 »Something has destroyed my memory« testimonies, which were often circulated in popular media. The resulting disproportionate focus on those who had been very young during the war years suggested their inherent innocence and needless suffering. It is important to note, however, that the supposed breaking of taboos was part of a greater wave of remembrance as people in Central and Eastern European could now recount their stories and validate their suffering as part of a grand European narrative. German memories of the Second World War have focused on Stalingrad as a turning point in the conflict.5 It is not surprising then, that the continuing reinterpretation of the battle has been part of the process of »drawing a line« under the futility and the horror of the Second World War. As Oliver von Wrochem shows, the narratives of the 1950s that emphasized the German soldier’s heroism and self-sacrifice gave way in the 1960s to a focus on the soldiers as victims. This view became established by the 1980s.6 By the 1990s, public attention had shifted to the generation of young »ordinary soldiers« who took part in the battle of Stalingrad.7 The abating hostility after the Cold War also saw calls for the »reconciliation and closure« of the GermanRussian war of 1941-1945.8 Despite newer insights that have questioned the battle’s strategic significance, the loss of the Sixth Army has remained a national trauma for Germans and central to what Wolfram Wette and Gerd R. Ueberschär call a »victim myth.«9 According to them, Stalingrad continues to feed the »discussion of fundamental psychological, moral, theological, philosophical, political, and military questions.«10 Thus, the battle has been transformed into a metonym for the entire war – to a great extent also marginalizing the savage Polish campaign of 1939 and the brutal occupation that ensued there, as much of the criticism of the German television miniseries Generation War (Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter, 2013) has revealed.11 It is in this context that we need to place 5 On how Stalingrad has been interpreted as the turning point in the war, see Wegner, »Der Mythos ›Stalingrad,‹« 188. 6 Von Wrochem, »Stalingrad im Nachkriegsgedächtnis,« 144-145. See also Frei, »›Stalingrad‹ im Gedächtnis der (West-)Deutschen.« 7 Frei, »›Stalingrad‹ im Gedächtnis der (West-)Deutschen,« 12. 8 Morina, Legacies of Stalingrad, 238. 9 Wette and Ueberschär, Preface, 14. 10 Ibid. 11 See Logemann, »Nach dem Streit ist vor dem Streit?,« 8; Szarota, »Geschichtsunterricht im Deutschen Fernsehen«; Saryusz-Wolska and Piorun, »Verpasste Debatte,« 127. 357 Winson Chu Dedecius’s published works on Stalingrad. In 1995, his »Stalingrad« appeared in two German collections of remembrances of the Second World War.12 These German versions from 1995 vary from each other in slight but important ways. In 1995 and 1997, two Polish versions done by different translators also appeared.13 Ordinary Soldiers or Unsoldiers? »Stalingrad« in its various iterations begins at an unspecified book fair; the date is simply »fifty years later.« The narrative is set up as a fictional dialogue between two men who remain unnamed, but it is apparent from the biographical references that the second figure is Dedecius. The most thorough description of the characters is provided by the version of »Stalingrad« that appears in Hartmut von Hentig’s anthology Deutschland in kleinen Geschichten, where the protagonists are labeled V1 and V2. The first is denoted as »Verführer, Verarbeiter, Verewiger« (Seducer, Processor, Eternalizer) and the second as »Verwundeter, Verschlossener, Versöhnter« (Wounded, Taciturn, Reconciled).14 These roles vary in other versions. There are handwritten notes to a typed manuscript version, whereby V1 and V2 are changed to publisher (1 – Verleger) and author (2 – Autor).15 This simplification is reflected in the Polish version in Czas from 1995, which uses only publisher (wydawca) and author (autor). The characters are further reduced to interlocutors (Gesprächsteilnehmer) 1 and 2 in a volume edited by Hans Sarkowicz in 1995 and in the 1997 Odra Polish translation (rozmówcy). Despite these variations, Dedecius shows with this conversational setup that the narration and memory are more 12 Dedecius, »Stalingrad,« in Deutschland in kleinen Geschichten; Dedecius, »Stalingrad,« in »Als der Krieg zu Ende war …«. 13 Dedecius, »Stalingrad,« transl. by Marek Magierowski, in Czas Kultury; Dedecius, »Stalingrad,« transl. by Ernest Dyczek, in Odra. 14 All translations into English, except where otherwise noted, are mine (W.C.). 15 Karl Dedecius, »Stalingrad« (Manuscript). Karl Dedecius Archiv, document reference no. 08-09-155, here p. 1. The descriptions for V1 and V2 were changed repeatedly in the manuscript: V1 was originally »Verführer, Verheißer, Verewiger« (Seducer, Prophet, Eternalizer) with the last being changed by hand to »Verwerter« (Utilizer) before being crossed out again, and V2 was »Verwundeter, Versagter, Verlegter« (Wounded, Denied, Misplaced) with the last two changed by hand to »Verschollener« (Missing) and »Verlegener« (Confounded) and then likewise crossed out. 358 »Something has destroyed my memory« important than the actual events of Stalingrad. The grammatically masculine forms in German – Verleger and Autor – as well as the usage of »Mister« (pan) in the Polish text show on the one hand that Dedecius imagines two men sparring over the meaning of Stalingrad in an interview situation. On the other hand, the depiction of two men also suggests that Dedecius is debating with himself over how to represent his battlefield experience. The story starts with the publisher (V1) cornering the author (V2), who again is clearly Dedecius himself: »I’d like to come back to our old conversation. You must write your Stalingrad novel. Now is the right time. There are only a few witnesses left, and even fewer who write.« The publisher’s questions are supposed to reflect our own desire to know more about this prominent humanist’s experience in one of the most notorious battles of the twentieth century. Dedecius as the character in the story appears uneasy and reluctant, yet Dedecius as the author retains control over the interview. In this setup, Dedecius gets the questions he wants to receive and provides the answers he wants to give. The reader can likewise sympathize with Dedecius’s frustration with the publisher, who tells Dedecius that it is his »historical obligation« to tell his story.16 While continuing to voice his objections, Dedecius gradually releases more and more to the publisher. Taking the form of a conversation, »Stalingrad« is neither a comprehensive nor chronological account of the battle. Dedecius is himself aware that his own experience can only be incomplete, and he does not want to »reconstruct the war« by filling in the gaps with his »imagination« (Phantasie), as the publisher suggests to him.17 Dedecius downplays his experience by saying that he was just an »ordinary soldier« (gewöhnlicher Schütze, SMG-Schütze). As a machine gunner, he was only able to look straight ahead from his foxhole, and Dedecius excuses himself for not having been able to see more: »Everything was very small to me, very personal, from below. Like a mole [Maulwurf]. And blind like one.« He claims that he did not have any deep or broad perspective of the battle that a staff officer or a reporter would have had. He notes that there were no »real« Stalingraders who saw the battle from start to finish.18 At the same time, it is apparent that Dedecius experienced most of the battle and was as much a »real Stalingrader« as any other partic16 Dedecius, »Stalingrad,« in Deutschland in kleinen Geschichten, 113. 17 Ibid., 114. 18 Ibid., 115. 359 Winson Chu ipant. He recounts how his hastily assembled replacement unit traveled to Stalingrad in the summer of 1942. From the story, we learn that he was in the 5th Company of the 8th Regiment of the 3rd Division in the Sixth Army.19 Yet he provides no personal information about the other men in his unit.20 Dedecius focuses instead on the conditions the soldiers endured, including temperatures that ranged from 40 degrees Celsius in the summer to minus 40 degrees in the winter. He also provides many physiological details, including diarrhea from eating too much butter and too many cucumbers and tomatoes on the way through southern Russia. After the German Sixth Army was encircled in November 1942, however, the situation got much worse. Dedecius ended up in the German pocket’s northern defensive positions (Nordriegelstellung) in the last two months of the battle. He portrays how the men fought starvation, cold, lice, and disease. He caught typhus fever, and his weight dropped from 80 to 37 kilograms. In contrast, the Russians remain faceless, and Dedecius concedes their superior resources and overwhelming numbers: »Their reinforcements [Ersatzbataillone] arrived in place more quickly than ours.«21 He was found lying in the remains of a building after the capitulation of the Sixth Army. He remarks on the strange twist of fate that he, the most »unsoldierly« man in his unit, ended up as the sole survivor of the once proud regiment of Frederick the Great.22 Here, Dedecius insists on not knowing enough to write about Stalingrad: »What should one describe without knowledge of the context [Zusammenhänge]?«23 Still, much of the conversation in »Stalingrad« focuses on how he cannot remember his experience in Stalingrad. Significantly, Dedecius suggests that the inability to remember and forgetting do not mean the same thing, and he downplays the role of the latter. Dedecius uses the word »forget« once in the essay, 19 According to Krzysztof Kuczyński, who has interviewed Dedecius extensively, Dedecius served in the 8th Grenadierregiment of the 3rd IDM/FO (Infanterie-Division-Motorisiert-Frankfurt-Oder). Kuczyński, Czarodziej z Darmstadt, 24. 20 There are more personal accounts in his autobiography. Dedecius, Ein Europäer aus Lodz, 134-135. 21 Dedecius, »Stalingrad,« in Deutschland in kleinen Geschichten, 116. 22 Ibid. Kuczyński has noted that Dedecius was the only survivor of his regiment and that he was captured on February 13, 1943, which if correct would mean almost two weeks after Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered. Kuczyński, Czarodziej z Darmstadt, 25. 23 Dedecius, »Stalingrad,« in Deutschland in kleinen Geschichten, 116. 360 »Something has destroyed my memory« as will be shown in the excerpt below.24 In contrast, he largely attributes the inability to remember to a kind of physiological trauma: »I can’t remember, even if I try very hard. Something has destroyed my memory.« Dedecius explains that he only has shards and flashes in his mind; he cannot recall places or dates. When the publisher interjects that Dedecius does not want to remember, Dedecius asks the publisher to understand that he has the condition of a person with memory damage (Die Lage eines Gedächtnisgeschädigten).25 Importantly, the use of Gedächtnis here suggests that the lack of memory in the present is not caused by the memories being somehow lost, but rather by a lack of the capacity to remember in the first place. Dedecius emphasizes how his mental state (Befindlichkeit) was for the most part already dead during the battle.26 Unable to perceive the events or even himself at the time, it would be impossible to expect him to recall them now. Dedecius characterizes this numbness as a function of selfpreservation: And my memory [Gedächtnis] was gone, simply gone. I think that was the leftover of a healthy instinct, the last gray cells of reason, which were sick enough, tormented enough, and ingenious enough to come up with this self-defense: forget everything, remember no more [alles vergessen, nichts mehr erinnern] – and so it thus came to be. Maybe it was the brain damage after the typhus fever that finished the job – the memory was gone.27 Here Dedecius uses the word »forget« (vergessen) for the first and only time, which he immediately clarifies as his mind’s directive to remember nothing. As he relates elsewhere, however, Dedecius is not able to remember Stalingrad because he was unable to inscribe the experience into his memory at the time. The inability to remember allows Dedecius to frame the exchange with the publisher not just as a battle for memory – but as a struggle over writing, publishing, and the commercialization of the war. The avaricious publisher urges Dedecius to write a »drama with catharsis and legacy,« which he alleges can now be written since there is enough distance to the actual events. He thinks that Dedecius’s experiences 24 25 26 27 Ibid., 117. Ibid., 114. Ibid., 116. Ibid., 116-117. 361 Winson Chu must have been »something spectacular.«28 Dedecius here uses the boogeyman of commercial exploitation when he states that a Stalingrad novel would only help the consumer (für den Konsumenten), not the producers (Produzenten) of the story.29 Dedecius deflects any attempt to remember by turning his story against those who want to take advantage of his personal suffering. In an unpublished typed manuscript version of »Stalingrad,« Dedecius goes deeper into his loathing for publishing and financial success: He tells the publisher that he does not need to write bestsellers (Sensationserfolge). He is happy instead for 30 Marks for two days’ work of translating an aphorism or a sonnet.30 Dedecius combines this rejection of materialism seamlessly with his own victimization. When the publisher tells Dedecius that the details would make the story more authentic and bring it to life (lebendig), Dedecius replies that doing so would actually kill him a second time.31 Dedecius thus suggests that he had already been killed once at Stalingrad, which reinforces his claim that he was essentially dead and unable to experience events during the battle. The ability to narrate the story would mean putting him back in the battle only to become the victim again, and this time for others to profit from his war story. Despite his insistence that he is unable to remember Stalingrad, it is apparent that Dedecius’s reluctance to write about the battle is due to his unwillingness to engage the subject. When the publisher states that it is imperative that the experience be documented, Dedecius counters: »For what? To be funny? To evoke sympathy? In hunter’s jargon [Jägerlatein] or as a Jeremiad?«32 Towards the end of the piece, Dedecius repeats the question whether the purpose of a story on Stalingrad would be to pity him or to hold him in awe. He then relates other reasons for why he cannot write about the past: »What does a single fate mean when compared with the suffering of millions … I would be the wrong author for the kind of book you have in mind. I cannot write it. There is an inner force that pushes me to remember forward, into the future.«33 He remarks that he can easily write about peace but not war.34 It is clear that Dedecius as the ascetic purist does 28 Ibid., 114. 29 Ibid., 116. 30 Karl Dedecius, »Stalingrad« (Manuscript). Karl Dedecius Archiv, document reference no. 08-09-155, here p. 5. 31 Dedecius, »Stalingrad,« in Deutschland in kleinen Geschichten, 113. 32 Ibid., 115. 33 Ibid., 118. 34 Ibid., 114. 362 »Something has destroyed my memory« not desire fame. He concludes his reflection by saying that »I love life and pursue reason.« In the Hentig version – and in a handwritten note he made to a galley proof – there is an additional ideal that he pursues: »peace« (Den Frieden).35 Dedecius’s rejection of sensationalism and economic success appears to take aim at the rather shallow attempts in the Federal Republic of Germany to acknowledge Nazi Germany’s crimes and to provide justice to the victims. He reveals the inadequacy of the rhetoric of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (mastering the past), which often suggested that West Germany had successfully atoned for Nazism, completely democratized, and transformed Germans into good Europeans. This attempt to »draw a line under the past« has been criticized in Germany and elsewhere. Maja Zehfuss has argued that the juxtaposition of remembering and forgetting is a false opposition and that remembering can function as a way of forgetting.36 Indeed, Dedecius warns in »Stalingrad« that recalling the past would cause it to be forgotten. When the publisher suggests early in the conversation that remembering would help Dedecius recover from the wound of the experience and master (bewältigen) his past, Dedecius brushes this off as a cynical move on the publisher’s part: »Master? Overcome? File away? [Ad acta legen?] … That doesn’t work for me.« As for himself, there could never be closure since he is still in the midst of the Stalingrad experience.37 Dedecius’s resistance to separating the conflicts of the past from the postwar present rests on the premise that his trauma from the battle continues to this day. Despite his implied critique of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, Dedecius’s account nevertheless does little to undermine popular views on Stalingrad and the sense of collective victimization in postwar Germany.38 Although Dedecius suggests in »Stalingrad« that he does not want to contribute to the heroicization of the soldiers, he unintentionally maintains the myth of a clean Wehrmacht that had been abused by Germany’s political and military leaders. Through his contrast of »above« and »below,« his fellow soldiers remain blameless in a war where all suffered. As Christina Morina has shown, private 35 Ibid., 118; Karl Dedecius, »Stalingrad« (galley proof). Karl Dedecius Archiv, document reference no. 08-09-156, unpaginated. 36 Zehfuss, Wounds of Memory, 32-33, 63. 37 Dedecius, »Stalingrad,« in Deutschland in kleinen Geschichten, 113. 38 On the concept of collective victimization, see Morina, Legacies of Stalingrad, 134. 363 Winson Chu memories of the war in East and West Germany »blended out the issue of personal responsibility.«39 Dedecius’s purportedly broken memory allows him not to process his own experiences, hindering a deeper examination of the causes and context for the war. He rejects the possibility of »reconstructing« the war, as if contributing his own stories of the battle would denigrate the experience of the soldiers who fought there. It also allows him to recount stories that he did not experience: »I could only describe that which has already been described.«40 He relates the often retold scene of desperate soldiers who clung to the wings of the last Ju-52 transport planes that took off as the fate of the Stalingrad pocket and its defenders became clear. He repeats the trope of the dark rows of beaten soldiers (Gespensterzüge) trudging in the white snow as they were led to internment. Despite his desire not to cater to shallow consumer entertainment, Dedecius repeats what the public already knows and wants to know. He feels that he himself cannot say anything original about this subject. After all, he surmises, his »partial absence of memory« (Gedächtnislosigkeit) could explain why he did not become a writer of his own experiences but a translator of others’ experiences instead.41 Volk Germans as »Good Germans« Dedecius is well aware that the war in which he participated was a genocidal campaign, although the Holocaust itself is not mentioned in »Stalingrad.«42 He is open about his disdain for all things military and is proud of his own »unsoldierly« conduct.43 At the same time, he serves as a model soldier, for his fate could be read as representative in an age of totalitarianism for millions of other unwilling recruits in all armies. Dedecius himself parses out a special segment of the Wehrmacht that seems to have been especially victimized by the Nazi regime: the Volk Germans. Although they do not appear in the »Stalingrad« piece, his sympathetic view of the Volk Germans can be seen in his other writings. In his autobiography Ein Europäer aus 39 40 41 42 43 Ibid., 132. Dedecius, »Stalingrad,« in Deutschland in kleinen Geschichten, 117. Ibid. Ibid., 115. On the typology of soldiers in the German armed forces, see Kühne, Kameradschaft, 23. 364 »Something has destroyed my memory« Lodz from 2006, he reflects on his observation of Volk Germans from throughout Europe serving in the Wehrmacht. In the following passage, Dedecius depicts this hodgepodge of men among the two dozen replacement grenadiers who were assembled from Frankfurt/Oder, where Dedecius was based, for the Stalingrad operation: We noticed that we had been cobbled together from all corners of the now larger Greater German Reich. One guy came from Estonia, one Szeged Swabian from the Banat was there as well as an Alsatian, and a Tyrolean sat on the right in the corner on the upper plank bed. I wondered whether proper, diligent, well-trained, at least somewhat experienced soldiers were available here for the obviously grand operation between the Don and Volga Rivers. A bunch of young boys who did not know one another, unsure, anything but go-getters. To me this selection of »booty Germans« [Beutegermanen] seemed odd – they were, mind you, good Germans, but bad Germanen.44 His romanticized reflections on his fellow Volk German brothers-inarms as »unsoldiers« like himself reveal further unexamined assumptions about other aspects of the war, including the home front and the Volk Germans there. Recent studies have undermined the notion that locality stands in opposition to the nation or extreme nationalism. Instead, Heimat remains a flexible concept for imagining the nation.45 For Dedecius, the Volk Germans are also critical for his retelling and recasting of the war. Volk Germans become not just part of an extended Heimat within the army, but they are also critical for relating the war story of his hometown. In his study of camaraderie in the German military, Thomas Kühne has pointed out that the point of social orientation for »unsoldiers« like Dedecius was the family.46 In his autobiography, Dedecius paints 44 Dedecius, Ein Europäer aus Lodz, 128-129. Emphasis mine (W.C.). Ethnic Germans in occupied Poland have claimed after the war that they were treated as second-class citizens and were used simply as raw racial material for Germanization projects. The term Beutedeutsche (plunder Germans) became something of an inside joke among ethnic Germans, who would in turn disparage Reich Germans by calling them Reichsgermanen. Here, Dedecius seems to be mixing parts from both terms. 45 The recent historiographical turn on Heimat studies is too large to review here. For an overview of different viewpoints, see Confino, Germany as a Culture of Remembrance. 46 Kühne, Kameradschaft, 172. 365 Winson Chu an idyllic picture of his family in Lodz from before the war. Dedecius emphasizes his negative views of the Third Reich, including how »unmanly, ›un-Germanic‹« Hitler appeared to him in a film, Dedecius’s own non-Germanic looks, his refusal to comply with the Nazi salute, and his half-hearted »conspiracy« to help his Polish friends while he worked for the German occupation authorities in the city.47 Just as Dedecius was the model »unsoldier« in the German army, he extends his anti-nationalist non-conformism to other ethnic Germans in the city. In particular, Dedecius portrays his future wife, Elvira Roth, as typical for the Lodz Germans. In the following passage, Dedecius describes her experience at the Lodzer Deutsches Gymnasium (LDG, the Lodz German Gymnasium): In principle, Lodzers had little interest in politics, and the girls even less. They had all grown up like everyone to be »Volk Germans« and not a national German. Livelihood, career, success, failure, business, and private well-being were in the forefront of their interest. […] These girls from the LDG were quite clever, and they were also quite lacking in German-centricity [Deutschtümelei] or nationalistic arrogance. They preferred to speak to one another not in German, but in Polish, not just in public but at home as well: Kasia instead of Katharina, Marysia instead of Marie, Musia … they liked using the Polish diminutives, the -sia and -nka for the [German] -chen and -lein. Their German sentences were chock full of Polonisms, even entire Polish expressions were used consciously and inserted insistently. They continued to do so even in old age at their class reunions in Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Stuttgart, or elsewhere.48 Dedecius is able to represent how anti-nationalist the Lodz German girls were without however denying their essential Germanness. By emphasizing the Lodz Germans’ love for Polish culture, Dedecius suppresses the thought that they could do harm to their neighbors. While he briefly mentions the »terrible scenes« during the ghettoization of Lodz’s Jews in 1940, it is written without assigning agency by using the passive voice.49 Yet Volk Germans played a continuous and active 47 Dedecius, Ein Europäer aus Lodz, 101-116. 48 Ibid., 112, 114. 49 Ibid., 98. Dedecius’s accounts often have trouble fitting Jews within a European framework that includes Poles and Germans. This difficulty was noted 366 »Something has destroyed my memory« role in repressing Poles and Jews – survivors rarely had good things to say about the Volk Germans in Lodz during the war.50 For Dedecius, of course, the greatest model for local coexistence and the goodwill of the Volk Germans was his own multilingual father, Gustav, whom Dedecius has described elsewhere as »neither Pole nor German« but a »European.«51 In their analysis of family stories in Germany about the Nazi past, Harald Welzer, Sabine Moller, and Karoline Tschuggnall have shown how the participants of the war generation had undergone a »cumulative heroicization« in the eyes of their children.52 Although Karl Dedecius was himself in military service during the war and his father was not, one can see a similar intergenerational process at work. Gustav had been a detective in the vice squad in the interwar Polish police and later served in the police during the German occupation. Karl Dedecius clears away any possible misunderstanding about his father’s attitudes toward the Nazis and theirs toward him. He informs the reader that Gustav had been interrogated by the German occupation authorities (it is unclear by whom) for having worked for the Polish police. Even his prewar work in monitoring prostitutes was, according to Karl Dedecius, »politically neutral, morally innocuous, socially important.«53 This view stands in contrast to recent works on the police in partitioned and interwar Poland, which reveal the extent to which the control of prostitution was used to serve evolving agendas of social and racial hygiene.54 In contrast, Dedecius portrays his father as strictly apolitical—and certainly no Nazi. He emphasizes the subjugated status of the Volk Germans and their distrust of the Third Reich. Gustav, the prototypical Volk German in Karl’s eyes, tried to explain to Karl why the local ethnic Germans were inherently less nationalist than Reich Germans: »You see, the Reich Germans believe in the German Reich, the Volk Germans believe in the German 50 51 52 53 54 by Katrin Steffen in her monograph on Jewish-Polish relations. See Steffen, Jüdische Polonität, 295, fn 255. See also my chapter »Germans into Lodzers? Reinterpreting Karl Dedecius’s Poland in the Twentieth Century.« See for example Checinski, My Father’s Watch; Kieruzel, »Przeszedłem przez Litzmannstadt Ghetto: Marek Bleiweiss – wspomina«; Cherezińska, Byłam sekretarką Rumkowskiego, esp. 331 (entry for July 12, 1944). Zagrodzka, »Kto stoi za Dedeciusem,« 20-21. Welzer, Moller and Tschuggnall, Opa war kein Nazi. Dedecius, Ein Europäer aus Lodz, 94. See Petruccelli, »Pimps, Prostitutes and Policewomen«; Stauter-Halsted, The Devil’s Chain. 367 Winson Chu Volk. In this case, the terminology is correct for once.«55 Gustav may have tried to turn Nazi supranational racialism on its head, but he only seems to reaffirm the importance of völkisch affinities for Reich and Volk Germans. By juxtaposing »Good Volk Germans« with »Bad Reich Germans,« however, Dedecius distances the Volk Germans of the home front from the war and its genocidal campaigns. Despite having been interrogated by Reich authorities, Gustav Dedecius began working for the German criminal police, the Kripo, in the department responsible for tracing stolen property (Sachfahndung).56 Karl Dedecius stresses that his father’s continuation of his profession was not entirely voluntary. His father reportedly said: »What should I do otherwise? Refusing to work would have dire consequences.«57 He was demoted and relegated to an administrative job directing messages and doing translation work.58 Gustav was killed in Lodz in early 1945, as the city changed hands. Dedecius only heard about his father’s death in 1947, when he was in Soviet captivity and a letter was returned to him with the note »Addressee deceased.« Dedecius is clearly traumatized by the loss of his father and has a vivid »memory« of it even though he was not present: I am convinced that we in the camps in Russia were not exposed to such dire soul-searching and hardships as our relatives and friends in 55 Dedecius, Ein Europäer aus Lodz, 95. 56 A Dedecius is listed as a Kriminalangestellter (police employee without civil servant status) in Kriminalinspektion III/3 on the Kriminalpolizei’s roster: »Personalverteilungsplan,« dated 25 July 1940. Archiwum ŻIH, Collection 205, folder 69, p. 4. A Dedecius continues to be listed in the same department (K III/3) on the October 15, 1940 roster (ibid., p. 12), on the November 20, 1940 roster (ibid., p. 17), on the June 21, 1941 directory (ibid., p. 21), and on the June 8, 1942 directory (ibid., p. 31). Another roster in the same folder, undated but likely earlier than July 1940, has a Dedecius listed under Inspektion 11.K. Sachfahndung. The duties of this unit included the control of begging, vagrancy, and homelessness as well as the Bekämpfung des Zigeunerwesens (combating gypsy-ness). Ibid., 60. On the duties of Kriminalinspektion III/3, see also »Geschäftsverteilungsplan der Kriminalpolizeistelle Litzmannstadt,« dated July 25, 1940, in Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi, Collection 203, folder 19, p. 8. Later versions, dated February 1, 1941 (under Zirpins) and dated August 1, 1941 (under Wilhelm Krömer) are in the same folder, pp. 11-18 and 19-26, here 17 and 25. 57 Dedecius, Ein Europäer aus Lodz, 93. 58 Ibid., 94-95. 368 »Something has destroyed my memory« Germany and the occupied regions. We were unfree, but they were also; we froze, they did as well; we starved, they did, too. But the devil of contempt for human dignity did not fight every day for our souls with his trident of viciousness, cunning, and extortion. […] When the Red Army occupied Lodz in 1945, all the Reich Germans were evacuated in organized treks. Many Volk Germans who feared Polish revenge or the incalculability of the Russians fled the city on their own account. Some were killed by partisans while in transit. Those who had Polish friends, a clean conscience, and nothing to fear, stayed. Father stayed. Where else should he have gone? He was sick, unable to march, had just recently buried his cancer-stricken wife. I was in Russia, either fallen or taken prisoner. He is reported to have said: »I have to stay here with my wife. I don’t know anyone in the West. We don’t have any relatives there. And if my son should come home, which I hope, then he would come to me, in our house, otherwise he would have no other place to stay.« What my upstanding father did not consider was the continuously repressed lesson [Erfahrung] that in wartime one is not asked about right or wrong, and especially not about justice. The innocent are affected as much as the culprits [die Schuldigen]. In the end, the winners lose as much as the conquered. As the Russian military units drove on to Berlin, there was chaos in Lodz in April and May of 1945. Snipers crawled out of their hiding places, avengers, vagabonds, thieves searched for plunder and victims. In the little suburban house they found an old, defenseless man and shot him or stabbed him to death. Nobody knows when, how, and why. He, the unknown civilian, my father, was hurriedly buried in an unknown hole or mass grave, somewhere in the city or just outside, in the narrow radius with the small horizon that he never wanted to leave. A price for this [Robert] Musil-like constancy [Stete], of loyalty.59 Clearly, Dedecius has no problem with memory or reconstructing the war with imagination here. He notes that many Volk Germans feared Polish »revenge« and Russian »incalculability« as if the coming violence had only tenuous roots in the German occupation that came before. In stating that the innocent were hurt as much as the guilty in this war, Dedecius suggests strongly that his father belonged to the former. 59 Ibid., 175-176. Emphasis mine (W.C.). 369 Winson Chu Although Dedecius mentions that his father was working for the German police, his autobiography leaves out that his father worked for the Kripo, which notoriously persecuted Poles and especially Jews in the occupied city.60 When Karl Dedecius describes his own failed attempt to find out information about his Polish friends’ relatives who had been arrested for illegal trade, he speaks of his interaction with the authorities (Kommissariat) in impersonal terms,61 despite the fact that his father was employed by the very police force that was responsible for the repression of black market activities. Even though his father had never joined the Nazi Party according to Dedecius, many Poles may not have seen this German policeman as »defenseless,« as a »civilian,« or even necessarily »old«. Indeed, postwar vigilantes in their rush for justice and/or plunder likely would have seen him simply as another Volk German opportunist who had betrayed Poland and who had used his language abilities to assist the occupation forces. Dedecius prefers to see his father as the random victim of mistaken identity or of an incomprehensible act of violence, much like in a natural disaster. To probe further would open too many questions.62 For Dedecius, »total war« means that bad things happened all the time to everyone, although the Volk Germans, who were abandoned by the Reich Germans to their fate, seem to suffer more. In effect Dedecius naturalizes the war, which is characterized as »cruel but normal.«63 This perspective, it seems, would become crucial to Karl Dedecius’s later work as the »bridge builder« between Germany and Poland. 60 On the role of the criminal police in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe, see Herbert, Best; Herbert, Werner Best; Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft ohne Verbrecher; Wagner, Hitlers Kriminalisten. On the role of the criminal police in Lodz, see Cygański, »Policja kryminalna i porządkowa III Rzeszy w Łodzi i rejencji łódzkiej 1939-1945«; Mallmann, »›… durch irgendein schnellwirkendes Mittel zu erledigen.‹« 61 Dedecius, Ein Europäer aus Lodz, 115-116. 62 A more exclusive focus on the chaotic circumstances leading to the killing of his father can be found in Zagrodzka, »Kto stoi za Dedeciusem,« 21. Krzysztof Kuczyński notes that Dedecius found out from a Red Cross letter in 1947 that his father had died in January 1945. This earlier date would coincide with the German evacuation of the city as the Soviets neared. It would also mean his father, born March 22, 1866, was 59 years old when he died. See Kuczyński, Czarodziej z Darmstadt, 26. Dedecius’s parents’ dates of birth can be found on a handwritten note (photocopy), in Karl Dedecius Archiv, document reference no. 03-135. 63 Zehfuss, Wounds of Memory, 26-31. 370 »Something has destroyed my memory« Conclusion Christina Morina has argued that the postwar remembrance of the Second World War has fostered the evasion of responsibility: »individual memories tend to cleanse the past of unpleasant, uncomfortable, or unbearable puzzle pieces, the more so if these pieces contain memories of one’s deeds and failure or inability to prevent ›evil.‹«64 These cleansed spaces are filled with other memories that give sense to the past. In his remembrance of the battle of Stalingrad, Dedecius claims that his memory is broken because he was unable to experience the battle, but his written accounts reveal an ability and willingness to remember the war in a certain way. Above all, Dedecius depicts himself as the stoic sentinel of truth who does greater service to his fellow soldiers by not describing what he endured during the war. Yet his active silence on Stalingrad actually allows him to reduce his war story to a narrative culminating in Stalingrad, which deflects attention from what he saw as a civilian and what he may have done as a soldier. The causes for war and genocide, either in »Stalingrad« or in his other accounts, are vague, and individual »ordinary Germans« rarely appear as perpetrators. By remembering the war but barely mentioning the crimes committed by Nazi Germany in »Stalingrad« and his other works, his war narrative follows what Maja Zehfuss calls »speaking of the Second World War (and not the Holocaust).«65 In contrast to his purported lack of memory of Stalingrad, Dedecius is able to recall his hometown in vivid detail. Home front and front lines do not stand in opposition for Dedecius, but together they build a narrative of collective suffering. Here, the Volk Germans provide the glue to connect these two fronts. Dedecius’s portrayal of peaceful Volk Germans as victims of Reich German nationalism reveals how purported German-German tensions can be used to distance the Volk Germans from Nazi Germany’s war, which was waged in part in their name. His sympathetic view of the Volk Germans as »unsoldierly« and as »Good Germans/Bad Nazis« both in the army and on the home front, however, does not square with how many ethnic Germans behaved in Lodz during the war. Other accounts by Volk Germans from Lodz likewise stress the differences between Reich and Volk Germans, and further study may find similar patterns of recollection 64 Morina, Legacies of Stalingrad, 132-133, 223. 65 Zehfuss, Wounds of Memory, 26-27. 371 Winson Chu among ethnic Germans from elsewhere.66 Dedecius is often celebrated as a leader of German-Polish reconciliation who was more progressive than the rest of society. But »Stalingrad« underscores that he was very much a man of his times. Rather than the Europeanization of German political memory,67 we see that his memory of the Nazi past, and of the war and Holocaust, remain centered on the idea of a »good Germany.« Bibliography Archival Sources Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi: Collection 203: Państwowa Policja Kryminalna, Posterunek Policji Kryminalnej w Łodzi, folder 19: Geschäftsverteilungspläne der Kriminalpolizeistelle Litzmannstadt u. alphabetisches Namensverzeichnis der Beamten u. Angestellten, 1940-41 [microfilm no. 31346]. 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Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2008. 66 Treger, Lodz – Berlin; Strobel, »Industriemetropole zwischen Orient und Okzident.« 67 Kansteiner, In Pursuit of German Memory, 280-281. 372 »Something has destroyed my memory« —. Ein Europäer aus Lodz. Erinnerungen. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 2006. —. »Stalingrad,« transl. by Ernest Dyczek, Odra 10 (Oct. 1997): 5-7. —. »Stalingrad.« In Deutschland in kleinen Geschichten, ed. by Hartmut von Hentig, 113-118. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995. —. »Stalingrad.« In »Als der Krieg zu Ende war …« Erinnerungen an den 8. Mai ’45, ed. by Hans Sarkowicz, 192-196. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 1995. —. »Stalingrad,« transl. by Marek Magierowski, Czas Kultury 3 (1995): 20-21. Treger, Max. Lodz – Berlin, 1914-1984. Ein Zeitdokument. Frankfurt a.M.: Autoren-Selbstverlag, 1985. Scholarly Works Chu, Winson. »Germans into Lodzers? Reinterpreting Karl Dedecius’s Poland in the Twentieth Century.« In Cultural Landscapes: Transatlantische Perspektiven auf Wirkungen und Auswirkungen deutscher Kultur und Geschichte im östlichen Europa, ed. by Andrew Demshuk and Tobias Weger, 169-186. München: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2015. Confino, Alon. Germany as a Culture of Remembrance: Promises and Limits of Writing History. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Cygański, Mirosław. »Policja kryminalna i porządkowa III Rzeszy w Łodzi i rejencji łódzkiej 1939-1945.« Zbrodnie hitlerowskie w Łodzi i Województwie Łódzkim, special issue, Rocznik Łódzki 16 (1972): 27-65. Frei, Norbert. »›Stalingrad‹ im Gedächtnis der (West-)Deutschen.« In Stalingrad erinnern: Stalingrad im deutschen und im russischen Gedächtnis, ed. by Peter Jahn, 8-15. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2003. Galiński, Antoni. »Policja w getcie.« In Getto w Łodzi, 1940-1944. Materiały z sesji naukowej – 9 VIII 1984, ed. by Okręgowa Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Łodzi – Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, 27-49. Łódź: Okręgowa Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Łodzi / Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 1988. Herbert, Ulrich. Werner Best – Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft. Berlin: Arenhövel, 1997. —. Best. Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft, 1903-1989. Bonn: Dietz, 1996. Kansteiner, Wulf. In Pursuit of German Memory: History, Television, and Politics after Auschwitz. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2006. Kieruzel, Marcin. »Przeszedłem przez Litzmannstadt Ghetto: Marek Bleiweiss – wspomina.« Kronika Miasta Łodzi 8 (2009) 3: 145-152. Krzoska, Markus. »Karl Dedecius – Ein Europäer aus Lodz.« Review of Ein Europäer aus Lodz. Erinnerungen, by Karl Dedecius. Dialog 74-75 (2006): 373 Winson Chu 95-97. Accessed August 25, 2016. http://www.dialogmagazin.eu/leseprobeausgabe-74-75-dedecius-lodz-europaeer.html. Kuczyński, Krzysztof A. Czarodziej z Darmstadt. Rzecz o Karlu Dedeciusie. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 1999. Kühne, Thomas. Kameradschaft. Die Soldaten des nationalsozialistischen Krieges und das 20. Jahrhundert. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006. Logemann, Daniel. »Nach dem Streit ist vor dem Streit? Zur Debatte über den ZDF-Dreiteiler ›Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter.‹« In Forum Geschichtskulturen, Poland, Version: 1.0, May 12, 2013. Accessed August 25, 2016. http://www. imre-kertesz-kolleg.uni-jena.de/index.php?id=516. Mallmann, Klaus-Michael. »… durch irgendein schnellwirkendes Mittel zu erledigen.‹ Die STAPO-Stelle Litzmannstadt und die Shoah im Warthegau.« In Der Judenmord in den eingegliederten polnischen Gebieten 1939-1945, ed. by Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk and Jochen Böhler, 143-166. Osnabrück: Fibre, 2010. Morina, Christina. Legacies of Stalingrad: Remembering the Eastern Front in Germany since 1945. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Petruccelli, David. »Pimps, Prostitutes and Policewomen: The Polish Women Police and the International Campaign against the Traffic in Women and Children between the World Wars.« Contemporary European History 24 (2015) 3: 333-350. Saryusz-Wolska, Magdalena, and Carolin Piorun. »Verpasste Debatte. Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter in Deutschland und Polen.« Osteuropa 64 (2014) 11-12: 115-132. Stauter-Halsted, Keely. The Devil’s Chain: Prostitution and Social Control in Partitioned Poland. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015. Steffen, Katrin. Jüdische Polonität: Ethnizität und Nation im Spiegel der polnischsprachigen jüdischen Presse 1918-1939. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004. Strobel, Georg W. »Industriemetropole zwischen Orient und Okzident. Eine Hommage an die Vielvölkerstadt Lodz.« Deutsch-Polnische Ansichten zur Literatur und Kultur. Jahrbuch 1992 (1993): 31-59. Szarota, Tomasz. »Geschichtsunterricht im Deutschen Fernsehen – erteilt von einem Lehrer mit Gedächtnisschwund.« In Zeitgeschichte-online (July 2014). Accessed August 25, 2016. http://www.zeitgeschichte-online.de/thema/ geschichtsunterricht-im-deutschen-fernsehen-erteilt-von-einem-lehrer-mitgedaechtnisschwund. Thamer, Hans-Ulrich. »Vom Wehrmachtsmythos zur Wehrmachtsausstellung.« In Politische Erinnerung. Geschichte und kollektive Identität, ed. by Harald Schmid and Justyna Krzymianowska, 123-133. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2007. 374 »Something has destroyed my memory« Wagner, Patrick. Hitlers Kriminalisten. Die deutsche Kriminalpolizei und der Nationalsozialismus zwischen 1920 und 1960. München: C.H.Beck, 2002. —. Volksgemeinschaft ohne Verbrecher. Konzeptionen und Praxis der Kriminalpolizei in der Zeit der Weimarer Republik und des Nationalsozialismus. Hamburg: Christians, 1996. Wegner, Bernd. »Der Mythos ›Stalingrad‹ (19. November 1942-2. Februar 1943).« In Schlachtenmythen. Ereignis, Erzählung, Erinnerung, ed. by Gerd Krumeich and Susanne Brandt, 183-197. Köln: Böhlau, 2003. Welzer, Harald, Sabine Moller, and Karoline Tschuggnall, Opa war kein Nazi. Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust im Familiengedächtnis. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 2002. Wette, Wolfram, and Gerd R. Ueberschär. Preface to Stalingrad: Mythos und Wirklichkeit einer Schlacht, ed. by Wolfram Wette and Gerd R Ueberschär, 9-16. 5th ed. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer-Taschenbuch Verlag, 2012. Wrochem, Oliver von. »Stalingrad im Nachkriegsgedächtnis – Ereignis und Erinnerung im Wandel.« In Politische Erinnerung. Geschichte und kollektive Identität, ed. by Harald Schmid and Justyna Krzymianowska, 132-149. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2007. Zagrodzka, Danuta. »Kto stoi za Dedeciusem.« Gazeta Wyborcza (Magazyn), December 23, 1997, 20-22. [Reprinted in Pół wieku tłumaczenia. Rozmowy z Karlem Dedeciusem 1959-2009, ed. by Ernest Kuczyński and Krzysztof Kuczyński, 299-309. Płock: Wydawnictwo Państwowej Wyższej Szkoły Zawadowej w Płocku, 2009.] Zehfuss, Maja. Wounds of Memory: The Politics of War in Germany. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 375 List of Contributors Winson Chu is Associate Professor of Central European History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His book, The German Minority in Interwar Poland, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012 and received a Fraenkel Prize commendation by the Wiener Library in London. He is the co-author of »A Sonderweg through Eastern Europe? The Varieties of German Rule in Poland during the Two World Wars,« which appeared in the September 2013 volume of German History and which won the Article Prize of the German History Society. He is currently working on a history of the Polish city of Łódź with a focus on the competition of German, Polish, and Jewish nationalisms from 1880 to 2009. wchu@uwm.edu Karin Friedrich is Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK, and co-director of the university’s Centre for Early Modern Studies. She specializes in 17th- and early 18th-century Polish-Lithuanian and Prussian history and political thought, and is currently preparing a monograph on the divided loyalties of the Lithuanian magnate and Prussian governor Bogusław Radziwiłł. She is an elected member of the council of the Royal Historical Society and active in several peer review bodies. Her publications include The Other Prussia (Cambridge 2000, Polish transl. Poznan 2005), The Cultivation of Monarchy and the Rise of Berlin: Brandenburg-Prussia 1700 (Farnham 2010, with Sara Smart) and Brandenburg-Prussia, 1466-1806: The Rise of a Composite State (Basingstoke 2012). k.friedrich@abdn.ac.uk Maciej Górny is Professor at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw and in the German Historical Institute Warsaw, and is editor-in-chief of Acta Poloniae Historica. He specializes in the history of historiography and East Central European history of the 19th and 20th centuries. His publications include The Nation Should Come First: Marxism and Historiography in East Central Europe (Frankfurt am Main 2013; Polish edition 2007, German 2011), Wielka Wojna profesorów. Nauki o człowieku (1912-1923) (Warszawa 2014; Russian and English editions forthcoming). jmgorny@gmail.com 377 List of Contributors Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz is Professor at the Institute of Literary Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where she heads the Enlightenment Literature section. She is President of the Polish Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and is a historian of the political ideas and discourse in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as of the culture of the Enlightenment. Among her most important works are Queen Liberty: The Concept of Freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Brill 2012, a shorter version of the Polish original Regina Libertas, which was published in 2006); O formę rządu czy o rząd dusz? Publicystyka polityczna Sejmu Czteroletniego (2000); Gulliver in the Land of Giants: A Critical Biography and the Memoirs of the Celebrated Dwarf Joseph Boruwłaski (2012, a translation of the Polish original published in 2004); and a scholarly edition (with Dominique Triaire) of the Mémoires of King Stanisław August Poniatowski (2012). krwawicz@wp.pl Jürgen Heyde is Extracurricular Professor at Halle University and Research Fellow at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) in Leipzig. His work focuses on the impact of non-dominant groups in early modern and modern societies. His publications include Transkulturelle Kommunikation und Verflechtung. Die jüdischen Wirtschaftseliten in Polen vom 14. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert (2014); Geschichte Polens (2017); Bauer, Gutshof und Königsmacht. Die estnischen Bauern in Livland unter polnischer und schwedischer Herrschaft 1561-1650 (2000). juergen.heyde@leibniz-gwzo.de Karsten Holste is Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute Warsaw. His research focuses on German and Polish political cultures from the 17th to 19th centuries. Currently he is working on a project about the burghers of the Polish town Wschowa around 1700. He has published the monograph In der Arena der preußischen Verfassungsdebatte. Adlige Gutsbesitzer der Mark und Provinz Brandenburg 1806-1847 (2013) and co-edited the book Aufsteigen und Obenbleiben in europäischen Gesellschaften des 19. Jahrhunderts. Akteure – Arenen – Aushandlungsprozesse (2009). karsten.holste@geschichte.uni-halle.de Dietlind Hüchtker is Extracurricular Professor at Halle University and Research Fellow at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) in Leipzig. She specializes 378 List of Contributors in gender history and East Central European history of the 19th and 20th centuries. She has published the monograph Geschichte als Performance. Politische Bewegungen in Galizien um 1900 (2014) and co-edited several books, most recently Heilig. Transkulturelle Verehrungskulte vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart (2017). dietlind.huechtker@leibniz-gwzo.de Dobrochna Kałwa is Assistant Professor at the Institute of History of the University of Warsaw. Her research fields are gender history in Poland during the 20th century, methodology of oral history, and contemporary migration of women in Europe. Her main publications are From Mentalities to Anthropological History: Theory and Methods (co-ed., 2012), Migration als Ressource. Zur Pendelmigration polnischer Frauen in Privathaushalte der Bundersrepublik (2009), Historia zwyczajnych kobiet i zwyczajnych mężczyzn. Dzieje społeczne w perspektywie gender (2007). d.kalwa@uw.edu.pl Yvonne Kleinmann is Professor of East European History and Director of the Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies at Halle University. Her fields of research are interethnic relations and legal history in early modern Poland-Lithuania and the Russian Empire as well as Jewish history in Eastern Europe. Among others, she has published the monograph Neue Orte – Neue Menschen. Jüdische Lebensformen in St. Petersburg und Moskau im 19. Jahrhundert (2006) on Jewish migration to the Russian capitals, and co-edited Reden und Schweigen über religiöse Differenz (2013) on discourse and silence about religious difference in comparative perspective (2013), and Religion in the Mirror of Law: Eastern European Perspectives from the Early Modern Period to 1939 (2016). yvonne.kleinmann@geschichte.uni-halle.de Kornelia Kończal is a Junior Fellow at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt. Her research interests include the social and intellectual history of modern Europe, the history of social sciences and humanities, and memory studies. She co-edited the volume Strategien der Geschichtspolitik in Europa nach 1989. Deutschland, Frankreich und Polen im internationalen Vergleich (2013). Her current book project concerns German property in Poland and Czechoslovakia after 1945. kornelia.konczal@uni-erfurt.de 379 List of Contributors Olga Linkiewicz is Assistant Professor at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. She specializes in the social history of modern Poland, the history of social sciences, and memory studies. She is currently completing Localness and Nationalism: Rural Communities in Interwar Eastern Galicia (Pol.). Her current research project focuses on the relationship of ethnology and racial anthropology with politics in interwar Poland, as well as the disciplines’ interconnection with early Area Studies in the United States. ola.linkiewicz@ihpan.edu.pl Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov is Assistant Professor at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Her research focuses on East European Jewish history in the 19th and 20th centuries. Her publications include Strategie przetrwania. Żydzi po aryjskiej stronie Warszawy (2004), Obywatel Jidyszlandu: rzecz o żydowskich komunistach w Polsce (2009), Studia z dziejów trójjęzycznej prasy żydowskiej na ziemiach polskich (ed., 2012), and Lesestunde / Lekcja czytania (co-ed., 2013). Her monograph Mówić we własnym imieniu. Prasa jidyszowa a tworzenie żydowskiej tożsamości narodowej on the Yiddish press in Poland before 1918 was published in 2016. jnalewajko@ihpan.edu.pl Stanisław Rosik is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Wrocław, where he heads the Laboratory of Research on Early History of Central Europe. His fields of research are the early Slavs, the beginnings of Central Europe, German and Polish historiography, and hagiography from the 10th through 13th centuries. Among others he has published the books Udział chrześcijaństwa w powstaniu policefalnych posągów kultowych u Słowian zachodnich (1995), Interpretacja chrześcijańska religii pogańskich Słowian w świetle kronik niemieckich XI-XII wieku (2000), Conversio gentis Pomeranorum. Studium świadectwa o wydarzeniu (2010), and Bolesław Krzywousty (2013). He manages the International Research Project Poland and Pomerania in Shaping European Civilization: From the Slavic Tribes to the Turn of the Twelfth Century (2014–2019). stanislaw.rosik@uwr.edu.pl Moshe Rosman is Professor emeritus in the Koschitzky Department of Jewish History of Bar Ilan University in Israel and a Fellow of the Israel Institute of Advanced Studies. He has conducted extensive re380 List of Contributors search in Polish and Ukrainian archives and specializes in integrating Jewish and non-Jewish sources. His main research subjects are Polish-Jewish history, Hasidism, historiography, and gender history. Rosman’s prize-winning books include The Lords’ Jews: Jews and Magnates in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1990), Founder of Hasidism: A Quest for the Historical Ba’al Shem Tov (1996), and How Jewish Is Jewish History? (2008). mrosman49@gmail.com Ostap Sereda is Associate Professor of Modern Ukrainian History at the Ukrainian Catholic University in L’viv. His fields of research are political and cultural aspects of the formation of national identities in East European imperial borderlands. Among others he published a monograph on political discourses and cultural practices of several competing Ruthenian national projects in 19th-century Austrian Eastern Galicia (Ukr. 2012). His current research project will result in a monograph on cultural politics and musical theater in Russian-ruled Kyiv in the second half of the 19th century. osereda@ucu.edu.ua Urszula Sowina is Associate Professor at the Centre of History of Material Culture in the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. She is the author of publications on the history of medieval and early-modern towns. Her publications include Woda i ludzie w mieście późnośredniowiecznym i wczesnonowożytnym. Ziemie polskie z Europą w tle (Water and people in a late-medieval and early-modern town. The Polish lands in European comparison) (2009). usowina@wp.pl Katrin Steffen is a Research Fellow at the Nordost-Institut Lüneburg at the University of Hamburg (IKGN e.V.) Her fields of research include the history of Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe, memory studies, and the transnational history of science in modern Europe. Among others, she has published a monograph on identity discourses among Polish Jews during the Interwar Period. She has also edited the volume After the Fall of Empires: Historical Turning Points and Biographical Experience in Eastern Europe (Nordost-Archiv, 2015), and is the co-author of a four-volume source edition on the German population in Poland from 1945 to 1950, as well as of the volume Expert Cultures in Central Eastern Europe (2010). Her current project is a double biography on the transnational lives of Jan Czochralski and Ludwik Hirszfeld. katrin.steffen@gmail.com 381 List of Contributors Bogumił Szady is Associate Professor and Head of the Research Unit on Early Modern History at John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, and Associate Professor at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Atlas Section). His work focuses on historical geography of religious and ethnic groups in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Other research fields are structures and organization of religious institutions in early modern Europe, historical source edition, historical cartography, and application of GIS tools in historical research. His publications include Geografia struktur religijnych i wyznaniowych w Koronie w II połowie XVIII w. (Lublin 2010); Ludność i organizacja diecezji krakowskiej (ed., Lublin 2010); and Prawo patronatu w Rzeczypospolitej w czasach nowożytnych (Lublin 2003). szady@kul.lublin.pl Tomasz Wiślicz is Associate Professor at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, member of the Research Group for Old-Polish Culture of the University of Warsaw, and member of the Polish Section of the Commission Internationale d’Histoire et d’Etudes du Christianisme. His fields of interests are cultural and social history of the early modern times, and theory of history. He is author of the books Liking: Marriage and Informal Relationships in the Polish Countryside in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Social Imagery and Personal Experience (Polish 2012, English 2017), Krótkie trwanie. Problemy historiografii francuskiej lat dziewięćdziesiątych XX wieku (2004), Zarobić na duszne zbawienie. Religijność chłopów małopolskich od połowy XVI do końca XVIII wieku (2001) and co-editor of the volumes Historia – dziś. Teoretyczne problemy wiedzy o przeszłości (with Ewa Domańska and Rafał Stobiecki, 2014) and Obserwacja uczestnicząca w naukach historycznych (with Barbara Wagner, 2008). twislicz@ihpan.edu.pl Iurii Zazuliak is Research Fellow at the Institute of Ukrainian Studies of the National Academy of Sciences and Associate Professor of Medieval History at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. His scholarly interests are concentrated mostly on the problems of law, dispute settlement, violence, and social relations in late medieval and early modern Poland-Lithuania with the special focus on the region of Galicia (Red Ruthenia). His most recent publications include »Old Men and Their Testimonies in the Perambulation of 382 List of Contributors Borders during the First Half of the 16th Century: Evidence from the Rus’ Palatinate,« SOCIUM 11–12 (2015) and »Plebeian Threats and Letters of Threats from the Rus’ Palatinate, 16th century,« in Patrimonium (2015/1), both in Ukrainian. yuriy_zazuliak@yahoo.com 383 Published so far | Bisher in der Reihe erschienen: Bd. 1: Aleksander Brückner revisited. Debatten um Polen und Polentum in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Herausgegeben von Yvonne Kleinmann und Achim Rabus, Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag 2015. Bd. 2: Dekonstruieren und doch erzählen. Polnische und andere Geschichten. Herausgegeben von Jürgen Heyde, Karsten Holste, Dietlind Hüchtker, Yvonne Kleinmann und Katrin Steffen, Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag 2015.