Poland's Wild East: Imagined Landscapes and Everyday
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POLAND’S WILD EAST: IMAGINED LANDSCAPES AND EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE VOLHYNIAN BORDERLANDS, 1918-1939 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Kathryn Clare Ciancia August 2011 © 2011 by Kathryn Clare Ciancia. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/sz204nw1638 ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Norman Naimark, Primary Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Katherine Jolluck I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. James Sheehan I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Amir Weiner Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives. iii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the Polish state’s attempts to integrate, Polonize, and “civilize” the multiethnic eastern province of Volhynia between 1918 and 1939. While political elites promoted the province’s connections to the nation’s history, Volhynia’s Polish population was drastically outnumbered by a combination of Ukrainians and Jews. Breaking from the traditional historiography, which explores Warsaw’s policies towards Poland’s ethnic minorities and analyzes interethnic relations between clearly- defined groups, the dissertation considers the “civilizing” mission carried out by a second tier of nationally-conscious political actors who represented the Polish state at the periphery. This group of men (and, more rarely, women) included border guards, teachers, policemen, national activists, military settlers, bureaucrats, scouts, and ethnographers, all of whom brought their own ideas about what Polish civilization meant in the “wild fields” of the East. Since Volhynia was economically, socially, and culturally underdeveloped, lacking many of the basic indicators of “civilization,” and since it lay in a geopolitically volatile region that bordered the Soviet Union, incoming elites attempted to shape the physical environment, material culture, and borderland people into something more Polish, European, and “civilized.” Far from being an abstraction, Polishness was manifested in concrete actions, including the imposition of good governance, the maintenance of a secure border, and the creation of well-run towns and productive villages. Drawing inspiration from environmental and spatial histories, the chapters progress chronologically and thematically, each focusing on Polish efforts to regulate, transform, and promote the space of—or spaces within—Volhynia. Although the idea of Polish civilizational superiority suggested a hierarchy of Volhynia’s Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, German, Czech, and Russian inhabitants (based on their everyday behavior and levels of material culture), Polishness could not simply be imposed from above. Indeed, physical conditions on the ground created tangible challenges to the “civilizing” mission. Elites found that local Poles were nationally indifferent and frequently put their own interests above those of the nation as a whole, iv while ill-equipped and under-financed state personnel struggled to deal with the harsh realities of life and the intransigence of peasant populations. Reports and newspaper articles suggested that Volhynia was a place where Polishness might be lost and, by the late 1930s, visions of Polish civilization were replaced with more radical schemes of demographic and spatial transformation. Studying this multiethnic borderland during the twenty years prior to the Second World War suggests how local dynamics contributed to the social and ethnic conflicts that exploded here after 1939. But the dissertation also provides an in-depth analysis of the wider tensions between national ideals and everyday realities, an exploration into the discursive use of “civilization” by East Europeans (who have traditionally been seen as less “civilized” than their Western European counterparts), and a methodological example of how spatial and environmental histories can illuminate the study of modern nationalism. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The individual name that appears on the PhD belies the fact that the dissertation’s foundations, content, form, and style—not to mention the happiness of its author—are influenced by many different people. I am grateful to have this opportunity to thank the individuals who have helped me along the way. My largest intellectual debt is to my adviser, Norman Naimark. Throughout my time at Stanford, Norman has balanced constructive criticism with unflagging support of my work, provided a model of research, writing, and professionalism, and encouraged me to pursue my own intellectual interests. I am eternally grateful for the time, effort, and many Business School lunches that he has invested in me over the past six years. Amir Weiner has followed my project with enthusiasm from its inception, always asking the kinds of questions that push me to consider completely new perspectives, frameworks, and literatures. Katherine Jolluck’s detailed comments on the draft helped me to clarify my argument and to think more concretely about the bigger claims I wanted to make. James Sheehan’s skills as a thinker, writer, and lecturer, along with his interest in questions about twentieth-century European identity, made a deep impression on me in my first quarter at Stanford, shaping my approach right from the beginning. Beyond my committee, I would also like to thank J.P. Daughton, for encouraging me to see connections between Poland and other parts of Europe; Nancy Kollmann and Paul Robinson, for organizing Stanford’s Russian and East European Workshop and European History Workshop respectively; and Edith Sheffer, for helping me to appreciate what borders and borderlands mean—on the ground and otherwise. While the process of writing is largely solitary, History Department colleagues have read drafts of my chapters, offered stimulating feedback, and provided necessary distractions from academic work. In this regard, I thank Markian Dobczansky, Simon Ertz, Daniel Heller, Orysia Kulick, Peter Mann, Laura Monkman, Dina Moyal, Daniel Perez, Anat Plocker, Maria Ponomarenko, Sophie Roberts, Chris Stroop, and Derek Vanderpool. In particular, I express my deep gratitude—intellectually and vi personally—to Daniel Halliday, Jovana Knežević, Katharina Matro, and Peder Roberts, the latter of whom read the complete manuscript in incredible detail. There can, of course, be no research without languages, funding, and administrative support, and I have been fortunate enough to receive help in all three areas. For guiding me through the cases, conjugations, and multiple consonants of Polish, I am grateful to Dorota Hołowiak, Ania Kieturakis, and Leszek Bartoszewski. With much good cheer, Lessia Jarboe tutored me in Ukrainian and was always happy to share stories about her hometown of Rivne. I would also like to thank the organizations that have funded my work at Stanford: the History Department, for providing me with a five-year Fellowship; the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, for three summer grants to complete research in Warsaw and Rivne; and the Vice Provost for Graduate Education, for financial assistance in Warsaw. During my final year of writing, I was supported by a Mellon Fellowship through the Stanford Humanities Center, as well as by the History Department’s Weter Fund. Throughout, Linda Huynh and Art Palmon provided invaluable administrative help. Archivists and librarians in Poland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States made my research path as smooth as possible. In Poland, the staff at the Archive of New Documents, Warsaw University Library, the National Library, the KARTA archive, and the Border Guard Archive in Szczecin ensured that I found what I was after. At the State Archive in Rivne, Volodymyr Marchuk’s assistance meant that my short stay there was a success. The support of staff at the National Archives and Polish Institute in London and at the Hoover Institution Archive and Library in California was also very much appreciated. The historian’s experience does not begin and end with the archive, however, and I am grateful to those individuals whose company I enjoyed once the archives closed their doors. In Poland, my extended family—particularly Wujek Jurek and Ciocia Ala Sypek, and my kuzynki, Dominika and Olga Sypek—always made me feel at home in Częstochowa and Kraków, supplying me with copious amounts of delicious homemade naleśniki and gołąbki just when I needed them most. In Warsaw, I thank Basia Nawrot, who allowed me to practice my spoken Polish with her over vii many a latte, and Ray Patton and Kerry Allan, whose company brightened up the evenings. In Zabrze,