Krystyna Dziubacka the Poles in the Vilnius District As Lithuanian Citizens in the Context of Research on Post- Transformational Reality
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Krystyna Dziubacka The Poles in the Vilnius district as Lithuanian citiZens in the conteXT of research on post- transformational reality Annotation. The author elaborates the idea of The Republic of Lithuania gained its social capital that becomes helpful while making independence at the beginning of 1990s. attempt to determine the Polish minority living The declaration of renewed independence of in Lithuania, as a potential of this country. This Lithuania declared on March 11th 1990, initiated article presents research on the citizenship, and the transformation processes implying far-reaching conditions enabling or disabling the process of its changes both tackling the political, economic, emergence among the Polish minority in Lithuania. cultural as well as educational aspects. The young The background of the undertaken issue was the Republic entered a stage of quick and - in some spheres process of transformation in the context of the of life - radical reforms. They mainly considered the following: examining changes within the assessment political and economical aspects in the functioning of the living conditions and quality of life, attitudes of a young country, but also affected social, cultural towards the occurring changes, but predominantly and educational aspects of the Lithuanian reality – shaping citizenship among contemporarily biggest (Szerląg, 2001, p. 114). Lithuanian national minority. The striking similarity between Poland and The last decade of the 20th century is for Europe Lithuania, with regards to the experiences resulting a time of intense changes and transformation. The from the belonging to one political and cultural bloc, wave of revolution, that swept through the territory the aspirations directed at independence, and the need of the countries of the former Soviet bloc, initiated for democratization and pro-European aspirations, some of the changes, starting from the Round enabled comparisons concerning individual and Table, through the fall of Berlin Wall, Lithuanian, group adaptations to the consequences of occurring or Czechoslovakian Velvet Revolution, processes changes, as well as regarding the observance and of political and economic system transformation, analysis of the course of changes taking place. resulting in shift in social policy of the new bodies, For a multinational, culturally diverse young shaped qualitatively different reality, involved in Republic of Lithuania, establishing a civic society the consequences of the occurring changes. The appeared as a challenge. This process, with relation changes – massive, numerous and quick ones – as to the issue of adaption to the new social, political characterized by A. Ziemilski that time – moved and economic circumstances, became a subject of entire groups of people towards a complex and exploration within a scientific cooperation between temporary situation, requiring quick decisions and the University of Wroclaw (Poland) and the Vilnius difficult choices: “The growing sense of the scale Pedagogical University (Lithuania). In 1996 the of changes one participates in, or will take part in, research team of Alicja Szerląg and Krystyna results in experiencing number of fears and anxiety, Dziubacka launched a research by and large tackling disabling the appropriate interpretation of one’s and “the families of the pupils of Polish comprehensive country’s situation, bring about crisis in own beliefs schools in Lithuania in the socio-pedagogical or values; often leading to rebellion and aggression” perspective”. The research was carried out in two (Ziemilski, 1995, p. 16). directions – the issue tackled by A. Szerląg explored The occurring changes bore fruit in rich the identity and interculturalism, whereas in the literature, where – apart from various interpretation second case the quality of life and citizenship were the and different judgment of their social results – main topic of analysis. These two issues, having been attention is drawn to the coherence of the inspiration, explored commonly by the two researchers many that is not incidental, but comes as a consequence times – were meshing with each other, creating an of common history, and equally strong need to image of dynamically changing Lithuanian reality. deal with the negative consequences of a long-term Focusing on the directions of the research isolation and regression. carried out by the author of this article, it must be 39 ISSN 1392-0340. PEDAGOGIKA. 2013. 109 Krystyna Dziubacka remembered that the issue of the undertaken topics and democratic elections, or “the right for each within, over the years has been evolving (from the citizen, originating from any national minority, to conditions and quality of life, adaptation to the new work at any post of the state authorizes, enterprises, reality, social support, to citizenship per se), to finally institutions or organizations” (Szerląg, 1998, p. 65). become a trail in the search for the answer to what The rights and freedoms of the citizens belonging kind of a potential the Poles of Vilnius region posses, to the minority groups of linguistic, national or as far as the establishment of Lithuanian democracy confessional origin in Lithuania is guaranteed by is concerned. The Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, that The research lasted two years, with the last stage came into force on 2nd November 1992, as well as taking place in 2010, and embraced all the area of number of many decrees and legal acts (Vaitekus, Vilnius district municipality. Applying the in-depth 1995, p. 10). interviews, empirical material was gathered, that Those of Polish nationality live in almost all will soon constitute the foundation for a monograph the cities and regions of Lithuania, of which 92 % tackling the above-mentioned topic. Hence, this in the Vilnius municipality, making up 25.4 % of article presents the review of the research on Polish all its inhabitants. Taking into account the data dwellers of the Vilnius municipality in the reality of from 2001, the Polish minority constitutes statistical establishing Lithuanian democracy – their citizenship majority in the two Vilnius districts – in Šalčininkai and factor determining this process. (79.5 % of the entire population) and Vilnius itself (61.3 % of the population), whereas in the rest of Why the Poles of the Vilnius district? the Vilnius district, the Polish minority was also The reasons for choosing Poles in Lithuania as a minority in the statistical sense as in Trakai area the target group seems quite obvious, however, to (322 %), Švenčionys (27.4 %), the area of Širvintų justify this choice it may be stated that, first of all rajono savivaldybė (10 %), or Ukmergė region Poles constitute the biggest minority group in the (0.7 %) (Kurcz, 2005, p. 168). According to the Republic of Lithuania, secondly – it is a minority, Lithuanian census from 1998, Poles constitute 6 % that at the initial stage of formulating the concept of of the population in the Lithuanian cities, whereas free Lithuania, actively participated in the political in the rural areas they number reached 9.2 % of the movements, what in turn significantly influenced the entire population (Vaitekus, 1995). nature of the process of democratizing the political life Before entering the essential stage of the of the new Republic. Moreover, as Z. Kurcz claimed research, it had to be precisely determined, or actually “the almost concurrent processes – transformation defined, how is a “Polish family”, as a subject of given and independency, constitute the essential situations stages of research, understood. Therefore, it was of recognizing the state country and the biggest assumed that a “Polish family” meant a family, with national minority group (Kurcz, 2005, p. 7). at least one of adult member of Polish nationality Lithuania is a multinational country. There are (the literal participant of the surveying), with a child 109 various nationalities living there, making up a as a pupil of a Polish school, or a Polish class in a society of 3.5 million inhabitants, of which Poles are Lithuanian secondary school. The above assumption the biggest minority group reaching 6.7 % of the entire narrowed the potential research to the parents, whose population.1 Such significant national diversification motivation behind sending a child to a Polish school is a real challenge for the state policy, and implies or a class was considered as their “Polishness”. It demands concerning the process of democratization must be also added, that given stages of the research of the social, political and cultural life. Each system embraced holders of Lithuania citizenship, whether of democratic rule provides for the ethnic, linguistic adults as representatives of a given family, or the or confessional minorities legal regulations not only teenagers attending Polish secondary schools. to preserve own identity, but also the right to gather, establish and sustain own institutions, organizations The conditions and quality of life in the or educational associations, the right to have own research concerning Polish Lithuanians representatives in all bodies of the state authorities The research on the conditions and quality of the Poles’ life in the period of transformation drew 1 Russians – 6.3 %, Belarusians 1.2 %, Ukrainians 0.6 %, Jews interest of many scientific circles in Poland. Within 0.1 %). The rest of this multinational mosaic is constituted by the such research, the relation between occurring Germans, Crimean Tatars, Latvians, Romas, Armenians, Azers,