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ABSTRACT
Established in the wake of the First World War, the multiethnic Polish Second Republic was determined to secure its long southern border, formed by the Carpathian Mountains, which prior to the war had been the internal (porous) Habsburg frontier separating the province of Galicia from Hungary. The article presents a series of initiatives essentially emanating from the state (here, primarily the military authorities) in the 1930s. The initiatives were designed to turn the Carpathian highlanders across the breadth of the interwar Polish frontier into loyal Polish citizens while encouraging them both to retain their own local identity (as Hutsuls, Górale, Lemkos and others) and to consider themselves part of a larger Carpathian brotherhood (the latter defined within the borders of the Polish state). In other words, the authorities sought to capitalize on what they perceived to be national indifference on the part of many highlanders by making room for their local identities within a more broadly conceived heterogeneous state of regions, one that would win the allegiance of the highlanders, in that sense reinforcing the border.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank members of the audience at the ABS Borderlands Convention in Vienna, Austria, for their questions and comments on my talk, which has become the basis for the present article. Special thanks go to Steen Bo Frandsen, Sarah Lemmen, Jonathan Parker and Machteld Venken, as well as the two anonymous readers for the European Review of History, for their helpful input.
Notes
1. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, 27.
2. The words of Polish writer, artist and activist Stanisław Witkiewicz in his Na przełęczy, 38, 122. For more on this “discovery,” see Dabrowski, “Constructing a Polish Landscape,” 45–65.
3. It and its fascinating inhabitants were put on the mental map of Austria-Hungary in 1880, when Emperor Franz Joseph visited the region. On this, see Bujak, “Towarzystwo Tatrzańskie,” 91–9; Dabrowski, “‘Discovering’ the Galician Borderlands,” 380–402.
4. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, ix.
5. Maner, “Zwischen ‘Kompensationsobjekt’, ‘Musterland’ und ‘Glacis’.”
6. Martinez, “The Dynamics of Border Interaction,” 1–15.
7. Mühlfried, Being a State and States of Being, 16.
8. This was not the only war Poles fought to determine the ultimate contours of their state. Much of the frontier was contested, with conflicts also in the west (with Germany), south (Czechoslovakia) and east (Lithuania and Bolshevik Russia). More details as well as context can be found in Böhler, Civil War, esp. 70–145.
9. Briefly on the conflict: Wróbel, “The Revival of Poland,” 294–6.
10. Some Hutsuls certainly had supported the fight for independence. For one prominent example, see the writings of a rare, literate Hutsul: Shekeryk Donykiv, “Hutsul’shchyna v pol’s’komu iarmi,” 217–56.
11. This is not to say that there were no proponents of regionalism prior to 1926, the coup d’état of Józef Piłsudski and beginning of his Sanacja government. On this, see the survey of the history of Polish regionalism by Patkowski, “Regjonalizm,” 781–8. On the creative approach to Volhynian regionalism of the Sanacja period, see Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War.
12. The words of Tadeusz Kasprzycki, who in turn was paraphrasing a Silesian highlander, in Rocznik Ziem Górskich, 1939, 3. More on Kasprzycki later in this article.
13. For a sense of regionalism as a transnational phenomenon, see Storm, “Nation-building in the Provinces,” 650–63.
14. Interwar-period Ukrainians – and, indeed, Ukrainians since then – considered this relabelling of what previously had been known as Eastern Galicia as an affront.
15. There is a large and growing literature on national indifference in East Central Europe, including works by scholars such as James E. Bjork (Neither German nor Pole), Pieter Judson (Guardians of the Nation), Jeremy King (Budweisers into Czechs and Germans) and Tara Zahra (“Imagined Noncommunities,” Kidnapped Souls). Other approaches to the subject have been advanced by Egry, “Beyond Politics,” and Karch, Nation and Loyalty (the latter an approach I find especially congenial).
16. “Plan pracy na Huculszczyźnie,” Centralne Archiwum Wojskowe (Central Military Archive—henceforth CAW), Departament Dowodzenia Ogólnego MSWojsk., I.300.22.109, no date, no archival pagination.
17. “Zebranie w sprawie ‘Święta Huculszczyzny”; Orbis brochure “Święto Huculszczyzny”; letter of 9 June 1933 of Teodor Cais, Chair of the Communications-Excursion Section of the District Committee of the Hutsul Holiday in Nadwórna, to the administration of the Stanisławów Branch of the Polish Tatra Society, in the State Archive of the Ivano-Frankivs’k Oblast (Derzhavnyi Arkhiv Ivano-Frankivs’koi Oblasti, henceforth DAIFO), 368/1/40: 32.
18. I have given the commune head’s name in its Polish (as opposed to Hutsul) form, just as I found it in the sources.
19. DAIFO 368/1/40: 35.
20. DAIFO 368/1/40: 36.
21. “Wszyscy na Huculszczyznę 15, 16, 17 i 18 czerwca b.r.” of June 14, 1933, newspaper clipping found in the Piotr Kontny archive, The Central State Historical Archive in L’viv (Tsentralnyi Derzhavnyi Istorychnyi Arkhiv u L’vovi – henceforth TsDIAL), fond 869. The cost for room, board, and entertainment was not to exceed three zloty per person per day (DAIFO 368/1/40: 36.)
22. Indeed, there was also a conspiratorial dimension to the government front organization, one that lies outside the parameters of this article.
23. DAIFO 370/1/42:23-23b.
24. DAIFO 370/1/42:18.
25. Komunikat Nr. 1, September 27, 1933, DAIFO 370/1/42:17.
26. See the secret report on the Hutsul Holiday prepared for General Tadeusz Kasprzycki by Captain Adam Kowalski, Sprawozdanie ze “Święta Huculszczyzny,” typescript, CAW I.300.1.644, 517–22. It is likely that Kowalski was from the Eleventh Infantry Division stationed in nearby Stanisławów.
27. Sprawozdanie ze “Święta Huculszczyzny,” 520.
28. Jędrzejewicz, “Ś.p. Generał Tadeusz Kasprzycki,” 226–7.
29. Ibid.
30. On this, see Dabrowski, “Poles, Hutsuls, and Identity Politics,” 19–34.
31. It should be noted that Hutsuls lived on both sides of what had been the Galician-Hungarian border. On the Hutsul Republic, see Nechayeva-Yuriychuk, “National Identity and its Role in State Building.” The Ukrainian history of interest in the Hutsuls nonetheless dates back to the Habsburg period. For more examples, see Val’o, Podorozhi v Ukraïns’ki Karpaty.
32. On the OUN, see the secret government reports in DAIFO 2/1/959, ark. 156–7, 270. Still, not all Ukrainians were opposed. DAIFO 2/1/958, ark. 30–1.
33. Renan, “What is a Nation?,” 45.
34. For an exception to the rule, see [Piotr Kontny], “Stosunki gospodarcze na połoninach wschodnio-karpackich (Beskidy Huculskie),” DAIFO 869/1/68: 42, ark. 44.
35. General Kazimierz Łukoski of the Eleventh Infantry Division, stationed in nearby Stanisławów, was in charge of organizing the march.
36. TsDIAL, 204/2/279: 1.
37. Each patrol was composed of four competitors. Forty pairs of skis were handed out to Hutsul children, doubtless with the hope that they, too, would one day participate in the event. Jotemski, “Śladami legionistów Żelaznej Brygady,” 131–3.
38. Ibid., 132.
39. The Legionnaires’ Association in Żabie organized a Christmas party with other former legionnaires from outside the region, according to a secret situational report to the provincial government in 1934, per DAIFO 2/1/1023: ark. 8 verte.
40. Program Święta Huculszczyzny, 3.
41. DAIFO 2/1/1023: 40 verte. Mieczysław Orłowicz of the central tourist office in Warsaw provided the higher estimate: DAIFO 370/1/4: 61–2.
42. DAIFO 370/1/22: 31–3.
43. DAIFO 370/1/22: 15. The same sentiment can be found in another letter by Kasprzycki, DAIFO 3701/22: 16.
44. The previous contender for interest in the region dated from Habsburg times, when the Prut River Valley and especially the high-altitude resort of Jaremcze were developing at a good pace until the First World War obliterated their achievements. For more on this, see Dabrowski, “The ‘Polish Switzerland’,” 165–74. And of course the mere presence of Emperor Franz Joseph at the ethnographic exhibition in Kołomyja/Kolomyia had previously raised the profile of the region. On this, see note 3.
45. On this, see, for example, Skowroński, Tatry międzywojenne. In English, an article by Daniel Stone conveys some of the growing pains of that resort: Stone, “The Cable Car at Kasprowy Wierch,” 601–24.
46. See, for example, Goetel, “Zagadnienia regjonalizmu górskiego w Polsce,” 131; “Kasprzycki Tadeusz Zbigniew (1891–1978),” in Stawecki, Słownik biograficzny generałów, 161–3.
47. This is exactly the opposite of what Philipp Ther has posited for the twentieth century: see Ther, “Einleitung: Sprachliche, kulturelle und ethnische ‘Zwischenräume’,” XI.
48. Pieniążek, “O ginącym stroju ludowym,” 34–61.
49. See, for example, “Święto Gór,” 404.
50. “Organizacja i powstanie Komitetu Gł. ‘Święta Gór’,” Historical Museum in Sanok (Muzeum Historyczne w Sanoku), 21a. Zjazd Górski w Sanoku, 126: 15.
51. Bausinger, Folk Culture.
52. This can be seen from the arts as well: fine arts, including music, took inspiration from the highlands. Think of the wonderful modern graphic art of Władysław Skoczylas or the modern music of Karol Szymanowski.
53. On regions as constructions, see Ther, “Einleitung: Sprachliche, kulturelle und ethnische ‘Zwischenräume’,” XIV.
54. See, for example, the account of Gustaw Niemiec, head of the Hutsul group from Kosmacz: Niemiec, “’Święto Gór’ w Zakopanem.”
55. Paraphrase of “wzajemne zbliżenie mieszkańców wszystkich regjonów górskich, poznanie wspólnych cech folkloru i dorobku kulturalnego, dla osiągnięcia wspólnej platformy współpracy państwowo-twórczej, nad podniesieniem kulturalnem i gospodarczem ziem górskich,” in “Organizacja i powstanie Komitetu Gł. ‘Święta Gór’,” 1.
56. Every other year there was to be a smaller event, known as a Highland Congress, in contrast to the Highland Holiday, the next of which would take place in Wisła in 1937.
57. Muzeum Historyczne w Sanoku, 21b. Zjazd Górski w Sanoku, [6/9], Attachment no. 1: Wnioski.
58. As evident from Władysław Orkan, Wskazania. On this publication, see Zborowski, “Regjonalizm podhalański,” 204–9.
59. Jerzy Smoleński, in Minutes from the ZZG Congress, April 1937, in the Centralne Archiwum Turystyki Górskiej PTTK Kraków: Związek Ziem Górskich (ZZG), 1937, 2.
60. Only a dozen pages of this nearly 250-page guidebook concern the western Bieszczady: Gąsiorowski, Przewodnik po Beskidach Wschodnich.
61. Minutes from the ZZG Congress, April 1937, 8.
62. The modernity of this new arrangement lay in the state (that is, centralized) control over the Union of Mountain Lands as well as its emphasis on the rational development of the highland region, in the form of better roads and infrastructure, improved animal husbandry and the fostering of tourism.
63. For more on multiple loyalties, see Karch, Nation and Loyalty, 1–22, esp. 22.
64. Here, contra the “nationalizing state” of Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed. Still, there was a slippery slope between this kind of “affirmative action” (à la Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire) and perhaps a secret hope that the highlanders would polonize. Or not-so secret hope: for with time the rule of the “colonels” after the death of Piłsudski tried to marry the focus on the state with an increased focus on the nation. On this, see Wynot, Polish Politics, 77–9.
65. More on peasants in interwar Poland’s eastern borderlands can be found in Labbé, “National Indifference, Statistics and the Constructivist Paradigm”; Linkiewicz, “Peasant Communities in Interwar Poland’s Eastern Borderlands”; and Struve, “Polish Peasants in Eastern Galicia.”
66. Celia Applegate (A Nation of Provincials) and Alon Confino (The Nation as Local Metaphor), among others, have written perceptively about the relationship between regionalism (Heimat) and nationalism in the German case. Regionalism was valued from the very beginning of the interwar Polish state. For a reflection of this, see Patkowski, “Regjonalizm,” 781–8.
67. Polak-Springer, Recovered Territory, 15.
68. Kurek, “Góralu, czy ci nie żal?,” 7. Kurek was writing in general about highlanders, or even more about the Górale, not about the Hutsuls in particular.
69. Karch, Nation and Loyalty, esp. 1–22. That identity is a concept worth jettisoning has been argued by Brubaker and Cooper, “Beyond Identity,” 1–47.
70. These last observations come from Krakowiecki, “Sygnały alarmowe.”
71. See Krakowiecki, “Huculskim szlakiem Żelaznej Brygady.”
72. Krakowiecki, “Sygnały alarmowe.”
73. Pawlewski, “‘Tydzień Gór’,” 2.
74. See the massive work by Szatkowski, Goralenvolk: Historia zdrady. For a briefer treatment, see idem, “Goralenvolk—kryzys tożsamości,” 115–21.
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Patrice M. Dabrowski
Patrice M. Dabrowski is a historian with degrees from Harvard University (A.B., A.M. and Ph.D.) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (M.A.L.D.). She has taught and worked at Harvard, Brown, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the Doktoratskolleg Galizien at the University of Vienna. Dabrowski is currently an Associate of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, a member of the Board of Directors of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA) and editor of H-Poland. Grants and postdoctoral fellowships held include Fulbrights in Poland and Ukraine, an IREX in Poland, a Eugene and Daymel Shklar Fellowship at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, and a Senior Grant (Thesaurus Poloniae Fellowship Program) at the International Cultural Center in Cracow, Poland. Dabrowski is the author of two books: Poland: The First Thousand Years (2014; paperback edition, 2016) and Commemorations and the Shaping of Modern Poland (2004). Several of her articles have garnered awards. In 2014 she was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.