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ABSTRACT
The Russian term okrainy and the Polish concept of kresy tend to refer to the same spatial area, or the non-Russian and non-Polish nation-states that after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union extend between the Russian Federation and Poland. From the late nineteenth century through the interwar period, both the terms okrainy and kresy underwrote the Russian and Polish territorial expansion and the mission civilisatrice in these areas, most visibly exemplified by the policies of Russification and Polonization, respectively. Frequently, Russification was compounded with the state-supported spread of Orthodox Christianity, while in Polonization’s case with that of Roman Catholicism. These two terms, okrainy and kresy, fell out of official use during the communist period, but resurfaced in Russia and Poland for a variety of ideologized ends by the turn of the twenty-first century, with little respect for the countries and nations concerned.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Tomasz Kamusella is Reader in Modern Central and Eastern European History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. His latest monograph is Ethnic Cleansing During the Cold War: The Forgotten 1989 Expulsion of Turks from Communist Bulgaria (Routledge 2018).
Notes
1 Halushko, Narodzhennia krainy, 10–13.
2 Pereverzov, Topograficheskoe opisanie Kharkovskago namestnichestva s'' istoricheskim'' predubedomleniem'' o byvshikh'' v'' sei strane s'' drevnikh'' vremen'' peremenakh'' vziatym'', 122–123.
3 Another significant (but rarely reflected upon) ideological development brought about the 1830–1831 uprising was the change in the official Russian name of the Russian language from Российский Rossiiskii to Русский Russkii. As a result, the new name of this language diverged from the empire’s name of Россия Rossiia. The pre-1830s form of the name of the Russian language, survives in Belarusian (Расейская Raseiskaia), Polish (Rosyjski), or Ukrainian (Російська Rosiis’ka). See: Kamusella, “The Change of the Name of the Russian Language in Russian from Rossiiskii to Russkii,” 73–96; Miller, “‘Narodnost’ i ‘natsiia’ v russkom iazyke XIX veka. Podgotovitel’nye nabroski k istorii poniatii,” 151–165.
4 Flynn, “Uvarov and the ‘Western Provinces’,” 212–236; Whittaker, “The Ideology of Sergei Uvarov,” 158–176.
5 Staliunas [=Staliūnas], “Granitsy v pogranich’e. Belorusy i etnolingivisticheskaia politika Rossiiskoi Imperii na zapadnykh okrainakh v period velikikh reform,” 261–292.
6 Cf Kartavtsov, Obrusenie zemlevladeniia v iugo-zapadnom kraiu.
7 Dzyuba, Internationalism or Russification; T G., Za budeshteto za Polsha. Strumezhi i nadezhdi za polskiia narod. Polskiiat vŭpros v evropeiskiia pechat, 7.
8 “окраины России,” Google.
9 Samarin, Okrainy Rossii; Thaden, “Samarin’s ‘Okrainy Rossii’ and Official Policy in the Baltic Provinces,” 405–414.
10 Bagaliei, Ocherki iz istorii kolonizatsii i byta stepnoi okrainy Moskovskaga gosudarstva; Petrovskii, Finlandskaia okraina Rossii; Semenov, Okrainy Rossii. Sibir’, Turkestan, Kavkaz i polarnaia chast’ evropeiskoi Rossii.
11 окраина, Ngram Viewer.
12 Shapirov, Nashi pogranichnye okrainy na Kavkaze.
13 Zolotarev, Voenno-geograficheskii ocherk okrain Rossii i puti v sosednie territorii. S atlasom skhem okrain.
14 Mify i pravda o prodazhe Aliaski, Mir. Forum Daily: Golos russkoiazychnoi Ameriki.
15 Dalekaia okraina [newspaper]. Vladivostok; Russkaia okraina [newspaper], Samarkand.
16 Jews were the main target of the official imperial policy of excluding innorodtsy from Russian society. In the western okrainy, or more exactly in Russia’s share of the partitioned Poland-Lithuania, the Pale of Settlement (Черта оседлости Cherta osedlosti) was established, outside which Jews were banned to reside. This discriminatory Pale of Settlement existed from 1791 to 1917, though in reality Austria-Hungary and Germany’s seizure of the western okrainy terminated it in 1915. See: Deutsch, The Jewish Dark Continent; “Karta zheleznykh dorog” Rossiiskoi Imperii.”
17 Budilovich, Mozhet li Rossiia otdat’ inorodtsam svoi okrainy?; Messarosh, Finlandiia – gosudarstvo ili russkaia okraina?. (Budilovich, Mozhet li Rossiia Otdat’ Inorodtsam Svoi Okrainy?; Messarosh, Finlandiia – Gosudarstvo ili Russkaia Okraina?).
18 Arsen’eva, Rasskazy iz istorii zapadnykh okrain Rossii.
19 Industrialnyi proletariat Rossii nakanune Pervoi mirovoi voiny; Karta evropeiskoi Rossii, Gustota naseleniia; Karta zheleznykh dorog'' Rossiiskoi Imperii.
20 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire.
21 окраина, Ngram Viewer.
22 The Russian term ‘near abroad’ for referring to the former republics of the Soviet Union as seen from the perspective of the Russian Federation was coined in the early 1990s, immediately in the wake of the breakup of the Soviet Union. See: Spravochnik dlia postypaiushchikh v Moskovskii universitet v 1991 g, 163, 169; Zapeklyi and Vovchenko, Blizhnee zarubezh’e. Respubliki byvshego SSSR.
23 Balaev, Fevralskaia revolutsiia i natsionalnoe okrainy. Martovskie sobytiia 1918 goda v Azerbajdzhane; Dolbilov and Miller, Zapadnye okrainy Rossiiskoi imperii; Dubman and Kabytov, Povolzhe – “vnutrenniaia okraina” Rossii. Gosudarstvo i obshchestvo v osovenii novykh territorii (konets XVI – nachalo XX vv.).
24 западные окраины,восточнее окраины,южные окраины,северные окраины, Ngram Viewer.
25 Wasiuta and Wasiuta, Wojna hybrydowa Rosji przeciwko Ukrainie.
26 Gai, Rossia segodnia; Shatskikh, Svobodnaia Pressa; Shlykov, Belorusskie istoriki shag za shagom sdaiut Belarus’ Zapadu po uchebniku Dzhina Sharpa. Russkaia narodnaia liniia; Smirnov, Proekt Novorossiia. Istoriia russkoi okrainy.
27 Wasiuta and Wasiuta, Wojna hybrydowa Rosji przeciwko Ukrainie, 267.
28 Radin, Hybrid Warfare in the Baltics; Standish, Foreign Policy.
29 Obviously, this present-day reading of the Russian imperial past is a bit anachronistic, because in the 19th century Russian imperial officials and intellectuals preferred the terms ‘European Russia’ (Европейская Россия Evropeiskaia Rossiia) or ‘Western Land’ (Западный край zapadni krai) to ‘western Russia,’ or basically spoke of distinctive regions of European Russia, for instance, ‘Baltic gubernias’ (Прибалтика Pribaltika), ‘Northwestern Land’ (Северо-Западный край Severo-Zapadnyi krai), or ‘Sothwestern Land’ (Северо-Восточный край Severo-Vostochnyi krai). (I thank Catherine Gibson for pointing out the necessity of this terminological clarification.)
30 Frolov, Proekt Ukrainy kak anti-Rossii. Iskorenenie kanonicheskogo pravoslaviia na istoricheskikh zemliakh Malorissii, Novorossii i Podkarpatskoi Rusi; Solov’ev, “Vzgliad na istoriiu ustanovleniia gosudarstvennogo poriadka Rossii do Petra Velikogo,” 7–19; Tseli i zadachi proekta, Zapadnaia Rus’.
31 Taras, “Kontseptsiia ‘Russkogo mira’ i ee otrazhenie v mifakh zapadnorusistov”.
32 Pawlik, “Jak Polska pomaga Ukrainie. Reformy, pomoc humanitarna i dużo więcej.”
33 Belsat, Wikipedia.
34 Święcki, Opis starożytnej Polski, 7; Żurawski vel Grajewski, Kresy – dzieje pewnego pojęcia. Teologia Polityczna.
35 Pol, Mohort. Rapsod rycerski z podania, 12, 22, 26, 43, 78, 92, 140, 160, 170.
36 Eberhardt, Polska i jej granice. Z historii polskiej geografii politycznej; Jedlicki, A Suburb of Europe.
37 Dura, Mapa rozsiedlenia ludności polskiej z uwzględnieniem spisów z 1916 roku; Jabłonowski, Kresy ukrainne; Kresy, Tygodnik polityczny, społeczny i literacki; Tygodnik Kresowy, Czasopismo, poświęcone zagadnieniom politycznym, społecznym i literackim oraz działalności narodowej społeczeństwa polskiego na Rusi; Wapiński, Polska i małe ojczyzny Polaków. Z dziejów kształtowania się świadomości narodowej w XIX i XX wieku po wybuch II wojny światowej, 68–70, 85–96, 108–111.
38 Markovits and Sysyn, Nationbuilding and the Politics of Nationalism; Porter, When Nationalism Began to Hate.
39 Kamusella, The Un-Polish Poland, 1989 and the Illusion of Regained Historical Continuity.
40 Myśl Polska, Pismo poświęcone sprawom politycznym, społecznym i literacko-artystycznym, 96, 164
41 Wapiński, Polska i małe ojczyzny Polaków. Z dziejów kształtowania się świadomości narodowej w XIX i XX wieku po wybuch II wojny światowej.
42 Beauvois, Trójkąt ukraiński. Szlachta, carat i lud na Wołyniu, Podolu i Kijowszczyźnie 1793–1914; Bilenky, Romantic Nationalism in Eastern Europe, 82.
43 A N R., Sprawa polska na kresach wschodnich; Darowski, Kresy ruskie Rzeczypospolitej (Województwa: Kijowskie, Wołyńskie, Bracławskie i Podolskie); Górny, Kreślarze ojczyzn. Geografowie i granice międzywojennej Europy; Wasilewski, Kresy Wschodnie. Litwa i Białoruś, Podlasie i Chełmszczyzna, Galicya Wschodnia, Ukraina.
44 Kamusella, “Germanization, Polonization, and Russification in the Partitioned Lands of Poland-Lithuania,” 815–838.
45 Jaskólski, Granice Polski z mapą, trzema tablicami statystycznemi i słowniczkiem geograficznym, 7.
46 Balzer, Rewizya teoryi o pierwotnem osadnictwie w Polsce, 26; Glabisz, Gdzie nasze kresy zachodnie? Stosunki narodowościowe w zaborze pruskim, z 4 mapami rozsiedlenia ludności polskiej; Saysse-Tobiczyk, Dość już ignorancyi w kwestyi Kresów Południowych!.
47 Przybylski, Kresy Wschodnie Rzeczypospolitej. Opisy i obrazy przeszłości.
48 Kostrowicka, Zesłańczym szlakiem. Fragmenty pamiętników emigrantów nadesłanych na konkurs IGS SGH; Łukomski, Kresy zachodnie i wschodnie w pracach Rządu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na Uchodźstwie, 1939–1945. Wybór źródeł, 280.
49 Hrushevs’kii, Ocherk'' istorii ukrainskago naroda, 165; Miliukov, Glavnye techeniia russkoi istoricheskoi mysli, 261; Vestnik Evropy, 921.
50 Dmowski, Niemcy, Rosya i kwestya polska, 162; Gawroński, Bohdan Chmielnicki do elekcyi Jana Kazimierza, 12, 20; Górny, “‘Futurystyczna geografia’. Rola geografów w kształtowaniu granic Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej i Południowo-Wschodniej w latach 1914–1920,” 129–130; Wasilewski, Sprawy narodowościowe w teorji i w życiu, 10, 12.
51 In 1840 German-language historiography a potent idea appeared that it was ‘the Germans’ who had first ‘civilized’ Poland and the Poles (see: Roepell, Geschichte Polens, 333–334). Seven years later, in 1847, Polish historians readily took over this idea creatively transforming it into that of ‘Polish civilizing mission in the east,’ without which – presumably – the Belarusians, Latvians, Lithuanians, or Ukrainians would have had no chance to enter European culture and civilization (see: Szajnocha, “Pogląd na ogół dziejów Polski,” 1–32, 24–25). During the second half of the 19th century Polish noble politicians, and later Polish nationalists, adopted this condescendingly colonial attitude toward the eastern half of the former Polish Lithuanian lands, despite suffering the very same indignity at hands of German-speaking (German) civil servants and politicians in the Austrian Empire (Austria-Hungary) and Prussia (German Empire) (see: Kwiecińska, “Refraining from ‘Periphery’: The First German Handbook of Polish History, the Concept of the ‘Civilizing Mission’ and Its Transfer to 19th-century Polish Historiography”).
52 Kamusella, “The Twentieth Anniversary of the German-Polish Border Treaty of 1990: International Treaties and the Imagining of Poland’s Post-1945 Western Order,” 120–164.
53 Sakson, Ziemie Odzyskane - Ziemie Zachodnie i Północne 1945–2005: 60 lat w granicach państwa polskiego.
54 Kolbuszewski, Od Pigalle po Kresy. Krajobrazy literatury popularnej.
55 kres, Ngram Viewer.
56 kres, Ngram Viewer
57 Kresy24.pl., Wikipedia; Wschodnia Gazeta Codzienna. Kresy24.pl.
58 kresy, Ngram Viewer.
59 kresy, Ngram Viewer.
60 Słowo kresy, Ograniczono do.
61 Słowo kresy, Ograniczono do.
62 kresy, Google.
63 “западные окраины”, 2018.
64 “окраины России”, Google.
65 “ближнее зарубежье”, Google.
66 “русский мир”, Google.
67 Russkii mir. Informatsionnyi portal fonda “Russkii mir”; Russkiy Mir Foundation, Wikipedia.
68 Law on Citizenship Procedures for People Recognised as Russian-speakers; Putin Changes Law to Ease Citizenship for Russian Speakers, Reuters.
69 Riazanov, SvobodnaiaPressa.
70 This term Polonia is an adaptation of the Latin name of Poland, that is, Polonia. Interestingly, this Latin name of Poland was developed between 1000 and 1005 in the imperial chancery of the Holy Roman Empire, and only in the 14th century appeared in Polish-language sources as Polska. This means that the Latin name yielded its Polish-language counterpart, not the other way round, as it is popularly believed (Urbańczyk, Trudne początki Polski). The term Polonia (sometimes spelled Polonja) for referring to the Polish diaspora outside the former territories of Poland-Lithuania appeared in the early 20th century (cf Przegląd Polski, 256), and became popularly accepted in interwar Poland (Jarzębecki, Polonja zagraniczna. O Polakach żyjących poza granicami Rzeczypospolitej słów kilka).
71 Diaspora polska, Wikipedia.
72 Ustawa o Karcie Polaka.
73 Karta Polaka, Wikipedia.
74 Ładykowski, “Poland and Its Eastern Neighbours,” 109–132.
75 Khalchak, “O proiskhozhdenii i soderzhanii sindroma ‘Kresov Vskhodnikh’ v Pol’she,” 347–350.
76 Although the German-language phrase deutsche Zivilisationsmission im Osten (‘German civilizing mission in the East’) appeared for the first time in print in 1939 (see: Pflaum, Geschichte des Wortes “Zivilisation”, 166), the postwar Polish anti-German propaganda readily seized it (translated into Polish as niemiecka misja cywilizacyjna na Wschodzie) for criticizing West Germany and interpreting German history from a highly ideologized standpoint (cf Labuda,Wschodnia ekspansja Niemiec w Europie Środkowej. Zbiór studiów nad tzw. niemieckim Drang nach Osten, 45; Ociepka, Związek Wypędzonych w systemie politycznym RFN i jego wpływ na stosunki polsko-niemieckie 1982–1992, 108).
77 Górny, “Polsko-niemieckie ‘Kresy’ w naukach o człowieku (XIX-XX w.)”; JK [=Julian Klaczko], Die deutschen Hegemonen. Offenes Sendschreiben an Herrn Georg Gervinus; Liulevicius, The German Myth of the East. (Górny, “Polsko-niemieckie ‘Kresy’ w naukach o człowieku (XIX-XX w.)”; JK [=Julian Klaczko], Die Deutschen Hegemonen. Offenes Sendschreiben an Herrn Georg Gervinus; Liulevicius, The German Myth of the East).
78 A curious example of the continuing ‘Polish civilizing mission in the East’ (polska misja cywilizacyjna na Wschodzie) (Stępnik, Ukraina i stosunki polsko-ukraińskie w syntezach i podręcznikach dziejów ojczystych okresu porozbiorowego 1795–1918, 161) is the present-day institutional discrimination of the Belarusian language in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harodnia (Grodno) in today’s Belarus. Some Catholic hierarchs and priests of this diocese disparage Belarusian as a ‘heathen language,’ pressing Belarusian seminarians and faithful to use instead the ‘civilized and Christian language,’ that is, Polish (Rudkouski [=Rudkoŭski], Powstawanie Białorusi, 202).
79 Borders Drawn Up in Brest-Litovsk, The Triumph of Democracy.
80 Samotny Wędrowiec, “Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at Its Maximum Extent, After the Truce of Deulino in 1619”.