Karta Polaka, Poland and its Co-ethnics Abroad

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Acknowledgements

This volume grew out of a two-year project entitled ‘Poland’s Kin-state Policies: Opportunities and Challenges’ and led by David Smith and Andreea Udrea at the University of Glasgow. Given that the final preparation of the articles took place during the first months of the Covid pandemic, the editors would like to thank the contributors for their efforts and dedication in bringing this volume to completion despite the overwhelming personal and work commitments during the spring lockdown. Their gratitude, too, to the project partners whose enthusiastic involvement made this enterprise possible: Sławomir Łodziński, Dorota Pudzianowska, Paweł Hut, Ireneusz Paweł Karolewski, Magdalena Dembinska, Myra Waterbury, Zsuzsa Csergő and Zoltán Kántor. They would also like to thank the participants in the two events organised under this project for very enriching and insightful discussions: the international conference ‘Poland’s Kin-state Policies: Opportunities and Challenges’ held at the University of Warsaw in May 2019, and the workshop ‘Integration in a Transnational World: Poland, Scotland and Polish Communities Abroad’ organised in Glasgow in November 2019. Finally, their gratitude to Sławomir Łodziński and Paulina Trevena for co-organising the events in Warsaw and in Glasgow respectively. The editors would also like to thank Jan Zielonka for his helpful comments and insightful suggestions on this paper.

Notes

1 The term ‘kin-minority’ refers specifically to groups which identify culturally with titular groups in another state described as a ‘kin-state’. Often because of arbitrary territorial border shifts or population transfers, members of such groups and/or their ancestors became citizens of their current state against their wishes, for example as a result of the disintegration of the European empires, the peace settlements after both World Wars, and more recently the breakdown of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Increasingly, however, the evolution of policies across Europe has blurred the distinction between diaspora and kin-minority groups. Poland and Hungary, the two cases widely discussed in this volume, are no exception to this.

2 These were highlighted as the most important benefits of Poland’s engagement with its diaspora from Scotland at the workshop ‘Integration in a Transnational World: Poland, Scotland and Polish Communities Abroad’ (Glasgow, 14 November 2019) which brought together representatives of the Scottish Government, practitioners and academics. The workshop was organised by the University of Glasgow and funded by the Noble Foundation Programme on Modern Poland with additional support from the College of Social Sciences of the University of Glasgow (project code 200278-01). See: https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/crcees/research/kinpol/projects/.

3 On the relationship between kin-state policies and broader ‘diaspora engagement policies’, see also Sendhardt’s contribution in the current volume.

4 As Erika Harris observes, nationalism—‘a strategy for the attainment and preservation of political legitimacy'—always couches its claims ‘in the name of justice (redressed or not yet addressed) and the “right of the people”. The general aim of nationalism is that “the people” be in charge of their collective identity' (Harris, 2009, p. 4).

5 This is the concept coined by Rogers Brubaker, to denote states that are themselves shaped by remedial projects of addressing historic injustice towards their ‘titular’ ethno-cultural majority populations.

6 On the question of responsibility for minority protection, see Udrea and Smith’s contribution to the current volume.

7 See the contributions by Waterbury, Udrea, & Smith and Lesińska and Héjj in this volume for detailed discussions of the normative, political and theoretical importance of Hungary’s Act LXII of 2001 on Hungarians Living in the Neighbouring Countries.

8 The volume arises out of the research project ‘Poland’s Kin-state Policies: Opportunities and Challenges’, led by David Smith and Andreea Udrea at the University of Glasgow from 2018–2020 and funded by the Noble Foundation Programme on Modern Poland. See: https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/crcees/research/kinpol/projects/.

9 The Polish legislation differentiates between two categories of co-ethnics abroad: the Polish diaspora, generally referred to as Polonia, and the Poles living on the territory of the former Soviet Union, designated Poles in the East (Polacy na Wschodzie). According to the last census in the Soviet Union from 1989, 1,126,334 Soviet citizens of Polish nationality resided there (Sendhardt, 2017). Originally, the Poles in the East were those who were deported to, exiled or persecuted in the Soviet Union (Preamble) and/or their descendants, and are permanent residents of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the Asian part of the Russian Federation (Polish Sejm, 2000, Art 9(1)). Karta Polaka expands the category to include citizens of or stateless people registered in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan (Polish Sejm, 2007, Art. 2(2)). The latest amendment of Karta Polaka from 16 May 2019 has further enlarged the group of beneficiaries and now includes all people of Polish descent worldwide.

10 The constitutionality of Karta Polaka was challenged in the Supreme Court. In its ruling from 5 December 2013, the Supreme Court defined the Poles living abroad as being those who have a document which certifies their Polish citizenship as well as all foreigners of Polish ethnicity, thus removing the necessity of holding Polish citizenship to justify the trans-sovereign reach of the such legislation (Ładykowski, 2018, p. 114).

11 According to the text of the Act on the Polish Card, it is also neither a proof of Polish descent or citizenship (Art 7.1), nor does it entitle its holder to cross borders to or settle in Poland (Art 7.2). The Act provides a number of benefits to the card holders, including access to the labour market on a par with Polish citizens, education and cultural benefits on the territory of Poland, and access to health care. However, recent amendments from May 2016 (Polish Sejm, 2016) and November 2016 (Polish Sejm, 2016) have changed the aim of this policy by including provisions which facilitate the holders’ settlement in Poland and their access to Polish citizenship (EFHR, 2016). These amendments exempt the Polish Card holders from any consular fees regarding their applications for a national visa or citizenship, entitle those who settle in Poland to receiving cash benefits that cover their costs of living, and most importantly, facilitate their access to Polish citizenship after one year of permanent residence on the territory of Poland and upon obtaining a language certificate. For further details see Pudzianowska’s contribution in this volume.

12 According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, between 2008 and 24 September 2019 131,770 citizens of Belarus received Polish cards (Szoszyn, 2019).

13 This conference was co-organised by the School of Social and Political Sciences (University of Glasgow) and the Institute of Sociology (University of Warsaw) and funded by the Noble Foundation Programme on Modern Poland and the Institute of Sociology (University of Warsaw). See: https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/crcees/research/kinpol/projects/activitiesconferenceuniversityofwarsaw23-24may2019/.

14 This blurring of policy boundaries also inspired the theme of a follow-up event to the Warsaw conference (‘Integration in a Transnational World: Poland, Scotland and Polish Communities Abroad’). See note 2 above.

15 In this respect, he cites previous work by Nowosielski and Nowak (2017).

16 Following Jenne, ethnopopulist movements are defined as those which ‘[propagate] narratives whereby enemies from beyond (migrants, immigrants, ethnic minorities) couple or even conspire with enemies from above (the EU, UN, IMF, “global elites” or foreign powers) to undermine or even de-nationalize the nation-people’ (2018, p. 549).

Additional information

Funding

The editors would like to thank the Noble Foundation Programme on Modern Poland (Poland's Kin-state Policies: Opportunities and Challenges - pomp.com.pl/en/programy-2017/polands-kin-state-policies-opportunities-and-challenges/ - administered under University of Glasgow project code 300460-01), the College of Social Sciences of the University of Glasgow and the Institute of Sociology of the University of Warsaw for their generous financial support which led to the publication of this volume.