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Displacing and Re-placing Population in the Two World Wars: Armenia and Poland Compared

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2007

PETER GATRELL
PETER GATRELL*
Affiliation:
School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL; [email protected].
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Abstract

During the twentieth century Armenia and Poland alike were sites of widespread population displacement, which brought into sharp focus arguments about national ‘survival’ advanced by patriotic leaders who found in refugees the embodiment of recurrent national suffering. Population displacement also attracted external support from sympathetic foreigners and from the Armenian and Polish diaspora, who regarded it as an affront to civilisation. Among Armenians a groundswell of support for repatriation gathered momentum after both world wars, because Soviet ‘protection’ offered the most realistic chance for national survival. In contrast many Poles opted not to return to Poland after 1945, regarding the communist takeover as a betrayal of Poland's struggle for independence.

Déplaçant et rapatriant la population pendant les deux guerres mondiales: l'arménie et la pologne comparées

Durant le vingtième siècle, l'Arménie et la Pologne étaient de la même façon des lieux d'importants déplacements de populations qui ont mis en avant des arguments sur la ‘survie’ nationale par des leaders patriotiques qui ont trouvé dans les réfugiés l'incarnation de la fréquente souffrance nationale. Les déplacements de populations ont aussi attiré du soutien externe d'étrangers compatissants et des diasporas arméniennes et polonaises, qui les ont considérés comme un affront à la civilisation. Parmi les Arméniens, une vague de soutien au rapatriement a pris de l'ampleur après les deux guerres mondiales, car la ‘protection’ soviétique offrait la chance la plus réaliste à la survie nationale. Beaucoup de Polonais, par contre, considérant la prise de pouvoir communiste comme une trahison du combat polonais pour l'indépendance, ont choisi de ne pas retourner en Pologne après 1945.

Bevölkerungsvertreibung und -repatriierung in den beiden weltkriegen: armenien und polen im vergleich

Armenien und Polen waren beide während des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts Orte umfassender Bevölkerungsvertreibungen. Diskussionen über das ‘Überleben’ der Nation traten so ins Zentrum der Politik der beiden Nationen. Besonders nationalistische Politiker in beiden Ländern betonten dies immer wieder, nicht zuletzt dadurch, daß sie Flüchtlinge zur ‘Verkörperung’ andauernden nationalen Leidens stilisierten. Vetreibungen stießen außerdem auf die Unterstützung von Ausländern und der armenischen und polnischen Diaspora, welche die Vertreibungen als Zivilisationsbruch interpretierten. Unter den Armeniern gewannen Repatriierungspläne besonders nach den beiden Weltkriegen Unterstützung, weil sowjetischer ‘Schutz’ die einzige realistische Chance nationalen Überlebens zu bieten schien. Im Unterschied dazu entschieden sich viele Polen, nach 1945 nicht in ihr Heimatland zurückzukehren: sie interpretierten die kommunistische Machtergreifung als Verrat am polnischen Unabhängigkeitskampf.

Type
Research Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 16 , Issue 4: World Wars and Population Displacement in the Twentieth Century , November 2007 , pp. 511 - 527
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 For short introductions see Jerzy, Lukowski and Hubert, Zawadski, A Concise History of Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Redgate, A. E., The Armenians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998)Google Scholar.

2 This article does not address the political and demographic changes associated with the collapse of communism, nor does it discuss the extermination of Poland's Jewish population during the Second World War.

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17 Secret report of Soviet agent D. Shaverdov to Comrade Lukashin, Tbilisi, copied to Sovnarkom, 16 Sept. 1925, NAA f. 113, op. 3, d. 375, ll. 38–40.

18 NAA f. 114, op. 2, d. 172, ll. 159-ob., Mravian memo, 31 Aug. 1921; Central Evacuation Commission, Caucasus, 2 April 1921, NAA f. 113, op. 3, d. 38, ll. 50–4. Askanaz Mravian became a victim of the Stalinist purges in 1937.

19 Sovnarkom statement, 21 Jan. 1926, NAA f. 113, op. 3, d. 449, l. 10; Vartan Malcolm to the American National Delegation, 9 July 1922, NAA f. 430, op. 1, d. 265, ll. 5–10; Fridtjof, Nansen, Armenia and the Near East (London: Allen & Unwin, 1928)Google Scholar; Gorvin, J. H., ‘Soviet Russia: Some Observations’, Journal of the British Institute of International Affairs, 5, 2 (1926), 61–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Armenian National Delegation memo, 24 Aug. 1923, NAA f. 430, op. 1, d. 1081, ll. 15–18.

21 ‘The Refugee Question’, June 1925, NAA f. 113, op. 1, d. 127, ll. 1–6. See also the ‘Strictly confidential’ memo from Makedonskii to Armcheka, 2 March 1926, which complained about the behaviour of priests and merchants. NAA f. 113, op. 3, d. 256, ll. 174–5, 177–178ob. The Narkomzem assessment, dated April 1925, is in NAA f. 113, op. 3, d. 302, ll. 66–69.

22 Unsigned memo submitted to Sovnarkom SSRA, 8 Jan. 1923, NAA f. 113, op. 3, d. 82, ll. 100–102; Letter dated 23 May 1924, NAA f. 113, op. 1, d. 153, ll. 49–51; Soviet representative in Tehran to Sovnarkom, 30 Nov. 1924, NAA f. 113, op. 1, d. 127, l.63; Unsigned report to Transcaucasian Sovnarkom, 25 May 1924, NAA f. 113, op. 1, d. 310, ll. 10–12. The Dashnaktsutiun Party, formed in the 1890s, campaigned on a socialist platform in support of an independent Armenia free from Soviet control.

23 ‘Oprosnyi list’ sent to Inotdel, Sovnarkom, SSRA, 1922, NAA, f. 113, op.3, d. 53, ll. 87–8; here the respondent claimed no party membership but declared that he was ‘sympathetic to the communists’. See also V. Shumiatskii to A. Mravian, Deputy Chairman of Sovnarkom SSRA, 23 June 1924, NAA f. 113, op. 1, d. 153, ll. 88–9. Mravian acknowledged, however, that Dashnak influence was on the wane. NAA f. 113, op. 1, d. 153, l. 138.

24 ArmCheka to Sovnarkom, 10 Jan. 1925, NAA f. 113, op. 3, d. 330, l. 107; Cheka memo to Sovnarkom, 7 Oct. 1925, NAA f. 113, op. 3, d. 294, l. 14.

25 LNA, Fonds Nansen, Box R5638, doc. 17248, Letter from the Union Générale Arménienne de Bienfaisance to the Secretary General of the League, 30 Aug. 1937.

26 Quoted in Razmik, Panossian, The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars (London: Hurst, 2006), 304Google Scholar. See also Suny, Ronald G., Looking toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 222–3Google Scholar; Mandel, Maud S., In the Aftermath of Genocide: Armenians and Jews in Twentieth Century France (Durham N.C: Duke University Press, 2003), 120–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Soviet officials had already drawn up contingency plans. In a top secret report on 18 Dec. 1929, the Transcaucasian Sovnarkom reckoned on a possible influx of 380,000 refugees in Armenia alone. Strenuous efforts were to be made to discourage civilians from fleeing their homes and to define potential regions of settlement for those who did, on the basis of the ‘ethno-morphological composition of each refugee region’. NAA f. 113, op. 3, d. 851, ll. 1, 15–17, 64, 89–102.

28 Vertanes, Charles A., Armenia Reborn (New York: Armenian National Council of America, 1947), 174, 177Google Scholar. This memorandum ended by associating ‘honourable and illustrious men’ with the Armenian cause – Gladstone, Bryce, Wilson and Nansen, along with Lenin and Stalin, surely the only occasion when Gladstone and Stalin were mentioned in the same breath.

29 Vertanes, Armenia Reborn, 114, 117, 135, quoting the draft constitution of the American Committee for Armenian Rights; Suny, Looking toward Ararat, 165–6.

30 The famous ‘Red Dean’ of Canterbury, Hewlett Johnson (1874–1966), attended the ecclesiastical convention in Etchmiadzin in 1945. Hewlett, Johnson, ‘At the Foot of Ararat’, in Soviet Russia since the War (New York: Armenian National Council of America, 1947), 213–14Google Scholar. For a hostile account, see Alexander, Edward, ‘The Armenian Church in Soviet Policy’, Russian Review, 14, 4 (1955), 357–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Schechtman, Joseph B., Population Transfers in Asia (London: Hallsby, 1949), 55Google Scholar; Vertanes, Armenia Reborn, 118–24; Mandel, Aftermath of Genocide, 179, 192–3. The campaign received further impetus from the growth of Arab nationalism in the Middle East.

32 LNA, Fonds Nansen, Box R5638, doc. 17248, Mrs A. A. Altounyan, director of the Altounyan Hospital in Aleppo, Syria, to ‘Dr Nanson, the Nanson Office [sic]’, dated 26 June 1946.

33 Mandel, Aftermath of Genocide, 198–9; Schechtman, Population Transfers, 55, 65.

34 Claire Mouradian, ‘L'immigration des Arméniens de la diaspora vers la RSS d'Arménie, 1946–1962’, Cahiers du monde russe, 20, 1 (1979), 79–110. By and large Armenians in the Middle East were much more sympathetic to repatriation than their US counterparts.

35 Schechtman, Population Transfers, 69, quoting the Economist.

36 Afans'ev, Iu. N., ed., Istoriia stalinskogo Gulaga: konets 1920kh-pervaia polovina 1950kh godov, tom 1 (Moscow: Rosspen, 2004), 526–9Google Scholar; George Mamoulia, ‘Les premieres fissures de l'URSS d'après guerre: le cas de la Géorgie et du Caucase du Sud, 1946–1956’, Cahiers du monde russe, 46, 3 (2005), 593–616.

37 It was briefly revived in the early 1960s. Claire Mouradian, De Staline à Gorbatchev. Histoire d'une république soviétique: l'Arménie (Paris: Ramsay, 1990); Panossian, Armenians, 291–4, 358–65.

38 Gatrell, Whole Empire Walking, 154–7, 212–14.

39 Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF) f. 5115, op. 3, d. 220, ll. 6, 21; Laurence, Alma-Tadema, The Children of Poland (London: n.p., 1918)Google Scholar; Arnold, Toynbee, The Destruction of Poland: A Study in German Efficiency (London: Fisher Unwin, 1916)Google Scholar; Norman, Davies, ‘The Poles in Great Britain, 1914–1919’, Slavonic and East European Review, 50, 118 (1972), 63–89Google Scholar.

40 Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv (RGIA), f. 1322, op.1, d. 13, l. 42; GARF f. 3333, op.1a, d. 68, ll. 8, 27. Contemporary comment is summarised in Gatrell, Whole Empire Walking, 154–7.

41 The refugees were described as ‘brat'ia-vyselentsy’, that is compatriots who had been forced out of Poland. Polish refugees resisted the idea of settling in Siberia. Utro Rossii, No. 227, 18 Aug. 1915; Trudovaia pomoshch’, No. 5, 1916, 463.

42 Trudovaia pomoshch’, No. 6, 1916, 21.

43 Prace Polskiej Narady Ekonomicznej w Petersburgu (1919), cited in Wojciech Roszkowski, ‘The Reconstruction of the Government and State Apparatus in the Second Polish Republic’, in Paul, Latawski, ed., The Reconstruction of Poland 1914–1923 (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1992), 159Google Scholar.

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47 Joseph Van Gelder, ‘Activities of the Refugee Department, American JDC in Europe During the Years 1921–23’, unpublished (May 1924), JDC Archives, New York, 40–4.

48 Timothy Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 161. For the situation in Soviet Ukraine see Terry, Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 325–32Google Scholar.

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54 As one official put it in July 1945, ‘having reached an understanding with the Soviet Union to establish an ethnographic frontier, we have a tendency to be a national state, and not a state of nationalities’. Snyder, Reconstruction, 193.

55 Ibid., 188.

56 Marek, Jasiak, ‘Overcoming Ukrainian Resistance: The Deportation of Ukrainians within Poland in 1947’, in Philipp, Ther and Ana, Siljak, eds., Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944–1948 (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 184Google Scholar.

57 Anita, Prazmowska, Civil War in Poland, 1942–1948 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004), 186–9Google Scholar; Snyder, Reconstruction, 197–8.

58 Orest Subtelny, ‘Expulsion, Resettlement, Civil Strife: The Fate of Poland's Ukrainians, 1944–1947’, in Ther and Siljak, Redrawing Nations, 167–8.

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60 Cardinal Hlond's appeal to DPs to return was published in Repatriant: Ilustrowany Tygodnik Informacyjny, No. 17, 1948. Thanks to Konrad Zielinski for this reference.

61 Marta, Dyczok, The Grand Alliance and Ukrainian Refugees (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), 123Google Scholar; Malcolm, Proudfoot, European Refugees, 1939–1952: A Study in Forced Population Movement (London: Faber, 1957), 182, 256Google Scholar.

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63 Wilson, Francesca M., In the Margins of Chaos: Recollections of Relief Work in and Between Three Wars (London: John Murray, 1944)Google Scholar. According to Lane, Victims of Stalin and Hitler, 154–5, soldiers and DPs of modest means with homes in western Poland and who had not yet experienced Soviet rule returned in 1945–6.

64 The standard Polish source is Stefan Banasiak, Działalność osadnicza Państwowego Urzędu Repatriacyjnego na Ziemiach Odzyskanych w latach 1945–1947 (Poznań: Instytut Zachodni, 1963). Anna Louise Strong (see n. 44) paid a return visit to Poland and published I Saw the New Poland (Boston: Little, Brown, 1946). See also Bernard, Newman, Russia's Neighbour: The New Poland (London: Gollancz, 1946)Google Scholar.

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66 Jerzy, Zubrzycki, Polish Immigrants in Britain: A Study of Adjustment (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1956)Google Scholar. The remarkable career of Zubrzycki (b. 1920) – cavalry cadet, prisoner of war, parachute officer, SOE officer in London, doctoral student at the LSE, civil servant and eminent sociologist in Australia – represents one extraordinary strand of Polish displacement.

67 SOS: A Call from 100,000 of Your Neighbours in Distress (Geneva: IRO, 1950), 8–9.

68 For reflections on this theme see Daniel, E. Valentine, ‘The Refugee: A Discourse on Displacement’, in Jeremy, MacClancy, ed., Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 270–86Google Scholar.

69 An Armenian correspondent provided a neat international twist by suggesting that an enlarged Armenian homeland would ‘relieve the great American people from the burden of supporting indefinitely a nation of refugees’. A. H. Tiryakian to L. Kevork, Manchester, n.d. (1922), NAA f. 430, op. 1, d. 257, ll. 2–3.

70 Sword, Formation, 357–444. On class divisions in the diaspora see John Brown, The Un-Melting Pot: An English Town and its Immigrants (London: Macmillan, 1970), 38–40.

71 This is evident in travel writing, for example Michael Arlen, Passage to Ararat (London: Chatto & Windus, 1976). I am not aware of any Polish equivalent.

72 James L. Barton to Vartan Malcolm, 2 June 1923, NAA f. 430, op. 1, d. 263, l. 33.