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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2022
The present article addresses how the local population of the Polesie Voivodeship perceived the establishment of the Soviet–Polish state border that separated them into two nations. This article focuses on their co-existence, through the prism of the evolution of the reason for cross-border movements. It aims to show that national indifference is not based on the same attitude towards a modern institution as a result of only a vague knowledge of modern society, but is, very often, the result of a conscious choice in the conditions of the need to live and co-exist with ‘alien’ institutions of power. This article, contributing to a growing literature on how ‘ordinary’ people living near state frontiers both resist and appropriate these demarcations of state sovereignty, is largely based on cross-referencing local state archival material with oral testimony from residents of the time and their descendants.
1 See Foucault, Michel, Security, territory, population: lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978 (Basingstoke, 2007)Google Scholar.
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4 On the limits of oral history as a source of information, see Jessee, E., ‘The limits of oral history: ethics and methodology amid highly politicized research settings’, Oral History Review, 38 (2011), pp. 287–307CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
5 The recollections of the memories were collected during research, my own as well as of other historians; for example, Aliaksandr Smalianchuk, ed., Vosen´ 1939 h. u histarychnai tradytsyi i vusnai history (Minsk, 2015); Aliaksandr Smalianchuk, ed., ‘Za pershymi savetami’: Pol'ska-belaruskae pamezhzha 1939–1941 gg. u vusnyh uspaminah zhyharow Belarusi (Minsk, 2019).
6 Mostly, State Archive of the Brest Region (SAotBR) and Zonal State Archive in Mozyr (ZSAiM).
7 The significance of these sources, which are not commonly used in studies of this kind, can be explained by the fact that they represent the point of view of an older generation, one that had already attained adulthood at the time when Polesie was divided.
8 For example, Gellner, Ernest, Nationalism (London, 1997)Google Scholar; James, Paul, Nation formation: towards a theory of abstract community (London, 1996)Google Scholar; Hroch, Miroslav, European nations: explaining their formation (New York, NY, 2015)Google Scholar.
9 Moreover, there are a significant number of works devoted to other regions of the world, for example, Scott, James C., Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of peasant resistance (New Heaven, CT, 1985)Google Scholar; Scott, James C., The art of not being governed: an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia (New Heaven, CT, 2009)Google ScholarPubMed; Herbst, Jeffrey, States and power in Africa: comparative lessons in authority and control (Princeton, NJ, 2000)Google Scholar.
10 For example, Kate Brown understood it as the Chernobyl zone. See Brown, Kate, A biography of no place: from ethnic borderland to Soviet heartland (Cambridge, 2009)Google Scholar.
11 Engelking, Anna, ‘Old and new questions concerning Belarusian “local” identity’, Sprawy Narodowościowe, 31 (2007), pp. 131–43Google Scholar.
12 For example, Mihail M. Litvinov, Litovskaya oblast', Poles'e i strana k yugu ot Poles'ya: zapiski oficerov starshego kursa Nikolaevskoj akademii General'nogo shtaba, sostavlennye po lekciyam ad'yunkt-professora M. Litvinova v 1883–83 g. (Saint Petersburg, 1883); Statisticheskij Vremennik III (12) (Saint Petersburg, 1886); Sbornik statisticheskih svedenij (1884–90 g.) (Saint Petersburg, 1892).
13 Аleksandr Sierzputouski, Paliesuki-bielarusy: etnahraficny narys (Minsk, 2017), esp. pp. 5–12.
14 This was repeatedly noted by contemporaries who visited the region, for example, Leon Wasilewski, Wspomnienia 1870–1904 (1914): fragmenty dziennika 1916–1926, diariusz podróży po kresach 1927, ed. J. Dufrat and P. Cichoracki (Łomianki, 2014).
15 The same situation applied in Southern (Ukrainian) Polesie; see Brown, A biography, pp. 1–4.
16 Belova, Irina, Vynuzhdennye migranty: bezhency i voennoplennye Pervoj mirovoj vojny v Rossii. 1914–1925 gg (Moscow, 2014), esp. pp. 3–55, 61–3Google Scholar.
17 For what was important, despite all the tsarist efforts to nationalize them, see Weeks, Theodore R., Nation and state in late imperial Russia: nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1863–1914 (DeKalb, IL, 2008)Google Scholar.
18 Nikolai A. Mihalev and Sergey A. P'yankov, ‘Bezhency Pervoj mirovoj vojny v Rossijskoj imperii: chislennost', razmeshchenie, sostav’, Ural'skij istoricheskij vestnik, 4 (2015), pp. 95–105.
19 Interview with eighty-year-old woman, Pinsk, 12 June 2018.
20 Estimates of losses in Brest, SAotBR record group 54, and in Pinsk, SAotBR record group 2125.
21 Chernev, Borislav, Twilight of empire: the Brest–Litovsk Conference and the remaking of East Central Europe, 1917–1918 (Toronto, ON, 2017), pp. 3–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 See Eugeniusz Mironowicz, Białorusini i Ukraińcy w polityce obozu piłsudczykowskiego (Białystok, 2007).
23 For the wider historical context, see Snyder, Timothy, The reconstruction of nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 (New Haven, CT, 2004), esp. pp. 215–32Google Scholar.
24 See Liulevicius, Vejas G., War land on the Eastern Front: culture, national identity, and German occupation in World War I (Cambridge and New York, NY, 2000), pp. 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 Böhler, Jochen, Civil war in central Europe, 1918–1921: the reconstruction of Poland (Oxford, 2018), esp. pp. 59–146CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 Norman, Davies, White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish–Soviet War, 1919–1920 (London, 2003), esp. p. 399Google Scholar.
27 Savchenko, Andrew, Belarus: a perpetual borderland (Leiden, 2009), pp. 69–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 The situation was similar in the rest of the Polish–Russian frontier; see Vital Luba, ed., U novaj ajchyne: Shtodzyonnae zhyccyo belarusau Belastochchyny u mіzhvaenny peryyad (Białystok, 2001).
29 Hupchick, Dennis P., Conflict and chaos in Eastern Europe (London, 1995), p. 210Google Scholar.
30 On the everyday life in the Soviet border zone, see Dullin, Sabine, ‘The interface between neighbors at a time of state transition: the thick border of the Bolsheviks (1917–1924)’, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 69 (2014), pp. 255–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 Materski, Wojciech, ‘The Second Polish Republic in Soviet foreign policy (1918–1939)’, Polish Review, 45 (2000), pp. 331–45Google Scholar.
32 Reports of Polish Intelligence Service, SAotBR, 1/10/137–9.
33 Stone, David R., ‘The August 1924 raid on Stolpce, Poland, and the evolution of Soviet active intelligence’, Intelligence and National Security, 21 (2006), pp. 331–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
34 Aleksandra Gurko, Igor' Chakvin, and Galina Kasperovich, eds., Etnokul'turnye processy Vostochnogo Poles'ya v proshlom i nastoyashchem (Minsk, 2010), esp. pp. 3–22, 45–8.
35 On the topic of everyday life peasant communities in Kresy, see Linkiewicz, Olga, ‘Peasant communities in interwar Poland's eastern borderlands: Polish historiography and the local story’, Acta Poloniae Historica, 109 (2014), pp. 17–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Interview with ninety-one-year-old woman, Łuniniec, 3 Apr. 2017.
37 Interview with eighty-five-year-old man, Wiereśnica, 14 June 2018.
38 Pinsk County monthly report on ‘The situation in the county’, Jan. 1921, SAotBR, 1/9/48.
39 Tomaszewski, Jerzy, Ojczyzna nie tylko Polaków: Mniejszości narodowe w Polsce w latach 1918–1939 (Warsaw, 1985), pp. 4–26Google Scholar.
40 The National Historical Archive of Belarus, Belorusskij nacional'nyj komissariat, 4/1/55.
41 A series of interviews with the descendants of immigrants in 2016–18 in Brest and Homel districts.
42 Interview with ninety-eight-year-old woman, Żabinka, 2 July 2016.
43 Polesie Voivodship annual report, 1922, SAotBR, 1/9/47/8.
44 Polesie Region's NarKom annual report, 1922, ZSAiM, 463/3/2–6.
45 SAotBR, 1/9/109–10, 128.
46 Mozyr County IspolCom report, Nov. 1921, ZSAiM, 463/1/7/8, 10–11.
47 In the calculation, I used documents created by the local Polish authorities, often representing lists of persons, suspected of serving in the Red Army. However, such estimates are extremely inaccurate.
48 The National Archives of Belarus, 4/1/53, 55–7.
49 A series of interviews with the descendants of immigrants in 2016–18 in Brest and Homel districts; furthermore, this was noted in the following works: Smalianchuk, ed., Vosen´, pp. 1–16; Smalianchuk, ed., ‘Za pershymi savetami’, pp. 2–26.
50 The number of such a class, according to my estimates, could reach up to 5–8 per cent of the total population.
51 SAotBR 1/10/144–5.
52 Reports of the local raiispolkom (District Executive Committee), 1922, ZSAiM, 178/5, 7, 10–13.
53 Interview with eighty-one-year-old woman, Turaw, 4 Apr. 2017.
54 On the topic, see Hoffmann, David L., Cultivating the masses: modern state practices and Soviet socialism, 1914–1939 (Ithaca, NY, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
55 Śleszyński, Wojciech, Województwo poleskie (Cracow, 2014)Google Scholar.
56 Its mass character was mentioned also by Rudling, Per A., The rise and fall of Belarusian nationalism, 1906–1931 (Pittsburgh, PA, 2014), esp. p. 206Google Scholar.
57 The reports of the Border Guard Corps and the Voivode were particularly helpful here (SAotBR 1/9/109–12), and reports of the Polesie Oblispolkom (ZSAiM).
58 A series of interviews with the descendants of immigrants in 2016–18 in Brest and Homel districts.
59 Snyder, Timothy, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (London, 2010), pp. 21–59Google Scholar.
60 Reports of the Polesie Voivode 1921–35, SAotBR, 1/9/46–7; reports of Oblispolkoms 1924–8, ZSAiM, 463/12–4.
61 This conclusion follows from the surveys of migrants conducted by the Border Protection Corps (KOP) in 1928–34. Up to 90 per cent of migrants were classified as belonging to the above-mentioned groups, SAotBR, 1/10/144–51.
62 On Soviet terror, see Snyder, Bloodlands, esp. pp. 59–119.
63 Monthly reports of the KOP in 1928–34, SAotBR, 1/9.
64 A series of interviews with the descendants of immigrants in 2016–17 in the Brest and Homel districts.
65 By my estimates, up to 60 per cent of the local party activists left the region in years 1924–35. In the reports of the governor of the region, even more than 90 per cent of them are mentioned as ‘escapers’ to Russia (SAotBR, 1/10/144–6).
66 Numerical estimation of the phenomenon is extremely difficult. However, based on the official documentation of local self-government bodies, it can be argued that up to 20 per cent of the local non-Polish conscripts ‘ran to Russia’.
67 References to this are often in the reports of the Polesie Voivode in 1924–8.
68 For example, SAotBR 1/8/639.
69 Department of State Security, SAotBR, 1/10/137–9.
70 For example, correspondence of the Polesie Voivode with county soltuses (village chiefs) of Kosów Poleski, SAotBR 1/9/87.
71 Petrov, Maksim, ‘Bol'shoj terror v BSSR’, Dedy: dajdzhest publikacij o belorusskoj istorii, 11 (2013), pp. 221–31Google Scholar.
72 On Soviet policy, see Hoffmann, Cultivating the masses, esp. pp. 181–238.
73 See works, Jeremy Smith's The Bolsheviks and the national question, 1917–1923 (Berlin, 1999)Google Scholar, and Red nations (Cambridge, 2011).
74 Rudling, Per A., ‘The beginnings of modern Belarus: identity, nation, and politics in a European borderland’, Annual London Lecture on Belarusian Studies, 7 (2015), pp. 115–27Google Scholar.
75 Hirsch, Francine, Empire of nations: ethnographic knowledge and the making of the Soviet Union (Ithaca, NY, 2005), pp. 145–87Google Scholar.
76 Cichoracki, Piotr, ‘Polonisation projects for Polesia and their delivery in 1921–1939’, Acta Poloniae Historica, 109 (2014), pp. 61–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
77 See Wojciech Śleszyński and Anna Jodzio, eds., Polesie w polityce rządów II Rzeczypospolitej (Białystok and Cracow, 2012).
78 Ablamski, Pavel, ‘The nationality issue on the peripheries of Central and Eastern Europe: the case of Polesie in the interwar period’, Studia z Dziejów Rosji i Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, 52 (2017), pp. 55–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
79 See Piotr Eberhardt and Jan Owsinski, trans., Ethnic groups and population changes in twentieth century Eastern Europe: history, data and analysis (Abingdon, 2002).
80 Mihail V. Strelec, ‘Deyatel'nost' obshchestvennyh organizacij v 1926–1939 gg. na territorii Polesskogo voevodstva vo Vtoroj Rechi Pospolitoj’, Vesnіk Magіlyouskaga dzyarzhaunaga unіversіteta іmya A. A. Kulyashova. Seiya A. Gumanіtarnyya navukі (gіstoryya, fіlasofіya, fіlalogіya), 53 (2019), pp. 14–23.
81 Viktor P. Garmatny, ‘Sacyyal'na-ekanamіchnae razvіccyo Paleskaga vayavodstva ў 1921–1939 gg.: gіstaryyagrafіya prablemy’, in Belarus' u kanteksce Eurapejskaj gistorii: asoba, gramadstva, dzyarzhava (Grodno, 2019), pp. 213–17.
82 On border protection, 1935–9, see SAotBR 1/10/146–7.
83 Materski, ‘The Second Polish Republic’, pp. 332–9.
84 This statement made on the base of transcriptions of conversations with violators of the state border conducted by the KOP and a series of interviews with the inhabitants of Pruzhany, Pinsk, and Berioza districts in 2018–19.
85 SAotBR, 1/10/148–9.
86 A series of interviews with the descendants of immigrants in 2016–18 in Brest and Homel districts.
87 Interview with ninety-year-old woman, Lienin, 1 July 2016.
88 Smalianchuk, ‘Za pershymi savetami’, pp. 1–26.
89 Such changes were also noted by the Polish interwar ethnologists, for example, Joseph Obrebski. See Obrębski, Józef, Dzisiejsi ludzie Polesia i inne eseje, ed. Engelking, Anna (Warsaw, 2005), esp. pp. 20–45, 91–102Google Scholar.
90 Interview with eighty-seven-year-old man, Dawidgródek, 16 June 2016.
91 ZSAiM, annual reports of the local militia, 1936–9, 178/24–8, 31–2.
92 On measures to eliminate smuggling, 1937–9, ZSAiM, 178/4–22.
93 Aliaksandr Smalianchuk, ‘Paleskaja vjoska w stasunku da pana’, in Belaruskaia historyia: Znaistsi chalaveka (Minsk, 2013), pp. 138–54.
94 Interview with ninety-one-year-old woman, Sinkiewicze, 15 June 2016.
95 Stanisław Boridczenko, ‘Strangers: first encounter with the Soviets through the eyes of the population of the Polesie Voivodeship’, Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, forthcoming (2022).
96 In national and state awareness societies, this process is completely different. For example, Paasi, Anssi, Territories, boundaries and consciousness: the changing geographies of the Finnish–Russian boundary (New York, NY, 1996)Google Scholar; Sahlins, Boundaries.
97 On the topic of rural conflict with the modern society, see Colburn, Forrest D., Everyday forms of peasant resistance (New Haven, CT, 1989)Google Scholar; Tilly, Charles, The contentious French (Cambridge, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scott, James C., Decoding subaltern politics: ideology, disguise, and resistance in agrarian politics (London and New York, NY, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
98 On the topic of the Second Polish Republic's attitude to the eastern territories, see Mędrzecki, Włodzimierz, Kresowy kalejdoskop: Wędrówki przez Ziemie Wschodnie Drugiej Rzeczpospolitej, 1918–1939 (Cracow, 2018)Google Scholar; idem, Województwo wołyńskie, 1921–1939: Elementy przemian społecznych, politycznych, cywilizacyjnych (Wrocław 1988).
99 This was probably the first step towards the development of nationalism. See Anderson, Benedict, Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (London, 1991), pp. 23–59Google Scholar.
100 On the topic of modern understanding of sovereignty and borders, see Mathias Albert, David Jacobson, and Yosef Lapid, eds., Identities, borders, orders: rethinking international relations theory (Minneapolis, MI, 2001)
101 On the forms of modern state identity, see Donnan, Hastings and Wilson, Thomas M., Borders: frontiers of identity, nation and state (Oxford, 1999), esp. pp. 43–63Google Scholar.