Polonization: Encyclopedia II - Polonization - Second Polish Republic

Polonization - Second Polish Republic

During the times of Second Polish Republic, when Poland regained territories of Western Belarus, Western Ukraine and the Wilno region, linguistic assimilation was considered as a major factor of unifying the state by National Democrats. For example, Stanisław Grabski, Polish Minister for Religion and Public Education in 1923-1926 wrote that "Poland may be preserved only as the state of Polish people. If it were a state of Poles, Jews, Germans, Rusyns, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Russians, it would lose its independence again." Some other officials rejected the existence of Ukrainian and Belarusian nations altogether. And Grabski again: "It is impossible to make nation of those who does not have the 'national self-identification', who calls themself "local" (Tutejszy)".

A law issued in 1924 banned usage of any language but Polish in governmental and municipal paperwork. It the area of public education it was postulated that state schools could be only Polish language schools. Local populations could have private local language schools an only in territories "loyal to Polish state". Specifically with respect to the Eastern territories (known as Kresy Wschodnie, or ""Eastern Borderlands") it was recognized that "shools can become an instrument of the cultural development in Eastern lands only if Polish teachers will work there". However in reality it turned out to be infeasible for implementation and, in particular, bilingual schools (Polish: szkoły utrakwistyczne) were proposed.

After the 1930 elections in Poland, Belarusian representation in Polish parliament was reduced and since early 1930's Polish government started to introduce policies intended to Polonize the minorities. In 1938 about 100 Orthodox churches were destroyed or converted to Roman Catholic in the eastern parts of Poland.^[1] The use of Belarusian language was discouraged. Not a single Belarusian school survived until spring of 1939, and only 44 schools teaching Belarusian language still existed in Poland at the beginning of World War II.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Second Polish Republic", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki