Kresy
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The name Kresy (Polish for "borderlands", or more correctly Kresy Wschodnie, Eastern Borderlands) is used by Poles, mostly in a historical context, to refer to areas of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus that were annexed by Poland after a series of wars -- the Polish-Ukrainian War in 1918-1919, the Polish-Lithuanian War in 1920 and the Polish-Soviet War 1919-1921 -- and the signing of the Peace of Riga in 1921. These territories bordered the Soviet Union on the east, Lithuania and Latvia on the north, and Romania on the south.
Kresy approximately corresponds to the territory to the East of the Curzon line.
During the period of the Second Polish Republic (1921—1939), Kresy comprised the following voivodeships (from North to South and then to the West, see the 1939 map in the Voivodeships of Poland article).
- Wilno Voivodeship, capital Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania)
- Nowogródek Voivodeship, capital Nowogródek (now Navahradak, Belarus)
- Polesie Voivodeship, capital Brześć nad Bugiem (now Brest, Belarus)
- Wolhynian Voivodeship, capital Łuck (now Lutsk, Ukraine)
- Tarnopol Voivodeship, capital Tarnopol (now Ternopil, Ukraine)
- Stanisławów Voivodeship, capital Stanisławów (now Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine)
- Lwów Voivodeship, capital Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine)
The territory of Kresy constituted over 40% of Polish territory during the Second Republic.
While the majority of the population of Western Ukraine in the south was Ukrainian and the majority of the population Western Belarus in the north was Belarusian, ethnic Poles were the largest ethnic group in the combined region, and were the largest ethnic group in the region's cities. Other groups included Lithuanians and Jews. The Polish inhabitants of this region, known in Polish as Kresowiacy, constituted approximately 40% of the population and had a distinct culture, with accents and customs influenced by the presence of ethnic minorities. Among, these about 150,000 constituted osadnicy, or veterans of the Polish army given free land during 1921-1939.
In 1931, according to the National Census, the biggest cities in Polish Eastern Borderlands Voivodeships were (with the names given in Polish forms):
- Lwów - pop. 312 200,
- Wilno - pop. 195 100,
- Stanisławów - pop. 60 000,
- Brześć nad Bugiem - pop. 50 700,
- Grodno - pop. 49 700,
- Równe - pop. 41 900,
- Borysław - pop. 41 500,
- Łuck - pop. 35 600,
- Tarnopol - pop. 33 900.
As a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, on September 17, 1939 the territory was annexed by Soviet Union, and a significant part of the Polish population was deported to other areas of the Soviet Union including Kazakhstan. [1]
After the German invasion, a significant part of the Kresy population was transferred to Germany as workforce (Ostarbeiter, "Eastern workers"). By the end of WWII, they were placed in camps for displaced persons in post-war Germany. Soviet representatives attempted to filter out persons of Belarusian and Ukrainian nationality from camps located in the Western occupation zones in order to transfer them to the Soviet Union. Many of those from Kresy who already have had an experience of Soviet life sought to avoid this kind of "repatriation". In particular, some camps that hosted Belarusians used terms White Ruthenians and Krivichs in their documentation.
After the Second World War, the Kresy territory was officially ceded to the Soviet Union (becoming part of the Ukrainian, Byelorussian and Lithuanian Socialist Soviet Republics), and most of the ethnic Polish population was transferred to Poland's Recovered Territories that Poland had annexed from Germany after the war.
[edit] See also
- Curzon Line
- Zaporizhia (region) - also known as Dzikie Pola (Wild Fields)
- Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union
- Kresy Zachodnie
[edit] References
- Mały rocznik statystyczny 1939, Główny Urząd Statystyczny, Warszawa 1939 (Concise Statistical Yearbook 1939, Central Statistical Office, Warsaw 1939).
