Language Research

During most of its history Poland was a multiethnic society that included substantial numbers of Belarusian, German, Jewish and Ukrainian peoples. This ethnic diversity was reduced sharply by the atrocities of World War II and the migrations that followed it. Poland's communist governments consistently emphasized ethnic homogeneity. As a result of this process, in 1990 an estimated 98% of Poland's population was ethnically Polish.

Because of the importance of religion in Polish society, the relations of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland with the two largest minority religions has influenced the status of Ukrainian communities in various areas.

The Belarusian minority has been less assertive of its national identity than have been the Ukrainians. Therefore, low national self-awareness has led to an easy assimilation into Polish society.

Romany are less numerous and less controversial in Poland. However, there still exist some negative stereotypes and acts of violence against this minority.

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Updated (August 2003)

CASHUBIANS

Over 1,500 years ago Cashubians came into the region between Oder and Vistula rivers. They are direct descendants of the Pomeranians, who gave their name to the area known as Pomerania. Cashubians, living in the territories of the former Duchy of Pomerania, were almost entirely Germanized between the 14th and 20th Centuries. Those living in Eastern Pomerania (West Prussia) have survived and today over 300,000 people in Poland consider themselves to be members of this minority.

Cashubian, a Lekhitic language belonging to the West Slavic subgroup, is spoken mainly in northern Poland. In many towns and villages, Cashubian is the second language, after Polish.

According to the law (dating back to 1991 and rewritten in 2000), Cashubian is an ethnic minority language. A new Act, currently being discussed, recognizes Cashubian as a regional language and guarantees even more rights.

Cashubian is taught at schools, used on the radio (one hour a week in the regional public radio station "Gdañsk," and in other radios, although to lesser extent) and TV (30 minutes every week in a regional public channel TVG). Cashubian is also unofficially used in public administration.

Source: Eurolang News, Brussels, August 14, 2003, by Pawel Szczypta & Marcello Mereu, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4366

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Updated (January 2004)

Minorities, although not commonly perceived or officially recognized, have always constituted an important element of Poland's ethno-linguistic landscape. During the major part of its history, the territories where minority communities outnumbered ethnic Poles, constituted more than one third of its area.

Between the two world wars, about 30 percent of the population belonged to national minorities – the Jews, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Germans and Lithuanians.

After the World War II, the Allies moved the territory of Poland to what was formally called its "ethnic boundaries", i.e. approximately 100-200 km westwards. As a result, the eastern provinces, inhabited by Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians and Jews were incorporated into the Soviet republics (Ukrainian, Byelorussian and Lithuanian SRR).

Most of the Germans who still dwelled in the new western Poland's provinces (formerly German Lower and Upper Silesia, eastern Brandenburg, Pomerania, Western and Eastern Prussia) were expelled, so were those who inhabited the areas belonging to pre-War Poland. Those who were not forced to leave (including the so-called verified autochthons, i.e. Silesians, Pomeranians, Masurians and Varmians, partially also Kashubs) did their utmost to immigrate to Germany, mainly because of the economic factors.¹

However, Poland after 1945 has still had a surprisingly rich mosaic of more than 15 national and ethnic minorities. Nowadays, the minority groups in Poland constitute 2.5 to 4 percent of the total population (38 million). It means that the term "minority" is used adequately for the first time in the country's history.

Source: Mercator News, Language Minorities in Old and New Europe by Tomasz Wicherkiewicz from Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, at the Mercator Conference: European Minority Languages and Research, Shaping an Agenda for a Global Age, Aberystwyth, April 8-10, 2003, http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/index-gb.htm

¹Other great migrations included the following groups: Poles from the eastern areas now seized by the Soviet Union, Ukrainians and Ruthenians replaced forcibly from eastern and southeastern Poland to the Soviet Ukraine (to the so-called "recovered lands"); Poles from Yugoslavia, Romania, France, Belgium etc., and Polish Jews from the Soviet Union to the western territories; political refugees from Greece (Greeks and Aegean Macedonians) to the western territories.

In total, the migrations of 1944/48 affected around 7 million people and were one of the greatest in the European history.

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Updated (July 2004)

A FRACTURED IDENTITY: THE LEMKO OF POLAND

Present-day Poland is perceived by many as an ethnically homogenous country. To a great extent, this is true; however, there are still several significant minorities living on its territory.

The Lemkos, settled in Lemkovyna (Lemkowszczyzna in Polish), in the southeast corner of the country, lived there undisturbed up to the 20th Century. In the interwar period, both the Poles and the neighboring Ukrainians tried to persuade the Lemkos to identify with either Polish or Ukrainian nationalist causes, however, without success.

In 1944, Poland and the Soviet Union agreed upon a series of population transfers when Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians and Rusyns (Lemko) were to be transferred to Ukraine and Belorussia. Although these transfers were supposedly voluntary, there was a strong pressure to move.

Near the end of the war, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) sent some of its members to fight in the Lemko Region. Although few Lemkos actually sympathized with the UPA, the new Polish People's Republic evaluated the situation differently and in Warsaw Lemkos were perceived as Ukrainian cooperators. As a result the operation "Vistula" (Akcja Wisla), the worst tragedy affecting the Lemko in this century, was organized. In the 1947 spring and summer, the entire region was depopulated and whole villages emptied, as the Lemkos were scattered throughout the northern and western territories of Poland. Their houses were occupied by Polish settlers, who moved into these abandoned villages. The theory was to destroy the supporters of the Ukrainian nationalists by their exile; however, instead Lemko culture was nearly destroyed.

The post-1947 Lemko community was under the Polish influence when individuals often hid their ethnic background to avoid ridicule. Consequently, many have assimilated into the Polish society and do not inclined to return to a rural farming lifestyle.

After 1956 some Lemkos were allowed to return to their homeland; however, the question of Lemko culture and identity was essentially frozen until 1989 and the fall of Communism. Only then, along with the Kashubians, Roma, Germans and other Polish minorities, the Lemko have begun to focus on preserving their unique culture and on asserting their political rights. Nevertheless, they did not re-emerge from this period as a unified group, the old differences have remained and the new ones have arisen to make the reconstruction of their ethnic unity a difficult task.

The most contentious issue dividing the Lemko is that of religion. While many of the Lemko are Orthodox, there is also a large segment of the population that has adopted the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

Ethno-national orientation is closely related to this division. A recent census of minorities in Poland stated that there were between 50,000 and 150,000 Lemkos in the country. The huge disparity between these two figures can be at least partly explained by the fact that many Lemko, who are loyal to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, are also pro-Ukrainian and identify themselves with the larger Ukrainian community. In contrast, the Orthodox Lemko usually see their identity as being a part of Slavonic or Carpatho-Rusyn group and state their ethnicity as Lemko or Rusyn.

These major divisions within the Lemko society are not ameliorated by the Polish government, which officially consider the Lemko to be part of the Ukrainian nation. This is problematic for the Orthodox Lemko who prefer a Rusyn orientation.

LEMKO'S CULTURAL REVIVAL

The splits in the community are reflected in the organizations that they have formed since 1989, as the Lemko tried to revive their cultural traditions in the post-Communist era. The two leading groups are the Society of Lemkos, formed in 1989, and the Union of Lemkos, formed in 1990.

The Union, representing the pro-Ukrainian segment of the Lemko society, is most active in the Lemko Region itself. The Society, on the other hand, was formed in southwest Poland by a community of exiled Lemkos, and does not support identification with Ukraine.

One of the main expressions of the Lemko's cultural revival is a festival called "Vatra" (Bonfire), which started back in 1979. At these festivals, the Lemkos from Poland and from around the world gather for a weekend of speeches, performances, competitions and church services.

Although this celebration of Lemko culture and history is very important for a sense of identity amongst this far-flung ethnic community, yet it has not entirely overcome the over-riding ethno-national and religious split. At present there are two annual Vatras, one in the historic homeland and one "Vatra in exile". The former is sponsored by the pro-Ukrainian Union of Lemkos and the later by the pro-Rusyn Society of Lemkos.

An emigrant community has also played a major role in preserving Lemko culture, yet they too are divided on the issue of Lemko identity. After World War I and II, many Lemkos left Poland for the United States and Canada. There, the pro-Ukrainian groups established organizations such as the World Lemko Federation, the Defense of the Lemko Region and started to publish the Ukrainian language newspaper, "Lemko News". The pro-Rusyn groups began publishing "Karpatska Rus" and launched the Lemko Association. More recently, the Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center was established by Paul Magocsi together with a Carpatho-Rusyn website.

Source: Copyright (c) 1999 - Central Europe Review, Vol. 1, No. 24, December 6, 1999 by Karen M Laun (Karen M Laun), http://www.legacyrus.com/RuthenianVillage/CERLemkos.htm

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Updated (June 2006)

LITHUANIANS ON THE TERRITORY OF POLAND

The Lithuanian-speaking minority in Poland is confined to three municipalities (gminy): Punsk and Sejny in the county (powiat) of Sejny, and Szypliszki in the county of Suwalki. Lithuanians in the Sejny region inhabit an area along the Polish-Lithuanian border, which comprises around sixty villages. Dispersed groups of Lithuanians are settled in the neighboring province of Warmia-Mazury and urban agglomerations throughout the country, e.g. in Warsaw.

Until the end of the thirteenth century, the Baltic tribe of Yatvingians, who eventually found themselves conquered by the Order of Teutonic Knights, inhabited the region of Suwalki. In the fifteenth century, after a long dispute between the Teutonic Order and the Great Duchy of Lithuania, the territory was colonized by growing numbers of settlers from Lithuania who mixed up with the remnants of the Yatvingians and with the White Ruthenians (ancestors of Belarussians). Later on, in the mid-sixteenth century, Polish settlers from Mazuria also settled in the area.

The linguistic structure of the region changed dramatically after the plague of 1710-1711, when many Lithuanian elements disappeared. Since then, until today, the process of regression of the Lithuanian dialect(s) in the area has continued slowly but steadily. One of the reasons is that in the years after World War I the region of Sejny changed hands between Germany (Province of East Prussia) and the newly independent states of Poland and Lithuania.

Then, after World War II, the communist authorities of Poland fostered the idea of a monoethnic and monolingual state. The first legal minority organizations were only able to start their activities as late as in 1956, during the post-Stalinist thaw in relations. This also applied to the Lithuanian minority in the country.

The area inhabited by Lithuanians in Poland within its present borders has not diminished significantly over the last decades. In 1931, the Lithuanian minority (in its pre-War boundaries) numbered 83,000 people. During World War II, almost half of the native Lithuanians were forced to leave for the Republic of Lithuania, which afterwards became the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, in two waves: 1940 and 1944-1948. Not all of them returned. Today, the specialists from the Republic of Lithuania estimate the total number of ethnic Lithuanians in Poland at 30,000, including 9,000 to 15,000 in the compact area within the Sejny region.

Source: Mercator Education, Regional Dossiers, The Lithuanian Language in Education of Poland http://www1.fa.knaw.nl/mercator/regionale_dossiers/regional_dossier_lithuanian_in_poland.htm

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Updated (July 2007)

NATIONAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES

On the territory of Poland, representatives of 13 national and ethnic minorities are settled. Some of the people belonging to national and ethnic minorities live in communities, while others are dispersed.

In the post–war period, no data concerning the number of people belonging to national minorities was collected; only in 1998, the Central Statistical Office decided to include the category “nationality” in the preliminary general census. In 1999, the Parliament passed the Act on National General Census of Population and Housing (2000 Journal of Laws no. 1, item 1 as amended), in accordance with which the census was conducted in May 2002.

The census questionnaire contained, inter alia, two questions concerning nationality: what nationality a particular person belongs to and what language/languages are spoken most often at home.

The first official census showed the following results:

1. Answering the question about the nationality a particular person belongs to:

• 96.74 percent of the population declared they were Polish;

• 1.23 percent declared they belonged to another nationality; and

• 2.03 percent did not answer this question.

2. Answering the question about the language/languages spoken the most often at home:

• 96.5 percent declared that they speak Polish only;

• 1.34 percent claimed to speak both Polish and non–Polish languages; and

• 0.14 percent claimed to speak non–Polish language/languages only.

The 2002 Census indicates that the following national and ethnic minorities inhabit the territory of Poland: Germans, Belarussians, Ukrainians, Roma, Russians, Lemki, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Jews, Czechs, Tatars, and Karaimi.

The majority of people belonging to national minorities inhabit Silesian Viovodship (39.5%), Opolskie Voivodship (28.3%) and Podlaskie Voivodship (11.7%).

Source: Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, Country Pages – Poland, Ethnic Minorities by Agnieszka Mrozik, Poland National VAW Monitor http://stopvaw.org/Poland2.html

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