Vershina is a Polish village in Siberia. It is situated 130 kilometres north of Irkutsk. The village was founded by the Polish settlers in 1910, and it was part of the planned voluntary colonisation of Siberia. The colonisers came from the territory that had formerly been annexed to Russia, namely Zaglebie and Malopolska. The inhabitants of Vershina are a bilingual community: they use the Polish dialect and the Russian language interchangeably, depending on the communicative context. The dialect in question is a unique insular dialect, as many inhabitants of Vershina are in contact with the Polish educated language, thanks to their visits to Poland. Some have even graduated from Polish universities. The interaction between the Polish dialect and the Russian language leads to the process of linguistic interference, which is noticeable especially in the sphere of vocabulary. The lexicon is the fastest-changing element of the language. With the appearance of new aspects of reality, there come into being new designations. The influence of the Russian language on the Polish dialect is equated with a variety of distinct phenomena. In the dialect studied there are a lot of borrowings, calques and hybrids. The words borrowed include mainly the vocabulary connected with health, jobs and professions, technical advancement, as well as the Siberian and Soviet reality.
Vershina was founded in 1910 by Polish voluntary settlers from Lesser Poland. There are three main periods in Vershina's history, with different social conditions affecting the language choice. During its first three decades the settlers preserved Polish language (a mixture of dialects from their regions of origin), traditions and the Roman Catholic religion. The effects of the Revolution of 1917 and political changes came to a village in taiga only in the late 1930's. Vershina lost its former ethnocultural homogeneity because of Russian and Buryat workers in the local kolkhoz. It was the beginning of the increasing role of Russian language in the village's life. The process of intensive sovietization as well as heterogeneous marriages affected language choice in many domains. In the late 1980's the inhabitants of Vershina regained their minority rights: they can pray in their own church, learn Polish in a local school and found cultural organisations. However, during the years of communism, the language situation changed irreversibly. There are some factors which may hinder the increasing domination of Russian language, such as activity of local Polish organisation, Roman Catholic parish and folk group 'Jazhumbek' but their influence is limited.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.