Rzeczpospolita mniejszości narodowych i etnicznych. Od Piastów do XX wieku

• Authors: Marceli Kosman

Title variants

EN

The Republic of National and Ethnic Minorities. From the Piasts to the 20th Century

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The Polish state within the span of over a thousand years of history changed its borders several times, although it is conventionally accepted that its ethnic territory stretches from the river Odra in the west to the Bug in the east, and from the Baltic Sea in the north to the mountain ranges in the south. The article deals with the subject of the shaping of national identity of the knighthood in the Middle Ages and then its subsequent transformations during Poland’s partition, the emergence of ethnic minorities (especially Germans and Jews) and the attitude of the local population to them in the pre-partition period. The discussed phenomena include xenophobia and xenophilia, the Polonization of foreigners and their impact on Polish culture during the partition of Poland. In the interwar period a new concept of minorities was created with regard to Ukrainians, Belorussians and Lithuanians inhabiting their ethnic territories which had been incorporated into the Polish state. Politics determined new borders after the end of World War II, which resulted in yet another “migration of peoples” this time from the east to the west and the ensuing assimilation processes.

Keywords

EN

history; ethnic minorities; Germans; Jews; Lithuanians; Ukrainians; xenophobia; xenophilia; Polonization; partition of Poland

• Publisher: Instytut Zachodni. Instytut Naukowo-Badawczy im. Zygmunta Wojciechowskiego w Poznaniu
• Journal: Przegląd Zachodni
• Year: 2013
• Issue: 3(348)
• Pages: 3-18

Contributors

author

Marceli Kosman

• Instytut Zachodni, Instytut Naukowo-Badawczy, 61-854 Poznań, ul. Mostowa 27