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Polonization
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Polonization (or Polonisation) (Polish: polonizacja)[1] is the acquisition or imposition of elements of Polish culture, in particular, Polish language, as experienced in some historic periods by non-Polish populations of territories controlled or substantially influenced by Poland. As with other examples of cultural assimilation, it could either be voluntary or forced and is most visible in the case of territories, where the Polish language or culture were dominant, or their adoption could result in gaining of prestige or social status. Such was the case of the nobility of Ruthenia and Lithuania throughout the ages. To certain extent Polonization was also administratively promoted by the authorities, particularly in the period following the World War II.
Polonization can be seen as an example of cultural assimilation. Such view is widely considered applicable to the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) when the Ruthenian and Lithuanian upper classes were drawn towards the more Westernized Polish culture, political and financial benefits of such transition, as well as, sometimes, by the administrative pressure exerted on their own cultural institutions, primarily the Orthodox Church. The conversion to the Roman Catholic faith (and to a lesser extent, Protestant) was often the single most important part of the process as for Ruthenians of that time being Polish culturally and Roman Catholic by religion was almost the same. This aspect of Polonization that led to the diminishing of the Orthodox Church was most resented by Belarusian and Ukrainian masses. In contrast the Lithuanians, who were mostly Catholic, were in danger of losing their cultural identity as a nation, but that did not become evident for the wide masses of Lithuanians until the Lithuanian national renaissance in the middle of the 19th century.
On the other hand, the Polonization policies of the Polish government in the interwar years of the twentieth century were again two-folded. Some of them were similar to the mostly forcible assimilationist policies, implemented by other European powers that have aspired to regional dominance (e.g., Germanization, Russification), while others resembled policies carried out by countries aiming at increasing the role of their native language and culture in their own societies (e.g., Rumanization, Ukrainization). For Poles, it was a process of rebuilding the Polish national identity and reclaiming Polish heritage, including the fields of education, religion, infrastructure and administration, that suffered under the prolonged periods of foreign occupation by the neighboring empires of Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary. However, as a third of recreated Poland's population was ethnically non-Polish and many felt their own nationhood aspirations thwarted specifically by Poland, large segments of this population resisted to varying extent policies aimed to assimilate them into Polish culture. Part of the country's leadership emphasized the need for the ethnic and cultural homogeneity of the state in the long term. However, the governmental advancement of Polish language in the administration, the public life and, especially, the education were perceived by some as an attempt at forcible homogenization. In areas inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians for example, actions of the Polish authorities seen as aiming at restricting the influence of the Orthodox and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church caused additional resentment, and were considered to be closely tied to religious Polonization, as most ethnic Poles were Catholics.
History of Polonization
12th-16th centuries
This section requires expansion.
Between the 12th and the 14h centuries many towns in Poland adopted the so-called Magdeburg rights that promoted the towns' development and trade. The cities at he time were mostly German speaking and The rights were usually granted by the king on the occasion of the arrival of migrants. Some, integrated with the larger community, such as merchants who settled there, especially Greeks and Armenians. They adopted most aspects of Polish culture but kept their Orthodox faith. Since the Middle Ages, Polish culture, influenced by the West, in turn radiated East, beginning the long and uneasy process of cultural assimilation.[2]
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795)
In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the non-Polish ethnic groups, especially the Ruthenians and Lithuanians, found themselves under the strong pressure of Polish culture and language.[3][4]
The Polish influence in the regions started from the 1569 Union of Lublin, when many of the Ruthenian territories formerly controlled by the[5][6] Grand Duchy of Lithuania were transferred to the Polish Crown, while in reality it continued well into the 19th century as the enserfed peasantry and huge estates were left in the Russian and Austrian Empires under the control of the Polish magnates, or the Polonized ones, virtually indistinguishable from the former.
In the climate of the colonization of Ruthenian lands by the Polish or Polonized nobility,[7] persecution[8][9] and even an attempted ban[10] of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Polish controlled territories following the attempt to convert the Ruthenian peasantry[10] into the Catholicism, pressures and attractions of Polonization on Ruthenian nobility and cultural elite resulted in almost complete abandonment of Ruthenian culture, traditions and the Orthodox Church by the Ruthenian higher class.[11]
The Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila was offered the Polish crown and became Władysław II Jagiełło (reigned 1386-1434). This marked the beginning of the gradual Polonization of the Lithuanian nobility. He built many Roman Catholic churches in pagan Lithuanians land and provided them generously with estates, gave out the lands and positions to the Catholics, settled the cities and villages and gave most the biggest cities and towns the Magdeburg Rights privileges that consisted of many allowances. These rights were given only to the settlements dominated by the Poles and the Germans but not to Ruthenian settlements whose residents were fully taxed[dubious ]. The noble Ruthenians were also freed from many payment obligations and their rights were equalized with those of the Polish nobility but only when they adopted the Catholicism. Then they were provided with compensation for the military service, while those who remained Orthodox received none. As such, the entire population of Ruthenia was split into the privileged and non-privileged ones, and the latter were the Orthodox people of Ruthenia.[3]
Under Jogaila successor as a king of Crown Władysław III of Varna, that had no power in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, (reigned 1434-1444) the Polonization which earlier took place more by force than by other means[12] attained a certain degree of subtlety. Władysław III introduced some more liberal reforms. He expanded the privileges to all Ruthenian nobles, irrespective of their religion, and in 1443 he signed a bull equalizing the Orthodox church in rights with the Roman Catholicism thus alleviating the relationship with the Orthodox clergy. These policies continued under the next king Casimir IV Jagiellon. Still, the mostly cultural expansion of the Polish influence continued since the Ruthenian nobility were attracted by both the glamour of the Western culture and the Polish political order where the magnates became the unrestricted rulers of the lands and serfs in their vast estates.
Some Ruthenian magnates like Sanguszko, Wiśniowiecki and Kisiel, resisted the cultural Polonization for several generations, with the Ostrogski family being one of the most prominent examples. Remaining generally loyal to the Polish state, the magnates, like Ostrogskis, stood by the religion of their forefathers, and supported the Orthodox Church generously by opening schools, printing books in Ruthenian language (the first four printed Cyrillic books in the world were published in Cracow, in 1491[2]) and giving generously to the Orthodox churches' construction. However, their resistance was gradually waning with each subsequent generation as more and more of the Ruthenian elite turned towards Polish language and Catholicism.
Still, with most of the educational system getting Polonized and the most generously funded institutions being to the west of Ruthenia, the Ruthenian indigenous culture further deteriorated. In the Polish Ruthenia the language of the administrative paperwork started to gradually shift towards Polish. By the 16th century the language of administrative paperwork in Ruthenia was a peculiar mix of the older Church Slavonic with the Ruthenian language of the commoners and the Polish language. With the Polish influence in the mix gradually increasing it soon became mostly like the Polish language superimposed on the Ruthenian phonetics. The total confluence of Ruthenia and Poland was seen coming.[13]
As the Eastern Rite Greek-Catholic Church originally created to accommodate the Ruthenian, initially Orthodox, nobility, ended up unnecessary to them as they converted directly into the Latin Rite Catholicism en masse, the Church largely became an hierarchy without followers. The Greek Catholic Church was then used as a tool aimed to split even the peasantry from their Ruthenian roots, still mostly unsuccessfully.[10] The commoners, deprived of their native protectors, sought protection through the Cossacks,[10] who, being fiercely Orthodox, tended also to easily turn to violence against those they perceived as their enemies, particularly the Polish state and what they saw as its representatives, the Poles and generally the Catholics , as well as the Jews.[14]