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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 15/10/18, SPi
T H E G R E AT E R WA R
1912 – 19 23
General Editor
rob ert g erwa rt h
Civil War in Central

Europe, 1918–1921
The Reconstruction of Poland
JOCHEN BÖHLER
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
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© Jochen Böhler 2018
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First Edition published in 2018
Impression: 1
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For
Marta Natalia
Antoni Kazimierz
Feliks Aleksander and
Gustaw Marian
Skończył się rok osiemnasty The eighteenth year is over—

prawie kwartał dziewiętnasty almost a quarter of the nineteenth—
Polska o Lwów toczy boje Poland is fighting battles for Lviv—
Mars znów rzuca wojny zwoje. Mars is hurling the scrolls of war.
I z Czechami pod Skoczowem, And with the Czechs at Skoczów,1
choć mi przykro, lecz wam powiem: my heart bleeds, but I will tell you:
poległo dużo kolegów Many comrades have fallen—
Słowianie nie kładźcie progów, Slavs, do not place obstacles
wzajemnie sobie pod stopy, in each other’s way,
przecież z nas nie głupie chłopy in the end we’re not stupid peasants—
jedną stanowim rodzinę we’re members of one family—
więc wyznaczmy dzień, godzinę so let’s set a day, an hour,
i załatwmy sporne sprawy, and let’s settle the dispute,
a nie róbmy w świecie wrzawy. and make no fuss in the world.2
Platoon leader Ludwik Bałos, on convalescent leave
(pneumonia) in Grzechynia, May 25, 1919
Poland can scarcely cope with its Poles, so why take in other nations as well?3
Conversation between two Polish soldiers during
the Battle of Warsaw, late August 1920
1 January 28–30, 1919, a battle between Czechoslovak and Polish troops took place at Skoczów as
part of the conflict over Cieszyn Silesia.
2 Ludwik Bałos, W poszukiwaniu prawdy. [Pamiętnik] z lat 1901–1951 (Wrocław; henceforth:
OSS), Manuscript Department, 15421/II [BN mf. 86246] (no pagination).
3 Michał Słowikowski, Michał Słowikowski maturzysta w r. 1920 Gimnazjum Państwowego w
Ostrowcu: W obronie ojczyzny. Odtworzone z dawnego pamiętnika (1921–23), 104, entry between
August 19 and 21, 1920, OSS, Manuscript Department, 15447/II [OSS mf. 9792].
Contents
List of Illustrations and Maps xi
Introduction 1
The Flawed Popular Narrative 3
A Story Untold 8
Directions for the Reader 12
1. Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe 14

The Historical Setting 15
Remaking the Polish Nation and State 19
Who Is In and Who Is Out? 27
2. How to Mobilize the Polish Nation 33

The Pros and Cons of Armed Struggle for Independence 35
“Polish” Armed Formations Prior to Independence 38
Poles Fighting under Imperial Flags 45
Building the Polish Army 51
3. The Central European Civil War 59

A Civil War 60
A Point of Reference: Paramilitary Violence in Southeastern Europe,
1918–21 66
1: The Eastern Theatre 70
2: The Western Theatre 95
3: Trouble at the Gates and at Home 121
4. Violence and Crimes Beyond the Battlefields 146

Lunar Landscapes 149
The Great Insecurity 152
Soldiers Running Wild 157
Warlords in Polish Service 166
Ambiguities 175
Conclusion 187
Epilogue 196
Archives Consulted 199

Works Cited 203
Travelogue 231
Glossary 235
Index 237
List of Illustrations and Maps
Figures
1. 1905–7: A brawl between what appear to be Polish strikers and their
opponents in Congress Poland 37
2. August 12, 1914: Soldiers of the Polish First Cadre Company march
into Kielce 40
3. November 1918: Soldiers and civilians in the streets of Lviv 80
4. Late April 1919: Polish troops in front of the cathedral in Vilnius 90
5. January 26, 1919: Swearing-in ceremony of General Jósef Dowbor-Muśnicki
on the Freedom Square in Poznań 103
6. June 20, 1922: Polish troops enter Szopienice. General Stanisław Szeptycki
in front of a chain, symbolically dividing Upper Silesia from the rest of Poland 113
7. January 1919: Polish–Czech War in Cieszyn Silesia, cemetery of Stonava.
Bodies of twenty Polish soldiers allegedly killed by Czech legionnaires after
their surrender on January 26, 1919 119
8. August 1920: Peasant volunteers armed with scythes—known since
the Kościuszko uprising of 1794 as “Scythemen” (“Kosznierzy”)—mustered
in Warsaw 134
9. April 1919: Polish officials at an exhumation site, probably taken near
Zolochiv in eastern Galicia 155
10. November 1918: Roman Abraham with his unit “Execution Hill” in Lviv 168
11. August 25, 1919: Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz and the Estonian General
Johan Laidoner in Pskov 173
12. 1920: Snapshot of an unknown Polish paramilitary unit in Upper Silesia 185
Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The publisher
will be happy to make good in future editions any errors or omissions brought
to their attention.
Maps
1. Partitioned Poland, 1815–1914 xii
2. Embattled Poland, 1918–21 xiii
Map 1. Partitioned Poland, 1815–1914

Map 2. Embattled Poland, 1918–21

Introduction
Nam quis nescit, primam esse prima est historiae legem, ne quid falsi dicere
audeat? Deinde ne quid veri non audeat? Ne qua suspicio gratiae sit in scribendo?
Ne quae simultatis?
For who does not know history’s first law to be that an author must not dare
to tell anything but the truth? And its second that he must make bold to tell
the whole truth? That there must be no suggestion of partiality anywhere in
his writings? Nor of malice?1
Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Oratore [On the Orator], 55 bc
Forgetting, I would even say historical error, is an essential factor in the
creation of a nation and it is for this reason that the progress of historical
studies often poses a threat to nationality. Historical inquiry, in effect, throws
light on the violent acts that have taken place at the origin of every political
formation, even those that have been the most benevolent in their
consequences. Unity is always brutally established.2
Ernest Renan, French philosopher and historian, in a lecture delivered at
Sorbonne University titled “What is a Nation?,” March 11, 1882
Słynny z mordów i grabieży Known for murder and for looting
Dziewiętnasty pułk młodzieży. The Nineteenth is now recruiting.
Lance do boju, szable w dłoń, Grab your lance and sabre quick,
bolszewika goń, goń, goń! Chase, chase, chase the Bolshevik!
Dziewiętnasty tym się chwali: The whole regiment feels pride
Na postojach wioski pali. When it’s torched the countryside.
Gwałci panny, gwałci wdowy Raping to its heart’s content,
Dziewiętnasty pułk morowy. Is the Nineteenth Regiment.
Same łotry i wisielce Gallows-birds and villains, then,
To są Jaworskiego strzelce. Join Jaworski’s riflemen.
Bić, mordować—nic nowego Maiming, killing—nothing new
Dla ułanów Jaworskiego. For Jaworski’s mounted crew.
1 Quote and translation from Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Oratore: In Two Volumes, edited by Harris
Rackham, with translations by Edward William Sutton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1957), 242–5.
2 Ernest Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?: Conférence faite en Sorbonne, le 11 mars 1882 (Paris:
Calmann Lévy, 1882), 7–8. Translation from Ethan Rundell, https://www.academia.edu/33769892/
What_is_a_Nation, accessed May 1, 2018.
2 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

Wroga gnębić, wódkę pić, Fighting foes and drinking sprees,
Jaworczykiem trzeba być. That’s Jaworski’s cavalry.3
Popular contemporary song on the soldiers serving the Second Polish
Republic under the command of Feliks Jaworski during the Polish–
Ukrainian conflict 1918–19 and the Polish–Soviet War 1919–20
In 1919, the year following the Polish declaration of independence, the famous
writer Maria Dąbrowska asked her audience an emotive question: “Where is
Poland?” By that time, this was all but a rhetorical question, and it has continued
to puzzle generations of students of Central and Eastern European history ever
since. Recently Włodzimierz Borodziej has added a follow-up to this conundrum:
“What is Poland?”4 Both questions, pointing at a period when the country’s geo-
graphical and political shape was in flux, seem highly appropriate. Poland, a state
that had been erased from the European map more than one hundred years earlier,
would only reappear at the very end of the First World War, and consolidate its
geographical and political shape in its after-battles of 1918–21.
Our study is concerned with this process of reconstructing and forging the
Polish nation and state in the fires of war and civil war. And in this context, a third
question imposes itself: “What is a Pole?” This question will occupy the reader
throughout this volume. To build a state necessitates defining not only its shape
and constitution, but also its population. Being a Pole meant something com-
pletely different at the turn of the nineteenth than in the twentieth century. As the
censuses conducted around 1900 in Central Europe vividly demonstrate, people
living in one of the three parts of former Poland then occupied by foreign powers
had as much of a problem defining their “nationality” as had their respective
governments. Was a Pole a person speaking Polish, in contrast to a person speaking
Ukrainian, Latvian, German, Czech, or Yiddish, or was a Pole a Roman Catholic,
in contrast to a Greek Catholic, a Protestant or Orthodox Christian, or a Jew? Was
a Pole someone belonging to a certain class, such as a wealthy landlord in the east-
ern parts of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, in contrast to the
“Ukrainian” peasant working for him? Was being Polish a political statement,
making it impossible to be a Bolshevik at the same time? Or was a Pole just
someone born into a Polish cultural environment and identifying with the goal of
re-erecting a Polish nation state, regardless of language, religion, profession, social
status, or politics? Conscious of the shortcomings of this approach, but unable to
find a more convincing one, in the following the term “ethnic” will illustrate rather
than solve the problem. When applied (far from consistently, to preserve a certain
level of readability) to “Poles,” “Jews,” “Ukrainians,” “Lithuanians,” etc., it means
people who regarded themselves—or were regarded by contemporaries—as such,
characterized by a specific compound of cultural, linguistic, and religious features
3 After numerous transformations, in late 1920 the unit secured the Polish–Soviet demarcation
line as ‘Nineteenth Volhynian Cavalry Regiment’ (19 Pułk Ułanów Wołyńskich). Piotr Zychowicz,
Sowieci (Poznań: Rebis, 2016), 253, published the song for the first time, apparently as an illustration
of the unit’s unconditional devotion for the Polish state and without any sign of unease. The brilliant
translation is authored by Artur Zapalowski and Mark Bence.
4 Włodzimierz Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert (Munich: Beck, 2010), 13–15.
Introduction 3
and traditions which eludes precise distinction. Although this definition regards
ancestry as a constitutive element of ethnicity, it rejects the Darwinist notion of
biological determination.
T H E F L AW E D P O P U L A R N A R R AT I V E
Such reflections are of crucial importance for this book, which deals with the erec-
tion of an independent Polish nation state after its absence from the European map
that had lasted more than a century. It seems that the history of this important
moment in European history has been told already countless times. But taking a
closer look at the most relevant publications on this topic, one cannot help feeling
a certain disappointment. Too many questions have been either left open so far, or,
if answers on certain aspects have been given, they have often not been woven into
the fabric of the overall story of the reconstruction of the Polish state which
dominates the public discourse until today.
A century after Józef Piłsudski, Poland’s legendary political leader and military
commander, arrived at the Warsaw train station to take over state business in
November 1918, this story still rather reads like a mythological than a historical
narrative which withstands critical analysis: After the three European land empires
Prussia, Russia, and Austria had dismantled the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
at the end of the eighteenth century, the Polish nation, united in spirit and
unbowed, had contested the brutal tsarist reign in the Russian partition zone
in several failed and brutally suppressed uprisings. In the second half of the
nineteenth century, two historical figures rose who further propelled the project of
a future Polish nation state: Roman Dmowski, who set his ideological foundations
from the political right; and Józef Piłsudski, who propagated armed action against
its opponents from the political left. When the First World War broke out,
Piłsudski led his famous Polish Legions into battle, thus forming the nucleus of a
Polish Army whose military audacity assured that Poland would have a say in the
reorganization of the European map after the war. In the meantime, Dmowski had
emigrated to France and secured a place for Poland at the international conference
table through negotiations. But from the first days of independence, the Second
Polish Republic had to fight against its hostile neighbors: the Ukrainians, the
Lithuanians, the Germans, the Czechs, and the Russians, the latter just having
replaced their tsarist regime with a Soviet one, but nevertheless longing to recon-
quer Poland. The Polish nation, finally reunited, stood together as one, fighting all
enemies on all borders, and at the end—although it sometimes seemed a virtual
impossibility—emerged victorious from these battles.
To be clear, there is more than a grain of truth in all of this, but it is only part
of the story, and it is full of distortions and contradictions. Many of these have
already been pointed out by prominent historians.5 The black and white image of
imperial suppression and national heroic struggle in the three partition zones, for
5 The following overview is far from comprehensive. More literature is to be found in the respective
chapters of this book.
example, has lately been convincingly colorized. Although without a doubt the
Polish-speaking parts of the respective population were largely treated as second-
class citizens and submitted to programs of denationalization, the contact between
the ruling elites and the ruled masses can be described as a process of negotiation
and the balancing of imperial versus national aspirations—with the notable excep-
tion of the short periods of armed uprising and brutal reaction by tsarist troops.6
By no longer limiting the role of the Polish population of partition times to that of
a nation of tragic heroes and martyrs, such works attest to a certain agency and
room to maneuver under imperial rule which for a long time had been widely
neglected or ignored in historiography.
When it comes to the Polish agents of national struggle, they were far from act-
ing in concert. Sometimes they were more at odds with each other than with the
respective imperial regime whose rule they challenged. In the wake of the 1905
Revolution in the Russian realm of power, armed bands of the Polish Socialist and
the National Democratic parties killed each other in street fights in their hundreds.
The major underlying disagreement was that the left aimed at an armed overthrow
of the old order, while the right regarded this as a hazardous game, and instead
favored the politics of, in the parlance of the time, “organic change.”7
Therefore, it was Piłsudski, not Dmowski, who had managed to organize a sub-
stantive shadow army of paramilitary fighters in eastern Galicia (within the
Austrian partition zone) on the eve of the First World War. But these famous
“Legions” failed to mobilize the Polish-speaking masses. Over the course of the
war, they remained a numerically negligible force which, although earning fame in
battle, had no substantial influence on its outcome. Furthermore, they were allied
with the Central Powers (Germany and Austria), which, following their occupa-
tion of Russian Poland and the Baltic coast in 1915, were increasingly detested by
the local population.8 Separate Polish legionnaire units, similar to Piłsudski’s
Legions, although less popular, rarely described, and therefore almost forgotten
6 For the German Empire see Hans-Erich Volkmann, Die Polenpolitik des Kaiserreichs: Prolog zum
Zeitalter der Weltkriege (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2016); for the Habsburg Empire see Pieter M. Judson,
The Habsburg Empire: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016); for the
Russian Empire see Malte Rolf, Imperiale Herrschaft im Weichselland: Das Königreich Polen im russis-
chen Imperium (1864–1915) (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2015); Malte Rolf, “Between State Building and
Local Cooperation: Russian Rule in the Kingdom of Poland, 1864–1915,” Kritika: Explorations in
Russian and Eurasian History 19, no. 2 (2018): 385–416.
7 Ignacy Pawłowski, Geneza i działalność organizacji spiskowo–bojowej PPS, 1904–1905 (Wrocław:
Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1976); Waldemar Potkański, Odrodzenie czynu niepodległościowego
przez PPS w okresie rewolucji 1905 roku (Warsaw: DiG, 2008); Stefan Garsztecki, “Dmowski und
Piłsudski: Nationale Idee zwischen Föderationsgedanke und nationaler Verengung,” in Deutsche und
Polen im und nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg, edited by Steffen Menzel and Martin Munke (Chemnitz:
Universitätsverlag, 2013), 9–27. For the two options which split the Polish political activists of the
time—resistance or acceptance—see Mieczysław B. Biskupski, Independence Day: Myth, Symbol, and
the Creation of Modern Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1, referring to Tomasz
Nałȩcz, Irredenta polska: Myśl powstańcza przed I wojna̜ światowa̜ (Warsaw: Uniwersytet Warszawski,
1987), 1–10.
8 Arkadiusz Stempin, Próba “moralnego podboju” Polski przez Cesarstwo Niemieckie w latach I wojny
światowej (Warsaw: Neriton, 2013); Jesse Kauffman, Elusive Alliance: The German Occupation of
Poland in World War I (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).
Introduction 5
today, were also built within the Russian Army from the outset of the war onwards.9
But in reality, the overwhelming majority of Polish-speaking soldiers who fought
in the Great War were simply cannon fodder in the ranks of one of the three par-
titioning powers’ armies rather than a formation with a national agenda.10
When out of this whole motley crew a Polish Army had to be built in 1918, it
not only lacked armament, munition, uniforms, and a common language of com-
mand, but also discipline and an overarching spirit of comradeship. In fact, many
of these soldiers had stood on opposing sides of the trenches shooting at each
other only a couple of months before. The political divide between their respective
military idols—Józef Piłsudski on the side of the first left-wing government in
Warsaw, Józef Haller and Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki on the side of the National
Democratic opposition in Paris and the Polish–German borderlands—heightened
these animosities.
There is also, to a certain degree, reason to question Piłsudski’s role as a spotless
hero of Polish independence which he doubtlessly still plays in our day. In his
youth, he had been a terrorist and train robber. He used the socialist party as a
vehicle to come to power and abandoned it as soon as his military success and his
charisma made it superfluous. Whereas the resurrection of a Polish state was with-
out a shadow of a doubt the driving force behind all his actions before and after
1918, it was not at all set in his mind that it had to be a democratic nation state.
Although he endorsed a rather open concept of the Polish nation which encom-
passed its large minorities, the alleged unselfishness of his federal concept which
foresaw a political union with Lithuanians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians does not
bear close examination. In reality, like many Polish politicians of his time, Piłsudski
took a future Polish hegemony in Central Europe for granted, and any offers of
cooperation with other nations were only valid as long as they did not antagonize
the country’s rather imperialistic ambitions.11 “I want to be neither a federalist nor
an imperialist,” he wrote to a friend in 1919, “until I can talk about these matters
9 Henryk Bagiński, Wojsko polskie na wschodzie 1914–1920 (Warsaw: Główna Księgarnia

Wojskowa, 1921); Waldemar Bednarski, “Legion Puławski,” Wojskowy Przegląd Historyczny 33, no. 3
(1988): 100–24; Kazimierz Krajewski, “Nie tylko Dowborczycy,” in Niepodległość, edited by Marek
Gałęzowski and Jan M. Ruman (Warsaw: Instytut Pamie̜ci Narodowej, 2010), 195–209.
10 Ryszard Kaczmarek, Polacy w armii kajzera na frontach pierwszej wojny światowej (Cracow:
Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2014); Alexander Watson, “Fighting for Another Fatherland: The Polish
Minority in the German Army, 1914–1918,” English Historical Review 126, no. 522 (2011): 1137–66.
A study of the Poles who served in the ranks of the tsarist army—and not in special Polish units—is
still a desideratum. For the postwar fate of Polish veterans from the imperial armies see Marcin
Jarząbek, “The Victors of a War that Was Not Theirs: First-World-War-Veterans in the Second Republic
of Poland and Their European Peers,” Acta Poloniae Historica 111 (2015): 83–105.
11 Benjamin Conrad, “Vom Ende der Föderation: Die Ostpolitik Piłsudskis und des Belweder-
Lagers 1918–1920,” in Kommunikation über Grenzen. Polen als Schauplatz transnationaler Akteure von
den Teilungen bis heute, edited by Lisa Bicknell, Benjamin Conrad, and Hans-Christian Petersen
(Münster: Lit, 2013), 11–31. Since the Belarusian case did not include an armed engagement
with Poland, it is not dealt with in this book. As a small compensation—rather hinting at the
complexity of the problem than exploring it—the reader is referred to Andrej Czarniakiewicz and
Aleksander Paszkiewicz, “Kwestia białoruska w planach Oddziału II Sztabu Generalnego Wojska
Polskiego w latach 1919–1923,” Przegląd Historyczno–Wojskowy 12, no. 3 (2011): 43–56; Janusz
Odziemkowski, “Organizacja i ochrona zaplecza Wojsk Polskich na Litwie i Białorusi (luty 1919–lipiec
1920),” Przegląd Historyczno–Wojskowy 14, no. 4 (2013): 25–44; Joanna Gierowska-Kałłaur, “Straż
somewhat seriously—with a gun in my pocket.”12 In 1926, when the quarrels of

parliamentary democracy had tired him out, Piłśudski launched a coup d’état and
until his death led the country for almost a decade with authoritarian style.
Nevertheless, the Piłsudski myth, which was already emerging in 1918, is still so
much at work today that Polish historians rarely have challenged it.13
Roman Dmowski for his part is with great justice commonly described as anti-
Semite—a verdict which he would most probably have readily assigned himself.14
However, this should not make us blind to the strong influence he had on the
political fate of the young Polish republic, even beyond its difficult relations with
the Jewish minority. Often concealed in the shadow of Piłsudski or reduced to his
role as head of the Polish National Committee in Paris from 1917 onwards, his
agency in Polish domestic affairs as the leader of the right-wing counterweight to
the “Belweder-camp” (named after Piłsudski’s residence as Chief of State near
Warsaw’s Łazienki Park) can hardly be overlooked.15 That his embittered feud and
rivalry with Piłsudski almost led to a domestic civil war in late 1918 is a historical
fact which, although sometimes cursorily mentioned, has been almost ignored so
far in historiography.16
It was not only the political leadership of Poland that lacked unity when the
Polish Republic was restored. Contradicting public perception, there is a con-
sensus in the academic community that a Polish nation, clearly defined and
encompassing, did not exist prior to independence. Even after 1918, the rural
masses of the Second Polish Republic had not been won over by the prophets of
national unity. An estimated 80 percent of the Polish-speaking population did
not identify with the project of the Polish national state during the first years of
its fragile existence.17 As a result, the Second Polish Republic lacked the backing
Kresowa wobec kwestii białoruskiej: Deklaracje i praktyka,” Studia z Dziejów Rosji i Europy Środkowo-
Wschodniej 44 (2009): 21–63.
12 Paul Brykczynski, “A Poland for the Poles?: Józef Piłsudski and the Ambiguities of Polish
Nationalism,” Pravo: The North American Journal for Central European Studies 1, no. 1 (2007): 2–21,
quote: 15.
13 Heidi Hein, Der Piłsudski-Kult und seine Bedeutung für den polnischen Staat 1926–1935
(Marburg: Herder-Institut, 2002); Biskupski, Independence Day. A recent example of unreflecting
hero worship, though apart from that well informed, is Peter Hetherington, Unvanquished: Joseph
Pilsudski, Resurrected Poland, and the Struggle for Eastern Europe (Houston, TX: Pingora Press, 2012).
A notable exeption is Kazimierz Badziak, W oczekiwaniu na przełom: Na drodze od odrodzenia do
załamania państwa polskiego, listopad 1918–czerwiec 1920 (Łódź: Ibidem, 2004). The polemic of Rafał
A. Ziemkiewicz, Złowrogi cień marszałka (Lublin: Fabryka Słów, 2017), asks thought-provoking
questions, but is an extended essay and not an academic treatise on the topic.
14 Grzegorz Krzywiec, Chauvinism, Polish Style: The Case of Roman Dmowski (Beginnings:
1886–1905) (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2016); Andreas Kossert, “Founding Father of Modern Poland
and Nationalistic Antisemite: Roman Dmowski,” in In the Shadow of Hitler: Personalities of the
Right in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Rebecca Haynes and Martyn C. Rady (London,
New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011), 89–105.
15 Krzysztof Kawalec, Roman Dmowski (Poznań: Zysk i S-ka, 2016).
16 More on the skirmishes between the Polish left and right between the wars most recently in
Wolfgang Templin, Der Kampf um Polen: Die abenteuerliche Geschichte der Zweiten Polnischen Republik
1918–1939 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2018).
17 Jan Molenda, Chłopi, naród, niepodległość: Kształtowanie się postaw narodowych i obywatelskich
chłopów w Galicji i Królestwie Polskim w przededniu odrodzenia Polski (Warsaw: Neriton, 1999).
Introduction 7
of large parts of its population and therefore faced a severe shortage of recruits
when, in the summer of 1920, the Polish–Soviet War brought Poland to the
brink of disaster.18
This lack of unity also applies to the relations with its neighbors in the first
thousand days of regained independence, when, immediately after the armistices
of the Great War, the Poles met the other heirs of the European land empires in
armed battle. This clash of arms lasted almost as long as the conventional war itself.
Why is it then that we know so little about it? It is stunning that almost a century
after the events one looks in vain for a comprehensive history of the conflicting
Central European nation states in the years between 1918 and 1921. True enough,
a plethora of monographs and articles in Eastern European (and a handful in
Western) languages has already dealt with the entangled history of the Second
Republic of Poland and its neighbor states in that period, but most surprisingly,
none of them tells the whole story.
First of all, the examples where authors tackled the encompassing geographical
and chronological setting of this struggle are few and far between.19 In the interwar
period, case studies of Polish military formations, organizations, and deployments
prevailed, mainly produced by the Office of Military History (Wojskowe Biuro
Historyczne), often written by veterans themselves, enriched by memoirs, and
therefore only presenting a limited view on the overall course of events. Although
not totally undisputed, they laid the foundation for a narrative predominantly told
from the perspective of Piłsudski’s former legionnaires. In the Polish People’s
Republic after 1945, works on the war between Poland and Soviet Russia were,
of course, highly ideologically biased, and the same goes for its battles with other
neighbors.20
Soon after the system change in 1989, within the former conflicting states,
books on the frontier battles of 1918–21 mushroomed in Poland. It is not sur-
prising that roughly half a century after the country had lost its hard-won inde-
pendence in the turmoil of the Second World War and the ensuing Soviet reign,
some authors tended to glorify the wars of independence after the Great War. In
hindsight, these battles were often, rather unreflectingly, seen exclusively as times
of national bravado and the overcoming of imperial patronization.21 Apart from
18 Janusz Szczepański, Społeczeństwo Polski w walce z najazdem bolszewickim 1920 roku (Warsaw:
Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów Państwowych, 2000).
19 Adam Przybylski, La Pologne en lutte pour ses frontières 1918–1920 (Paris: Gebethner & Wolff,
1929); Mieczysław Wrzosek, Wojny o granice Polski Odrodzonej, 1918–1921 (Warsaw: Wiedza
Powszechna, 1992).
20 For a concise overview on literature on and sources of the Polish military engagements 1914–21
published up to 1989 see Przemysław Olstowski, “O potrzebach badań nad dziejami walk o
niepodległość i granice Rzeczypospolitej (1914–1921),” in Z dziejów walk o niepodległość, edited by
Marek Gałęzowski (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2015), 90–107, here: 93–7.
21 See, for example, Mieczysław Pruszyński, Wojna 1920: Dramat Piłsudskiego (Warsaw: BGW,
1994); Piotr Łossowski, Jak Feniks z popiołów: Oswobodzenie ziem polskich spod okupacji w listopadzie
1918 roku (Łowicz: Mazowiecka Wyższa Szkoła Humanistyczno-Pedagogiczna, 1998); Adam
Zamoyski, The Battle for the Marchlands: A History of the 1920 Polish–Soviet War (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1981); Adam Zamoyski, Warsaw 1920: Lenin’s Failed Conquest of Europe (London:
HarperPress, 2008).
that, a growing trend to produce high-quality overviews of the Polish–Soviet,

Polish–Ukrainian, and Polish–Lithuanian conflict can be noticed lately.22 Other
authors paid meticulous attention to specific military units’ missions, composition,
armament, and uniforms.23 Given the abundance of secondary literature at our
disposal, it is stunning that a broader analysis of the emergence of the Polish
nation and state through the fires of all its border conflicts and inner struggles
which complies with scientific standards is still a desideratum.
A S TO RY U N TO L D
Even if one takes all books that have been published so far on the reconstruction
of Poland, there is still a huge gap which historians have hesitated to deal with so far.
As a younger generation of academics has painstakingly shown and continues to do
so, the whole continent did not come to a rest at the end of 1918 but was hit by a
wave of paramilitary violence.24 The new obscurity of politics and power relations
produced new agents and victims of violence and left ample space for the abuse of
force. “Some veterans,” states Peter Gatrell, “believed they had a duty to ‘beat the
world into new shapes,’ even if this meant trampling over noncombatants. For this
reason, as well as the high stakes created by the virulent ideologies of revolutionary
socialism and nationalism, conflict frequently assumed a particularly brutal form,
with civilians often numbered among the casualties.”25 Contentiousness after the
armistices meant that the strains of civil war were witnessed even in such a distant
“western” country as Great Britain, or down to the southeast, in Greece and Turkey.26
22 For example Norman Davies, White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish–Soviet War, 1919–20 (London:
Orbis Books, 1983) (first pub. 1973); Michał Klimecki, Polsko–ukraińska wojna o Lwów i Galicję
Wschodnią 1918–1919 (Warsaw: Volumen, 2000); Michał Klimecki, Lwów 1918–1919 (Warsaw:
Bellona, 2000); Antoni Czubiński, Walka o granice wschodnie polski w latach 1918–1921 (Opole:
Instytut Śląski, 1993); Maciej Kozłowski, Między Sanem a Zbruczem: Walki o Lwów i Galicję Wschodnią
1918–1919 (Cracow: Znak, 1990); Szczepański, Społeczeństwo Polski w walce z najazdem bolszewickim;
Jerzy Borzęcki, The Soviet–Polish Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2008); Stanisław Buchowski, Konflikt polsko–litewski o Ziemię Sejneńsko-Suwalską
w latach 1918–1920 (Sejny: Sejneńskie Towarzystwo Opieki nad Zabytkami, 2009); Lech Wyszczelski,
Wojna polsko–rosyjska, 1919–1920, 2 vols (Warsaw: Bellona, 2010); Janusz Odziemkowski, Piechota
polska w wojnie z Rosja̜ bolszewicka̜ 1919–1920 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kardynała
Stefana Wyszyńskiego, 2010); Janusz Odziemkowski, Polskie formacje etapowe na Litwie i Białorusi
1919–1920 (Cracow: Wydawnictwo i Poligrafia Kurii Prowincjonalnej Zakonu Pijarów, 2011).
23 Pars pro toto Bartosz Kruszyński, Poznańczycy w wojnie polsko–bolszewickiej 1919–1921 (Poznań:
Rebis, 2010); Jerzy Kirszak, Armia Rezerwowa gen. Sosnkowskiego w roku 1920 (Warsaw: Instytut
Pamięci Narodowej, 2013).
24 The various contributions in Robert Gerwarth and John Horne (eds), War in Peace: Paramilitary
Violence in Europe after the Great War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) and Robert Gerwarth
and Erez Manela (eds), Empires at War, 1911–1923 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) represent
the state of the art and geographical coverage.
25 Peter Gatrell, “War after the War: Conflicts, 1919–1923,” in A Companion to World War I,
edited by John Horne (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 558–75, here: 559.
26 Julia Eichenberg, “The Dark Side of Independence: Paramilitary Violence in Ireland and Poland
after the First World War,” Contemporary European History 19, no. 3 (2010): 231–48; Uğur Ümit
Üngör, “Paramilitary Violence in the Collapsing Ottoman Empire,” in Gerwarth and Horne (eds),
War in Peace, 164–83.
Introduction 9
Poland, though, is still a blind spot in this regard. With the notable exception of
the anti-Jewish excesses by Polish soldiers (we will return to this phenomenon in a
while), the very experience of civil war and paramilitary violence during its forma-
tive years 1918–21 has not been made the subject of academic studies yet. This
experience, though, is crucial if one tries to understand the dynamics of and con-
nections between the inner and outer conflicts the Second Polish Republic had to
deal with during the first years of its threatened existence. Poland’s border struggles
have hitherto been described firstly as isolated from each other, and secondly rather
as conventional wars, fought out respectively between the Polish and another nation
state, that of the Ukrainians, the Lithuanians, the Germans, the Czechs and the
Slovaks, or with the new global player in the east, Soviet Russia. But, as will be elab-
orated in more detail in Chapter 3, they constituted a common realm of experience
which is far better understood if seen as one encompassing “war of nations,” which
we call the Central European Civil War. Of course, it cannot be denied that in all
cases, the nascent Polish Republic had to deal with armed forces of another repub-
lic—or, in the case of Russia, with the Red Army. But all the military formations
involved in these conflicts, without exception and including the Polish ones, were
far from being full-grown and organized armies. Rather, they had to be put together
from scratch and dealt with enormous problems of supply, discipline, and deser-
tion. Furthermore, next to these armies-in-the-making, paramilitary, warlord, and
criminal bands emerged, competing for the control of the areas in which they were
active, and harassing the civil population. This is important to realize because, as a
result, the wars fought along the borders of the Second Polish Republic featured
forms of violence which are far more typical for intrastate than interstate wars. The
very fact that the population of the embattled borderlands was ethnically mixed
added to a confusing situation where it was sometimes hard to tell friend from
enemy, and to draw a clear line between combatants and civilians.
As said, the available literature only cursorily touches questions of the dynamics
and experiences of military and paramilitary violence as a side-product of the
nationalist struggles for independence, if at all. To what extent the depiction of a
“pure” nationalist struggle for independence departs from the soldierly experience
in the field is highlighted by published diaries such as Jerzy Konrad Maciejewski’s
“Swashbuckler” (Zawadiaka), who bluntly reports on brutal crimes committed by
Polish and other troops deployed in the eastern parts of the Second Republic.
When his unit broke into Jewish houses after two shots had been fired at night in
a Ukrainian village, he noted on December 28, 1918: “What kind of inspection
was that? It was more of a formal pogrom and robbery. Is that how one should
search a house to find the one who fired? Such a search should be carried out
calmly, systematically, during the day, under the watchful supervision of the
officers! I remember [the Polish soldiers] bursting into every room, eating all that
was edible . . . In the apartment of some lawyer or doctor, they raped his daughter
or sister, supposedly with her consent and to her great satisfaction; she allegedly
said in ecstasy that it was ‘romantic’ to be violated in such circumstances.”27
27 Jerzy Konrad Maciejewski, Zawadiaka: Dzienniki frontowe 1914–1920 (Warsaw: Ośrodek

Karta, 2015), 122.
Only the pogroms in eastern and central Poland in 1918–19—the only form of
collective violence of Polish soldiers beyond the battlefields which resulted in the
killing of several hundred people—initiated an overproportioned output of articles
dealing with this dark chapter in Polish history. But measured by the enormous
relevance of the topic, most of them display a striking lack of analytical depth.
They limit themselves to referring, often erroneously, to the seemingly well-known
facts in order to either brand or whitewash the soldiers who perpetrated a given
incident.28 But two more extensive treatises of this highly sensitive topic have just
been completed, substantially deepening our understanding of the dynamics of
such pogroms and their underlying social, cultural, and ethnic dynamics.29
What most of these publications on violence against the Jewish minority—as
well as the above-mentioned relevant literature—ignore is that Polish soldiers
often did not respect the physical integrity and property of other civilians either,
and sometimes not even that of their comrades. Such cases were not exceptions,
but contributed to a mass phenomenon which their superior military officers and
local civil authorities never tired of deploring. But books that mention acts of
criminality, desertion, insubordination, rape, or terrorism exerted by Polish soldiers
or paramilitaries can still be counted on one hand.30 At least we have two extensive
case studies on paramilitary and terrorist violence (perpetrated by both sides
involved) in Upper and Cieszyn Silesia.31 Extremely insightful also is a detailed
study on the Polish military jurisdiction in Lviv during the street fights between
Ukrainian and Polish forces in November 1918.32 Those works amply prove that
paramilitary violence was not negligible, but omnipresent between 1918 and 1921.
It also indicates that the Polish military higher echelons not only knew about it,
but in some cases encouraged and supported it, while in many other cases they
condemned and prosecuted it. There is an abundance of archival material, allowing
for deeper insights into the extent and reality of paramilitary violence and banditry
28 Notable exceptions are Jerzy Tomaszewski, “Pińsk, Saturday 5 April 1919,” in Poles and Jews:
Renewing the Dialogue, edited by Antony Polonsky (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization,
2004), 227–51; Alexander Victor Prusin, Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish
Violence in East Galicia, 1914–1920 (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2005); Jerzy
Borzęcki, “German Anti-Semitism à la Polonaise: A Report on Poznanian Troops’ Abuse of Belarusian
Jews in 1919,” East European Politics and Societies and Cultures 26, no. 4 (2012): 693–707; Eva Reder,
“Praktiken der Gewalt: Die Rolle des polnischen Militärs bei Pogromen während des polnisch–
sowjetischen Krieges 1919–1920,” Czasy Nowożytne 27 (2014): 157–84; William W. Hagen, “The
Moral Economy of Popular Violence: The Pogrom in Lwów, November 1918,” in Antisemitism and
its Opponents in Modern Poland, edited by Robert Blobaum (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
2005), 124–47.
29 Eva Reder, “Pogrome im Schatten polnischer Staatsbildung 1918–1920 und 1945/46: Auslöser,
Motive, Praktiken der Gewalt” (PhD, Universität Wien, 2017); William W. Hagen, Anti-Jewish
Violence in Poland, 1914–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
30 Much more detailed is Włodzimierz Borodziej and Maciej Górny, Nasza Wojna, vol. 2: Narody,
1917–1923 (Warsaw: Foksal, 2018).
31 Tim Wilson, Frontiers of Violence: Conflict and Identity in Ulster and Upper Silesia 1918–1922
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Edward Długajczyk, Polska konspiracja wojskowa na Śla̜sku
Cieszyńskim w latach 1919–1920 (Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śla̜skiego, 2005).
32 Leszek Kania, W cieniu Orląt Lwowskich: Polskie sądy wojskowe, kontrwywiad i służby policyjne w
bitwie o Lwów 1918–1919 (Zielona Góra: Uniwersytet Zielonogórski, 2008).
Introduction 11
within and along the frontlines of embattled Poland. Warsaw alone boasts three
vast and relevant collections.33
Nevertheless, in the first three chapters of this work which give a fresh outline of
the prehistory and course of the postwar conflicts, the reader will look in vain for
archival sources which provide new and groundbreaking evidence. They are almost
entirely based on secondary literature. This surely comes as a surprise, given the fact
that this study radically challenges the conventional view of the reconstruction of
Poland 1918–21. The explanation is stunningly simple: There is no need to present
new evidence, the related facts are already described in the history books and pub-
lications of sources. The problem is that their bits and pieces are scattered all over
tens of thousands of book pages, like the pieces of a giant puzzle a child has dropped
on the floor, and nobody yet has taken the effort to put these pieces together. It seems
as if historians who knew about the dark sides of the Polish struggle for independence
and statehood hesitated to confront their audience with them and referred to them
only in passing, if at all. Therefore, anyone who doubts the accurateness and dili-
gence of this study can check most of the presented facts in a public library.
However, Polish soldiers’ acts of desertion, insubordination, banditry, and vio-
lence against fellow soldiers and civilians are not totally unknown to the historical
guild (the few books and articles that deal with them having just been mentioned).
Some of these are exemplarily described and analyzed in Chapter 4, and backed
mainly by archival material. Many of the hundreds of files of the Polish military
commands, courts, and police which contain crucial evidence are stored in the
Central Military Archive in Warsaw-Rembertów, and their user’s registers bear the
signatures of known colleagues who have consulted them, but obviously decided
not to publish about the criminal acts they record.
Since the Polish case is at the center of this study, this volume will by definition
focus on the experience of violence connected to the making of the Second Polish
Republic during that period. This should not obscure the fact that military and
paramilitary violence was an omnipresent phenomenon all over postwar Europe,
and, therefore, the Polish example is by no means an exception, but a case in
point.34 It should also not be overlooked that building up the Polish nation amid
the rubble of a devastating world war and civil war was an enormous achievement
against all odds. It required the efforts of many and claimed the lives of many more
on the way to securing freedom, self-determination, and peace for millions. Most
probably the Red Army would not have had the power to invade Western Europe
in the summer of 1920, but was anyone living there really eager to find out?
Nevertheless, it was Polish soldiers only, without assistance from the West, who
stopped it at the outskirts of Warsaw. Whereas in Polish historiography and
33 The Central Military Archive, the Archive of the New Files, and the manuscript department of
the Warsaw Public Library. For relevant record groups see “Archives Consulted” at the end of this
volume.
34 See Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917–1923
(London: Allen Lane, 2016), Tomas Balkelis, War, Revolution, and Nation-Making in Lithuania,
1914–1923 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), and the forthcoming book of Serhy Yekelchyk
(on Ukraine) in this OUP series “The Greater War.”
memory this constructive side of nation-state building played the central role
before 1945 and after 1989, it has been almost totally ignored in Western text-
books. Both perspectives tended to turn a blind eye to its destructive downside.
This book aims at setting these records straight.
DIRECTIONS FOR THE READER
Studies on multinational, multi-ethnic, and multilingual regions always face the

problem of naming places and persons. In the midst of the cultural struggle in
contested areas, language becomes a weapon, and often, choosing a distinct spell-
ing instead of another looks like taking sides. There is no convincing and at the
same time neutral and consistent way for the author to deal with this problem.
I have opted for a pragmatic system which pays respect to the convenience of the
reader rather than to historical considerations or strident logic: Countries, regions,
and cities (Brest-Litovsk, Vilnius, Warsaw, Lviv) appear as they are commonly
called in English. If there is no ordinary English usage, the Polish usage (Poznań,
Bobrujsk) is applied wherever the arm (or armies) of the Polish state reached in our
period of observation, simply because this book is written from that very perspective,
and far from stating any “naturally given” Polish character of the specific town or
area. All other places I call by the name which the (Ukrainian, Lithuanian, etc.)
inhabitants used when the state borders in Central Europe were finally settled. The
same rationale is applied when I address persons who in the course of the postwar
turmoil of 1918–21 operated on the Polish side in the Polish notation, and in all
other cases the one that was in use where they lived in the interwar period. In the
index, variants of places and persons are given in brackets. Cyrillic notations are
transliterated according to the system of the Library of Congress, and have been
checked by Stephen Velychenko and Christian Werkmeister. I owe them thanks, as
I do those who checked my translations from Polish (Mark Bence), from German
(Jaime Hyatt), and from French (Margaret Buchanan). Vivian Reed went to enor-
mous lengths to polish my English and edit the whole text, a task without which
this book would not have seen the light of the day, given the fact that English is not
my native language.
This study owes much to works already published, especially the two volumes
on the Polish war experience of Włodzimierz Borodziej and Maciej Górny and the
recent works of Piotr Wróbel on violence after 1917, of Alexander Victor Prusin†
on the borderlands, and of Robert Gerwarth on paramilitary violence in postwar
Europe cited at the appropriate places. When composing this text, I further made
use of selections from several articles that I had published previously myself.
I thank the publishers listed below for permission to reuse them here:
• Jochen Böhler, “Generals and Warlords, Revolutionaries and Nation State
Builders: The First World War and its Aftermath in Central and Eastern
Europe,” in Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe’s First World War, edited by
Jochen Böhler, Włodzimierz Borodziej, and Joachim von Puttkamer (Munich:
Oldenbourg, 2014), 51–66.
Introduction 13
• Jochen Böhler, “Europas ‘Wilder Osten’: Gewalterfahrungen in Ostmitteleuropa

1917–1923,” Osteuropa 64, nos. 2–4 (2014): 141–55.
• Jochen Böhler, “Enduring Violence: The Post-War Struggles in East-Central
Europe 1917–1921,” Journal of Contemporary History 50, no. 1 (2015): 58–77.
• Jochen Böhler, “Post-war Military Action and Violence (East Central
Europe),” in 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World
War (2014–18), edited by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz et al., https://
encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/post-war_military_action_and_
violence_east_central_europe, accessed May 8, 2018.
Since not every reader might be familiar with some specifics of Polish history
before and after 1918, a Glossary has been added in order to explain the most
important non-English terms which appear now and again on the pages of this book.
1
Nations, States, and Conflict
in Central Europe
Collective logic conditions morality and social life, mystic logic begets gods
and creeds, and intellectual logic gives rise to the discoveries which transform
human existence.1
Gustave Le Bon, Psychology of the Great War, 1916
Other times had come. The village woke up because everything was shaking
all around. They tell us that there’ll be a Poland and it’s already taking shape,
though it’s still a bit weak, but slowly getting stronger. The peasants don’t want
to believe it, because we’ve always been told that this here’s Russia and Russia
it will be, and now, all of a sudden—hocus-pocus—it’s Poland.2
An anonymous peasant’s memoir on Polish independence in 1918
At the outset of the twentieth century, Central and Eastern Europe was a patchwork
of national entities. The problems we face when we try to discern them in the wake
of the First World War are untraceably linked with the enigma of identity which
academics recently have painstakingly tried to decipher. If we look at the different
nationalizing projects of the time from the viewpoint of their subjects, we might
be surprised that they for their part did not automatically see themselves as fitting
into the categories imposed upon them by the various prophets of nationality.
To understand the competing forces and dynamics that were at work when the
Central European nation states materialized, we should not take nationality for
granted. All borders of the Second Polish Republic crossed regions of ethnic, lin-
guistic, religious, and cultural diversity. National affiliation was not necessarily the
first thing their inhabitants had in mind when the gunsmoke of the Great War slowly
settled. At these predominantly rural peripheries, regional identities were much
more developed than the identification with political constructs of the intellectual
elite in the urban centers. Then again, the two phenomena were not mutually
exclusive. Identities are never monolithic; in every individual they are a unique mix-
ture of many different features, defined by upbringing, cultural heritage, language,
1 Gustave LeBon, Psychology of the Great War: The First World War and Its Origins (London:
Transaction Publishers, 1999) (first pub. 1916), 27.
2 Memoir of a peasant from the Łask district, 1933, published as memoir no. 7 in Ludwik
Krzywicki (ed.), Pamiętniki chłopów, 2 vols (Warsaw: Instytut Gospodarstwa Społecznego, 1935–6),
vol. 2, 62–79, quote: 72.
Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe 15
and beliefs, to name just a few of the most defining ones.3 After 1918, Central
Europe’s peasants were expected to dispose of their imperial multicultural identity.
They had to learn to relate—affirmatively, reluctantly, indifferently, or antagonis-
tically—within the confines of the national constructs in which they found them-
selves more or less randomly located, as a result of the new borders.
T H E H I S TO R I C A L S E T T I N G
Such questions of national consciousness and belonging are of utmost importance

in this study because they had a decisive impact on the birth of nations4 in the
nineteenth century from the bodies of the aging empires, as well as the political
convulsions and armed conflicts they entailed at the outset of the twentieth century.
The “old” empires used to function according to two principles: The monarch
represented the state: “L’état, c’est moi” (“The state, that’s me”) was the proud abso-
lutist motto attached to the king in seventeenth-century France.5 The people were
the king’s subjects, regardless of existing linguistic and cultural differences, which
still often enough resulted in unequal treatment and inner tensions, especially if it
came to the religious diversity characteristic for these times. Conversely, the two
principles of the awakening nation state were formulated along opposite lines: The
people were the state and possessed a right of freedom and self-determination.
These ideas had entered European intellectual thought with the Enlightenment and
the French and American Revolutions, and they opposed monarchial despotism,
centralism, and closed-mindedness while praising the ideals of liberty, equality,
and fraternity. In his flaming appeal to the Catholic King Philip II of Spain, who
in the sixteenth century had ruled harshly over the Protestant population of the
3 Ralph Schattkowsky, “Eine Autonomie mit Nachwirkungen: Regionale Identitäten in Galizien

1867–1918,” in Regionale Bewegungen und Regionalismen in europäischen Zwischenräumen seit der
Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, edited by Philipp Ther and Holm Sundhaussen (Marburg: Herder-
Institut, 2003), 43–61; Ralph Schattkowsky and Michael G. Müller (eds), Identitätenwandel und
nationale Mobilisierung in Regionen ethnischer Diversität: Ein regionaler Vergleich zwischen Westpreußen
und Galizien am Ende des 19. und Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts (Marburg: Herder-Institut, 2004);
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Tear Off the Masks!: Identity and Imposture in Twentieth-Century Russia (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005); James E. Bjork, Neither German nor Pole: Catholicism and
National Indifference in a Central European Borderland (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press,
2008); Andrii Danylenko, “Iazychie and Surzhyk: Mixing Languages and Identities in the Ukrainian
Borderlands,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Identities and Borders, edited by Tomasz
Kamusella, Motoki Nomachi, and Catherine Gibson (Baskingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016),
81–100; Tomasz Kamusella, “The Changing Lattice of Languages, Borders, and Identities in Silesia,”
in ibid., 185–205.
4 The term stems from the Latin word nation (birth), as the Polish word for nation, naród, stems
from the verb narodzić (to give birth to).
5 Although the origin of the quote is unclear, it is often—probably erroneously—attributed to
Louis XIV of France (1638–1715), who upon his death told his followers: “I am going away, but the
State will always remain” (Je m’en vais, mais l’État demeurera toujours); see Philippe de Courcillon,
Mémoire sur la mort de Louis XIV (Paris: Libraire Firmin Didot Frères, Fils & Cie, 1858), 24. He thus
rather saw the state represented in the royal court and its institutions than in his body; see Klaus
Malettke, Ludwig XIV. von Frankreich: Leben, Politik und Leistung (Göttingen: Muster-Schmidt, 1994),
69–70. Three-quarters of a century later, the French Revolution proved his last words wrong.
Spanish Netherlands, Marquis De Posa in Friedrich Schiller’s Don Carlos (1787)

pleaded: “I live, a citizen of ages yet to come . . . —but grant us liberty of thought.”6
The fundamental change in the notion of the state’s representation and the
nascent nations’ claim for self-determination led to enormous political tension
after the restructuring of post-Napoleonic Europe, precisely because those
nations often transcended existing state borders. While at the Congress of Vienna
in 1814–15 one talked about new state borders, in the course of the century one
talked more and more about populations hither and thither of these borders and
their rights.7 Furthermore, over the course of the nineteenth century civic loyalties
transformed gradually into ethnic nationalism. In order to grant the nations their
rights, the European map had to be rearranged according to ethnic rather than
political criteria.8 After the First World War, Central, Eastern, and Southeastern
Europe—which for centuries had been divided between multi-ethnic imperial
monarchies and dominated by aristocratic nobilities which represented only a
fraction of the population—was split up between about a dozen new nation states
dominated by one ethnic group, presiding over numerous ethnic minorities. The
Second Polish Republic was one of them.
The emancipation of nations in Central Europe in the nineteenth century was
surely not the idea of its emperors and their entourage, whose legitimacy it jeop-
ardized. But ironically, any action they took to suppress the awakening nationalism
in the post-enlightenment era was only bound to strengthen it: By persecuting
national groups—real or imagined—within their empires, by denying them equal
rights, questioning their loyalty, separating them from other subjects of the mon-
archy, and thus inevitably creating martyrs, symbols, and places of commemoration,
they arguably helped the national causes in ways any demagogue could only dream
of. Another monarchal ploy that ricocheted was the policy of divide et impera:
Nurturing the rivalry between different national groups served to distract them
from anti-state activities for the moment, but in the long run it encouraged them
to move apart and develop ever more distinctive national features. National activists
in Central Europe knew well about this undercurrent of governmental repression,
and sometimes even used it to their advantage. Finally, by strengthening the national
movement representing the ethnic majority of their respective populations—
Russians and (to a lesser degree) Ukrainians in Russia, Germans in Prussia and (to a
lesser degree) in Austria9—the three Central and Eastern European monarchies
accelerated the rise of nationalism, and thus of their own disintegration.10
6 Frederick [Friedrich] Schiller, The Works: Historical Dramas etc. (London: George Bell & Sons,
1885), 109, 113.
7 Eric D. Weitz, “From the Vienna to the Paris System: International Politics and the Entangled
Histories of Human Rights, Forced Deportations, and Civilizing Missions,” American Historical
Review 113, no. 5 (2008): 1313–43.
8 Brian Porter, When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century
Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
9 Andrea Komlosy, “Imperial Cohesion, Nation-Building, and Regional Integration in the
Habsburg Monarchy,” in Nationalizing Empires, edited by Stefan Berger and Alexei Miller (Budapest:
Central European University Press, 2015), 369–427.
10 Aviel Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, the Middle East and
Russia (London: Routledge, 2000), 7–33.
Two caveats are warranted at this juncture. The first one is that historians have
named the large strip of land that stretches from the Baltic to the Balkans and
which until the First World War was divided between the Central European
empires—Russia, Austria (respectively, after 1867, the Dual Monarchy Austria–
Hungary), and Germany (Prussia and, after 1871, the German Reich or Empire)—
as “lands between,” “borderlands,” “frontier zones,” “shatter zones of empires,”
“no place,” or “cauldron of conflict,” thus underlining the conflicting character of
these contact zones prone to cultural, political, and ethnical dynamics.11 But
although this geopolitical condition seemed to spell trouble, during the long nine-
teenth century Central and Eastern Europe was not characterized by a constant
antagonism of imperial suppression and national insurrection, as the depiction of
Habsburg Austria as a “prison of nations” might suggest.
The recent concept of “nationalizing empires” and “imperial nationalism” accom-
modates this thought, stressing rather the interdependence and entanglement of
imperial and national aspirations. In that light, one might legitimately ask if
empire and nation state possibly “corresponded with each other and were far from
mutually exclusive”.12 During the long nineteenth century, empires embarked on
nationalizing projects, and national movements developed within imperial frame-
works. The best example is the German Reich, which in 1871 was founded as a
German nation state, but clearly showed imperial ambitions. It was, according to
Jürgen Osterhammel, not yet the age of nation states, but of nations and empires.13
The interpretation that empires were not per se “bad” and nation states “good” is
strongly supported by the fact that from the moment of their formation in the
wake of the Great War, the Central European “self-styled nation states” acted
“simply as little empires.”14 At a distance, it seems that the most striking differ-
ence between them and the empires they had emerged from was that they were
11 Alan Palmer, The Lands Between: A History of East-Central Europe Since the Congress of Vienna
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970); Alexander Victor Prusin, The Lands Between: Conflict in the
East European Borderlands, 1870–1992 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Prusin, Nationalizing
a Borderland; Wilson, Frontiers of Violence; Julia Eichenberg and John Paul Newman, “Aftershocks:
Violence in Dissolving Empires after the First World War,” Contemporary European History 19, no. 3
(2010): 183–94; Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz (eds), Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and
Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 2013); Kate Brown, A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderlands to Soviet Heartland
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003); Edward D. Wynot, Caldron of Conflict: Eastern
Europe, 1918–1945 (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1999).
12 Joachim von Puttkamer, review of Berger and Miller (eds), Nationalizing Empires, in Hungarian
Historical Review 5, no. 2 (2016): 438–41, here: 438.
13 Jörn Leonhard and Ulrike von Hirschhausen (eds), Comparing Empires: Encounters and Transfers
in the Long Nineteenth Century (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012); Stefan Berger and Alexei
Miller, “Building Nations In and Within Empires: A Reassessment,” in Berger and Miller (eds),
Nationalizing Empires, 1–30; Philipp Ther, “‘Imperial Nationalism’ as Challenge for the Study of
Nationalism,” in ibid., 573–91; Stefan Berger, “Building the Nation Among Visions of German
Empire,” in ibid., 247–308; Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: A Global History of
the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 392–468.
14 Judson, The Habsburg Empire, 451, referring to a line of argumentation that has been developed
already by contemporaries; see Oscar Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1966) (first pub. 1929), 453–4.
democracies without emperors—although they all notably developed strong

tendencies to authoritarian rule in the 1920s, following a continental trend.
Be this as it may, it is important to keep in mind that between the Congress of
Vienna and the outbreak of the First World War, Central and Eastern Europe wit-
nessed longer periods of internal and external peace than during the preceding
centuries. To imagine Central and Eastern Europe before 1914 as an area shaken
by all kinds of armed conflicts simply would be misleading. Physical violence
was not a formative experience constantly brutalizing the populace settled in the
lands belted by the rivers Danube, Oder, and Dnieper. Although aware of the
swift changes of the modern world, most people here lived their lives undisturbed
by brutal state intervention or physical attacks by neighbors of different faith,
language, political preference, or national affiliation. While the two empires whose
territories covered most of the region lost wars outside the borderlands—Austria the
Austro-Prussian War in 1866, Russia the Crimean War of 1853–6 and the Russo-
Japanese War of 1904–5—these military defeats made the borderlands themselves
an even more important security belt. Particularly on the Austrian side, this led to
inner reforms in order to appease the population—a development that even could
be observed in the wake of harsh oppressions of inner resistance. Russian policies
were certainly more repressive, yet also anxious not to threaten the fragile balance
between outer rule and inner cooperation at their western frontier.15
The second caveat is that one must discern between two different interwoven
macro-patterns of the gradual shift which marked the passing of the imperial age
and the ascension of modernity in Central and Eastern Europe: the striving for
national self-determination on the one hand, and for social equality on the other.
Representatives of the state administration and owners of latifundia were faced
with demands from larger societal groups for political participation and a fairer
distribution of land and wealth. The multinational empires pointing to the mon-
arch as the center of gravitation gave way to other causes worth identifying with
and struggling for, such as creating an ethnically homogeneous nation state or the
levelling of class distinction. In combination, these two new orientations created a
coordinated system mapping out potential lines of confrontation which did not
necessarily follow the classic separation of the ruling versus the ruled, but rather
splintered the population into political and ethnic factions that either cooperated
with or opposed, but rarely ignored each other. Because the historically founded
ethnic, linguistic, social, and religious diversity of Central and Eastern Europe
already existed before the outbreak of the First World War, the potential for
instability and bitter conflicts was much higher here than in other parts of the
continent. The drastic changes brought to predominantly premodern agrarian
societies by education, urbanization, and industrialization caused further ruptures
of the social texture.16 The picture was considerably complicated by the inextricably
15 Prusin, The Lands Between, 18–27.

16 Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert, 13–23.
interwoven ethnic and sociopolitical strife in Central and Eastern Europe at the
turn of the century.
In the long run, though, it was these rising tensions between the autocratic rule of
the imperial centers and the awakening of cultural and ethno-national self-awareness
and class-consciousness at the imperial peripheries which constantly charged the
region like a giant accumulator. From time to time this led to a surge of voltage
and flying sparks, as the uprisings in partition-era Poland, anti-Jewish pogroms in
western Russia, peasant and workers unrest, and the first Russian Revolution and
its repercussions further to the west all testify. But until the First World War, “in
sum, despite profound socio-economic divisions and ethnic animosities, . . . the
borderlands remained largely violence-free.”17 Only in the course of the First
World War, when the iron fist of the empires unclenched and a wave of mass violence
swept the region, did the overheated accumulator explode. The result was a total
political and geographical reorganization of Central and Eastern Europe, with the
Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 transforming large parts of Eastern Europe into a
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the triumph of the people’s right to
self-determination triggering the mushrooming of democratic nation states in
Central Europe between 1918 and 1921. The resurrected Polish state was situated
right at the conflux of these two major historical currents. It is therefore not sur-
prising that, given the maze of competing political and social agendas in the imperial
borderlands, the concept of a nation state as the political embodiment of a “Polish
people” did not materialize by default. First it had to be developed, and then it had
to be implemented—against all odds.
R E M A K I N G T H E P O L I S H N AT I O N A N D S TAT E
When the First World War broke out, Poland as a state did not even exist. At the
end of the eighteenth century, the weakened Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—
which once had been “the largest realm of early modern Europe”18—had been
dismantled by its powerful neighbors, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, as the result of
one of the biggest robberies in modern European history.19 The euphemistically
called “Partitions of Poland” had been the final point of a century’s negative policy
pursued by the Russian Empire in order to weaken the adjacent aristocratic repub-
lic, its “hereditary enemy.”20 Each of the partitioning powers annexed territories of
former Poland, submitting most of its inhabitants (except, of course, the Russian-
and German-speaking minorities in the respective partition zones) to foreign rule.
The largest share, about 60 percent of the former Polish state (180,000 square miles
17 Prusin, The Lands Between, 34, quote: 40.

18 Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 1.
19 Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005), vol. 1: The Origins to 1795, 386.
20 Rolf, Imperiale Herrschaft im Weichselland, 25.
stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea), became an integral part of the Russian
Empire as its “Western Territory” (Zapadnyı ̆ Kraı )̆ , bluntly referred to by Polish
native speakers as the “Taken Lands” (Ziemie Zabrane).21
During the Napoleonic Wars, a short-lived “Duchy of Warsaw” (1807–15) was
established, and the Code Civil was imported and effective there until 1915. In the
course of the Congress of Vienna, where after Napoleon’s fall the Central European
map was rearranged, three territorial entities came to life which officially were not
part of Russian, Austrian, or Prussian state territory, and where forms of Polish state-
hood continued to exist for some time.22 An at least partly autonomous “Kingdom
of Poland” very soon became a Russian puppet state by the grace of the tsar. After
1863, when the last of several unsuccessful Polish uprisings had been crushed, the
Russian administration even deleted any reminiscence to the Polish past from
the official terminology, referring to it henceforth simply as the “Vistula Lands”
(Privislinskiı ̆ Kraı )̆ .23 Cracow, which had been made the “Free City of Cracow” in
1815, was annexed by Austria in 1846; a virtually autonomous “Grand Duchy of
Poznań” was erected and dissolved by Prussia along the same timeline. Hence, even
any appearance of an independent Polish body politic had been e liminated by the
mid-nineteenth century. Russia was now in possession of over 80 percent of the
former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (the Vistula Lands included), while
Austria held a little more than 10 percent and Prussia a little less than 10 percent
of its former territory (see Map 1).24
As much as the notion of Austria as the “prison of nations” is exaggerated, it
is fair to say that the image of Russian imperial rule in the Vistula Lands had
been exacting, certainly, but not thoroughly despotic. Although ethnic Poles—
representing about three-quarters of a population of almost 9.5 million—did
not fill the higher echelons of the administration, the deputies of the tsar had
little choice but to seek the cooperation of the local elites one way or the other.
The main instruments to checkmate the awakening Polish national self-confidence
and to bolster the Russian one were censorship and pro-Orthodox religious politics,
but these were not used for the implementation of an explicit strategy of rigid
“Russification.” After all, in 1913, ethnic Russians still made up only a little
more than 1 percent of the population.25
Further to the east, St. Petersburg chose a different path. The Russian Western
Territory was a giant melting pot of nationalities. Here, ethnic Poles made up only
about 6 percent of the population, in comparison to much larger ethnic groups
21 Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert, 24; Andrzej Jezierski, Historia Polski w liczbach,
2 vols (Warsaw: Zakład Wydawnistw Statystycznych, 2003), vol. 1: Państwo—Społeczeństwo, 21, 147.
22 Eberhard Straub, Der Wiener Kongress: Das große Fest und die Neuordnung Europas (Stuttgart:
Klett-Cotta, 2014), 118–20. The special issue of the Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte 16, no. 2 (2015)
focuses on the global dimensions of the Congress of Vienna and not on its immediate impact on
Central Europe.
23 Rolf, Imperiale Herrschaft im Weichselland, 39–82.
24 Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert, 24; Jezierski, Historia Polski w liczbach, vol. 1,
21, 147.
25 Rolf, Imperiale Herrschaft im Weichselland, 415–25; Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20.
Jahrhundert, 28.
such as Belarusians (almost one-third of the population, but still lacking a coherent
notion of national identity), Lithuanians (almost a quarter), or Latvians (15 percent),
Ukrainians (4 percent), Russians (a little more than 3 percent), and Germans (less
than 3 percent). Ethnic Jews—who were only allowed to live in an area called the
“Pale of Settlement” which covered mostly former Polish territory—made up 5 percent
of the population, but often formed a majority in larger cities (as did Poles in the
northern governorates of Vilnius and Kaunas), whereas the rural elites were domin-
ated by a few noble Polish landowners, ruling over a mass of non-Polish peasants.26
After 1863, “the Western borderland was imagined on mental maps of the imperial
bureaucracy as a site of the fiercest struggle between Russianness and Polishness.”27
As an immediate reaction to the last Polish uprising—and in order to contain the
influence of the (Catholic) Polish nobility (szlachta) especially in its southwestern
borderlands—the Russian government aimed at strengthening the image of a “triune,
all-Russian” (Orthodox) nation (narod ), composed of Belarusians, Ukrainians, and
Russians, in one stroke multiplying the Russian share of the population by more than
ten.28 But all in all, the Russian nationality policy at its western frontiers from the
mid-nineteenth century until the outbreak of the First World War remained a bal-
ancing act between safeguarding a maximum of Russian national interests while
granting a minimum of necessary concessions to other nations within the empire,
notably the Poles. It was neither tolerant nor tyrannic, but rather pragmatic, and in
comparison with Prussian nationality p olicies even somewhat moderate.29
On the other hand, the Prussian partition zone—a Polish–German contact zone
for centuries—from the very start witnessed a wave of “Germanization” which
increased with the foundation of the German Empire in 1871. Here, state policies
aimed at national distinction and assimilation of ethnic Poles, who represented one
out of three town citizens and three out of five country dwellers, within a total
population of almost four million which—with the exception of 1 percent Jews—
featured no other considerable ethnic groups. But the discriminating measures had
only a contrary effect, reinforcing the strongest Polish nation and identity building
process of all three partition zones. Nevertheless, the comparably higher standard
of living and the organization of Polish modern representations such as clubs,
publishing houses, or workers’ unions along the German model distinguished the
Poles on Prussian territory materially and alienated them mentally from their
co-nationals in Austria and Russia.30
Concurrently, by contrast, the Austrian share of the spoils, the multi-ethnic
province of Galicia, was granted autonomous status in 1868 and henceforth ruled
by members of the Polish aristocracy loyal to the emperor, with Polish as the official
26 Figures according to Prusin, The Lands Between, 14, table 1.1. (without Bessarabia).
27 Alexei Miller, “The Romanov Empire and the Russian Nation,” in Berger and Miller (eds),
Nationalizing Empires, 309–68, 330.
28 Faith Hillis, “Ukrainophile Activism and Imperial Governance in Russia’s Southwestern
Borderlands,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 13, no. 2 (2012): 301–26.
29 Theodore R. Weeks, Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on
the Western Frontier, 1863–1914 (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008), 198.
30 Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert, 39–42; Berger, “Building the Nation Among
Visions of German Empire,” 252–3; Volkmann, Die Polenpolitik des Kaiserreichs.
language, tacitly neglecting the wants of the other ethnic group of about the same
size, the Ukrainians, and of the remaining 10 percent Jews out of a total population
of over seven million. Galicia thus became simultaneously the hotbed of Polish
national movements and the arena of Polish–Ukrainian animosities, which were
consciously enhanced by a Viennese policy of divide et impera.31 The stronghold of
Polish nationalism at their border irritated tsarist militaries to the extent that they
openly thought about annexing “Carpathian Ruthenia”—the part of Galicia inhabited
mainly by ethnic Ukrainians—to Russia. “The former Polish state collapsed during
the course of three partitions,” noted General Staff officer Nikolai Obruchev in
1885, “but the Polish nation did not die . . . We have not yet managed to break the
Polish spirit, neither in Vilnius nor in Kiev . . . Galicia today is a miniature version
of the whole of former Poland, with its Pani [Polish masters] and Jews trading the
Russian [Ukrainian] nation like cattle.”32 Nevertheless, recent research relativizes
this dark picture. In 1914, a sort of compromise between Poles and Ukrainians was
reached in the form of a new electoral law. What is even more important is the fact
that ethnic differentiation was rather a side effect of this initiative, which mainly
aimed at “preserving and extending both the national and social status quo.” It proved
that Galicia was all but a godforsaken region on the lee side of modernity33—that
is, before it was heavily hit by the devastations of the First World War.34
When the Polish state re-emerged in the form of the Second Republic in
November 1918, not only nationalist zealots might have interpreted it as the result
of an unbowed spirit of Polish national unity which had survived even the darkest
years of partition and lack of freedom. In reality, visionaries of an independent
Polish state at the turn of the century faced extraordinary problems: About fifteen
million people who spoke Polish, or who saw themselves or were regarded as Polish,
were ruled by one of three non-Polish imperial governments.35 How many of them
were loyal to their respective monarch is impossible to say, but virtually none of
them had personally experienced a period of Polish sovereignty deserving the
name. The partition zones were not only divided geographically by imperial fron-
tiers, but also culturally by over one hundred years of separate development, causing
enormous differences regarding for example the state of modernization, literacy,
31 Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert, 14, 34–5; Komlosy, “Imperial Cohesion,
Nation-Building, and Regional Integration in the Habsburg Monarchy,” 400–1; Schattkowsky, “Eine
Autonomie mit Nachwirkungen”; Serhy Yekelchyk, Ukraine: Birth of a Modern Nation (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 61–4.
32 Memorandum of Nikolai Obruchev, 1885, discussion and extracts (translated into Polish) in Igor
Torbakow, “IV Rozbiór Polski w końcu XIX wieku,” Zeszyty Historyczne, no. 122 (1997): 230–6, quote:
233–4; Russian original in Istochnik. Documents of Russian History 13, no. 6 (1994): 4–21, quote: 7–8.
33 Börries Kuzmany, “Der Galizische Ausgleich als Beispiel moderner Nationalitätenpolitik?,” in
Galizien. Peripherie der Moderne—Moderne der Peripherie?, edited by Elisabeth Haid, Stephanie
Weismann, and Burkhard Wöller (Marburg: Herder-Institut, 2013), 123–41, quote: 140.
34 Tomasz Kargol, Odbudowa Galicji ze zniszczeń wojennych w latach 1914–1918 (Cracow:
Historia Iagellonica, 2012).
35 Prusin, The Lands Between, 14, table 1.1; Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert, 28;
Rudolf A. Mark, Galizien unter österreichischer Herrschaft: Verwaltung, Kirche, Bevölkerung (Marburg:
Herder-Institut, 1994), 80; Kaiserliches Statistisches Amt (ed.), Die Volkszählung am 1. Dezember
1900 im Deutschen Reich, 2 vols (Berlin: Puttkammer & Mülbrecht, 1903), vol. 1, 117.
or freedom of speech.36 The overwhelming majority of Poles at that time—about

80 percent—were peasants. We know little of their attitude towards independence
and state building at the turn of the century.37 Since literacy often went hand in
hand with a certain political engagement, it is not surprising that the memoirs of
Polish peasants from the time of the Polish uprisings against the tsarist regime in
Poland reflect a dedication to the national cause.38 But when it comes to the over-
whelming majority of illiterate peasants, the writing professions face a myriad of
intrinsic problems. As Stefan Kieniewicz admits, “our judgements on the national
consciousness of the peasant before his liberation will always be more or less
hypothetical.”39 Historians in the past have generally accredited a certain dedica-
tion of the Polish peasant to the nationalist cause, but have differed regarding its
evolution and extent.40 According to the findings of Keely Stauter-Halsted and Kai
Struve, Polish peasants in western Galicia were more politicized, while their peers
in eastern Galicia were rather indifferent to political matters.41 It is safe to assume
that comparable discrepancies were measurable within and between the other par-
tition zones as well. Władysław Reymont’s Nobel Prize-winning novel “Peasants”
(Chłopi), published between 1904 and 1909, describes the rural life in the Russian
partition zone as dominated by the national progression of seasons. The four parts
of the book are named after the seasons of the year. Adding religious rites as another
formative pattern of social life, Reymont invites us into a traditional universe of its
own, almost devoid of reference to history, politics, or social change, in which a
common dialect is the idiom of the characters as well as of the narrator.42
The notion of a nation as a homogeneous group sharing the same language,
ideas, values, and political aims is a misinterpretation which confounds the projec-
tion with the projected. Of course, the liberal arts have already tagged and tackled
this basic problem. The political scientist Benedict Anderson tellingly has named
this phenomenon the “imagined communities.” As soon as the concept of the
“nation” exceeds the confines of a space where everybody knows everybody, it has
to be imagined. In historical praxis, this leads to a constellation where the unity of
the many is imagined by a few. National discourses have always been developed
by tiny intellectual societal groups, which first tried to define the national mass and
36 Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert, 23–52.

37 Jan Molenda, “Transformations in the Social Structure and in the Consciousness and Aspirations
of the Polish Peasants at the Turn of the 20th Century,” Acta Poloniae Historica 57 (1988): 117–36.
38 Krzysztof Dunin-Wąsowicz, “Świadomość narodowa chłopów w świetle pamiętników w okresie
powstań narodowowyzwoleńczych,” Acta Universitatis Lodziensis—Folia Historica 45 (1992): 87–93.
39 Stefan Kieniewicz, “Le développement de la conscience nationale polonaise au XIXe siècle,” Acta
Poloniae Historica 19 (1968): 37–48, here: 43.
40 Stanisław Grabski, Myśli o dziejowej drodze Polski (Glasgow: Książnica Polska, 1944), 154–5;
Molenda, Chłopi, naród, niepodległość.
41 Keely Stauter-Halsted, The Nation in the Village: The Genesis of Peasant National Identity in
Austrian Poland, 1848–1914 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001); Kai Struve, Bauern und Nation
in Galizien: Über Zugehörigkeit und soziale Emanzipation im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 2005); Kai Struve, “Polish Peasants in Eastern Galicia: Indifferent to the Nation or Pillars
of Polishness?: National Attitudes in the Light of Józef Chałasiński’s Collection of Peasant Youth
Memoirs,” Acta Poloniae Historica 109 (2014): 37–59.
42 Władysław Stanisław Reymont, The Peasants (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925).
then to convince that mass of what it—in their eyes—actually was. The Central
European rural masses of the outgoing nineteenth century orientated their lives
mostly according to the world as they knew, saw, and understood it. When confronted
with the modern national projects of the mostly urban intellectual elites, the reac-
tion often was indifference or even outright rejection.43 The assumption that a
nation in a predefined form exists a priori and composes itself quasi-automatically
behind its national leaders is usually not much more than their own romantic
vision and wishful thinking. This does not mean, though, that nations are only
dreams. It does mean—as Timothy Snyder has taught us in his brilliant study on
Lithuania, Belarusia, Ukraine, and Poland from early modern to our times—that
they do not exist as a natural given, but that they have to be constructed.44
The dream of sovereignty for a Polish nation was primarily preserved within the
aristocratic milieu. During the nineteenth century, this group had successfully
mutated into an “intelligentsia [that] preserved a uniform code of values and style
and a network of social connections across the partition-borders [which] was to
prove immensely important.”45 Over the second half of the century, the develop-
ing intelligentsia opened up to educated sons of the non-noble urban and rural
elites.46 The old conservative elites hoped for concessions and compromised them-
selves by offering their services to the respective partitioning power. On the other
hand, the younger set produced mainly two divergent types of Polish nationalism:
one inclusive, looking backwards, and the other exclusive, looking forwards. The
first one was oriented towards the pre-partition multi-ethnic Polish Commonwealth
with its “nobility of [predominantly] Polish and polonized Lithuanian, Belarusian,
Ukrainian, German, and even Tatar, Armenian, and apostate-Jewish stock” which
had traditionally and officially communicated in Latin.47
Since the nation was equivalent to this nobility, but much less so with the peas-
ants and townsfolk, revisions to this antique understanding of the Polish nation
were highly necessary. To gain credence in an age of mass participation in politics
and warfare, it had to be democratized, or better: socialized. In consequence, the
Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS) under the leadership of the
revolutionary and military autodidact Józef Piłsudski headed in the direction of a
Socialist Republic dominated by ethnic Poles, but open for participation by other
43 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
(London: Verso, 2006); Tara Zahra, “Imagined Non-Communities: National Indifference as a
Category of Historical Analysis,” Slavic Review 69, no. 1 (2010): 93–119.
44 Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations.
45 Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars (Seattle, WA: University of
Washington Press, 1992), 28.
46 More details on the development of a Polish national consciousness in the nineteenth century
are given by Tadeusz Łepkowski, “La formation de la nation polonaise moderne dans les conditions
d’un pays démembré,” Acta Poloniae Historica 19 (1968): 18–36.
47 Rothschild, East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars, 27. For more on nation building in
the Polish part of the confederation, see Sławomir Gawlas, “Die mittelalterliche Nationenbildung am
Beispiel Polens,” in Mittelalterliche nationes—neuzeitliche Nationen. Probleme der Nationenbildung in
Europa, edited by Almut Bues and Rex Rexheuser (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995), 121–43; for the
Lithuanian part, see Mathias Niendorf, Das Großfürstentum Litauen: Studien zur Nationsbildung in der
Frühen Neuzeit (1569–1795) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010).
ethnic groups such as Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Jews, or Germans. The

more exclusive form of Polish nationalism favored by the Polish National Democracy
(Narodowa Demokracja, short “Endecja” after the Polish pronunciation of its acro-
nym ND) headed by the right-wing intellectual politician Roman Dmowski drew
on the ideas of social Darwinism which was en vogue all over Western Europe and
in the United States by that time. They believed that the multi-ethnic fabric of the
old Polish Commonwealth had caused its downfall, and therefore envisaged the
modern nation as the entirety of, as an Endecja slogan put it, “Poles of purest
blood.” Other ethnic groups were to have no say in a future Polish nation state, and
socialists were regarded as “Jews, foreigners and social misfits.”48
After the war broke out, Polish statehood was soon on the agenda once more—
not only as a theoretical concept, but as a political option in different layouts.
Between 1915 and 1918, the Central Powers replaced Russian rule in Central
Europe. The Baltic coast and other parts of the Western Territory were brought
under direct rule of the “Supreme Command of All German Forces in the East”
(Ober Ost). In the Vistula Lands, a German and an Austrian General Government
(based in Warsaw and Lublin respectively) were established, which both allowed
for some degree of Polish self-government.49 On November 5, 1916, both emperors
even declared the re-erection of a Polish monarchy a political goal. Since, in the same
breath, they called their Polish subjects to arms, the “Two Emperors’ Declaration”
in favor of a “Kingdom of Poland” exposed itself as a cheap trick which failed to
mobilize the masses.50 Still, in 1917 the occupants called into life a Regency
Council to run state business until the election of a Polish king. In his earlier New
Year’s message, the Russian tsar—who by that time had lost all his prewar Polish
possessions—had countered the Central Powers’ propaganda with the promise
to reunite the three former patrician zones. In the same month, US President
Woodrow Wilson advertised the erection of an independent Polish state as the
thirteenth of his Fourteen Points. And while the Allies and the Central Powers
were eager to prove how much they cared for future Polish statehood, it was the
48 Kossert, “Founding Father of Modern Poland and Nationalistic Antisemite: Roman Dmowski,”
92, 96. For a more detailed analysis of Piłsudski’s and Dmowski’s differing concepts of Polish nation-
alism prior to 1914 see Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires, 36–42.
49 On German rule in Ober Ost see Vejas G. Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture,
National Identity and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000); Robert Nelson, “Utopias of Open Space: Forced Population Transfer Fantasies during the First
World War,” in Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe’s First World War, edited by Jochen Böhler,
Włodzimierz Borodziej, and Joachim von Puttkamer (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2014), 113–27. On the
territory of former Congress Poland see Jonathan E. Gumz, “Losing Control: The Norm of Occupation
in Eastern Europe during the First World War,” in ibid., 69–87; Stephan Lehnstaedt, “Fluctuating
between ‘Utilisation’ and Exploitation: Occupied East Central Europe during the First World War,”
in ibid., 89–112; Cezary Król, “Besatzungsherrschaft in Polen im Ersten und im Zweiten Weltkrieg:
Charakteristik und Wahrnehmung,” in Erster Weltkrieg, Zweiter Weltkrieg. Ein Vergleich, edited by Bruno
Thoss and Hans-Erich Volkmann (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2002), 577–91; Arkadiusz Stempin,
“Deutsche Besatzungsmacht und Zivilbevölkerung in Polen: Juden und Deutsche im Vergleich,” in
Besetzt, interniert, deportiert. Der Erste Weltkrieg und die deutsche, jüdische, polnische und ukrainische
Zivilbevölkerung im östlichen Europa, edited by Alfred Eisfeld (Essen: Klartext, 2013), 153–72.
50 Jan Snopko, “Werbunek do Wojska Polskiego na terenie Królestwa po akcie 5 listopada 1916
roku (XI 1916 – V 1917),” Studia i Materiały do Historii Wojskowości 42 (2005): 133–53.
formation of their own armed forces—the famous Legions and other combat
units—that raised the Poles’ hopes to achieve independence not by anybody’s
grace, but by their own efforts.
And indeed, after the collapse of the Western Front and the abrupt termination
of German and Austrian rule in Central Europe in late 1918, armed clashes sprang
up over the redistribution of the Central European map. The conditions were ripe
for Piłsudski and Dmowski to partially realize their respective utopian projects for
a Polish nation within the borders of a Polish state. Given their contrasting concepts
of nationality, they were not partners, but fierce rivals. Both statesmen descended
from petty gentry, but Piłsudski’s family roots lay near Vilnius in the Lithuanian
part of the former Polish Commonwealth, whereas Dmowski was born in central
Poland, in a suburb of Warsaw, to be exact. Piłsudski—a man with a legendary
paramilitary and military record—as the Commander in Chief of the Polish armed
forces, sought to conquer and secure a territory for a future Polish federal state
ideally corresponding to that of the former commonwealth. Dmowski—a political
activist who had mastered an impressive number of foreign languages—as the
head of the “Polish National Committee” (Komitet Narodowe Polski)51 advocated
for international recognition of a Polish core state with a predominantly ethnic
Polish population in the couloirs and back rooms of the Paris Peace Conference.
Notably, how Dmowski and his fellow campaigners understood the term “ethnicity”
was that it mainly encompassed a commonly shared religion, culture, and language.
Although they left the door ajar for other ethnic groups willing to assimilate, they
practically erected an almost insurmountable boundary around the Polish nation,
to which, for example, Jews would never belong.52 Political science today describes
both statesmen’s different views on nationalism as a contrast between “civic” and
“ethnic” nationalism.53
Nevertheless, the difference between Piłsudski’s and Dmowski’s positions was
not so diametrically opposed as it seems at first sight: “Both were anti-communist,
both advocated national solidarity, both were lukewarm in their support for
liberal democracy, and both desired a strong nation state, based on Catholic tra-
ditions, headed by an authoritarian leader.”54 Recent studies have added further
evidence that the antagonism between the two statesmen was not as developed as
historiography usually has it, especially if it comes to Piłsudski’s role: The concept of
his “Belweder camp” for a Central European confederation remained awkwardly
shallow in 1918–20, his ambitions were clearly imperialistic, and he never foresaw
equal treatment for the federation’s members.55 This means that the supremacy of
51 The first legitimate representation of Polish statehood, founded in 1917 in Lausanne by the
Endecja.
52 Porter, When Nationalism Began to Hate, 189–232; Krzywiec, Chauvinism, Polish Style, 93–140;
Piotr Madajczyk, Marzenie o narodzie doskonałym: Między biopolityką a etnopolityką (Warsaw: Neriton,
2017), 57–8, 68–9. Marek J. Chodakiewicz, Wojciech J. Muszyński, and Jolanta Mysiakowska-
Muszyńska (eds), Polska dla Polakow!: Kim byli i są polscy narodowcy (Poznań: Zysk i S-ka, 2015)
argue more from the Endecja’s perspective, but omit the movements anti-Semitic stance.
53 Brykczynski, “A Poland for the Poles?”
54 Kossert, “Founding Father of Modern Poland and Nationalistic Antisemite: Roman Dmowski,” 97.
55 Conrad, “Vom Ende der Föderation.”
Poles in a future nation state for both politicians was a matter of course. But
Piłsudski and Dmowski never found a common language on how to reach this
goal, and to Poland’s misfortune their personal feud impeded its two major
political camps from acting united even in times of greatest trouble and danger.
“If only they could have been separated in time!” exclaimed later Prime Minister
of the Polish Republic in Exile, Stanisław Mackiewicz, in 1941. “The fact that these
people coexisted in the same era contributed to a weakened Poland.”56
The Second Polish Republic that evolved from the redistribution battles for the
former imperial lands was a crossbreed of Piłsudski’s and Dmowski’s visions.
Territorially, it expanded over the region inhabited almost exclusively by ethnic
Poles, but a confederation with its neighbors to the north and east failed to see the
light of day, and diplomatic relations with Lithuania and Ukraine were instead
strained for decades to come. Ethnically, it claimed to represent first and foremost
the Polish majority of the population, but it was engaged in enormous inner struggles
to come to terms with its large Ukrainian, Jewish, and German minorities, which
did not ebb away, but were even aggravated in the 1930s.
WHO IS IN AND WHO IS OUT?
The postwar dilemma of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe was that its
materializing states hosted up to a dozen different ethnic groups, but were meant
to be the project of and represent only one of them. True enough, there had been
attempts at building states for several ethnicities, the two prime examples being
Yugoslavia (which translates as “South Slav State”) and Czechoslovakia. Yugoslavia
was indeed home to Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, Bosniaks, Slovenes, Czechs, and
Slovaks, which all together made up about 85 percent of the population. But the
many other ethnic groups which would not consider themselves as “Slavs” were
not reflected in the state’s name.57 In addition, there were long-standing tensions
between many of the groups. Serbs and Croats, for example, while representing
three-quarters of the Yugoslav people, did not get along well from the very start.
Serbs, who had fought the Central Powers, regarded themselves as the winners of
the Great War. Croats, on the other hand, who had fought in the ranks of the
Habsburg Army, had lost. These two ethnicities were opposites at best and enemies
at worst.58 From the beginning, the new republic and its institutions were Serb
dominated. From the 1920s, Croats fought a constant battle for federalism, trying
to nip in the bud all attempts from Belgrade to centralize the country under
Serbian supremacy. Dimitrije Djordjevic has called this paradox of combined ethnic
56 Stanisław Mackiewicz, Historja Polski od 11 listopada 1918 r. do 17 września 1939 r. (London:

Kolin, 1941), 34, equally cited in Ryszard Kaczmarski, “Romana Dmowskiego spotkania z Józefem
Piłsudskim,” Glaukopis no. 5–6 (2006): 222–37, here: 222.
57 Rothschild, East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars, 203, lists Germans, Magyars,
Romanians and Vlachs, Albanians, Turks, Gypsies, and “Other.”
58 John Paul Newman, Yugoslavia in the Shadow of War: Veterans and the Limits of State Building,
1903–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 147–84.
unity and discord “the Yugoslav Phenomenon,” and traced its reverberations into
the present: “Bound by South Slavic ethnicity but separated by particular national
affiliations, joined by a common language but distinguished by its dialects, united
by the need for survival but divided by history, alphabets, religions, and cultures,
the Yugoslav phenomenon has been supported and challenged in the past and present
by both common and divergent interests of peoples irrevocably mixed, linked as
well as opposed to each other.”59 In May 1991, while he was writing these lines, the
country was heading into another disastrous civil war which once more revealed the
centrifugal forces of ethnic conflict, which are—as our study will show—by no means
an exclusive “Yugoslav” phenomenon.
In Czechoslovakia, which also encompassed the two major ethnic groups—
making up two-thirds of the population—in the state’s name, lack of equality was
the cause of similar ethnic strife, with the Czechs in the position of the Serbs,
and the Slovaks in that of the Croats. However, both unanimously regarded the
quarter of the country’s inhabitants which made up the German “minority” rather
as a residue of the Habsburg ruling elites—and thus an accomplice of Germany
and Austria—than as a part of the national project.60 One is compelled to take the
fixation of ethnic brotherhood in the state names of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia
either as a naive dream of its founders or as sheer propaganda for the Western
Powers whose approval for their independence they direly needed. It probably
would have been more honest to just call them “Serbia” and “Czechia.”
All other states that found themselves in the former imperial contact zone at
war’s end—Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria—
chose or kept a name according to the ethnic majorities (therefore also called
the “titular nations”) which would dominate the respective country’s politics and fate
through the 1920s and 1930s. In almost all of the aforementioned countries, the
ratio between the titular nation and the largest ethnic minority was about ten to
one or higher. However, the Second Polish Republic’s statistics deviated signifi-
cantly from this pattern with a ratio of less than five to one (Poles to Ukrainians),
with almost one-third of the population not being Poles.61 Whereas in Yugoslavia
and Czechoslovakia the sheer number of Croats and Slovaks would ensure them
respectively a certain measure of political participation,62 Poland’s minorities were
59 Dimitrije Djordjevic, “The Yugoslav Phenomen,” in The Columbia History of Eastern Europe in
the Twentieth Century, edited by Joseph Held (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 306–44,
here: 316–19, quote: 306. Percentages according to Rothschild, East Central Europe Between the Two
World Wars, 203.
60 Sharon L. Wolchik, “Czechoslovakia,” in Held (ed.), The Columbia History of Eastern Europe in
the Twentieth Century, 119–63, here: 124–7; Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires,
42–6. Percentages according to Rothschild, East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars, 89.
61 Lithuania (1923) 11.1:1 (1,701,863 Lithuanians to 153,743 Jews); Estonia (1922) 10.6:1
(969,976 Estonians to 91,109 Russians); Latvia (1920) 12.6:1 (1,161,404 Latvians to 91,477 Russians);
Hungary (1920) 13:1 (7,156,727 Magyars to 551,624 Germans); Romania (1930) 9.1:1 (12,981,324
Romanians to 1,425,507 Magyars). The ratio was lower in Bulgaria (1920) 7.5:1 (4,041,276 Bulgarians
to 542,904 Turks), but still significantly higher than in Poland (1921) 4.8:1 (18,814,239 Poles to
3,898,431 Ukrainians/Ruthenians).
62 Yugoslavia (1918): 1.6:1 (4,665,851 Serbs to 2,856,551 Croats). There are no detailed statistics
for the ratio between Czechs and Slovaks in interwar Czechoslovakia, which was roughly 2:1, see Charles
too small to hold their ground against Warsaw’s paternalism, but too large to be
marginalized. Thus, it was obvious from the beginning that the formation of an
ethnically “Polish” state would not only imply severe external conflicts with the
emerging neighbor states, but also internal conflicts with the ethnic minorities, and
most probably more so than in the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
This complex starting situation made it a challenging task to define the citizens of
the nascent Second Republic. Who belonged to it, and who was to be regarded as
an outsider?
Since the early twentieth century, the National Democrats were unanimous on
the matter: In their eyes, in order to survive, a future Polish state had to be founded
on the principle of Polish ethnic supremacy. In Roman Dmowski’s words, “our
racial material, if it is not used quickly by Polish civilization for the creation of a
Polish national identity and Polish political power, will be swept up by neigh-
bouring cultures and remade by them . . . The surface of the Earth is not a museum
for preserving ethnographic specimens intact, whole and each in its own place . . .
Nations, in their struggle to bring out the greatest energy from within themselves,
to create the greatest amount of this new sort of life, encountering on the way
tribes lacking in individuality and creative abilities, creative as a people and not as
individuals, without the resources to take part on their own account in the life of
history, absorb them, bring them into their sort of life, using them as material for
their own creative energy.”63
By its very nature, the minority question was practically linked to Polish t erritorial
aspirations, especially in the east. In 1918–19, the leadership of the young state
from both sides of the political divide unanimously aimed at controlling large tracts
of the Polish eastern borderlands (Kresy Wschodnie, short: Kresy), which historically
had been part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and hosted large Lithuanian,
Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Jewish populations. What they were split over was how
to establish Polish supremacy, and how far it should reach. While Piłsudski’s “federal”
concept foresaw cooperation with the neighbors in the east under Polish leadership,
the “ethnocentrist” concept of the National Committee aimed at their forceful
assimilation. As a result, wherever the arm of the Polish military and civil admin-
istration actually reached in the Kresy, it was mainly the Endecja which pursued a
program of strict Polonization, while Piłsudskites as a rule stood for a moderate
and inclusive policy towards the non-Polish ethnic groups.64
These opposed stances led to a paradox which is often overlooked in historiography.
Although at first sight the Belweder’s “federal” concept appears tolerant in a modern
Krupnick, Almost NATO: Partners and Players in Central and Eastern European Security (Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 48. The census deliberately did not differentiate between both ethnic
groups to underline the special status of the “state forming people” in contrast to, for example, the
Germans, who even outnumbered the Slovaks in 1921; see Mary Heimann, Czechoslovakia: The State
that Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 65.
63 Roman Dmowski, Myśli nowoczesnego Polaka (Lwów: Altenberg, 1907) (first pub. 1903), 126,
200. English translation according to Krzywiec, Chauvinism, Polish Style, 436–7.
64 Joanna Gierowska-Kałłaur, Zarząd Cywilny Ziem Wschodnich, 19 lutego 1919–9 września 1920
(Warsaw: Neriton, 2003), 49–55.
way, in its core there was an imperialist twist, aimed at expanding its borders as far
east as possible. The “ethnocentrist” concept of the National Committee, although
chauvinist and outmoded from today’s point of view, aimed at limiting the Polish
sphere to areas where the “integration” of minorities was regarded as feasible. Although
not genuinely intended, practically this meant national self-determination for
many Lithuanians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians outside Poland instead of their
forceful assimilation.65 It should not be overlooked, though, that in the west,
Dmowski’s national democratic hard-liners abandoned this line of argument and
advocated the most fervent anti-German and annexationist measures. In any case,
the ethnic composition of the Second Polish Republic was not so much decided by
political visions, be they left or right, but by the border struggles between 1918
and 1921. At their end, millions of its new citizens were members of minorities.
To fix citizenship in a future Polish state to the category of “Polishness” alone
was highly irrational anyhow, and not only because of the impossibility of clearly
defining it, but also because this would have meant to either disenfranchise or
expatriate a third of the people living within the new state borders—a terrifying
vision, if one thinks about it. Only a few years later, the Greek–Turkish War
(1919–22) resulted in a human catastrophe of hitherto unknown dimension. About
1.6 million Greeks and Turks were forced to leave their homes and to cross the new
border, as agreed upon in the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. The immediate conse-
quences were disastrous: diseases, horrible living conditions, and high mortality rates
amongst the refugees (or better: expellees). Philipp Ther has made it clear that this
was not what such events are often called—a breach of civilization. On the contrary,
this kind of engineered ethnic cleansing was “clearly a feature of European mod-
ernity” and the dreadful, but logical consequence of ethnic nation-state building.
It must be remembered that this population exchange was only accepted under the
impression of the extreme brutality of the Greek–Turkish War, and it concerned,
in a pejorative Western view, “only” the Balkans.66
Such a scenario was unthinkable in the heart of Europe only a few years earlier.
In his utopian essay “The National Principle and the Exchange of People” (1917),
the German–Jewish journalist Siegfried Lichtenstaedter (who often published
under the pseudonym Dr. Mehemed Emin Effendi) had envisaged only the volun-
tary movement of millions in order to ease ethnic tensions.67 In the case of Poland,
furthermore, the number of people who as “non-Poles” would have had to leave
65 The issue was discussed at length during the session of the National Committee in Paris on
March 2, 1919; see protocol and annex in Marek Jabłonowski (ed.), Komitet Narodowy Polski: Protokoły
posiedzeń 1917–1919 (Warsaw: Wyższa Szkoła Humanistyczna Pułtusk, 2007), 692–715. See also
Kawalec, Roman Dmowski, 335–8.
66 Philipp Ther, “Pre-negotiated Violence: Ethnic Cleansing in the ‘Long’ First World War,” in
Böhler, Borodziej, and von Puttkamer (eds), Legacies of Violence, 259–84, here: 277–82; quote:
Philipp Ther, The Dark Side of Nation-States: Ethnic Cleansing in Modern Europe (New York: Berghahn
Books, 2014), 249.
67 Siegfried Lichtenstaedter [Mehemed Emin Efendi], Nationalitätsprinzip und Bevölkerungsaustausch:
Eine Studie für den Friedensschluß (Dresden: Giesecke, 1917). See also Ther, “Pre-negotiated Violence,”
268, with a reference to Mihran Dabag, “National-koloniale Konstruktionen in politischen Entwürfen
des Deutschen Reiches um 1900,” in Kolonialismus. Kolonialdiskurs und Genozid, edited by Mihran
Dabag, Horst Gründer, and Uwe-Karsten Ketelsen (Munich: Fink, 2004), 19–66, here: 62.
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Tällöin purskahti pikku Margaret Verity nauramaan.
Margaretin nauru oli kuulemistani äänistä miellyttävimpiä. Se oli

äärimmäisen välitön ja niin kovin makea! Tuntui siltä kuin sitä jatkuisi
loputtomiin; sitten se katkesi nytkähdyksen tapaiseen ääneen. Se
loppui, ikäänkuin lapsi olisi (äkkiä kuten oli ilostunutkin) oivaltanut,
ettei hänen sopinut osoittaa hyvää tuultaan sillä tavoin. Ja nyt hän
punehtui. Vaikka hän olikin kasvanut maalla, ei hän ollut noita
omenaposkisia lapsia, jotka vanhempina tulevat luumukasvoisiksi.
Margaretin nuoret kasvot eivät olleet oikeastaan kalpeat — se
kuulostaa sairaloiselta — vaan pehmeän, tasaisen värittömät. Hänen
ihonsa muistutti kermaa, johon on sekoitettu muutamia pisaroita
hedelmämehua. Kun hän punehtui, muuttuivat hänen kermamaisen
ruusuiset poskensa jyrkästi helakan punaisiksi. Se oli hyvin
kiehtovaa, hyvin kaunista.
On mahdotonta tietää, kiintyikö Wallacen isännän huomio ensinnä

lapsen tenhoavaan punehtumiseen vaiko hänen rattoisaan,
sointuvaan nauruunsa.
Hän oikaisihe istumaan suorana, käänsi tuuhean

turkiskaulaksensa alas ja sysäsi kankaisen suippolakkinsa pois
otsaltaan. Käännettyään teräväpiirteiset, miellyttävät kasvonsa —
ihan nuoren miehen kasvot — lapseen päin hän tiedusti omituisella
kurkkuäänellään:
»Mikä sinua nauratti?»
»Olen pahoillani siitä. Minun ei olisi pitänyt nauraa», vastasi pieni

Margaret puna yhä poskillaan. »Nauroin teille.»
»Minulle?»
»En mahtanut sille mitään. Se oli niin hullunkurista. Tarkoitan sitä,
että sanoitte: 'Hillitkää kieltänne!' ja sitten: 'Pyytäkää rouvalta
anteeksi!' Miten hän olisi voinut pyytää, jos olisi hillinnyt kieltään?»
»Margaret, rakas!» äänsi äiti…
Nuori mies kääntyi rouva Verityn puoleen ja nosti lakkiaan.
»Se on totta», hän virkkoi. »Pyydän anteeksi kaikilta. Ettekö

pahastu, jos puhelen kanssanne matkalla. Olen ikävystynyt Wallacen
ja itseni seuraan. Saanko sanoa olevani hyvilläni siitä, että sain
muitakin vaunukumppaneiksini?»
Rouva Verity käsitti heti, että puhujan piti sallia sanoa mitä halusi.
Hän oli sellainen nuori mies, joka voi sanoa mitä tahansa
loukkaamatta. Hän oli ylimys ja soturi tai oli ollut soturi. Poika-parka,
poika-parka (hän oli alle kuusikolmattavuotias)! Hänen kasvonsa
kaikki luut kuulsivat pergamenttimaisen ihon lävitse. Hänen
riutuneilla poskillaan hehkui puna, hänen siniset silmänsä kiilsivät
kuin jalokivet, sitäkin kirkkaammin, koska ne oli upotettu »nokisin
sormin». Mustat, kiharaiset ripset tehostivat silmien kuumeista
kiiltoa. Rouva Verity ei ollut niin hämmentynyt, ettei olisi tajunnut,
mistä kaikki se johtui — silmien ilme, ääni, paksut vaipat, uskollisen
sotilas-palvelijan huolestuminen. Hänen edessään oli todella sairas
mies, ei haavoista, vaan murhaavimmasta iskusta, mitä sodassa
siihen saakka oli opittu iskemään.
Kaasutettu!
»Oi, olkaa hyvä —» sopersi rouva Verity, joka, kuten hän itse
tunnusti, ei koskaan osannut sanoa mitään »kellekään muille»
nuorille miehille.
Hänen miellyttävät kasvonsa puhuivat hänen puolestaan. Mies
hymyili hänelle ja jatkoi Margaretin puoleen kääntyen: »Minä inhoan
matkustamista. Entä sinä?»
»Minua se suorastaan hurmaa», ihasteli lapsi, ponnahtaen

samassa pystyyn. »En ole matkustellut juuri ensinkään.»
»Minä taas olen liian paljon», virkkoi potilas. Hän sysäsi syrjään
turkisvaipan liepeen. »Olen kuluttanut puolet elämääni kiertelemällä
—»
»Herra Charles», pisti palvelija vähin, nousten seisomaan,

»suvaitkaa pitää vaippa kunnollisesti ympärillänne!»
»Wallace, antakaa olla — herjetkää jo! Älkää komennelko minua!

En voi sadatella teitä muutoin kuin kuiskaamalla, jos sen teette.
Älkää käyttäkö sitä hyväksenne!» Kierrettyään turkisvaipan tiiviisti
sairaan ympärille Wallace vaipui takaisin paikalleen. Kaasutuksen
uhriksi joutunut nuori upseeri jatkoi: »No niin, enää ei minun tarvitse
paljoa matkustella. Nyt Lontooseen ja sitten Sveitsiin; se on
seuraava matkani.»
»Se on viehättävää», jupisi rouva Verity.
Margaret huudahti: »Sveitsiin? Eikö olisi suurenmoista, jos mekin

pääsisimme Sveitsiin? Te olette onnellinen! Siellä saa laskea mäkeä
kelkalla ja hiihtää ja luistella ja harrastaa kaikkia niitä jumalallisia
puuhia, joista puhutaan talviurheilukirjoissa —»
»Mutta minut aiotaan teljetä parantolaan.»
»Niin, ymmärrän. Siellä teistä tulee terve.»

Mutta nuori kaasunuhri vain kohautti olkapäitään… Hän lisäsi:
»Entä mihin teillä on matka?»
»Lontooseen», riemuitsi lapsi; hänen kasvonsa kirkastuivat, ja hän

hytkähteli nurkka-istuimellaan. »Lontooseen koko päiväksi!» Hänet
valtasi innostus, ja hän leperteli hilpeästi eläintieteellisestä tarhasta,
»ulkosalla» nautitusta puolisesta, teatterista. »Oletteko te ollut
katsomassa Pekka Poikasta?… Oletteko sitten ollut usein
matineoissa? — Tiedättekö, etten syntymästäni saakka ole vielä tätä
ennen ollut teatterissa? Eikö se ole suurenmoista? Sain
syntymäpäivälahjaksi paljon rahaa, jolla saan tehdä mitä itse haluan
kahdentenatoista syntymäpäivänäni. Tällä tavoin aiomme käyttää
viisi puntaani.»
Virmaisen hyvätuulisena hän pakisi edelleen, niin että rouva Verity

ei olisi kyennyt hillitsemään häntä, vaikka olisi koettanutkin —
Hän ei koettanutkaan. Hän ymmärsi. Tämän hilpeän, elämänsä

alussa olevan pikkuolennon viaton, itsetiedoton puhelu oli kuin
Jumalan lähettämä virkistys tälle surulliselle, itseensä keskittyneelle
nuorelle miehelle, joka oli lähdössä viimeiselle, toivottomalle
matkalleen. Siinä rautatievaunussa istuvan ryhmän jäsenten
vastakohtaisuus oli tosiaankin silmäänpistävä.
Upseeri kuunteli pelkkänä korvana ikäänkuin olisi imenyt

parantavaa lohdutusta tytön vauhdikkaista sanoista. Hänen
katseensa oli värähtämättä suunnattu hänen vastassaan oleviin
eloisiin kasvoihin.
Samoin kuin hän katseli lasta, ei taas Wallacen katse kertaakaan

hievahtanut hänestä.
Vähää ennen kuin he saapuivat Lontooseen (se lienee tapahtunut
East
Croydonissa) nuori mies kääntyi tytöstä äidin puoleen.
»Olen käyttäytynyt kovin karkeasti», pyysi hän anteeksi,

kuiskuttaen liikuttavan hiljaiseen tapaansa, »kun en ole esitellyt
itseäni. Suonettehan anteeksi sodanuhrin kummalliset oikut? Nimeni
on Mount, Charles Mount. Jos sallitte, niin annan teille käyntikorttini.
Hyvä Jumala, minut on jo ennen aikaani haudattu tähän
turkisröykkiöön. Wallace, onko minulla nimikortteja muassani?
Ottakaa ne esille, tehkää hyvin!»Wallace teki niin. »Kuulkaahan,
kirjoitan tähän muistiin sen oudon sveitsiläisen paikan nimen. Kynä,
Wallace! Suotteko minun pyytää teiltä erästä asiaa?»
»Olkaa hyvä! Jos voin millään tavoin —»
»Kuulkaahan! Minulla ei ole omaisia, muita kuin Archie, nuori

veljeni. Hän on torpeedonhävittäjässä jossakin päin. Se ei ole
terveellistä hommaa. Paitsi häntä ei minulla ole ketään, joka
kirjoittaisi minulle. Meitä on vain kaksi, ja hän saattaa kuolla ennen
minua; sitähän on mahdoton tietää!… Kirjeet merkitsevät paljon
minulle — minulle. Luulisitteko voivanne lähettää minulle rivin ja
kertoa, miten tyttönne nautti matineastaan, ja muusta sellaisesta? Se
olisi ystävällisesti tehty. En pyydä, jos siitä on kovin paljon vaivaa,
mutta… se olisi hyvin ystävällistä.»
Mitäpä olisi helläsydäminen Violet osannut sanoa? Koko kohtaus

liikutti häntä. Kyyneleet pehmensivät hänen silmiensä muutoinkin
pehmeätä ilmettä. Voin kuvitella, kuinka hänen (auttamattoman
kehnon päähineen reunustamat) kasvonsa vavahtelivat, ja kuinka
pelokas soinnahdus oli hänen äänessään, kun hän lupasi: »Tietysti
kirjoitan, jos pidätte kirjeistä. Entä kirjoitatteko te, herra Mount?
Kerrotteko, miten — miten saavuitte Sveitsiin?… Tässä on
osoitteemme. Margaret itse kirjoittaa teille matineasta.»
»Teetkö sen, Margaret?» kysyi nuori mies.
»Oi, niin mielelläni! Minä pidän kirjeiden kirjoittamisesta. Minulla

on tuskin ketään, jolle kirjoittaa! Kirjoitan teille», vakuutti lapsi,
»kunnes tulette takaisin kotiin».
Victoria-asemalla syntyi luonnollisestikin aikamoinen hyörinä, kun

oli koottava herra Mountin tavattomat matkatavarat.
Rouva Verity (joka oli innostunut auttamaan, mutta joka, herttainen

poloinen, omista tutuista oloistaan lähdettyänsä oli aina kokonaan
ymmällä eikä tiennyt, mitä tehdä) odotti sairaan luona, sillä aikaa kun
tuikeakasvoinen, kuulan rampauttama Wallace teroitti Jumalan
pelkoa asemasillan kaikille kantajille. Margaret hyppi kahleeseen
kytketyn terrierin tavoin pienessä ympyrässä, katsellen
jouluostoksille saapunutta yleisöä, orjanruusuilla ja misteleillä
täytettyjä kuormarattaita, tavaroineen lähtövalmiina jonottavia
sotilaita.
Herra Mount jupisi: »Teille tulee ihana päivä lapsen seurassa.»
»Niin kyllä, niin minäkin luulen. Olen varma siitä, että hän siitä
nauttii. (Miksi en osaa lausua mitään lohduttavaa tälle mies-
paralle…) Hän nauttii kaikesta.»
»Toivottavasti hän osaa aina niin tehdä. Hänen elämänsä pitäisi

aina olla ruusuista. On hirveätä, että aina eksytään käyttämään
kuluneita sanontatapoja, eikö olekin?» lisäsi hän, ikäänkuin hän ja
rouva Verity olisivat olleet päivälliskutsuilla ja heidän olisi pitänyt
keskustella. »Satutteko tuntemaan nämä säkeet:
— Rannalla Manan järven, nojaillen airoon Kharon

odottaa?»
»En. Pelkäänpä, etten ole lukenutkaan sitä runoa —»
Samassa palasi Wallace, tunkeutuen touhuisasti ihmisahdingon

lävitse. »Nyt, herra Charles —»
Herra Mount nosti lakkiaan. »En sano hyvästi, vaan käytän niitä
sanoja, jotka gladiaattorit aina lausuivat Rooman keisarille.
Muistatteko?»
Kovaksi onneksi rouva Verity-raukka muisti (aikoja sitten menneiltä

historiantunneiltaan).
»Terve, Caesar! Kuoleman omat tervehtivät sinua!»
Violet nielaisi jäähyväisensä. Mutta Charles Mount sai Margaretilta

perin riemuisan hymyilyn muistoksi matkalleen.
VI
Kuuden viikon kuluttua he saivat viimeisen sanoman Charles

Mountista.
Hän oli kuollut sveitsiläisessä parantolassa ja jättänyt varsin

suuren omaisuutensa perinnöksi neiti Margaret Veritylle »kiitollisena
ystävyydestä, joka oli suuresti sulostuttanut hänen elämänsä
loppuosaa».
Toiminimi Mount & Sons oli hankkinut sota-aikana jättiläismäisesti

paisuneen omaisuuden myymällä ravintosäilykkeitä tai kenkänahkaa
tai gramofonilevyjä, jotakin sellaista tavaraa, jota sotilaiden oli
saatava suuria määriä. Isä ei ollut elänyt nauttiakseen siitä, hänen
kaksi poikaansa olivat jakaneet voiton keskenään; ja vanhempi
heistä, Charles, jätti nyt oman osuutensa neiti Veritylle määräämättä
mitään jälkiä säädöslahjoituksia! Kaiken piti joutua lapselle heti ilmaa
hankalaa holhousta tai muita rajoituksia siihen saakka, kunnes hän
täyttäisi yksikolmatta vuotta. Torpeedonhävittäjässä palvelevalla
nuorella Archie Mountilla oli oma osuutensa. Hän sai perheen
valokuvat ja äitinsä jalokivet sekä henkilökohtaisen omaisuuden.
Kaikki muu joutui tälle pienelle, vieraalle tytölle, jonka Charles oli
tavannut kerran ja jolta hän oli saanut kenties viisi tai kuusi kirjettä.
Kuvitelkaahan sitä… Sain hänen äidiltään pitkänpituisen kirjeen,

jossa hän kertoi minulle tästä ihmeellisestä onnesta. Eikö ollut
loistavaa, ettei Margaretin tarvinnut kasvaa rahanpuutteen
painamana ja vaivaamana! Nythän kullannupulle sittenkin
avautuisivat kaikki mahdollisuudet! Hän saisi hyvän kasvatuksen,
pääsisi matkustamaan ulkomaille, viehättävään ympäristöön! Hän
voisi tutustua lukemattomiin mainioihin ihmisiin, hankkia itselleen
viehättävän ystäväpiirin!
Sanalla sanoen, koko tämän kaksitoistavuotiaan elämä sukeutuisi

ruusuiseksi.
VII
Kahdeksan vuotta myöhemmin kohtasin hänet jälleen. Minun on

tunnustettava, että silloin tyrmistyin.
II luku
Teehetki paljasseinäisessä huoneessa
Marraskuulla menin käymään rouva Verityn luona hänen talossaan

Lontoossa.
Se oli Hill-kadun varrella. Korkea, yksinäinen, hienonnäköinen

pieni talo, ja sen julkisivun ovi oli yhtä juhlallisennäköinen kuin
quatrocento rasian homehtunut kansi. Kuinka suuresti se erosikaan
Verityjen entisestä pääovesta, huvilan alati avoimesta, kuusamojen
reunustamasta pylväseteisestä, josta tuulisten hiekkasärkkien poikki
näkyi merelle! Rouva Verityn kirjeestä tiesin, että Margaret oli
ostanut tämän Hill-kadun talon sellaisenaan, koska sen sisustus
miellytti häntä, ja että hän pian lisäisi siihen omaa »käsialaansa».
Hovimestari, jolla oli ruuansulatushäiriöiden vaivaaman sfinksin

kasvot, opasti minut salaperäisen hämäriä, paksumattoisia portaita
myöten seurusteluhuoneeseen… Armias taivas, mikä yllätys!
Kuinka toisenlaista kuin Verityillä!
Kuinka toisenlaista kuin heidän huvilansa arkihuoneen kotoisen

valkea, sekava sisustus kirkkaine, ruusunvärisine sitsipäällyksineen,
avoimine ikkunoineen, joista merituuli puhalsi sisälle, tuoden
puutarhasta sokeriherneiden ja neilikkojen tuoksua!
Silmäilin ympärilleni tässä uudessa asunnossa. Himmeillä

kultauksilla runsaasti koristetut seinät olivat melkein kokonaan
ihanasti ommeltujen koruverhojen, hyvin kallisarvoisten, mustan ja
kullankirjaviksi maalattujen kiinalaisten kaappien ja laajan irtoseinän
tummanpunaisten, lohikäärmeiden somistamien lautojen peitossa.
Korkeita lamppuja seisoi nurkissa oudonväristen pagodiverhojen
suojaamina, ja kaiverruksin kaunistetuilla jalustoilla ja pikkupöydillä
oli kyyröttävien apinoiden ja sammakkohirviöiden muotoisia
lamppuja. Mustalla matolla, johon upposi polvia myöten, oli
vuodemaisia sohvia, sohvamaisia tuoleja, pyöreitä jakkaroita,
ripsuista lattiapieluksia, kaikki kullanvärillä, mustalla ja
kellanpunaisella kirjailtujen päällysten peittämiä. Raskaasti riippuvat
samanlaisesta mustan ja kullan kirjavasta koruompeluksesta
valmistetut verhot reunustivat ikkunoita, joissa oli myöskin sisäverhot
ja puoliväliin ulottuvat kultakudoksiset kaihtimet. Upotuksien
koristamilla pöydillä oli läjittäin muotilehtiä, (Eve, Vogue, The Tatter,
La Vie Parisienne), kuukausijulkaisuja ja uusia romaaneja; lisäksi oli
uunimaton kohdalla tavattoman iso suklaalaatikko, jonka avoimesta
kannesta näkyivät sen sisältö ja lumikinoksia muistuttavat valkeat
täytehöydyt, lattialle viskattu nukke, uudenaikainen, eriskummainen,
kolmivuotisen hapsen kokoinen, puettu nuoren miehen
seurustelupukuun ja päässään vaalean kullanvärinen silkkiperuukki.
Kokonaisuudessaan huone oli mielestäni jonkun koristetaiteilijan
haaveilema hekumallisen ylellisyyden näyte.
Kuhakin on oma makunsa. Minusta huone vaikutti tukahduttavalta,
sen seinät vanutäytteisiltä. Sanoin sitä pimeäksi.
Se oli täynnä kukkia! Siellä oli miehenkorkuisia liljamaljakoita,

pronssinen jalusta täynnä astioita, joissa oli ennen aikaansa
kukkimaan saatuja syreenejä, useita maljakoita kuiduissa kasvavia
roomalaisia hyasintteja. Jossakin kyti taikatikku, joita näkee
palamassa kaukonäkijäin kammioissa. Runsaskaiverruksisella
jalustalla paloi suitsutuslamppu. Ja kaikkien näiden sekavien
tuoksujen täyttämänä tuntui sellaisen suljetun huoneen ilma, jossa
suitsutettiin paljon ja yhtenään… Tarkoituksena oli kaiketi saada
aikaan itämaalainen, velton raukaiseva lämpö…
Kullakin oma makunsa. Minä pidin sitä ummehtuneena.
Sanalla sanoen, sellaisen ilman olisin kaikkein vähimmän

odottanut ympäröivän ulko-ilmaan tottunutta englantilaista» naista,
rouva Verityä!
Hän astui sisään.
II
»Entä tyttäresi?» tiedustin pian. »Niin mielelläni haluaisin nähdä

Margaretin jälleen. Voiko hän hyvin?»
»Oi, kyllä! Hän voi oikein hyvin… todella —»
Heti välähti mieleeni epäilys, ettei lapsen laita ohut ihan oikein.
Sana »todella» liitettynä mihin lauseeseen hyvänsä ja lausuttuna
sellaiseen tapaan riittää vastaväitteeksi. Myöskin oli rouva Verityn
ilmeessä jotakin outoa. Ensi silmäyksellä ei hänessä huomannut
muutosta, vaikka hänen yllään olikin (ensi kerran koko
tuttavuutemme aikana) »hyvä» leninki ja siihen sopivat kengät.
Hänen vartalonsa oli suora, hänen lempeiden kasvojensa väri terve
ja vaaleanpunertava kuten aina, hänen silmänsä kirkkaat. Mutta
hänen ilmeessään oli jotakin. Tuo murheellinen häivähdys oli siinä
aina ohut. Nyt siinä oli myöskin rauhattomuuden merkki. Puheliko
hän salatakseen sitä?
»Tietystikin, ymmärräthän, Margaret on kasvanut, hyvin nopeasti.

Tytöt tarvitsevat joitakuita vuosia sivuuttaakseen sen… 'Onko hän
niin viehättävä kuin hänestä näytti tulevan?' Oi, hän on hyvin sievä.
Saat nähdä. En luule niin ainoastaan sen tähden, että olen hänen
äitinsä.» Rouva Verity puhui puolustelevan ylpeästi. »Niin monet
ihmiset ihailevat häntä tavattomasti. Kaikkialla, missä olemme olleet.
Kaikki kyselevät, kuka hän on, kutsuvat häntä vierailuille ja puhuvat
hänestä paljon. Lapsi-kullan aika tahdotaan viedä niin kovin tarkoin!
Niin paljon ihailijoita!»
»Eikö hän vielä ole kihloissa?»
Samassa kajahti puhelinkellon kilinä, jota vaimensi kahvipannun

peitettä muistuttavan, tuoksujen täyttämän huoneen seinän
pehmennys.
»Suo anteeksi!» Rouva Verity kääntyi puhelinta rumentavaan

Pompadour-pukuiseen nukkeen päin. »Niinkö?… Oi, kuinka voit,
Eric? Ei! Valitettavasti Margaret ei ole kotona… Hän meni kilpa-
ajoihin Claude Oddleyn ja eräiden muiden seurassa… Niinkö…
Luultavasti hän oli unohtanut luvanneensa. Kuinka pahasti tehty!
Tänä iltana hän menee erään seurueen mukana kello yhdeksän
näytäntöön… Toivottavasti hän saapuu puolen tunnin aikana… No
niin, tule teelle ja puhu hänelle! Tuletko? … Tee niin… Näkemiin!»
Hän kääntyi takaisin minun puoleeni vastaamaan kysymykseeni.
»Niin, Margaret ei ole kihloissa. Vain nämä ihailijaparvet…

Todellinen kunniavartiosto alituisesti. Hyvin paljon enemmän nuoria
miehiä kuin tytöt olisivat ikinä halunneet meidän ollessamme nuoria
—»
»Tarkoittanet liian paljon nuoria miehiä kerrallaan?»
»Niin, niinpä niin! Minä puolestani en ikinä kaivannut muuta kuin

yhtä miestä. Minä olen aina ollut 'toivottoman vanhanaikainen
haaveilija', kuten tyttö-kulta minua nimittää. Mutta Margaretilla täytyy
olla henkivartijansa. He vievät häntä tansseihin, teattereihin,
kilparatsastuksiin, loordien luokse, soutukilpailuihin, Hurlinghamiin,
kaikkeen sellaiseen, mikä nyt on muodissa… Mikäli olen kuullut
liehittelevät nuoret miehet nykyisin kauneimpia tyttöjä sillä tavoin,
mutta eivätkö he: muka kosi sen kummemmin? Sitä me emme ole
huomanneet. He kosivat Margaretia yhtenään.» Äiti hymyili niin
liikuttavasti, ettei minulla ollut sydäntä edes ajatellakaan, kuinka
epätodennäköistä oli, ettei Mountin omaisuuden perijättärellä olisi
kosijoita. »Erikoisesti eräs heistä on lemmikkini ehdoton orja. Tämä
meidän kesken sanottuna… mutta näkisithän sen, joka tapauksessa.
Juuri hän vei tänään Margaretin esteratsastuskilpailuihin. Hän on
silmittömästi kiintynyt tyttöön! Tunnetko hänet? Otaksuttavasti olet
kuullut hänestä. Hän on vasta äsken saanut arvonimensä. Hän on
nuori loordi Oddley.»
Hänen lempeä äänensä sai hienonhienon tärkeyden värähdyksen.

Hän oli tämän maailman vähimmän herrastelevia olentoja, mutta
hänen tavallaan kasvaneessa naisessa ei arvonimi (ja lisäksi hyvin
vanha, kunnioitettu nimi) voi olla herättämättä jonkun verran
ihastusta.
»Pitääkö Margaret hänestä?»
»Sitä on niin vaikea sanoa tytöistä, eikö olekin?»
Omassa mielessäni mietin, että se olisi ollut varsin helppo

»sanoa» muutamista tytöistä. Violetin ensi kerran kohdatessa Jack
Verityn oli hänen kasvoistaan varmastikin näkynyt selvästi, että hän
oli Jackin, ainoastaan Jackin. Siinä oli ohut aitoa romanttisuutta.
Tulisikohan se Jack Verityn tyttären ja tämän nuoren loordi Oddleyn
osaksi? Minut valtasi lievä kiihtymys ajatellessani, että näkisin sen
itse. Myönnän olevani innokkaan utelias. Valmistauduin näkemään
romanttisuutta tässäkin ylenmäärin upeakalustoisessa ympäristössä.
»Kerrohan minulle siitä! Kuinka kauan tyttäresi on tuntenut

nuorukaisen? Missä hänet kohtasitte?»
»Sveitsissä, talvikisoissa pari vuotta sitten. Hän ja hänen

sisarensa Cynthia asuivat samassa hotellissa kuin mekin. Cynthia on
Margaretin hyvin läheinen ystävä juuri nyt. Cynthia se löysi tämänkin
talon hänelle. Kehoitteli Margaretia ostamaan sen —»
(Ahaa! »Cynthian» syytäkö sen epäveritymäinen sisustus olikin?)
— »Cynthialla on ihmeellisen hyvä maku, väittää Margaret. Hän

näyttää aina huvittavan Margaretia. Hän —»
Taaskin soi puhelinkello.

»Niin ikävää; saanko? Ajattelehan, että tällaista kestää aamusta
iltaan Margaretin tähden!» Hän tarttui kuulotorveen. »Kyllä. Ei;
puhuja on rouva Verity… Ei. Hän ei ole vielä palannut! … Odotan
heidän saapuvan millä hetkellä tahansa. Saanko ilmoittaa hänelle
jotakin?… Oi, pistäydyttekö täällä? Niin, tehkää se! (Ei niin
innokkaasti, kuulosti minusta.) »Tulkaa teelle! Näkemiin! … Soittaja
oli Cynthia… Taitaa olla parasta ilmoittaa Bensonille, että tänne
saapuu paljon väkeä teelle tuossa paikassa…» Hän soitti kelloa.
Ruuansulatushäiriöiden sfinksin (jota rouva Verity silminnähtävästi

kovasti pelkäsi) poistuttua kuunneltuaan emäntänsä lausuman
määräyksen, kysyin:
»Pitäisitkö sinä siitä?»
»Mistä?»
»Että Margaret hyväksyisi tämän nuoren miehen kosinnan?»

»Niin», äänsi rouva Verity empien.
Odotin hänen lausuvan jonkun hänen tapaisilleen haaveilevan

herkkätuntoisille naisille ominaisen kuluneen lauseen (kuten: »Jos
lapsi-kulta rakastaa häntä, niin en luonnollisesti olisi unissanikaan
kyllin itsekäs estääkseni häntä menemästä avioliittoon niin pian kuin
hän haluaa»), mutta rouva Verity huomauttikin äänessään oudon
katkera soinnahdus: »Eipä olisi paljoakaan väliä, pitäisinkö siitä vai
—»
Samassa sattui taaskin keskeytys; tässä hiljaisessa, eristetyssä

talossa syntyi äkkiä kovaääninen hälinä.
Ulkoa kuului auton melua; sitten pamahti pääovi, kajahti
haukuntaa, naurua, kimeitä huudahduksia; useita ihmisiä tuntui
syöksyvän portaita ylös yhtä aikaa. Ovi avautui. Päätäpahkaa
tuoksahti sisälle joukko ihmisiä, joiden lukumäärää hämmentynyt
silmä ei aluksi kyennyt laskemaan pitkiä, sileiksi harjattuja
nuorukaisia, jotka seurasivat hyvin kookasta, nahkaiseen
autovaippaan ja pieneen, punaiseen turkishattuun puettua tyttöä.
Nuoret näyttivät sysivän toisiaan, leikkien hilpeätä hevosenleikkiä,
harppailevan toistensa kantapäiden ja heidän jalkojensa välissä
pujottelevien, villeiksi kiihtyneiden koirien ylitse ja lörpöttävän kaikki
samanaikaisesti, niin että kuulosti siltä, kuin olisi pantu soimaan
useita gramofoneja yhtä aikaa ja liian nopeasti. Olin erottavinani:
— »Myrkyllinen onni eikö se ollut myrkyllinen onni rakas, ihminen

voitko väittää hei tässä on Eric hei Eric! Hei Odds myrkyllinen onni,
kun panit vetoa. Nauroin niin panin sata kahdeksaakymmentä
vastaan loppuottelussa en halua teetä mutta mielelläni ottaisin
ryypyn! No? No? Exasperation ensimmäinen JA kaiken sen jälkeen
Bubbly puolisella Paddock-aitaus Exasperation ensimmäinen Tiara
toinen This Freedom kahdeksas tai jotakin täydellistä ihmisiä
tulvimalla siellä Armstrong Siddeley Tiara toinen. Mitä? Aioin panna
viitosen sen puolesta Mixyä VASTAAN! Se muutti minun Kolme
kertaa hallo Ericillä oli MAALLINEN Exasperation ensimmäinen
myrkyllinen onni oh EI sitä ei ONNISTANUT panitko vetoa? Ahaa!
kuinka voitte rouva Verity sujui hyvin tunnin ja neljäkymmentä
minuuttia minua onnisti — minä —»
Rouva Verityn ääni melkein hukkui heidän meluunsa, kun hän

sanoi:
»Tässä hän on. Tämä on Margaret.»
III
Huomasin pudistavani pitkän tytön kättä, katsoen häntä kasvoihin.
Ne olivat kiehtovan kauniit pienet kasvot, soikeat, suurisilmäiset;

suun piirteet olivat vallattomat ja muistuttivat kukkaa. Mutta kasvot
olivat liian kalpeat, liian hienopiirteiset, liian paksun
ihojauhekerroksen peitossa. Ja nuo suuret silmät, harmaan siniset
kuin Englannin kesäinen taivas, näyttivät menettäneen pehmeyttään.
Johtuiko se siitä, että ruskeat kulmakarvat olivat tahmeina paksusta,
mustasta maalista?
»Kuinka voitte?» tervehti hän minua raukeasti. »Tietysti muistan

teidät. Kohtasimme siellä huvilassa… vuosisatoja sitten…» Hän alkoi
hypistellä turkiksiaan ja vaatteuksensa moninaisia nahkaisia,
kankaisia ja kudottuja kappaleita. Yhden toisensa jälkeen hän riisui
ne yltään henkivartijoiden koko ajan hyöriessä hänen ympärillään,
tarjoillen saamattomasti apuaan. »Enkö minä saa tehdä sitä? — Salli
minun, Margaret!
Annapa, kun autan sen yltäsi! —»
Hän ei vilkaissutkaan kehenkään heistä. Huomauttaen

huolettomasti: »Kas tässä, Oddos! Ota kiinni!» hän heitti vaatemytyn
kirjaimellisesti vasten kasvoja siloiselle, noin yksikolmatta vuotiselle
nuorukaiselle, jonka kullankeltainen tukka oli taaksepäin kammattu ja
jolla oli mimosankeltaiset liivit. Nuorukainen horjahti vaatteiden
sysäyksestä, otti ne, laski ne jakkaralle ja hääri edelleen Margaretin
vierellä. Kun tyttö istahti lähinnä tulisijaa olevalle sohvamaiselle
tuolille, huudahtaen: »On purevan kylmää; kunpa saisimme pidetyksi
tämän huoneen kodikkaampana!» vaipui nuorukainen hänen
jalkojensa juuressa olevalle lattiapielukselle katse hievahtamatta
kiintyneenä tytön kasvoihin ja huulet hieman raollaan ikäänkuin
valmiina nielaisemaan kaikki tytön sinkauttamat sanat.
Arvasin, että hän oli Margaretin orja, Claude Oddley.
Ehdin parhaiksi nähdä, että hän muistutti paljon keltaperuukkista

vaatturinnukkea (jonka joku oli tällä välin ottanut pöydältä ja
viskannut rentona virumaan pianon kannelle). Sillä kertaa en ehtinyt
silmäilemään nuorta Oddleyta sen tarkemmin.
Minun oli katseltava Margaretia, joka loikoi pitkänään soma pää

painettuna pieluksiin, ihonväristen silkkisukkien verhoamat, ohuet
sääret ristissä ojennettuina kauas ruskean silkkihameen liepeiden
ulkopuolelle. Hame riippui hänen ympärillään samoin kuin lippu
tangossaan tyynellä ilmalla. Mitä, mitä oli tapahtunut tuolle
sopusuhtaisen voimakkaalle, nuorelle ruumiille, joka minusta oli
muistuttanut hovilinnain tavoin veistettyjä nurkkapatsaita? Kuihtunut
ja kutistunut tuollaiseksi! Kummallisia sanoja käytettäviksi vasta
ikänsä toisen kymmenen lopussa olevasta tytöstä! Mutta minkä
tähden hän kuihtui. Juuri sellaisen vaikutuksen hän teki. Umppu,
joka kuihtui silloin, kun sen olisi pitänyt aueta upeimpaan
kukoistukseensa. Kullakin on oma makunsa. Otaksuttavasti hän
ihailevista henkivartijoistaan näytti olevan oivallisessa kunnossa.
Pehmeä huone oli ahdinkoon saakka täynnä nuorukaisia, heidän

koiriaan (kaksi karkeakarvaista terrieriä ja yksi buldoggi), pyörteisinä
pihvinä tupruavaa tupakansavua, kaukoputkia, hajallaan olevia
urheilulehtiä, gramofonimaista puheenhälyä heidän hokiessaan
ratsastuskilpailujen ja autoilun tapahtumia sekä ristimä- ja pilanimiä.
Muutamissa minuuteissa olikin huoneessa huolimattomasti
siroteltuja savukkeenjätteitä enemmän kuin koskaan olen missään
muualla nähnyt. Tuhkaa oli matolla kinoksittain; sitä oli kirjailtujen
pieluksien välissä ja teevadeilla; tuhkaa ja savukkeenpätkiä oli teen
sekaan sekaantuneena kuppien pohjalla; tuhkaa oli Anna-
kuningattaren tyylisellä tarjottimella ja sokeripalojen seassa;
poltettuja tulitikkuja oli pistetty hyasinttiruukkujen sammaliin; tuhkaa
varisi Margaretin ruskean silkkihameen helmaan; tuhkaa oli
torkkuvien koirien turkissa; tuhkaa uunin hiilisuojuksella; tuhkaa —
uskotteko minua — huomasin jonkun verran myöskin poroastioissa.
Mutta palatkaamme henkivartijoihin. Kilvan he tarjoilivat

Margaretille tulitikkuja ja savukkeita (»— kas tässä, maistahan minun
kotelostani —» »Ei! Margaret ei koskekaan muihin kuin noihin
voimakastuoksuisiin savukkeihin, joita hän ja Cynthia ostavat
aavemaiselta, pieneltä kreikkalaiselta —»). He kiidättivät hänelle
teetä ja leivoksia, viimeisen Starin ja hänen autoon unohtuneen
kilpailuohjelmansa ja helmillä koristetun laukkunsa.
Kuka näistä nuorukaisista, jotka silminnähtävästi olivat

orjamaisesti häneen kiintyneet, oli hänen suosikkinsa?
Sen aprikoiminen ja arvaileminen oli mielenkiintoista. Aikoiko hän

rohkaista viimeisen Oddleyn kosiskelua? Hän ei ohut huomaavinaan
Claudea sen enempää kuin jättiläiskokoista nukkea. Hänellä
tuntuikin olevan enemmän puhuttavaa »Ericille», punatukkaiselle,
kaunisääniselle, sieväsukkaiselle ylioppilaalle, jonka huulilla väikkyi
»vakaana» hymy. Olikohan Eric saanut hänet haaveilemaan?
»Sinä lupasit minulle», moitti Eric. »Kymmenen päivää sitten

lupasit lähteä tanssimaan tänä iltana. 'Embassyssa’—»
»No niin, minulta varmaankin unohtui kirjoittaa se muistiin. En
muista muuta kuin sen, että lupasin Oddsille mennä hänen
seurassaan pieneen teatteriin. Teidän on parasta taistella siitä
keskenänne.»
Kas vain! Hän näytteli kuningatarta. Mutta minusta hän esiintyi

kovin epäkuningattarellisesti. Siltä tuntui hänen aloittelijamainen,
veltto asentonsa, joka näytti hänen selkänsä kumarana, rintansa
onttona ja solisluiden päät niin korkeina, että niihin olisi voinut
ripustaa hatun.
Hän oli ripustanut niiden ympärille hyvin kauniin, timanttisolkisen

helminauhan. Lisäksi hänellä oli timanteilla koristettu hattuneula,
rannekello helmistä jäykässä kapeassa, mustassa nauhassa ja pitkät
platinaketjut, joissa riippui kilisevä kokoelma »helyjä», kuten hänen
isänsä olisi sanonut. Siinä oli vihreä, neuriittinen epäjumalankuva,
kultakehyksinen taskupeili, pieni kultainen Nildé-rasia, savukekotelo,
lyijykynä ja neuriitista ja merenvahasta valmistetun putken suojaama
huulipuikko.
Hän otti koneellisesti käteensä peilin; nyrpisti hiukan nenäänsä;

tarttui huulipuikkoon ja alkoi piirtää kalpeata ylähuultaan helakan
punaiseksi. »Mikä on hyvää lääkettä pisamille?» kysyi hän
kärtyisesti. »Taaskin on tulossa inhoittava pisama juuri tuohon. En
jaksa käsittää, mistä ne johtuvat, ymmärrätkö sinä, Violet?»
(Kysymys oli osoitettu äidille.)
»En, sitä en ymmärrä, rakas… Minulla ei ollut niitä kukaan

ollessani sinun ikäisesi, eikä niitä ole nytkään.»
»Ei tietysti, sinulla ei milloinkaan ole huolia. Sinun laita ei ole

samanlainen kuin minun, Vi. Sinä et ollut kasvanut niin nopeasti»,

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Civil War in Central Europe, 1918-1921:

The Reconstruction of Poland Jochen

Civil War in Central Europe, 1918-1921: the

The Politicization of Social Divisions in Post-War

The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Central Europe Nada

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Armies of deliverance: a new history of the Civil War

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Civil War in Central

Skończył się rok osiemnasty The eighteenth year is over—

1. Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe 14

2. How to Mobilize the Polish Nation 33

3. The Central European Civil War 59

4. Violence and Crimes Beyond the Battlefields 146

Archives Consulted 199

List of Illustrations and Maps

Map 1. Partitioned Poland, 1815–1914

Map 2. Embattled Poland, 1918–21

2 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

4 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

9 Henryk Bagiński, Wojsko polskie na wschodzie 1914–1920 (Warsaw: Główna Księgarnia

6 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

somewhat seriously—with a gun in my pocket.”12 In 1926, when the quarrels of

8 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

that, a growing trend to produce high-quality overviews of the Polish–Soviet,

27 Jerzy Konrad Maciejewski, Zawadiaka: Dzienniki frontowe 1914–1920 (Warsaw: Ośrodek

10 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

12 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

DIRECTIONS FOR THE READER

Studies on multinational, multi-ethnic, and multilingual regions always face the

• Jochen Böhler, “Europas ‘Wilder Osten’: Gewalterfahrungen in Ostmitteleuropa

Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe 15

Such questions of national consciousness and belonging are of utmost importance

3 Ralph Schattkowsky, “Eine Autonomie mit Nachwirkungen: Regionale Identitäten in Galizien

16 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

Spanish Netherlands, Marquis De Posa in Friedrich Schiller’s Don Carlos (1787)

Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe 17

18 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

democracies without emperors—although they all notably developed strong

15 Prusin, The Lands Between, 18–27.

Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe 19

17 Prusin, The Lands Between, 34, quote: 40.

20 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe 21

22 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe 23

or freedom of speech.36 The overwhelming majority of Poles at that time—about

36 Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert, 23–52.

24 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe 25

ethnic groups such as Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Jews, or Germans. The

26 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe 27

WHO IS IN AND WHO IS OUT?

56 Stanisław Mackiewicz, Historja Polski od 11 listopada 1918 r. do 17 września 1939 r. (London:

28 Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921

1. Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe 14

2. How to Mobilize the Polish Nation 33

3. The Central European Civil War 59

4. Violence and Crimes Beyond the Battlefields 146

Archives Consulted 199