1. Introduction
The motif of Belarusianness and Belarusians from the years 1939-1941 in Polish literary memoirs is usually an element of larger narratives concerning the first years of the Second World War and taking place in the north-eastern regions of the Second Commonwealth. In this literary genre (as well as in Polish historiography) this period is usually described as Soviet occupation (or the first Soviet occupation), the Soviet partition, or (in a less valorizing mode) the times of „the first Soviet.”
Among the literary memoirs which focus on those events, one might distinguish a group of memoirs and accounts created directly after 1941,1 as well as those which were written from a more distant time perspective. In the times of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL) they were usually published by emigrants2 or in the so called second circulation. Today, as the witnesses of those events pass away, the flow of new accounts and memories also dies. An extremely interesting social phenomenon was the intensified literary memoir creativity which took place after the changes of the political system in Poland. Its culminating point was the years 1989-1994.3
The fall of the communist system in Poland removed from the issues of the Soviet „presence” on the eastern lands of the Second Commonwealth in the years 1939-1941 the clause of a taboo subject, or, at most, one presented in an appropriately distorted way. The first years after 1989 revealed in people who survived the occupation a strong need to share their often deeply traumatic experiences and observations. It was caused by the desire to pass on the knowledge about the ways in which real, as opposed to those influenced by PRL propaganda, social relations were shaped between Polish people and the Soviets, and about the events manifesting the methods of introducing and the results of transplanting the Soviet political system into Polish society. In the official publishing circulation across the 1990s there appeared an abundant and varied body of remembrance literature, while memoir competitions met with great response. And, although, similarly to the earlier emigrant memoir literature, it is not devoid of clearly subjective and distorting opinions, it also contains balanced and fairly accurate presentations of the Soviet reality. Thanks to this and to the more and more widely conducted historical research, the first Soviet occupation presently becomes an important element of Poles’ historical awareness.
2. The picture’s components
The attitudes of Belarusian people towards Poles and the annexation of the eastern lands of the Second Commonwealth, and later towards the Soviet rule, revealed themselves in numerous situations dictated by the logic of the new social order. The picture of Belarusians and Belarusianness, most often present and best remembered in the memoirs of Polish people under analysis, may therefore be divided into four main elements. The picture is composed of the evaluation of Belarusian people’s behavior during the following phases: the Red Army invasion (including the definition of the Soviet „presence” in the occupied lands); the short period of „interregnum” between the Soviet army invasion and the collapse of Polish state institutions on the one hand and the congealing of the new authorities institutions on the other; and the Soviet rule and introduced reforms. The fourth component of the picture — established by the Polish people, not without satisfaction — is the change of Belarusian people’s attitude toward the Soviets as an effect of their rule and comparisons to the Polish rule.
3. The Red Army invasion
The outbreak of the Second World War, and especially the Soviet aggression on Poland on 17 September, 1939 gave the Belarusians living in the north-eastern regions of the Second Commonwealth the chance of implementing at least basic political, social and economic postulates, which were mostly ignored or contradictory to the raison d’état of the then Polish state. Belarusians, but also Ukrainians and Jews, had some expectations related to the Soviet army’s invasion. Each of these groups articulated them in its own way, but generally they were connected in the first place with the hope for improving the living and social conditions as compared to those they had in the Polish state. The situation of Belarusian people in those times was characterized by such factors as civilizational backwardness, poverty, illiteracy, overpopulation of villages, the hunger for soil, poor development of industry, and relatively low food sales prices. The blame for the low economic and social status was put to a large extent, if not completely, upon the prewar Polish state. It was believed to be the result of the existing policy, as well as the authorities’ negligence concerning essential reforms aiming at the development and improvement of living standards of the people from north-eastern lands. Practically, throughout the whole period of Poland’s twenty years of independence after World War I Polish authorities implemented in these regions the policy of Polonization, assuming that Belarusian people, with their poorly shaped national awareness, would be relatively easy to polonize. The policy manifested itself, among other things, in restricting the development and, as a consequence, liquidation of Belarusian educational system; attempts at subjugating the Eastern Orthodox Church to state authorities; restricting Belarusian movement within the Catholic Church; gradually introducing the Polish language into church liturgy, sermons and religious instruction; military settlement and not allowing Belarusians into administration offices and local governments. In such circumstances it was difficult to expect from Belarusians, or Jewish and Ukrainian people (all subjected to the same policy), acts of loyalty toward the Polish state in its moment of crisis and menace. The Red Army Invasion brought hopes for the improvement of living and social conditions, especially that the USSR was generally believed by Belarusian people to be the country realizing the principles of social justice and one in which workers and peasants had real involvement in ruling.4 This myth was not dispelled either by the experiences of the summer of 1915 (displacement of nearly 1, 5 million people, almost exclusively members of the Orthodox Church, from the lands east of Congress Poland and burning of whole villages before the German Army offensive5), or by the experiences of the several months rule between 1919 and 1920 (intensive exploitation of the region), or by the policy realized in BSSR in the 1930s (cleansing of the intelligentsia, arrests and deportations and forced collectivization).
In Polish people’s memoirs of the moment of the Soviet Army’s invasion there exists a rather explicit picture: Belarusians welcoming soldiers with flowers, triumphal gates, fruit, milk and candy, and later collaborating with Soviet Politruks and commissars in repressions against Poles and also joining in creating institutions of the new social order. There are only few memories which tell about attitudes of distrust or hostility on the part of Belarusians towards the Red Army and Soviet authorities.6 For Polish people it was obvious that the Soviets’ „presence” is an act of aggression, the occupation of their state. They did not believe, and generally did not succumb to the Soviet propaganda prompting that it is a „liberating march” aiming at protecting the fraternal Belarusian and Ukrainian people, or the working people of Belarus and Western Ukraine, oppressed and exploited by Polish capitalists and landowners. A similar opinion was sometimes attributed as common also to non-Polish people living on these lands.7 Nevertheless, in the public space, the Soviet propaganda implemented terminology concerning the liberation of Western Belarus and these two terms — „liberation” and „Western Belarus” — were permanently introduced as unquestionable in the Soviet interpretation of these events.
In reality, as historical research shows, the attitudes of Belarusians toward the Red Army entering Western Belarus in September 1939 and, late, toward the Soviet social order were more varied. The research shows that a small but noticeable fraction of Belarusian people did support the Polish state. It was mainly civil servants, or soldiers or non-commissioned officers of the Polish Army; namely persons who, before the war, were related to Polish state institutions or exposed to anti-Bolshevik propaganda campaigns (Korpusu Ochrony Pogranicza [the Borderland Protection Corps], or — farther from the border — Polish patriotic organizations). Many representatives of Polish intelligentsia and gentry found help and shelter among Belarusians. On the other hand, there were cases of military attacks of communist Belarusian and Jewish partisans against Polish troops, police, volunteers or estate inhabitants, which mainly occurred in the following regions: Volkovysk, Drohitchyn Poleski and in the Grodno region. However, those were sporadic cases of no massive character.8 Pro-Soviet attitudes toward the Red Army and Soviet authorities were adopted by the majority of Belarusian intelligentsia and activists of Belarusian national movement. However, some of them, even at the very beginning, did not believe in the good intentions and promises of the Soviet authorities and left Vilnius immediately after the invasion of the Soviet troops.9 Cases of so called „spontaneous welcome” of the Red Army happened closer to the Polish border. A more organized welcome usually took place in other regions, where the troops got either later or after spending a couple of days in a particular village. They usually followed a similar scenario, with a lot of elements of ceremony. They mainly took place in areas where structures of Communist Party of Western Belarus had existed before. It should be noted that in villages and towns communist groups were dominated by Jewish people, whereas in the country — by Belarusian people. Depending where such ceremonies were held, it was representatives of one or the other group mentioned above who were more conspicuous. It should be remembered, however, that in some cases participating in such ceremonies was either forced or practiced for some opportunistic purposes.10 However, „the overwhelming majority of Belarusians had a reserved and indifferent attitude toward the changes in the political situation. There were no cases of welcome committees being spontaneously set up to welcome the Soviet leaders with bread and salt. There were no cases either of sabotage activities being undertaken and the entering Soviet troops provoked common surprise rather than enthusiasm.”11
4. „Interregnum”
The events taking place over a period of a few days (and sometimes even longer), from the moment the Soviet troops entered the eastern lands of the Second as well as the collapse of the already existing state structures until the new authorities took over, resulted in developments that were quite interesting from the perspective of social relations existing in those areas. It turned out that the former political system was of very oppressive nature to many people there. The collapse of the old social order and legal norms led to the loosening of social discipline and gave rise to social dissatisfaction, the feeling of injustice or hopelessness. Some people used the period of „interregnum” to settle old private scores with someone and seek revenge. Sometimes it led to long-time scores being settled between particular groups of people. There were lots of attacks and assaults on civilians at that time, as well as arrests, robberies, beatings and murders. Examples include the reports from Brest: „[...] Groups began to form immediately — some of them to construct welcome gates and others to settle private scores”12; from a land estate from the area of Novogrodek: „There were people from the country coming by and jumping on the armchairs, satisfied that now they were allowed to do that, that their time has come”13 or from Novogrodek itself: „[...] some kind of jacquerie seems to be beginning, a strike of various groups coming to towns. They include peasants, often armed and dunk, rushing toward town, causing unrest and hunting for policemen, civil servants and military people. It was indeed shocking because it was only then that I realized that our social and minority relations were not as „idyllic” as I imagined them to be and that what I witnessed was an eruption of a force whose existence one was never aware of. [...] We knew that there were communists „out there” and people who wanted to weaken Poland and join the Soviets. We had heard it all, but that seemed very marginal. And here the terrible confrontation finally took place.”14
Such picture of the events dominates Polish memoirs. What they also bring to the foreground is the national background. Although, at the current stage of research it is difficult to show the course, scope and range of lynching in the lands of Western Belarus in September, 1939, it seems that the percent of Belarusian (the country) and Jewish (villages and towns) people participating in them is quite high, although it was only a fraction of the whole society. Some Ukrainians and Poles also sporadically participated in them. Many communists and Belarusian political, social and cultural activists released from prisons as well as ordinary individuals set up on their own Revolutionary Peasant Councils and then joined the structures of formally established People’s Militia and Workers’ Guard. These bodies, often without orders issued by poviat or voivodship Provisional Authorities, implemented solutions that followed the Soviet social order (e.g. partition of lands, confiscation or partition of property belonging to gentry or religious groups). Victims of such assaults and repressions included mainly persons considered by the Soviet system as „enemies of the people” or those connected to the structures of the Polish state. They included officers and soldiers of the Polish army, policemen, gentry, military settlers, clergy, more affluent peasants and burghers, manufacturers as well as their families. In the overwhelming majority of cases those groups included Polish people, but other nationalities were present too. The result of the „interregnum” was the impression that the conflict in the areas occupied by the Red Army after September 17 was of nationality and not class character, whereas in fact it was class that sparked the conflict, followed by nationality divisions. As Marek Wierzbicki explains, „poverty and social disadvantage of the majority of rural Belarusian communities and, on the other hand, the possibility of getting richer at the expense of richer neighbor [...] with the collapse of the Polish control system [coercion and indulgent attitude of the Soviet authorities] led to lots of people participating in robberies. The division line here was the degree of affluence [...]”15. Therefore, it was also rich Belarusian peasants who fell victim to those robberies.
The superiority of class divisions over national divisions in forming social relations in the areas occupied by the Soviets is also supported by the personnel policy conducted by the Soviets, where the superiority of national divisions over class divisions resulted in not employing persons related to pre-war administration. In obispolkoms, raispolkoms and selsoviets, as a result of the ruling of Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus (b) from October 17, 1939, which recommended employing „local” people in the administration, before the outbreak of the Russian-German war the total of 18060 persons was employed 10245 of which were Poles, 4451 were Belarusians, 3045 were Jewish people and were 329 Russians.16 It can then be stated that nationality, religion and social policy implemented by the Soviet authorities in the occupied territory was not different from the policy implemented in other parts of the Soviet Union. It was only subject to some changes depending on the specificity of the occupied lands and current political situation on the international arena.17
It also seems that most of the assaults was not as much spontaneous as inspired or even planned by groups of assaulters focused around communist leaders.18 The chance to settle personal scores and get richer at the expense of the assaults’ victims was treated as an encouragement and reward for participating in such activities. Therefore, in addition to declared communists and their supporters (it should be emphasized that this group included a lot of youth), the group included a lot of poor people or people from the margins of society, who, except those completely demoralized, wanted to „rehabilitate” themselves in the eyes of the new authorities and improve, relatively quickly and easily, their social status.
The area particularly exposed to lynching (some cases even included the death of the victims) was the Polesie region (except its eastern part) and poviats Grodno and Volkovysk.19 What is interesting, as was found out by Krzysztof Jasiewicz, in September and October 1939 more representatives of the Polish gentry died at the hands of Belarusians (62 persons) than at the hands of Ukrainians in western Ukraine (23 persons).20 The relation of country folks participating in lynching toward particular persons depended not only on the victims’ social and professional position, but also on the relations with the village.” Discussing such relations in the Novogrodek area, one of the authors concludes: „In places where the representatives of gentry were not able to establish good relations with the country and where they behaved in a brutal and unfair manner toward the peasants, shocking things would happen.”21 Of course, good relations between the gentry and the peasants were not always enough to prevent a robbery happening, one’s inviolability being violated or even someone being killed. This is confirmed by an example from the area of Grodno: „Not far from my brother-in-law’s property was a property managed by a woman. She was very good for everybody. She set up a school and a little hospital at her property. Her workers, farm hands and peasants from the area never suffered poverty. She would say to the peasant, ‘You’re going to defend me, because I have been good to you,’ and they responded, „yes, you’ve been good to us, but you better run away, ‘cause we’re gonna be crying but we’ll kill ya anyway.’”22
5. Under the Soviet rule
The period of the Soviet rule between 1939-1941 resulted in thorough and fast-developing reorganization of almost every element of the social order, whose goal was to introduce the rules of the communist state. This eradication of Polishness in almost all aspects of the social life is considered in memoirs of Polish inhabitants as a tragedy leaving people with a trauma not lesser that one after September, 1939, when the attitude of other nations toward the Polish nation became very clear. The Soviet rule changed completely the social stratification in those areas. The change consisted, particularly in the first months of the occupation, in lowering the social statutes of the existing elites, i.e. mainly Polish people, with, simultaneously, strengthening the status of the representatives of the lower levels of the social hierarchy — the poorest, peasants and workers. That concerned mainly the Belarusian and Jewish people and, to a smaller extent, the Polish people. „Belarusians began to raise their heads and occupy functions in offices [...]” — one can read in a memoir.23 Despite the fact that many Poles found it difficult to reconcile to the process, it provided them with many humorous cases, passed, by the word of mouth, from person to person, which helped them to preserve a sense of community and increase morale in that difficult period. And here is an example of such an anecdote: „The Russians did support those people [Belarusian people — AW] and, like Zorro, took away from the rich and gave to the poor. There were many funny situations related to it, because a peasant was given a mirror from a Holdava property. Since it was too big for his hut, he put it in a barn and when the cow saw its reflection in the mirror, it attacked it.”24
From summer 1940, with the changes of the international situation and the more and more realistic threat of a conflict with Nazi Germany, the process of depolonization was to some extent reduced in Western Belarus. The policy of the Soviet authorities toward Polish people was characterized by some degree of liberalization then — deportations were discontinued, the number of schools with Polish language was increased, Polish communist activists were admitted into Soviet Communist Party. The goal, however, remained the same, namely to sovietize the occupied territory. For Belarusian rural population, the Soviet policy, except the first period when Belarusian nationalist clichés were used to justify military aggression and win the support of Belarusian intelligentsia for the changes, was mainly of economic importance. People were much more interested in ways of dividing confiscated property, size of rations and quotas and eventual collectivization of the country than in ideological issues. Belarusianness was brought down to the status of regional folklore — like in the eastern part of BSSR. The Belarusian language in primary and half-secondary schools was replaced with Russian (in secondary and higher schools — educating teachers — Russian language dominated from the beginning). A similar process of departing from Belarusianness could also be observed with Belarusian civil servant personnel coming, to a larger and larger degree, from eastern Belarus. They were dominated by sovietized party activists often speaking better Russian than Belarusian.25
Initially there was a considerable improvement in the situation of rural population, mainly due to the fact that they no longer had to pay taxes and that prices of various products went down. Also, there was a higher demand for many products driven by soldiers stationed in the area as well as people coming from the east. After several months, however, the inefficiency and absurdity of the Soviet economy took over. Soviet authorities introduced a system of mandatory and „voluntary” supplies of agricultural produce (contingents) and mandatory work for the state (so called sharvaks). After stores ran out of stocks coming from confiscated supplies and with limited supplies from the USSR there were fewer and fewer products and more and more queues — one of the typical pictures related to the Soviet rule at that time. Having money, which was quite easy to get due to the fact that there was high demand for agricultural produce and various military investments, did not guarantee that one might be able to purchase some products for it.
What was particularly painful and disappointing for rural population (not only Belarusian one) was the voluntary in theory but in fact mandatory idea of agricultural collectivization. It meant losing one’s land for kolkhozes, which were badly organized and poorly managed, where cases of wasting property and theft were very common, which, in turn, led to the disappearance of work ethics. It turned out very quickly that the reality of the Soviet state was very remote from the visions presented by the propaganda and people’s difficult economic situation forced them to make comparisons with the pre-war period. The local people had more and more contacts with those coming from the east and the observations and conversations with those people made them develop an often shocking picture about the actual situation in the USSR (repressions, hunger, long sentences for stealing food, mandatory collectivization etc.).
6. Changes in the attitudes of the Belarusian
people toward the Soviet „presence”
Changes in political power brought long-expected changes in social relations, economic situation and helped to respect at least fundamental interests of Belarusian people. Whereas for the relatively scanty Belarusian intelligentsia the most important issue was their political postulates — unification of Belarusian territories, development of Belarusian education and making Belarusian the official language — for rural population it was social-economic postulates that were of utmost importance: they included parceling out the lands of Polish settlement and gentry and wider access to local power. The developments toward the end of 1940 included fighting kulaks, intensified collectivization, gradual turning Belarusian education into Russian-language education as well as eliminating religion from social life, arrests and deportations of groups defined as „enemies of the people” and several other activities (e.g. arrests and repressions of activists from Belarusian national and communist movement,26 but also various prohibitions on peasants’ activities27), all of which contributed to Belarusian people’s growing dissatisfaction with the Soviet rule. The disappointment of Belarusian peasants was most often expressed through their ostentatious demonstration of disappointment and critique of the Soviet rule, not delivering mandatory contingents of food and avoiding sharvark or at least „simulating” it.28
Those changes in the attitude of Belarusian people (but also Ukrainian and Jewish people) were not only noticed but also exposed in the memoirs of Polish people. It confirmed their fear of the new power and system and the injustice of all the harm done to them. It was also an important argument proving the groundlessness of the Soviet invasion and supporting the idea of restoring Polish statehood. The attitude of the Polish people toward Belarusians can be illustrated by the generally shared view that „the first Soviet occupation decommunized Belarusian people.”29 Recollecting that period one of the authors considers that view quite valid and mentions the following justification of that opinion: „There was a saying, in Belarusian, a year or so after the Soviets invaded the borderland: ‘Paliaki nas apliaciwali dwadcat’ hado[w], apliacit’ ni magli, a Sawiety w adin [h]o[d] apaliacili’, which in English means: ‘Poles were polonizing us for twenty years and were never successful, whereas the Soviets polonized us in one year.’ And so it was.”30 Another writer writes: „When the Bolsheviks came, there was singing — people were singing Belarusian songs but after the Belarusians went through all the things the new system brought, they were no longer that joyful. Then they deprived those kulaks of land and sent them to kolkhozes.”31 What is interesting, there are a lot of anecdotes related to the changes in Belarusian people’s attitudes toward Russians, for instance: „In Novogrodek they talked about a perhaps slightly crazy woman who turned up once in a loose, ragged skirt with a ring of sausage on her head. People ask her, ‘Have you gone nuts?’, and she says, ‘[E]ta panskoje jarmo’, which means: ‘This is the lord’s yoke’, namely the sausage, and pointing to the ragged skirt, she goes on to say: ‘a eto wasza swaboda’, „And this is your freedom.”32
Despite the developments discussed above, one cannot state that changes from a pro-Soviet to an anti-Soviet and, to some extent, pro-Polish attitude were numerous. As Eugeniusz Mironowicz writes, „the outcome of the Soviet rule in 1939-1941 in the Bialystok area met with different opinions of Belarusian people. These judgments depended on particular experiences of particular inhabitants, families and villages. The period was very short, which did not allow many representatives of Belarusian people to develop an unambiguous attitude toward this reality. [...] it was Russian rule, which was welcome as an opposition to the Polish rule, which was not accepted by Belarusian peasants. Of course those arriving included both „Soviets” and „godless people”, who were not in any way similar to the old Russian administration, but they were not treated as strangers either. They used language including unknown content, but, after all, it was Russian language. Besides, many representatives of the new rule did not have any lordly manners, many of them used swear words and behaved like local peasants.”33
7. Conclusion
The collective memory of Poles holds a pretty unambiguous picture of Belarusians from the times of the first Soviet occupation. It was only the attitudes of another nationality group among those living in the territories of the Second Commonwealth, namely the Jewish people, which were considered to be more negative. The picture is made up of: the positive attitude of Belarusian people toward the Red Army invading the territories, sometimes represented by enthusiastic celebrations, active participation in robberies, lynching and murders committed during the period of interregnum, supporting and establishing the Soviet rule, which was particularly oppressive toward the Poles, and, toward the end of the occupation, changing their attitude from pro-Soviet to anti-Soviet and partly pro-Polish. The Soviet policy toward particular nationality groups, whose result, especially in the beginning, was the deterioration of Polishness and increased importance of Belarusianness, resulted in different evaluations of the period by those two communities. When it turned out that the goal of this policy was to completely sovietize those areas, Belarusian people also began to demonstrate more negative attitudes toward the Soviet rule and the Soviet people. Nevertheless, the generalized negative picture of the total Belarusian population became one of the myths of the first Soviet occupation, becoming part of the old and modern historical memory of Poles. It became particularly strong when the Russian-German war broke out on June 22, 1941 and when the front began moving west. There were several cases then of Poles taking revenge on Belarusians (this included also Ukrainians and Jews), particularly on persons actively involved in anti-Polish activities in September, 1939.
The perception and evaluation of Belarusians’ behavior was also influenced by the fact that the two communities perceived each other in a completely different way, using different evaluation criteria. Belarusians perceived Poles mainly through economic and political relations. Without a strongly developed sense of national identity, Belarusian people were mainly focused on problems of everyday life and improving their everyday existence. That was the result of the community’s social structure. It was mainly of peasant character, with scanty intelligentsia and no middle class. In pre-war Poland it did feel dominated by political elites (administration, officers of the Polish Army), economic elites (gentry) and cultural elites (teachers), whose roots were mainly Polish. Poles, on the other hand, usually having a very strong sense of national identity, perceived Belarusians (through their actions) as representatives of another nationality group. They treated actions against themselves and Polish state institutions not in class but in nationality and culture categories. That led to their frequently very emotional attitude, based on the accusation of treason and destruction of Polishenss. Polish people and, particularly, its elites, met the invasion of the Soviet troops with straightforward hostility. Cases of a positive attitude of Polish people toward the Soviets were of exceptional character. If they happened, they were mainly represented by people from the lower strata of the society or those with clear communist views. The relations between Polish and Belarusian people are an example of social relations characterized by overlapping nationality divisions and class and social group division. The period of the first Soviet occupation from 1939 to 1941 contributed to the worsening of these relations and revealed an important discrepancy (and often contradiction) in a whole range of economic, social and political matters between Polish and Belarusian people.
Streszczenie
Artykuł porusza problematykę postaw Białorusinów wobec Sowietów i procesów sowietyzacji na ziemiach wschodnich II RP w latach 1939-1941, jakie zostały utrwalone w pamięci zbiorowej Polaków. Analiza dokonana została na podstawie materiału pamiętnikarskiego pochodzącego z lat 1989-1994, kiedy to daje się zaobserwować w Polsce istotny wzrost twórczości pamiętnikarskiej odnoszącej się do czasów okupacji sowieckiej.
W pamięci zbiorowej Polaków zachował się dość jednoznaczny obraz Białorusinów z czasów pierwszej okupacji sowieckiej. Na obraz ten składa się: pozytywne ustosunkowanie się ludności białoruskiej do wkraczającej Armii Czerwonej, niekiedy przejawiające się entuzjastycznymi celebrami, aktywne uczestnictwo w rabunkach, samosądach i morderstwach popełnianych w okresie „bezkrólewia”, popieraniem i współtworzeniem władzy sowieckiej, która była szczególnie opresyjna w stosunku do Polaków oraz, pod koniec okupacji, zmiana stosunku Białorusinów z prosowieckiego na antysowiecki i częściowo na propolski.
Na postrzeganie i ocenę zachowań ludności białoruskiej przez ludność polską w omawianym czasie i miejscu wpływały dwa zasadnicze czynniki: polityka sowiecka prowadzona wobec różnych grup narodowościowych, której wynikiem, zwłaszcza w początkowym okresie, było obniżenie statusu polskości i wzrost znaczenia białoruskości oraz odmienność wzajemnego postrzegania siebie przez obie zbiorowości, stosowania odmiennych kryteriów służących do oceny tych zachowań.
Relacje między ludnością białoruską i polską są tu ujęte jako przykład stosunków społecznych charakteryzujących się nakładaniem podziałów narodowościowych na podziały klasowo-warstwowe. Okres pierwszej okupacji sowieckiej z lat 1939-1941 przyczynił się w swoich skutkach do znacznego pogorszenia tych stosunków i ujawnił istotną rozbieżność (a często sprzeczność) całej gamy interesów natury ekonomicznej, społecznej i politycznej między ludnością polską i białoruską, zaś zgeneralizowany na całą ludność białoruską negatywny wizerunek stał się jednym z mitów z czasów pierwszej okupacji sowieckiej, funkcjonującym w dawnej i współczesnej świadomości historycznej Polaków.
Artur Wysocki, sociologist, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland
1 The largest collection of this type can be found at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, California (USA), which holds around 15,000 accounts coming from the survey conducted among the Poles who were victimized during the Soviet occupation between 1939 and1941 — soldiers of General Anders’ Polish Army from the Soviet Union and their families (the so called Bakiewicz Collection). At present the copies of this collection can be found at the Eastern Archive in Warsaw. The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, on the other hand, hold the accounts of the Polish Army officers who took part in the September Campaign in 1939 and found themselves in the Soviet occupation zone.
2 The following studies can offer examples: Moje zderzenie z bolszewikami we wrześniu 1939 roku, ed. K. Rowiński, Londyn 1986 or A. Mironowicz, Od Hajnówki do Pahlavi. Wspomnienia, Paryż 1986.
3 The institution holding the largest collection of this kind is Archiwum Wschodnie (subsequently referred to as AW), functioning at Fundacja Ośrodek Karta in Warsaw. The memoirs collected here are the result of the response of the authors to various memoir competitions announced between 1989 and 1994, for instance Wschodnie losy Polaków 1939-1946 (the competition was announced in 1989), Wschodnie piętno najnowszej historii Polski (1989), Kresy Wschodnie pod okupacjami 1939-45 (1991). During a research query in the archive (February-June 2006) I managed to select 1463 memoirs and relations about the Soviet occupation, ranging from a few to a few hundred pages. The memoirs from the collections of AW constitute the empirical base of the study. Original spelling forms were preserved in the study.
4 M. Wierzbicki, Polacy i Białorusini w zaborze sowieckim. Stosunki polsko-białoruskie na ziemiach północno-wschodnich II RP pod okupacją sowiecką 1939-1941, Warszawa 2007, p. 10.
5 E. Mironowicz, Białoruś, Warszawa 2007, p. 28-29.
6 H. Bułhak, Relacja, t.p., AW I/70, sheet 14. The author mentions that only „some part” of the Jewish and Belarusian population gave an enthusiastic welcome to the Soviet troops in Novogrodek.
7 A. Krechowiecki, Okupacja sowiecka we Lwowie w latach od wejścia Armii Czerwonej we wrześniu 1939 roku do wkroczenia wojsk niemieckich w czerwcu 1941 roku, t.p., AW II/1585, sheet 28. The author writes: „Uninvited — absolutely uninvited by anybody, not even invited by those who they came to liberate from the ‘lordly yoke’: Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians — arrivals from the east [...]”.
8 M. Wierzbicki, op. cit., p. 48-49.
9 M. Iwanow, Sprawa przynależności Wilna i problemy narodowościowe na Białorusi, [in:] Społeczeństwo białoruskie, litewskie i polskie na ziemiach północno-wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej w latach 1939-1941, eds. M. Giżejewska and T. Strzembosz, Warszawa 1995, pp. 85-92.
10 M. Wierzbicki, op. cit., p. 147-149.
11 E. Mironowicz, Białoruś..., p. 149.
12 S. Bręgosz, Wspomnienia emigracyjne, ms, AW II/1756/J, sheet 2.
13 J. Brzezak, Relacja, t.p., AW I/62, sheet 1.
14 H. Bułhak, op. cit., k. 15-16. And this is another example showing the course of events at that time in the area of Vilnius: „Even before the Russian military left, an angry mob seeking loot started coming from nearby villages, from the track, across the woods and fields. They cut their way to stables and pigsties using axes. They killed pigs and sheep with crowbars. They took out horses and harnessed them to hay carts full of loot. Raging women took out clothes from wardrobes and trunks, and grabbed all the bedclothes. They quarreled so much about feather quilts that feathers were coming out of torn quilts. People were screaming wildly, killed animals were squealing in pain, the chased chicken were making a lot of noise, there was a lot of commotion and tussle...” K. Sokołowska, Pożegnanie Kresów, t.p., AW II/1430/2K, sheet 16-17.
15 M. Wierzbicki, op. cit., p. 136.
16 E. Mironowicz, Białoruś..., p. 154.
17 W. Śleszyński, Okupacja sowiecka na Białostocczyźnie 1939-1941. Propaganda i indoktrynacja, Białystok 2001, pp. 259-272.
18 Such a thesis is put, among others, by Marek Wierzbicki who justifies it thoroughly referring, among others, to attackers’ social composition, models of actions, the attitude of Soviet authorities toward such acts of violence and, finally, to the role of communist organizations and USSR’s sabotage activities in the area of Poland before the war. See, M. Wierzbicki, op. cit., pp. 142-145, 220-243.
19 See, for instance: T. Borkowski, Relacja, t.p., AW I/1152, sheet 4. The author writes: „In Swislotcha all the intelligentsia was killed [...] In Brostovitsa Vielka and Mala land owners were killed. It was done by local Belarusians, inspired by Bolshevik agitation.” Another report presents the following: „The invasion of Bolsheviks. We lived in fear because one of the settlers was killed / it was settling some scores /. One could feel that indigenous Belarusians were looking forward to the coming of Russians”. T. Cesarski, Relacja, t.p., AW I/80, sheet 1.
20 K. Jasiewicz, Lista strat ziemiaństwa polskiego 1939-1956, Warszawa 1996, p. 26.
21 H. Bułhak, op. cit., k. 35. Another author writes about the village of Bobry in the Lida poviat (the Novogrodek region), recalling that local Orthodox Belarusians „were behaving very well when the Soviets were entering; the father would always help them and acted as a matchmaker during country weddings. The mother was a nurse before, offering medical advice to the people on various occasions” — the female author stresses that the father would only help when the Belarusians „asked in Polish” and they could speak Polish because there was a Polish school in the village.” M. Ficner-Szostak, Relacja, t.p., AW I/159, sheet 1.
22 E. Skinderowa, Wspomnienia, t.p., AW II/1422/2K, sheet 13.
23 T. Borkowski, Relacja, t.p., AW I/1152, sheet 4.
24 M. Ficner-Szostak, op. cit., sheet 6.
25 W. Śleszyński, op. cit., pp. 260-263.
26 Tadeusz Borkowski, in 1939 a teacher of Polish in Grodno, writes about it in the following way: „What was very characteristic for the Soviets was what they did with local communists. After the Soviets entered, local communists, mainly Belarusians, became dignitaries. After a month or so they were arrested and deported. In 1941 I met one of them, who was liberated by the Germans. He told me that they had told them blankly: ‘- You had done your work, but you were praising USSR for money. You do not believe in communism and that’s why you are going to go hunting white bear’. He was to be deported, but Germans liberated him. He was free, cursing Soviets openly and it seemed that he had finally understood. But after the Soviets returned, he „fell in love with them” and even got some clerk job.” T. Borkowski, op. cit., sheets 4-5.
27 Kazimiera Sokołowska, a landowner from the area of Vilnius, writes about the reactions of Belarusian people toward the (introduced) prohibition of lamenting: „The prohibition of lamenting issued for women was met with a lot of disfavor. They found it hard to imagine, because during their hard and hapless life, Belarusians need to make noise („halosic”) on every happy and sad occasion, either singing or crying. The wild, moving wailing, accompanied by chanting, helped to express one’s hidden pain of their soul and the growing sorrow of helplessness.” K. Sokołowska, op. cit., sheets 64-65.
28 E. Mironowicz, Białoruś..., p. 146-171; M. Wierzbicki, op. cit., pp. 359-378.
29 H. Bułhak, op. cit., sheets 26-27.
30 Ibidem, k. 29. Another version of this saying: „What Poles could not do with us for 20 years, the Bolsheviks did in a couple of months — we’re all Polacks now,” is attributed to one of the peasants from the Dzisnie region. See. M. Wierzbicki, op. cit., pp. 366-367. It is interesting that Polish anecdotes about the evolution of Ukrainians’ and Jewish people’s attitude toward the Soviet occupation have a similar structure and meaning. What connects them is the idea that after members of particular nationalities realized what the Soviet „paradise” actually looked like, they started to appreciate the reality of pre-war Poland. The Jewish (from the area of Lvov) version of the anecdote is quite direct: „One could not actually see the enthusiasm that the Soviet propaganda so emphasized later. Not everybody was welcoming the entering army with so much effusiveness. Maybe it was Ukrainians of a particular political orientation. It is well summed up by a Lvov anecdote. When the Soviets were entering our territory, the Jews are said to have been kissing the tanks. And now they would rather kiss their ass to make them go. But they don’t wanna go!” Z. Zieliński, Lwowskie okupacje, t.p., AW II/1501, sheet 12.
31 T. Cesarski, Relacja, t.p., AW I/80, sheet 1.
32 H. Bułhak, op. cit., sheet 29.
33 E. Mironowicz, Białorusini w Polsce 1944-1949, Warszawa 1993, p. 85.