Poles in Moldova
Languages | |
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Polish, Romanian, Russian | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Polish diaspora |
The history of Poles in Moldova has to be examined keeping in mind the traditional borderline along the
. While the regions on both sides of the river were socially and culturally interconnected, the distinct political histories of the two territories resulted in different patterns of Polish settlement there.History
Bessarabia
The beginnings of Polish influence in Bessarabia can be traced back to the 14th century with the founding of the
Catholic missionary activity from Poland
This connection to Poland was compounded by the attempts to bring Moldavia into the
The diocese came to fruition after Bogdan's son
However prince Laţcu favoring of Catholicism met grave opposition from the Orthodox clergy, while effective Latin converts were concentrated in the north of Moldavia, near Catholic neighbour kingdoms Poland and Hungary. Since 1372, when Andrzej was nominated
Polish influence
Despite thwarting the nascent Roman Catholic Church in Moldavia, Petru made maintaining a good relationship with
Bessarabia
At the same time, Moldavia was, in turn, to be forcibly divided, through the annexation of Moldovan territories by the Habsburg monarchy in 1774 (the northwestern part of Moldavia, renamed Bukovina), and by the Russian Empire in 1812 (the eastern half of Moldavia, renamed Bessarabia).
Several waves of political and economic migration brought Poles to start settling in Bessarabia beginning in the 18th century. These included fugitive serfs, the defeated forces of the dethroned Polish King
Over the 19th century, the Russian authorities encouraged the
Transnistria
There is a lack of clarity as to whether Transnistria was part of Kievan Rus' beginning in the 11th century, and if so, to what degree. After the disintegration of Kievan Rus' because of the Mongol Invasions, this area came under the rule of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 15th century as part of Podolia. Much of Transnistria remained a part of Bracław Voivodeship in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until the Second Partition of Poland in 1793.
In 1504 the Crimean Khanate conquered the southernmost portion of Transnistria south of the Iagorlîc/Jagorlyk river along with the rest of the Yedisan region which remained under the control of the Ottoman Empire until 1792. Thus the border between the two states was set on the Iagorlîc river, referred to as the Iahurlîc in Moldavian chronicles,[11] and in Polish source as Jahorlik or Jahorłyk[12]
Polish colonization
Because of the massive slave raids and invasions launched by the Crimean Khanate, much of the southern region of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was sparsely populated. To remedy this, the 16th and 17th centuries Polish kings, in particular Stephen Báthory and Sigismund III Vasa, sponsored large-scale Polish colonization of Podolia, which includes the territories of modern Transnistria. Polish magnates were given large tracts of sparsely settled lands, while Polish petty gentry managed the estates and served as soldiers. Serfs were enticed to move into these territories by a temporary 20 year exemption from serfdom. Although most serfs were from western Ukrainian lands, a significant number of Polish serfs from central Poland also settled these estates. The latter tended to assimilate into Ukrainian society and some of them even took part in the Cossack uprisings against the landlords. Polish magnates from Ukraine played a significant political and social role within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as did the native nobility in these areas which Polonized over time.
Polish rule at this time involved the expansion of
Incorporation into the Russian Empire
At the time of the
Under the Russian Empire, Polish society tended to stratify. The Polish magnates prospered under the Russian Empire, at the expense of the serfs and of the poorer Polish nobility whom they pushed from the land. The wealthy magnates tended to oppose the Polish insurrections, identified with their Russian landlord peers, and often moved to St. Petersburg. The Polish national movement in Ukrainian lands thus tended to be led by members of the middle and poorer gentry, who formed secret societies in places with large Polish populations.[13] As a result of an anti-Russian insurrection in 1830, the Polish middle and poorer nobility were stripped of their legal noble status by the Russian government, and Russification policies were enacted. These Polish nobles, legally reduced to the status of peasants, often assimilated into the Ukrainian language and culture.[14] Many of the poorer Polish nobles who became Ukrainianized in language, culture and political loyalty constituted an important element of the growing Ukrainian national movement.[14] In spite of the ongoing migration of Poles from central Poland into Ukrainian lands,[13] by the end of the nineteenth century only three percent of the total population of these territories reported that Polish was their first language.[14]
Under Soviet rule
After
The area that would become Transnistria was organized into the
Unification of Bessarabian and Transnistrian territories
On August 2, 1940, the Soviet Union established the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian SSR), which consisted of six counties of Bessarabia joined with the westernmost part of what had been the MASSR,[15] effectively dissolving it. From this point forward until the beginning of the Transnistria War in 1990 and the establishment of a breakaway state, the Polish Community in Moldova was under one polity.
After World War II until the collapse of the USSR
The number of Poles in all of the regions within the
Present
According to the
Some publications of Polonia activists and Polish diplomats mention numbers of up to 20,000 of Poles in Moldova, — numbers significantly exceeding that of self-identified Poles in the census. Some authors include in their estimates people of Polish descent, while others assume people of
As a consequence of the Russian and Soviet policies towards Polish culture, only a small percentage of Poles in Moldova today speak Polish.[17] For example, Petru Lucinschi, who served as the second President of Moldova carries a transcribed version of the Polish surname Łuczyński, but has never publicly identified with a Polish heritage. Some Transnistrian politicians such as former First Lady Nina Shtanski and Yevgeni Zubov are open about their Polish roots.[20]
On May 16–17, 1995 an international symposium was held about Poles in Moldova. Just before the conference a book Polacy w Mołdowie mówią o sobie
Polish organizations in Moldova
In the period of the
- Stowarzyszenie Polska Wiosna w Mołdawii[24]
- Polskie Towarzystwo Medyczne w Mołdawii - Polish Medical Association in Moldova [24]
- Związek Polaków w Mołdawii - Union of Poles in Moldova [24]
- Stowarzyszenie Polaków Gagauzji - Association of Poles in Gagauzia; over 200 members as of 2013 [24]
- Stowarzyszenie Kultury Polskiej "Jasna Góra" - "
- Stowarzyszenie "Liga Polskich Kobiet w Moldawii" "The League of Polish Women in Moldova"
See also
Notes
References
- ^ Marcin Kosienkowski, "Polska a Mołdawia i Naddniestrze"
- ISBN 83-913563-0-2.
- ^ "The Germans from Bessarabia". Ualberta.ca. Archived from the original on 26 September 2012. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
- ^ Charles Upson Clark (1927). "Bessarabia, Chapter VIII: Russia Organizes the Province". Depts.washington.edu. Dodd, Mead & Company. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
Today, the Bulgarians form one of the most solid elements in Southern Bessarabia, numbering (with the Gagauzes, i.e., Turkish-speaking Christians also from the Dobrudja) nearly 150,000. Colonization brought in numerous Great Russian peasants, and the Russian bureaucracy imported Russian office-holders and professional men; according to the Romanian estimate of 1920, there were about 75,000 (2.9%) Great Russians in the territory, and the Lipovans and Cossacks numbered 59,000 (2.2%); the Little Russians (Ukrainians) came to 254,000 (9.6%). That, plus about 10,000 Poles, brings the total number of Slavs to 545,000 in a population of 2,631,000, or about one-fifth.
- ^ Vasile Baican, "Human settlements in Moldavia represented on "the Russian map" between 1828–1829", Scientific Annals of "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iasi – Geography series
- ^ "Mennonite-Nogai Economic Relations, 1825–1860". Goshen.edu. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
- ^ "Moldova", The Jewish Virtual Library, American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, retrieved 15 July 2015
- ^ Ion Nistor, Istoria Bassarabiei, Cernăuți, 1921
- ^ (in German) Flavius Solomon, Die Republik Moldau und ihre Minderheiten (Länderlexikon), in: Ethnodoc-Datenbank für Minderheitenforschung in Südostosteuropa, p. 52
- ^ Ariel Scheib (23 July 1941). "Moldova". Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
- ^ Sava, p.5
- ^ [Geographical_Dictionary_of_the_Kingdom_of_Poland], 1880–1902, b.III p.372 http://dir.icm.edu.pl/pl/Slownik_geograficzny/Tom_III/372
- ^ a b c d e Poles in Ukraine. Entry: Encyclopedia of Ukraine, pp. 86-94 Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto Press
- ^ a b c d (2003). Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press
- ISBN 0-8179-9792-X.
- ^ a b "Narodziny czy odrodzenie? Polska tożsamość w Mołdawii", Jarosław Derlicki, Instytut Archeologii i Etnografii Polskiej Akademii Nauk, vol XLVII, 2003, no.1-2, pp. 171-184
- ^
- ^ (in Romanian, Russian, and English) 2004 Moldovan Census results (list of all available census documents in .xls and .doc format)
- ^ "2004 Transnistria Census info". Archived from the original on 2009-03-18. Retrieved 2013-06-25.
- ^ Kosienkowski, Marcin (2012-10-05). "POLSKA I NADDNIESTRZE: CZAS NA WSPÓŁPRACĘ?". New Eastern Europe. Archived from the original on 2020-07-26. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
- ISBN 83-86441-09-7
- Catholic University of Lublin
- ISBN 8386441135
- ^ a b c d Jutrzenka, vol. 5, 2013
- ^ Stowarzyszenie Kultury Polskiej "Jasna Góra" Archived 2013-07-03 at archive.today
External links
- Jutrzenka, a newsletter of Poles in Moldova (published since 1996; online since 2004)
- "The League of Polish Women in Moldova"