Polish question

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Book cover Sprawa polska w roku 1861. List z kraju (Listopad 1861). English: The Polish Question in 1861. Letter from the Homeland (November 1861) published in Polish by L. Martinet publishing, Paris[1]

The Polish question (

Piotr Wandycz writes, "What to the Poles was the Polish cause, to the outside world was the Polish question."[4]

History

After late-18th-century

Spring of Nations" in 1848–49,[9] and again after the unsuccessful January Uprising of 1863, in which Poles and Lithuanians rebelled against the Russian Empire, trying to restore their country's independence.[10] In the era of rising nationalism, the question of whether an independent Poland should be restored, and also what it meant to be a Pole, gained increasing notoriety.[10] In the decades that followed, the term became less used, as no new major uprisings occurred in Poland to draw the world's attention.[11][12] The issue was further assuaged by the fact that the three partitioning powers were common allies for over a century (cf. League of the Three Emperors), and their diplomacy successfully kept the issue suppressed so that no serious solution appeared in sight.[13] Out of the three partitioning powers, for Prussia the Polish question was one of fundamental importance, as Prussia's existence was connected to the Polish state being vanquished.[14]

The Polish question resurfaced with force during World War I, when the partitioning powers fought one another, leading them to attempts to court their respective Polish citizens.[12][15] In his memorandum of 20 January 1914, Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov proposed the restoration of an autonomous Kingdom of Poland with the Polish language used in schools and local administration, to which eastern Silesia, Western Galicia and eastern Poznan would be attached after the war,[16][17][18] and on 16 August 1914 he persuaded the Tsar that Russia should seek reintegration of a unified Polish state as one of its war aims.[19]

In 1916, Germany, with the

Congress Kingdom (or Vistula Land) as the only "Poland" that mattered.[26] Soon, however, the Russians followed the German move, and promised the Poles increased autonomy.[27] This offer was mentioned in the United States in Woodrow Wilson's "Peace Without Victory" speech of 1917.[28] The Polish question was temporarily solved with the restoration of Polish independence after World War I.[29]

The term became once again relevant before and during World War II. According to a conversation in August 1939 before the outbreak of World War II, published in the British War Blue Book, Hitler told British ambassador

Great Powers of the time, namely the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union.[32]

The term was also used later in the 20th century, in the 1980s during the

Soviet Bloc.[33]

See also

References

  1. ^ Sprawa polska w roku 1861: List z kraju. Listopad 1861. Columbia University, 18 Feb 2009. Retrieved August 3, 2013.
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0-313-30571-9
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-925340-1
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  4. ISBN 978-0-674-92685-1
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  5. ISBN 978-1-57181-164-6
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  6. ISBN 978-0-521-62132-8
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  7. ISBN 978-0-19-925340-1
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  8. ISBN 978-0-674-92685-1
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  9. ^ William Fiddian Reddaway (1971). The Cambridge History of Poland. CUP Archive. pp. 336–337. GGKEY:2G7C1LPZ3RN. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  10. ^
    ISBN 978-0-253-21771-4
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  11. ISBN 978-0-674-92685-1
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  12. ^ a b William Fiddian Reddaway (1971). The Cambridge History of Poland. CUP Archive. p. 481. GGKEY:2G7C1LPZ3RN. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  13. ISBN 978-0-19-925340-1
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  14. ^ Poland and the Poles Alexander Bruce Boswell Dodd, Mead, 1919pp. 78-9. Poland and the Poles
  15. ISBN 978-0-674-92685-1
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  16. ^ The History of Poland Since 1863, R. F. Leslie page 98
  17. ^ Companion to International History 1900-2001 – Page 126
  18. ^ Gordon Martel – 2008, Sazonov claimed the lower Niemen basin from Germany and eastern Galicia from Austria-Hungary. Poland would receive eastern Posen and southern Silesia from Germany and western Galicia from the Habsburg Empire.
  19. ^ Russia's International Relations in the Twentieth Century. Alastair Kocho-Williams, p. 18
  20. ^ Truth or conjecture?: German civilian war losses in the East, page 366 Stanisław Schimitzek Zachodnia Agencia Prasowa, 1966
  21. ^ To the Threshold of Power, 1922/33: Origins and Dynamics of the Fascist and Nationalist Socialist Dictatorships, page 151-152
  22. ^ Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands by Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz page 55 Indiana University Press 2013
  23. ^ Immanuel Geiss "Tzw. polski pas graniczny 1914-1918". Warszawa 1964
  24. ^ The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke By Timothy Snyder "On the annexations and ethnic cleansing, see Geiss, Der Polnische Grenzstreifen"
  25. ^ Absolute Destruction: Military Culture And The Practices Of War In Imperial Germany Isabel V. Hull page 233 Cornell University Press, 2005
  26. ISBN 978-0-674-92685-1
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  27. ISBN 978-0-313-30571-9
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  28. ISBN 978-0-674-92685-1
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  29. ^ William Fiddian Reddaway (1971). The Cambridge History of Poland. CUP Archive. p. 489. GGKEY:2G7C1LPZ3RN. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  30. ^ Gunther, John (1940). Inside Europe. New York: Harper & Brothers. pp. 1–2.
  31. ISBN 978-0-86516-627-1
    . Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  32. ISBN 978-0-674-92685-1
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  33. ISBN 978-0-271-04427-9
    . Retrieved 4 August 2013.

Further reading
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