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Territory Maimed by Russia has - Been Poland's Since Dawn'of history Uninterrupted Continuity of aThousand Years for ethnic considerations at the time is " But the historical argument in favclearly shown by two, significant facts: cus of Poland carries hardly any weight one of the first provinces she claimed with a great many observers to-day. In was the Polish part of Livonia, while their opinion the Polish Soviet dispute at the same time she agreed that eastshould be settled on ethnographic ern Galicia should go to Austria. grounds. Seeing ( but not understanding) the mixture of nationalities inEastern Territory. habiting eastern Poland, they favour The territory annexed by Russia in the surrender of that part to Russia, the three partitions had all been part apparently taking for granted Russia's PA(and from the 14th. century. It unfounded contention that the non.Pol- Iad f never belonged to Muscovite Great ish elements there belong to her. What `]Russia and had developed in such an they conveniently fail to take into entirely different direction that the consideration is the fact that nowhere J•krainian and White Russian people in Europe are ethnographic frontiers o hat region had much'more in coin By JOHN S. MIX, C.R,, in " The Catholic Leader." clearly delineated , and that at any mon with their Polish fellow citizens The territory which Russia claim 8 from Poland has been Poland's from point where two neighbouring counthan with the new conquerors and their the dawn of history,ruled by her,inhabited by a Polish majority,and intries meet there are always territories policy of artificial Russification. fluenced by Polish culture. Poland' s known history begins with the year In 1815, at the Congress of Vienna, a inhabited by a mixed population. Take, 988, when her Sing,Mieszko,and her people became Catholics. Within the fourth partition.of Poland took place , for an example, the Franco-German first few decades after that Poland increased her territory by uniting the frontier ( Alsace and Lorraine), or the with Czarist Russia acquiring more terSlavic groups from the Baltic Sea to the plains south of the Carpathians, and DanishJGerman frontier ( Schleswig ), ritory to the west,including the cenfrom the Elbe to the Bug Rivers . In 1024 Poland extended northerly to the Balkan peninsula ( Macedonia), the tral part with Warsaw. The south_ the Baltic from the Oder to the Vistula ;in the east it reached the Bug and Italian-Yugoslav frontier ( Fiume), the eastern part, eastern Galicia, still reAustrian-Italian frontier ( Tirol), or the mained under Austrian "protection." the territory where later ( 1240 ) was founded the city of Lwow; in the south is included Slovakia as far as the Danube and Bohemia,in the west Czechoslovakia German frontier ( SudeOn what does Russia base her claims tenland). it went to the Elbe. to Poland' s eastern territory? Rus7ndd Mixed Population. nationalists claim that all non -Po hy (The Kievan State), by the way, has In 1386 Queen Jadwiga of Poland Eastern Poland likewise has a mixed nationalities, especially Ukrainians never enjoyed political autonomy, and married Grand Duke Wladyslaw Jagipopulation. Since 1569 that part of White Russians, are members of the has frequently changed allegiance, beello of Lithuania. who together with all Poland has had to contend with two Russian nation and should therefore longing once to the Poles, then to the his subjects embraced the faith of his cultures: one influenced by the western belong to Russia. This is not true. Tatars, and again to the Poles, and finqueen consort and joined his lands to or Roman spirit, the other by the eastThese two nationalities have much ally to the Russians. hers. This union almost doubled Poern or Byzantine. But in spite of the more in common with the Poles than During the regime of Peter the Great, land's size. It included the lands differences, there were no problems of with the )?Muscovite Russians, - In fact, Russia became an empire with a strong north-east of Kovno and those directnationality in the past such as exist it is impossible for a Muscovite to un• military force, and soon afterwards iv south, including the Pripet regions. to-day, ( In 15-47 there was an at . derstand the language of a Ruthenian showed an ambition to play a leading tempt to unite the then federated Polor Ukrainian anv more easily than a The year 1569 saw final and permanpart in general European policies. ish Republic With the Russian CzarPole can, Besides, Moscow or " Great ent unification of Poland and LithuFrom then on it became one of Rus. dom. But the constitutional and culRussia." had no, connection with the ania. The Ukraine, Ruthenia, Podosia's main objectives to destroy the tural differences, as created by Ivan Polish part of these lands until it seizlia, and \roulvnia joined the Polish independence of Poland, for Poland the Terrible, were so profound that all ed them in 1793-95. The Ruthenian crown and the grand principality of stood in the way and hindered Rus• such schemes, whether suggested by peasants are nearly all farmers, tenaciLithuania and formed " one indissolsia's expansion and direct control with the Poles or the Rusisans, proved td ously attached to their land and to uble union," About this time Livthe powers beyond Poland. Russia's be entirely impracticable.) their co-operative societies . Neither onia and Latvia, seeking the advant• objective was realised with the parRussian nationalist nor communist ages of western culture, asked to be inUnder the Polish-Lithuania Union of titioning of Poland engineered by Catclaims to the western Ruthenians have corporated as provinces of the Polish 1569, under which the Ruthenians and herine the Great. anv real basis.Ukrainian national• commonwealth. Poland thus became Ukrainians also became united with Historical Argument. one of the largest countries in Europe, Poland, the principle of complete equal , ism before the•war was strongly anti• :1t the time of the first partition in Rusisan, `•\ ,containing 430,502 square miles. Mov ity of language was fully recognised. N72 Poland's area was 39 2, 664 square Wilno hnd Lwow Claims. ing east from the border between GerThe upper classes in Lithuania, who mile.;, Prior to the second partition Rusian claims to Wilno and Lwow, many and Poland, then approximateused the White Ruthenian language to in 1,93, Poland contained 200,772 two of the greatest centre(s'If Polish }v m it would be Sept, 1. 1939, Poland a far greater extent than Lithuanian square miles. Two years later all this culture, are non-existent on either 1isiii eluded all of East Prussia, and. proper, even adopted the Polish languterritory was taken from her by the torical or ethnographic grounds. Wilno along the Baltic, the present-dos} States age simply in consequence of the natuthird partition. From 1921 to 1939, was included in the territory taken by of Lithuania, Latvia. and the southern ral penetration of Polish culture and the period (luring which Poland again Russia in the partition of Poland: that part of Estonia. The eastern bounof social contacts with the Poles. enjoyed her autonomy and had fixed does not make it Russian. Neither dary toward 'Moscovy ( present-day In partitioning Poland, Russia took her boundaries, her area was about did Russia ever succeed in making Russia), was, in the north, a line just the eastern half of the country, where 1,-4).450 square miles. ,Wilno Russian, because the populationwest of Pskov; it then bent far to the most of the rural population had reThis historical sketch reveals an unbf that city remained predominantly east to include land beyond Smolensk, mained Ukrainian or White Ruthenian. interrupted continuity and a complete Polish even until 1939, when, among a the valley of the Dneiper and its tribuIn that same section, however, there identity between the country called Popopulation of 19 5.100 only 7,400 inhabitaries, as far as the west bank of the lived not only many Lithuanians who land 1,000 years ago and the Poland of tants were Russians, and they did( not Doniec. South of the Wnieper, the newer had anything in common with September 1, 1939. To be exact, we even speak Russian, on the other hand, Russia, but also and in a much larger land was Tatar. The Ukraine was should say that the Poland of 1939 was had iTever been under RuSsiandomina• number, roles, who for four centuries Polish down to the Black Sea. only half of her historical self, since tion, even in the course of the partiin 16S6 Poland ceded to Russia, be. had prompted the cultural develop• she had given up her rightful claim to tions of Poland, That city was under sides some border districts of White ment of that borderland of western pinch of her former territory to avert (Continued on Page 17.) civilisation. How little Russia cared Russia, the whole eastern part of the trouble with Russia in 1921. Ukraine, including Kiev. The Ukraine
Ukrainians and White Russia have More in Common with Poland Than Soviet
Religious & Cultural Considerations More Important than Ethnography
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