Page 111 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge

previously existed. Rapid institutional changes did not help the situation. From October 1920, the

border was under the control of the Polish Army, customs battalions arrived in August of the

following year, and a border guard (Straż Graniczna) was created in September 1923, only to be

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replaced by the state police in May 1924.
There were a number of reasons why those charged with enforcing law and order in the

borderlands struggled to fulfill their tasks. For one, police functionaries in Volhynia were generally

younger and could boast less professional experience and qualifications than their counterparts in

other areas of the country. A report from the town of Korzec stated that policemen were “mentally

backward” and “not very literate,” and even by 1925, Volhynia’s governor argued that the province’s

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policemen possessed lower levels of education than those in central Poland. Their lot was not
helped by the poor conditions in which they lived and worked. Volhynia’s state police officers

allegedly suffered from disproportionately high incidences of chest illnesses as a consequence of the

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overburdens of service, the generally unhealthy climate, and uncomfortable living conditions. Nor
were local populations keen to aid the police in their jobs. When they arrived, police officials

encountered people who had a long tradition of resisting, evading, or ignoring state authority and

who offered little promising raw material from which to shape a modern, law-abiding citizenry. In a

state with a monopoly on the production of alcohol, for instance, the illegal distillation of homemade

vodka—what one Polish report called “the greatest plague of Volhynia”—constituted a serious

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problem. When Polish officials wanted local populations to help them catch the culprits, they

discovered that peasants frequently sided with the “criminals,” prioritizing local networks and

29 Jerzy Prochwicz, “Polskie Formacje Graniczne na Wołyniu w latach 1921-1924,” in W dolinie Bugu, Styru i
Słuczy: Wołyń w najnowszej historii Polski, edited by Jarosław Rubacha (Piotrków Trybunalski, 2005), 97-115.
30 “Protokół spisany z przebiegu pierwszego perjodycznego zebrania Naczelników władz II instancji na obszarze
Województwa Wołyńskiego, odbytego w Wołyńskim Urzędzie Wojewódzkim w dniu 27 kwietnia 1925 roku,”
AAN MSW (Part 1) 69/3.
31 “Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne za II-gi kwartał 1924r.,” DARO 33/4/9/85.
32 “Krótki szkic walki skarbowych z przekroczeniami akcyzowemi i monopolowemi na Wołyniu,” AAN PRM (Part
4) 26/13/34.

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