Page 149 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge

three of them were missing that day suggested that these men were far from models of effective town

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administrators themselves.

For some commentators, the best explanation for local behavior—both Jewish and Polish—

was historical: as a consequence of Russian imperialism, local Polish-speaking populations had failed

to prove the civilizational superiority of Polishness. In order to correct Jewish backwardness, then,

state officials would need to correct Polish backwardness too, developing in the process something of

a nesting intra-Polish civilizing mission in which they were would encourage their eastern

compatriots to assert the rightful position of Polishness at the top of an imagined hierarchy. At a

meeting of the county heads in June 1929, the head of Dubno county, Adam Kański, certainly

endorsed such an approach, emphasizing the role that towns played in radiating culture to the

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surrounding populations. In the “second-rate” towns of Volhynia, he lamented, Jewish
backwardness could be corrected only once demoralized and apathetic local Poles, who had

regrettably become overly wrapped up in the demands of day-to-day life, began to take an interest in

the running of the towns. Moreover, the prevailing perception among Jews that Russian culture was

more developed than its Polish counterpart was reflected in the fact that Jewish theater used the

Russian, rather than the Polish, language. To make this point, Kański recounted a conversation that

he had had with “a certain older, intelligent Jew” who stated that local Jews were sympathetic to

Russian cultural output because it stood at a higher level than its Polish equivalent. In Kański’s

opinion, the sole method by which Poles could tear Jews away from the Russian culture to which

they had become attached was proving that the Polish state represented a superior civilizational force

that could bring benefits to all urban inhabitants. In doing so, he created the kind of space for Jews

within the Polish national project that was simply unimaginable in the vision of the Endeks.

42 “Z Rady Miejskiej,” Przegląd Wołyński, March 25, 1928, 5.
43 Adam Kański, “Rola miast i miasteczek, jako ośrodków kulturalnych na Wołyniu,” appendix to “Protokół zjazdu
Starostów Województwa Wołyńskiego, odbytego w dniach 3 i 4 czerwca 1929 r w gmachu Urzędu Wojewódzkiego
w Łucku,” AAN MSW (Part 1) 129/34-35.

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