Page 182 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge

certain Michał Żukowski, was the prefect of primary schools in the town of Sarny and president of

the Christian-National Society of Teachers (Stowarzyszenie Chrześcijańsko-Narodowe

Nauczycielstwa). According to a letter that was sent by the local branch of the riflemen’s union to

Józewski, Żukowski was spreading a spirit of dissatisfaction among teachers, as well as anti-state

65
feelings among the population at large. Representatives of other local organizations similarly

complained about the priest, stating that he should be removed from his post because he was

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“harmful to the state and to Polish society in the kresy.” Żukowski’s case was not an isolated
occurrence. Two years later, the head of Kostopol county wrote to the Volhynian provincial office to

complain about the actions of another Polish Roman Catholic priest who was undermining the

authority of teachers, inciting people to smash teachers’ windows, and exhorting people from the

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pulpit to keep their children home from school (not without some success).

CIVILIZING SITES (I): THE SCHOOLHOUSE

By the early 1930s, a range of ideological, religious, and national groups, both Polish and non-Polish,

appeared to be further stoking the instability and volatility of the Volhynian village. It was against

this backdrop that various people who worked within state-supported organizations and institutions

promoted their diagnosis of—and treatment for—Volhynia’s rural problems. While their precise

approaches differed, each set of second-tier actors—whether elementary schoolteachers, health

workers, military settlers, border guards, scouts, or female activists—argued that the only way to

develop the Volhynian countryside and prevent harmful agitation lay in crafting a rural populace that

65 Letter from the county administration of the riflemen’s association in Sarny to the governor (March 21, 1932),
AAN UWW 56/7.
66 Letter from the Maritime and Colonial League branch in Sarny to the organization’s headquarters (March 24,
1932), AAN UWW 56/11.
67 Letter from the head of Kostopol county to the office of the provincial administration in Łuck (June 23, 1934),
AAN UWW 56/57; “ks. rz.-kat – Konstanty Turzański,” AAN UWW 56/75. Mędrzecki discusses these sources and
the role of local Roman Catholic clergymen in Mędrzecki, Inteligencja polska, 208-211.

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