Page 183 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge

was clean, literate, and rational. By creating sites of everyday life in which they would teach local

people how to become “civilized,” each group attempted to mark out their important role in the

state’s project. As they talked about remaking local populations, they were also fashioning

themselves as civilized, modern Poles.

The most obvious of these sites was the schoolhouse. As the example of the Roman Catholic

priests indicates, the schoolhouse constituted a key site of rural conflict, not only between different

national groups, but also between rival ideological visions of what it meant to be Polish. If those on

the right saw the answer to rural problems in increasing the authority of the Roman Catholic Church

and assimilating what they believed was Volhynia’s proto-national “Ruthenian” population, Sanacja

officials replaced Polonization policies with those of so-called civic-state education, which aimed to

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foster a citizen’s willingness to serve the state, regardless of his or her national affiliation. In
November 1926, a decree from the Ministry of Religion and Public Education, which was sent to the

education departments in the four formerly imperial Russian provinces, stated that schools were to be

organized “without frictions [and] discontent, for the benefit of all citizens, regardless of their

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religion, nationality, or heritage.” According to the decree, the brutal state-led imposition of

exterior characteristics of Polishness, as well as attempts to eradicate the native languages of non-

Polish populations, had led to feelings of hatred and hostility. While children were still required to

have a good grasp of the Polish language, as well as Poland’s history, geography, literature, and

political system, teachers and school inspectors were expected to acquire an “accurate knowledge of

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the local language.” The Minister of Education who served between 1931 and 1934 continued to

68 On the Endecja’s approach, see “Protokół obrad na zjeździe województ Ziem Wschodnich w dniu 19-20
Października 1925,” AAN MSW (Part 4) 10/39-40. On the other hand, the Sanacja approach drew on Piłsudski’s
idea that civic-state education (wychowanie obywatelsko-państwowe) would encourage cooperation between
national groups and lead to a collective defense against external and internal enemies. Janusz Tomiak, “Education of
the Non-Dominant Ethnic Groups in the Polish Republic, 1918-1939,” in Schooling, Educational Policy and Ethnic
Identity, ed. Janusz Tomiak (New York, 1991), 189.
69 Circular from the Ministry of Religion and Public Education (November 19, 1926), in Dziennik urzędowy
kuratorium okręgu szkolnego wołyńskiego 4, no. 1 (January 15, 1927): 2.
70 Ibid., 2.

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