Page 204 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge

In the summer of 1933, the head of Dubno county journeyed to the village of Kniahinin in a Buick

automobile. After making his way through the ubiquitous mud of the Volhynian countryside, he was

greeted by villagers who played the stirring tune of the Polish national anthem. This was not,

however, the only treat that lay in store. As the journalist who reported on the visit for Volhynia

recounted, the behavior of the younger generation indicated that they had begun to act in a civilized

way in their everyday lives. Most notably, Kniahinin’s children had come to understand that the

public park should be governed by “proper” behavior—as they played volleyball, they admonished

their more rambunctious friends with cries of “don’t push on the playing field.” 141 Here was the

model villager of whom Polish state officials had long dreamed.

By charting the ways in which a range of second-tier actors framed their civilizing mission in

the countryside, this chapter has explored how the new type of modern peasant was as much a

construct as a reality. We certainly know what he (or she) was supposed to do: adhere to the tenets of

modern hygiene, till the newly drained land effectively, wash and open the windows to their houses,

play by the rules on the playing field, and change their underwear on a slightly more frequent basis.

But a close reading of documents on specific civilizing sites in the countryside shows that the

Sanacja’s effort to create rational rural citizens threw up well-established dilemmas that got to the

very core of the state-citizen relationship: Could peasants in a nominal democracy that had been

founded on a rejection of empire be forced to work on the land? If Ruthenians continued to live in

slovenly conditions, was modeling civilized behavior really enough? And how could Poles promote

themselves as a civilizationally superior population while avoiding accusations that they constituted

imperial overlords? With narratives of optimism and frustration running alongside one another, none

of these questions were ever fully resolved.

141 “Na drogach wołyńskich,” Wołyń, August 6, 1933, 2-3.

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