Page 227 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge
P. 227

the governor argued that many valuable historical monuments were being forgotten and announced

               his plans to publish a photographic “memory album” of the “ancient portraits” that hung on the walls


               of places of worship and manor houses (dwory). Since Józewski implored clergymen of all faiths to

               notify the journal if they were responsible for historical objects in their parishes, this mission was not

               narrowly Polish in an ethnic or religious sense. And yet it adhered to the idea that Volhynia’s culture


                                                                        61
               was inextricably bound up with that of the old Polish nobility.  Similarly, much of the content of the
               second yearbook relied on tying Volhynian history to the fate of the Polish-Lithuanian

               Commonwealth, with the editors explaining that they provided practical examples of how Ukrainians

                                                                         62
               and Poles “can live freely—loving one another—side by side.”  In the same issue, Jakub Hoffman

               and his wife Jadwiga wrote about the participation of Volhynians in the November Uprising of 1830

               and the Kościuszko Rising of 1794 respectively, both canonical events in a certain version of Polish

                                                                                                       63
               history that emphasized the heroic struggle for Polish-led freedom against imperial oppression.

               Again, inclusive narratives that promoted Poland’s commitment to democracy betrayed class and

               national hierarchies in which a certain version of Polishness remained dominant.




               ACCEPTABLE JEWISH FACES

               Poles and Ukrainians, Ukrainians and Poles. But what of the Jews who constituted ten per cent of the

               province’s population? When one British foreign official argued that Józewski wished “to create a


               Volhynian ‘Lokalpatriotismus,’ in which Poles and Ukrainians–Jews, too, for that matter–can share

                                                                          64
               alike,” he implied that Jews were something of an afterthought.  Regional publications certainly had
               far less to say about the practical ways in which Jews might be integrated into the vision of Volhynia,





               61  “Odezwa,” Rocznik Wołyński (1931), v-vi.
               62  “Od Wydawców,” Rocznik Wołyński (1931), iii.
               63  Jadwiga Hoffman, “Udział Wołynia w powstaniu Kościuszkowskim,” Rocznik Wołyński (1931), 67-87; Jakub
               Hoffman, “Wołyń w walce 1831,” Rocznik Wołyński (1931), 149-192.
               64  “Report by Mr Savery on a Tour of Volhynia” (1932), NAL FO 417/30/103.


                                                             227
   222   223   224   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232