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also grounding it in Volhynia’s diverse religious and secular traditions, which were embodied in

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Łuck’s Orthodox Christian Church of the Elevation of the Holy Cross and Ołyka’s town gates. This

emphasis on lasting architectural monuments to pre-partition Jewish history fit well with the

Sanacja’s instrumental use of the Commonwealth as a model of interethnic coexistence and colorful

diversity.

Embedded in descriptions of Jewish sites, however, was a dualism that had already become

central to the Sanacja’s approach toward the region’s Jews. In particular, the simultaneous criticism

of certain types of “Jewish” behavior and the valorization of Jewish historical culture was

demonstrated starkly in the contents and tone of the first guidebook to the province, Mieczysław

Orłowicz’s 1929 publication, An Illustrated Guide Around Volhynia. In keeping with a broader

regionalist emphasis on historical buildings, Orłowicz included Volhynia’s architecturally impressive

synagogues on the pages of the book, whether in the form of written descriptions or photographs.

Łuck’s Renaissance building was, Orłowicz noted, “one of the most beautiful in Poland,” while the

author also included images of several other synagogues, not least that of Luboml—described as “the

most valuable monument” of the town—and of Ostróg, a border town that had once been a center of

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Jewish learning (Figure 6.4). Since these synagogues were made of stone or brick, rather than the

wood that was seen as indicative of diasporic temporariness, they served as useful symbols for the

deep-rooted nature of Volhynian Jewry and its economic, social, and spiritual investment in the

wider community.

At the same time, however, Orłowicz also cautioned his readers about the ways in which

Jewish influences had damaged the aesthetics of Volhynia’s towns, thus echoing the kinds of

observations that Sanacja officials (as well as Russian imperial authorities and Polish right-wing anti-

Semites) made when they criticized urban spaces as unhygienic, poorly developed, and badly run.

68 Leonid Masłow, “Bożnica w Łucku,” Znicz, January 1935, 14-15.
69 Orłowicz, Ilustrowany przewodnik, 170 (Luboml); 270 (Ostróg).

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