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increasingly radical demographic politics, including the conversion of Orthodox peasants to Roman

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Catholicism.

If academics were instrumental in the process, conversion efforts on the ground involved a

whole host of local groups. National Democratic activists, participants in paramilitary societies,

branches of the Catholic Action movement (Akcja Katolicka), military settlers, members of the Petty

Nobles Union and the TRZW, teachers, and Roman Catholic clergymen were all instrumental,

85
depending on the precise locality. But it was KOP soldiers who often constituted the main
protagonists in schemes to “awaken” latent Polish identities, a task that was included in their official

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guidelines for community work in 1937. As they had done in the past, these men twinned lofty

narratives of historical return with material incentives for local people (which would allegedly raise

their living standards) in an attempt to stamp the border guard’s authority onto local communities.

In the village of Hrynki near the Polish-Soviet border in Krzemieniec county, which became

the site of Volhynia’s first mass conversion in December 1937, border guards attempted to “pacify”

Orthodox populations that were deemed hostile to the Polish state. They argued that local people had

used public KOP celebrations as an opportunity to smear excrement on the state crest, as well as on

portraits of President Mościcki, Edward Rydz-Śmigły (Piłsudski’s replacement as Commander-in-

Chief), and KOP leaders. While the issue was therefore one of disciplining populations who appeared

84 Letter from Jakub Hoffman to the Committee for the Affairs of the Petty Nobility in Eastern Poland (June 20,
1938), DARO 160/1/69/14; see also, KOL 18.12. 25.
85 Matwiejew, “Akcja ‘Rewindykacja’,” 690-691. In January 1938, for example, priest Duszak from Dubno urged
people, especially school-age youth, to help in the conversion campaign. “Miesięczne sprawozdanie sytuacyjne nr. 1
za m-c styczeń 1938r. z ruchu społ.-polit. i narodowościowego” (February 11, 1938), DARO 448/1/1/41od. For
more on the Roman Catholic Church’s attitudes towards various visions of Polishness, see Neal Pease, Rome’s Most
Faithful Daughter: The Catholic Church and Independent Poland, 1914-1939 (Athens: Ohio University Press,
2009). “Miesięczne sprawozdanie sytuacyjne nr. 6 za m-c czerwiec 1938r. z ruchu społ.-polit. i narodowościowego”
(July 9, 1938), DARO 448/1/1/205. “Miesięczne sprawozdanie sytuacyjne nr. 2 za m-c luty 1938r. z ruchu społ.-
polit. i narodowościowego,” (March 14, 1938), DARO 448/1/1/73-73od.
86 According to the guidelines, their task was not only to maintain national-state consciousness in local Poles and
spread Polish culture to the national minorities, but also to “reinstate national-state consciousness in the population
that was once Polish and lost its national consciousness only as a result of the partitions.” See “Wytyczne Pracy
Społecznej K.O.P.,” ASGwS 541/551B/1. For more on KOP’s attitudes towards Józewski’s policies in Volhynia,
see Snyder, Sketches, 159-160; Potocki, Polityka państwa polskiego, 153-4.

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