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stated that the Guard had not sufficiently publicized that the meeting was open to all nationalities and

proposed that it be reconvened once the entire population had been informed, the Guard instructor

argued that postponing the meeting would be “too great a waste of time,” since Ruthenians had been

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invited “as guests” only. Critically, the simultaneous inclusion of Ruthenians in the physical space
of the meeting and the marginalization that came from being cast in the role of “guests” emerged

from arguments about the superiority of democracy as a political system and Poland’s ability to

deliver it locally. After several Ruthenians added to the initial concern expressed at the Kowel

meeting, the head instructor dismissed their remarks. “When this was Russia, you were subjects,” he

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told them; in Poland, they were becoming citizens.

NATIONS, NON-NATIONS, PROTO-NATIONS

When Guard activists suggested that Ruthenians constituted younger brothers who needed to be

trained as modern citizens, their terminology betrayed assumptions about how national status

translated into political rights. After all, the term “Ruthenian,” which referred to a member of an

ethnic rather than a national group, was not politically neutral. Those on the Polish right had long

emphasized the non-national, or rather proto-national, characteristics of the very same populations

that Ukrainian nationalists claimed were Ukrainians. At Paris, Joachim Bartoszewicz had stated that

it was difficult to “untangle” (démêler) the true nationality of the Ruthenian peasant, while his fellow

National Democrat Stanisław Grabski declared to the Polish parliament in Warsaw that the

population in the east was “without a distinct national physiognomy” and thought of themselves only

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as “locals.” The fact that the Guard’s leaders, who fundamentally opposed the policies of the

76 Ibid., 102.
77 Ibid., 106-107.
78 “Mémoire sur les Frontières Nord et Sud-Est de la Pologne Restaurée,” AAN KNP 317/10; Sprawozdanie
stenograficzne z 24 posiedzenia Sejmu Ustawodawczego z dnia 3 kwietnia 1919 roku, 9 (XXIV).

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