Page 86 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge

Poland that existed further west also heightened unresolved intra-Polish tensions about who should

hold power in the post-imperial Volhynian countryside. For one, the fledgling state authorities

discovered that Polish military settlers did not always function as helpful allies and instead

prioritized their own interests and ways of life over the official policies of the state. While settlers

were technically allowed to own weapons, for instance, many did not adhere to the state’s rules that

their firearms needed to be deposited with the instructing officer for the military society to which

56
they belonged. Others claimed that the settlers were damaging Volhynia’s cultural and historical
landmarks, particularly those related to an older vision of native Polishness that was symbolized by

the landowning class and their manor houses. According to a report made by a representative of the

Society for the Protection of Historical Monuments in 1922, the lack of adequate housing in the

village of Zahajce, not far from the Polish-Soviet border in Krzemieniec county, was leading some

settler families to camp out in a local abandoned house that the report’s author described as “a typical

57
residence of Volhynian noblemen, erected with taste and grandeur.” What was particularly
shocking was that the everyday living conditions of the settlers and their families transformed the

noblemen’s environment into a place of squalor. “The interior succumbs almost completely to

destruction,” the report’s author lamented, “the windows are quickly bricked up, leaving only small

openings; in the rooms, stables are established and there is threshed grain on the floor. The rooms,

which are distinguished with beautiful finished mantelpieces and ceilings […], serve as storerooms

58
for farming utensils.” The intensity of military settlement and the encroachment of agricultural life

into the historically domestic sphere meant that many residences might suffer a similar fate, resulting

56 Confidential circular from the Volhynian Provincial Office (November 26, 1923), DARO 147/1/11/2.
57 “Pałac w Zahajcach: Sprawozdanie z delegacji odbytej w dniu 7.8.1922 z ramienia T-wa Opieki nad Zabytkami
Przeszłości” (Profesor Zygmunt Kamiński), CAW I/300/1/649/61.
58 Ibid., CAW I/300/1/649/61.

86