Page 94 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge

Greater Poland Messenger (Goniec Wielkopolski) put it as early as 1919, “Polish society in the

Russian partition did not manage to resist unfavorable eastern influences,” especially those that came

82
from Jews.
If these statements implied a rather damning assessment of Poles in the formerly Russian

territories of the east, in other instances Poznanians fostered a more paternalistic tone, offering their

assistance in efforts to bring about civilizational uplift among the Polish lud in Volhynia—and

bypassing their political enemies in the process. The Poznań branch of the Endecja-supporting

Society for the Welfare of the Eastern Borderlands (Towarzystwo Opieki nad Kresami or ToNK),

which collected book donations and sent them to their eastern compatriots, epitomized the

combination of patriotism and condescension that characterized more general attitudes toward kresy

Poles in the early 1920s. One photograph showed men and women, including the National

Democratic politician Jan Marweg, in front of eastward-bound boxes of books, each one emblazoned

with the national symbol of the Polish eagle (Figure 2.2). Coupled with the opulent interior of the

building, their elegant clothing—suits and ties for the men, hats and long coats for the women—

suggested that this was a philanthropic gesture by a prosperous and self-confident Poznań.

Articles in both the Poznanian and the Volhynian press similarly emphasized the benign

nature of the intra-Polish civilizing mission and the importance of (western) Polish intervention in

the foreign environment of the kresy. One such article, penned by Poznań’s school inspector Jan

Biliński, was published in the Endecja’s Poznań Courier (Kurjer Poznański) and subsequently

reprinted with an approving commentary in Volhynia’s right-wing weekly Volhynia Life in 1924.

Biliński’s piece relied on the idea that Poznań constituted a benevolent civilizational savior for a

backward, vulnerable, and overwhelmed Polish minority that had been nothing short of abandoned

by their compromised compatriots in Warsaw. If they were not soon exposed to Polish schools, he

82 Cited in ibid., 36-7.

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