The ''Krajowcy'' (, ''Fellow Countrymen'' or ''Natives''; , ) were a group of mainly Polish-speaking intellectuals from the

Vilnius Region Vilnius Region is the territory in present-day Lithuania and Belarus that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time. The territory ...

who, at the beginning of the 20th century, opposed the division of the former

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

into

nation state A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the State (polity), state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly ...

s along ethnic and linguistic lines. The movement was a reaction against growing

nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...

in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. The attempted to maintain their dual self-identification as Polish–Lithuanian (''gente Lithuanus, natione Polonus'') rather than just Polish or Lithuanian. The were scattered and few in number and as a result failed to organize a widescale social movement.

Views

The were mostly descendants of the nobles of the former

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

(

Lithuanian nobility The Lithuanian nobility () or ''szlachta'' of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (, ) was historically a legally privileged hereditary elite class in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth (including during period of foreign r ...

being part of the ''

szlachta The ''szlachta'' (; ; ) were the nobility, noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Depending on the definition, they were either a warrior "caste" or a social ...

''). They identified themselves with Polish culture but maintained a sense of loyalty to the old Grand Duchy. The consisted of two wings: the conservative-moderate wing, composed mostly of large landowners, and the democratic wing, formed from the Vilnius intelligentsia. The conservative wing was generally wary of social upheaval and thus supported authorities of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. They sought expansion of local self-government and cultural freedoms, but did not wish to separate Lithuania from the Russian Empire. The democratic wanted to neutralize ethnic strife and proposed the creation of a

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.Belarusian and

Lithuanian National Revival The Lithuanian National Revival, alternatively the Lithuanian National Awakening or Lithuanian nationalism (), was a period of the history of Lithuania in the 19th century, when a major part of Lithuanian-inhabited areas belonged to the Russian ...

s, but only to an extent—they opposed

s and anti-

Polonization Polonization or Polonisation ()In Polish historiography, particularly pre-WWII (e.g., L. Wasilewski. As noted in Смалянчук А. Ф. (Smalyanchuk 2001) Паміж краёвасцю і нацыянальнай ідэяй. Польскі ...

. They did not want to cut the cultural ties with Poland as they saw it as an integral part of Lithuanian and Belarusian history and heritage. The democratic either lukewarmly supported or opposed the Polish federalists who dreamed of resurrecting the Polish-led Commonwealth. These ideas were not adopted by the nationalists: the Lithuanians resented Polish culture and the Poles could not adopt regional traditions and loyalties.

Members

Bishop Antanas Baranauskas (1835–1902) held views similar to the early (although he was not one of them). Even though he wrote about "our dear nation" in the

Lithuanian language Lithuanian (, ) is an East Baltic languages, East Baltic language belonging to the Baltic languages, Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the language of Lithuanians and the official language of Lithuania as well as one of t ...

, he was against disintegration of the former Grand Duchy into ethnic entities: he was against both Lithuanian and Polish nationalism and hoped that the Lithuanian and Polish languages and cultures could co-exist and expand together. The conservative-traditionalist believed that the nobility was the natural leader of nations and wanted to preserve its privileged status. Their members included , Raman Skirmunt and Konstancja Skirmuntt. The democratic were led by Michał Pius Römer (1880–1946), Tadeusz Wróblewski (1858–1925) and Ludwik Abramowicz (1879–1939). After the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, and especially after the re-establishment of the Polish and

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n national states, members of the were hard-pressed to hold onto their dual self-identification and had to declare their loyalty to one country or the other. Most of them, like Mieczysław Jałowiecki, declared loyalty to Poland. Some, like Römer and Stanisław Narutowicz, chose Lithuania and became citizens there. Raman Skirmunt, an activist of the movement in Belarus, became one of the leaders of the

Belarusian Democratic Republic The Belarusian People's Republic (BNR; , ), also known as the Belarusian Democratic Republic, was a state proclaimed by the Council of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in its Second Constituent Charter on 9 March 1918 during World War I. The ...

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite book , last= Krapauskas , first= Virgil , title= Nationalism and Historiography: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Lithuanian Historicism , year= 2000 , publisher= Columbia University Press , location= New York , isbn= 0-88033-457-6 , pages=38, 95–96, 159 {{cite book, last=Kulakauskas , first=Antanas , year=2002 , chapter-url=http://mkp.emokykla.lt/gimtoji/index.php?id=916 , chapter=Lietuvių ir lenkų santykiai XX a. pradžioje , title=Gimtoji istorija: Nuo 7 iki 12 klasės , location=Vilnius , publisher=Elektroninės leidybos namai , isbn=9986-9216-9-4, language=lt {{cite journal , first=Jadvyga , last=Kulikauskienė , title=1940-2000 m. publikacijų apie Tado Vrublevskio gyvenimą ir veiklą apžvalga , journal=Lietuvos mokslų akademijos biblioteka , url=http://www.mab.lt/leidiniai/lmab2001-2002/39-50.pdf , page=43 , issn=1648-9772 , year=2001–2002 , language=lt , access-date=2010-12-18 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722151745/http://www.mab.lt/leidiniai/lmab2001-2002/39-50.pdf , archive-date=2011-07-22 , url-status=dead {{cite book , first=Olga , last=Mastianica , title= Bajorija lietuvių tautiniame projekte (XIX a. pabaiga – XX a. pradžia) , location= Vilnius , publisher= Lietuvos istorijos institutas , year= 2016 , isbn=978-609-8183-13-9 , language=lt , pages=140 {{cite book , first=John , last=Neubauer , author2=Włodzimierz Bolecki , title=History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries , editor=Marcel Cornis-Pope, John Neubauer , chapter=Two Regionalists of the Interwar Period: Józef Mackiewicz and Mária Berde , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YINYl4iv4ecC&pg=PA541 , page=541 , publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company , year=2010 , series=Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages , volume=4 , isbn=978-90-272-3458-2 {{cite book, first=Timothy , last=Snyder , author-link=Timothy D. Snyder , title=The reconstruction of nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xSpEynLxJ1MC&pg=PA55 , page=55 , publisher=Yale University Press , year=2004 , isbn=978-0-300-10586-5 {{cite book, last=Staliūnas , first=Darius , date=July 2005 , chapter-url=http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no7_ses/chapter14.pdf , chapter=From Ethnocentric to Civic History: Changes in Contemporary Lithuanian Historical Studies , title=Emerging Meso-Areas in the Former Socialist Countries: Histories Revived or Improvised? , editor=Kimitaka Matsuzato , publisher=Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University , series=Slavic Eurasian studies , volume=7 , page=325 , isbn= 978-4-938637-35-4 {{cite book, title=The lands of partitioned Poland, 1795-1918 , first=Piotr Stefan , last=Wandycz , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TVMmGKsbWJ4C&pg=PA349 , page=349 , volume=7 , series=A History of East Central Europe , publisher=University of Washington Press , year=1974 , isbn=978-0-295-95358-8 1900s in Lithuania 1900s in Belarus 1900s in Poland 1910s in Lithuania 1910s in Belarus 1910s in Poland Polish nationalism (1795–1918)

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See also

References