Polish National Districts (called in Russian "полрайоны", ''polrajony'', an abbreviation for "польские национальные районы", "Polish national

raion A raion (also spelt rayon) is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet states. The term is used for both a type of subnational entity and a division of a city. The word is from the French (meaning 'honeycomb, department'), and is c ...

s") were national districts of the Soviet Union in the interbellum period providing national autonomy for Polish minorities in the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics of the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. They were created in an attempt to live up to the postulate of

Leninism Leninism (, ) is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary Vangu ...

about the rights of nations for

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

. Also, creation of these regions served one of purposes of the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

to export the revolution since after their defeat in the Polish-Soviet War, the Soviets did not give up their idea of creating a Soviet Republic in Poland. Polish National Districts were supposed to be the origin of future Soviet Poland.Jerzy Waszkiewicz, Polish autonomy in the Soviet ethnic policy system (in Polish)
They both were disbanded in mid-1930s and a significant part of their populations ("anti-Soviet and unreliable elements") was deported to

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

during the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

Origins

The possibility of granting autonomy to Polish-populated areas of the Soviet Union was discussed during the Polish-Soviet war by key persons involved in the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee. However, there were no plans to create whole districts; autonomy would be granted to separate villages. In 1925 it was decided that a district would be created in

Soviet Ukraine The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. Under the Soviet one-party m ...

, where, according to the 1926 survey, 476,435 Poles lived. This was 1.6% of the Ukrainian population, but in the

Zhitomir Oblast Zhytomyr Oblast (), also referred to as Zhytomyrshchyna (), is an oblast (province) in northwestern Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Zhytomyr. Its population is approximately History The oblast was created as par ...

, their number reached 10%. Among persons who supported the district were Soviet communists of Polish origin, such as Feliks Kon, Julian Marchlewski, Felix Dzerzhinsky and Tomasz Dąbal. Thus Marchlewszczyzna was created, and later Dzierżyńszczyzna.

Marchlewszczyzna

Marchlewszczyzna was a Polish National District of the

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

created as an experiment and as part of the Soviet Korenizatsia campaignYakubova, L.
Ethnic-based administrative territorial development in the Ukrainian SSR in 1924-1940 (НАЦІОНАЛЬНЕ АДМІНІСТРАТИВНО-ТЕРИТОРІАЛЬНЕ БУДІВНИЦТВО В УСРР/УРСР 1924–1940)
'. Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine. 2010 on 21 July 1925 in to the west of

Zhytomyr Zhytomyr ( ; see #Names, below for other names) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the Capital city, administrative center of Zhytomyr Oblast (Oblast, province), as well as the administrative center of the surrounding ...

on resolution of Little Presidium of the

All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee () was a representative body of the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets. It was the supreme legislative, administrative, executive controlling state power of Soviet Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR) between the sessi ...

. Its capital the town of Dovbysh, later in 1926, was renamed as Marchlewsk.Kabachiy, Roman.
Polish in Polissia
'.

The Ukrainian Week ''The Ukrainian Week'' (, ) is an illustrated weekly magazine and news outlet covering politics, economics and the arts and aimed at the socially engaged Ukrainian-language reader. It provides a range of analysis, opinion, interviews, feature p ...

. 29 May 2009Historical information of urban-type settlement Dovbysh of Baranivka Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast (ІСТОРИЧНА ДОВІДКА СМТ ДОВБИШ БАРАНІВСЬКОГО РАЙОНУ ЖИТОМИРСЬКОЇ ОБЛАСТІ)
Dovbysh community. 7 July 2018

Dzierżyńszczyzna

Dzierżyńszczyzna was a Polish National District (Дзержинский польский национальный район, Dzierzhynsky Polish national district) in

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

, near

Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...

and close to the Soviet-Polish border of the time. It was created on March 15, 1932, with its capital at Dzierżyńsk (formerly known as Kojdanava , so that initially it was established as "Kojdanovsky Polish national district")."ПОЛЬСКИЕ НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЕ АДМИНИСТРАТИВНО-ТЕРРИТОРИАЛЬНЫЕ ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ В БССР В 1930-е гг."
/ref> It was named after the

Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...

director Felix Dzerzhinsky. Similarly to Marchlewszczyzna, limited Polish autonomy in the area was a real fact, with Polish-language schools, libraries and institutions. At the same time, the inhabitants were subject to intensive communist propaganda. Religious life was suppressed, and the campaign of collectivization, carried out in mid-1930s, met resistance of local Polish peasants. Unlike Marchlewszczyzna, which was the real center of Polish cultural life in the Soviet Union, Dzierżyńszczyzna's influence was limited.

Disbanding

Polish districts were among those which resisted Soviet

collectivization Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...

and atheization. For political reasons, drastic measures were initially not applied in these areas. Eventually, Marchlewszczyzna was disbanded in 1935 at the onset of the

and most of the administration was executed. In the following years a significant part of population was deported to

and other remote areas of the Soviet Union. Dzierżyńszczyzna was disbanded in 1937. All Polish schools and libraries were closed, Tomasz Dąbal was executed in 1938. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, in both Polish and Soviet historiographies, the existence of the districts was omitted, perhaps because the authorities of both countries wanted to avoid uneasy questions about sudden rejection of the Leninist postulate of the rights of nations for

. The area of Marchlewszczyzna is still inhabited by the Polish minority, in the town of Dovbysh they make half of the population. There are also Poles in Dzierżyńszczyzna.

References

* Mikolaj Iwanow, Pierwszy naród ukarany. Polacy w Związku Radzieckim 1921-1939 (''The first nation to be punished: Poles in the USSR, 1921-1939''), Warsaw-Wroclaw. Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. 1991. * Nikołaj Iwanow, Zapomniane ludobójstwo. Polacy w państwie Stalina. „Operacja polska” 1937–1938, Znak Horyzont, Kraków 2014 {{Authority control Historical geography of Belarus Historical geography of Ukraine National districts of the Soviet Union 20th century in Ukraine 1930s in Belarus Ethnic Poles in the Soviet Union Second Polish Republic–Soviet Union relations

Origins

Marchlewszczyzna

Dzierżyńszczyzna

Disbanding

See also

References