Osadnik
Encyclopedia
Osadniks was the Polish loanword
used in Soviet Union
for veteran
s of the Polish Army that were given land in the Kresy
(current Western Belarus and western Ukraine
) territory ceded to Poland
by Polish-Soviet Riga Peace Treaty of 1921 (and occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939).
on August 7, 1920, the Premier of Poland, Wincenty Witos
, announced that after the war volunteers and soldiers who served on the front would have priority in purchase of state-owned land, while the soldiers to receive medals for bravery would receive land free of charge. The announcement was one of the means to repair the Polish morale, shaken after the retreat from the east. On December 17 the Sejm (Polish parliament) passed the Act on Nationalization of North-Eastern Powiats of the Republic and Act on Granting the Soldiers of the Polish Army with Land. Both of these acts allowed the demobilised soldiers to apply for land parcels. The acts of parliament applied for powiat
s of Grodno and Wołożyn of Białystok Voivodeship
, as well as 20 other powiats in the eastern voivodeships of Poland.
In the spring of 1921 the first groups of settlers arrived to Volyn newly-constructed settlements, which according to Polish historian Lidia Głowacka, were located in what formerly constituted the property of major landowners: Russian treasury
("kazyonnye zemli") and the tsar
's family, some secularised monasteries
or lands abandoned by the Russian nobility retreating from the area before the German arrival in 1915.
A typical plot of land had the area of under 20 hectare
s, though soldiers with a university diploma could in theory receive up to 45 hectares free of charge, to create the so-called exemplary farms. In reality however there were more applicants than free land and even the recipients of the Virtuti Militari
medal had to pay for their plots. Although the government promised help to the settlers, in fact most of them received little but the land itself. At times the regiments in which the soldiers served provided them with forage and demobilized horses. The cost of the land itself was to be repaid by the settlers five years after the start of the programme, with the yearly rent set at between 30 and 100 kilogrammes of rye per hectare.
Permanent economical difficulties of the newly reestablished state as well as strong opposition to the idea of creation of soldier settlements along the eastern border of Poland, made the action to be halted in 1923. The action was equally opposed by local major landowners and peasantry. The earlier feared that their own property might also be nationalised and distributed among the settlers, while the latter group was enraged by the fact that the redistributed land has often been rented to them by the previous owners, the deals made null and void by the Russian state's disappearance and the nationalisation. The tensions between the settlers and local population were further aggravated by the fact that only 4 percent of the newly-arrived settlers lived on their land, while the majority either rented their land to local farmers at a high price or abandoned their land altogether, a situation unacceptable to many inhabitants of the overpopulated and land hunger-stricken region.
By 1923, out of 99,153 applicants only 7,345 actually received the parcels. Out of hundreds of planned villages in the Volhynian Voivodeship only three have actually been created, with 51 inhabitants altogether. The pace of the action was equally slow in other parts of the area. Altogether the land granted to the demobilized soldiers amounted to 1,331.46 km². Out of 8732 plots of land allotted to demobilised soldiers only 5557 have actually been settled by January 1, 1923.
Although after the May Coup d'Etat of 1926 the action was restarted, it never gained significant momentum and came to a complete halt between 1929 and 1933. Altogether, the osadnik families received over 6000 km² of land. The government tried to revive the project once more after 1935, with little success. Because of the Great Depression
the prices of basic food products dropped and all the settler farms were in the red, with the average debt reaching 458 złoty per every hectare
of land (that is between 800 and 1700 modern Euro
, depending on conversion method).
Most of the military settlers were members of the Settlers' Union . The organization, founded as early as March 1922, promoted self-organization of osadnik communities, provided them with cheap credits, scholarships at various universities of agriculture and founded a number of schools.
and incorporation of Kresy into the Soviet Union, the term became one of the categories of crimes in a Soviet penal system. Initially branded as kulaks, from the very first days became a target of Soviet propaganda as enemies of the people. Their property was often taken by the new authorities in violation of Soviet law and there were numerous cases of government-inspired violence against the "osadniks". This led approximately 10 percent of the settlers to abandon their homes and escape through the so-called Border of Peace to German-held General Government
.
Since late 1939 osadniks were being deported en masse to Northern European Russia
, Ural
and Siberia
according to the Sovnarkom Decree about special settlement and labor engagement of "osadniks" deported from Western areas of USSR and BSSR
of December 29, 1939. It was broadened to include all formerly Polish citizens who purchased any land after 1918, be them real settlers from other parts of Poland or local peasants who bought land in neighbouring villages. Estimated 140,000 osadniks were deported on February 10, 1940, be them real or alleged osadniks. The majority of them (about 115,000) were of Polish nationality, also about 10,000 Ukrainians
, 11,000 Belarusians
, and about 2,000 others. In GULAG
paperwork, osadniks were in a separate category of deportees: "special settlers — 'osadniks' and 'foresters'". After that three more waves of Polish deportations were carried out, classified with different categories. The largest deported Polish population was in Arkhangelsk Oblast
; e.g., the whole Polish labor camps
existed in the Kotlas
area. High mortality of deported was reported; for example, by July 1, 1941 over 10,000 osadniks were officially reported dead. It is to be noted, that the original settlers formed a much smaller group than those who were labelled as osadniks by the Soviet authorities.
society
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
used in Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
for veteran
Veteran
A veteran is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."...
s of the Polish Army that were given land in the Kresy
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...
(current Western Belarus and western Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
) territory ceded to Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
by Polish-Soviet Riga Peace Treaty of 1921 (and occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939).
Colonization process
Shortly before the battle of WarsawBattle of Warsaw (1920)
The Battle of Warsaw sometimes referred to as the Miracle at the Vistula, was the decisive battle of the Polish–Soviet War. That war began soon after the end of World War I in 1918 and lasted until the Treaty of Riga resulted in the end of the hostilities between Poland and Russia in 1921.The...
on August 7, 1920, the Premier of Poland, Wincenty Witos
Wincenty Witos
Wincenty Witos was a prominent member of the Polish People's Party from 1895, and leader of its "Piast" faction from 1913. He was a member of parliament in the Galician Sejm from 1908–1914, and an envoy to Reichsrat in Vienna from 1911 to 1918...
, announced that after the war volunteers and soldiers who served on the front would have priority in purchase of state-owned land, while the soldiers to receive medals for bravery would receive land free of charge. The announcement was one of the means to repair the Polish morale, shaken after the retreat from the east. On December 17 the Sejm (Polish parliament) passed the Act on Nationalization of North-Eastern Powiats of the Republic and Act on Granting the Soldiers of the Polish Army with Land. Both of these acts allowed the demobilised soldiers to apply for land parcels. The acts of parliament applied for powiat
Powiat
A powiat is the second-level unit of local government and administration in Poland, equivalent to a county, district or prefecture in other countries. The term powiat is most often translated into English as "county", although other terms are also sometimes used...
s of Grodno and Wołożyn of Białystok Voivodeship
Białystok Voivodeship
Białystok Voivodeship can refer to:*Białystok Voivodeship *Białystok Voivodeship *Białystok Voivodeship...
, as well as 20 other powiats in the eastern voivodeships of Poland.
In the spring of 1921 the first groups of settlers arrived to Volyn newly-constructed settlements, which according to Polish historian Lidia Głowacka, were located in what formerly constituted the property of major landowners: Russian treasury
Government of Russia
The Government of the Russian Federation exercises executive power in the Russian Federation. The members of the government are the prime minister , the deputy prime ministers, and the federal ministers...
("kazyonnye zemli") and the tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
's family, some secularised monasteries
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
or lands abandoned by the Russian nobility retreating from the area before the German arrival in 1915.
A typical plot of land had the area of under 20 hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
s, though soldiers with a university diploma could in theory receive up to 45 hectares free of charge, to create the so-called exemplary farms. In reality however there were more applicants than free land and even the recipients of the Virtuti Militari
Virtuti Militari
The Order Wojenny Virtuti Militari is Poland's highest military decoration for heroism and courage in the face of the enemy at war...
medal had to pay for their plots. Although the government promised help to the settlers, in fact most of them received little but the land itself. At times the regiments in which the soldiers served provided them with forage and demobilized horses. The cost of the land itself was to be repaid by the settlers five years after the start of the programme, with the yearly rent set at between 30 and 100 kilogrammes of rye per hectare.
Permanent economical difficulties of the newly reestablished state as well as strong opposition to the idea of creation of soldier settlements along the eastern border of Poland, made the action to be halted in 1923. The action was equally opposed by local major landowners and peasantry. The earlier feared that their own property might also be nationalised and distributed among the settlers, while the latter group was enraged by the fact that the redistributed land has often been rented to them by the previous owners, the deals made null and void by the Russian state's disappearance and the nationalisation. The tensions between the settlers and local population were further aggravated by the fact that only 4 percent of the newly-arrived settlers lived on their land, while the majority either rented their land to local farmers at a high price or abandoned their land altogether, a situation unacceptable to many inhabitants of the overpopulated and land hunger-stricken region.
By 1923, out of 99,153 applicants only 7,345 actually received the parcels. Out of hundreds of planned villages in the Volhynian Voivodeship only three have actually been created, with 51 inhabitants altogether. The pace of the action was equally slow in other parts of the area. Altogether the land granted to the demobilized soldiers amounted to 1,331.46 km². Out of 8732 plots of land allotted to demobilised soldiers only 5557 have actually been settled by January 1, 1923.
Although after the May Coup d'Etat of 1926 the action was restarted, it never gained significant momentum and came to a complete halt between 1929 and 1933. Altogether, the osadnik families received over 6000 km² of land. The government tried to revive the project once more after 1935, with little success. Because of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
the prices of basic food products dropped and all the settler farms were in the red, with the average debt reaching 458 złoty per every hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
of land (that is between 800 and 1700 modern Euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
, depending on conversion method).
Most of the military settlers were members of the Settlers' Union . The organization, founded as early as March 1922, promoted self-organization of osadnik communities, provided them with cheap credits, scholarships at various universities of agriculture and founded a number of schools.
Soviet repression
After the 1939 Soviet invasion of PolandSoviet invasion of Poland
Soviet invasion of Poland can refer to:* the second phase of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 when Soviet armies marched on Warsaw, Poland* Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939 when Soviet Union allied with Nazi Germany attacked Second Polish Republic...
and incorporation of Kresy into the Soviet Union, the term became one of the categories of crimes in a Soviet penal system. Initially branded as kulaks, from the very first days became a target of Soviet propaganda as enemies of the people. Their property was often taken by the new authorities in violation of Soviet law and there were numerous cases of government-inspired violence against the "osadniks". This led approximately 10 percent of the settlers to abandon their homes and escape through the so-called Border of Peace to German-held General Government
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
.
Since late 1939 osadniks were being deported en masse to Northern European Russia
European Russia
European Russia refers to the western areas of Russia that lie within Europe, comprising roughly 3,960,000 square kilometres , larger in area than India, and spanning across 40% of Europe. Its eastern border is defined by the Ural Mountains and in the south it is defined by the border with...
, Ural
Ural (region)
Ural is a geographical region located around the Ural Mountains, between the East European and West Siberian plains. It extends approximately from north to south, from the Arctic Ocean to the bend of Ural River near Orsk city. The boundary between Europe and Asia runs along the eastern side of...
and Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
according to the Sovnarkom Decree about special settlement and labor engagement of "osadniks" deported from Western areas of USSR and BSSR
Byelorussian SSR
The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union. It was one of the four original founding members of the Soviet Union in 1922, together with the Ukrainian SSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...
of December 29, 1939. It was broadened to include all formerly Polish citizens who purchased any land after 1918, be them real settlers from other parts of Poland or local peasants who bought land in neighbouring villages. Estimated 140,000 osadniks were deported on February 10, 1940, be them real or alleged osadniks. The majority of them (about 115,000) were of Polish nationality, also about 10,000 Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, 11,000 Belarusians
Belarusians
Belarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...
, and about 2,000 others. In GULAG
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
paperwork, osadniks were in a separate category of deportees: "special settlers — 'osadniks' and 'foresters'". After that three more waves of Polish deportations were carried out, classified with different categories. The largest deported Polish population was in Arkhangelsk Oblast
Arkhangelsk Oblast
Arkhangelsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . It includes the Arctic archipelagos of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya, as well as the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea....
; e.g., the whole Polish labor camps
Labor camp
A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
existed in the Kotlas
Kotlas
Kotlas is a town in the southeast of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, situated at the confluence of the Northern Dvina and Vychegda Rivers. Administratively, it is incorporated as a town of oblast significance . It also serves as the administrative center of Kotlassky District, by which it is...
area. High mortality of deported was reported; for example, by July 1, 1941 over 10,000 osadniks were officially reported dead. It is to be noted, that the original settlers formed a much smaller group than those who were labelled as osadniks by the Soviet authorities.
See also
- Polish minority in the Soviet UnionPolish minority in the Soviet UnionThe Polish minority in the Soviet Union refers to people of Polish descent who resided in the Soviet Union before its dissolution, and might remain in post-Soviet, sovereign countries as their significant minorities.-1917–1920:...
- Polish population transfers (1944–1946)
External links
Society of Civilian and Military Settler Families of the Kresy Soviet repressions against Poles and citizens of Poland, by MemorialMemorial (society)
Memorial is an international historical and civil rights society that operates in a number of post-Soviet states. It focuses on recording and publicising the Soviet Union's totalitarian past, but also monitors human rights in post-Soviet states....
society