between confrontation and reconciliation. ukrainians and their
Transkrypt
between confrontation and reconciliation. ukrainians and their
5 Etnografia Polska vol. LII, 2008, book 1-2 PL ISSN 0071-1861 ZBIGNIEW JASIEWICZ Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań BETWEEN CONFRONTATION AND RECONCILIATION. UKRAINIANS AND THEIR CULTURE IN POLISH ETHNOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL LITERATURE TH IN THE 19 CENTURY AND AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY The aim of this article is to present the method of description of the Ukrainian culture and the attitude to this culture in the literature and period indicated in the title1. These descriptions and assessments were a special kind of cultural contact; they were created by representatives of the Polish culture who were in contact with the Ruthenian/Ukrainian culture and their subject-matter was the said culture, which is still connected with the Polish culture. The underlying reason for undertaking this topic is the importance of Polish-Ukrainian contacts for the future history and culture of both nations, both in the past and nowadays, and the significance of research papers regarding the Ukrainian culture for the development of Polish ethnology. One of the precursors of Polish ethnological research was, after all, Ignacy Lubicz-Czerwiński (1769-1834), the author of articles such as: Swactwa, wesela i urodziny u ludu ruskiego na Rusi Czerwonej (1805a) and Urodziny i zabawy u ludu na Rusi Czerwonej (1805b) from Nowy Pamiętnik Warszawski and the book Okolica zadniestrska między Stryjem a Łomnicą... (1811), which was appreciated by Ivan Franko (Pietraszek 1995: 41) and treated already in the interwar period as the first Polish ethnographical monograph (Fischer, no year: 1; idem 1928: 163). Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski made use of materials mainly from the Ukraine in his manifesto article O Słowiańszczyźnie przed chrześcijaństwem (1818). Another justification of the return to old literature and cultural reality presented in it is its extremely complex and dramatic character, which can become a reason to reconstruct methods of thinking and evaluation applied by 1 This text is an extended version of the paper presented at the conference “Communication and dialogue between cultures” organised by the Committee on Ethnological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Science (PAN) in co-operation with the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Będlewo, 13-15 June 2008. This article was prepared under the grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education no. 1 H01 H 033 29 “Beginnings of Polish ethnology and cultural anthropology”. 6 researchers in the past. New needs and opportunities to interpret materials collected and preserved in the past have arisen. Terms “confrontation” and “reconciliation” were used for the purpose of defining the attitude of Polish researchers and observers of Ukrainians and their culture. The adoption of the attitude of both confrontation and reconciliation has a serious impact on the method of perception and presentation of reality. The essence of confrontation is the juxtaposition and contrasting of distinct cultural characteristics and the method of argumentation that is aimed at presenting one’s own culture and its representatives as more valuable and entitled to dominate, whereas the essence of the reconciliationoriented attitude is understanding, empathy and readiness to undertake a dialogue recognising the other party’s subjectivity, to undo harm, co-exist and co-operate. The aforementioned attitudes are related to traits of persons representing them, which were also formed through contact with the surrounding reality. Terms “confrontation” and “reconciliation” and similar designations from the sphere of attitudes and actions that are peculiar to individual persons can also be applied to intercultural relations: “confrontation of cultures”, “intercultural dialogue”, “reconciliation of cultures”. In such cases they can be applied only metaphorically. Contact between Polish and Ruthenian cultures evolved from border contact between uniform and relatively closed territories to internal contact along with the expansion of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania 2 and the migration of the Polish population towards the East and the migration (of a different kind) of groups of the Ruthenian-Vlach population through mountainous areas towards the West. As a result of the inclusion of Ruthenians3 in political, social and economic institutions of the Polish state that were formed and dominated by Poles, contact turned into an internal one and the groups participating in it became hierarchised. In the class structure adopted in the Commonwealth, most Ruthenians found themselves in the class of serfs and became an object of exploitation. Apart from the Polonised Ruthenian nobility, only small groups of free Cossacks remained in south-eastern peripheries of the Commonwealth, playing a very important role in the history of this territory and the formation of the Ukrainian national ideology. The multidimensional predomination over the Ruthenian population determined the 2 In the 19th century the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania obviously did not exist, but the author uses this term within the meaning of its territory in the period before the partitions, i.e. from the 16th till the 18th century – editor’s note. 3 Apart from the name “Ukrainians”, the author uses a number of old names that were given in literature to Ukrainians: “Ruthenians”, “Little Russians (Malorosiyans)” and “Little Ruthenians (Malorusiyans)”. The first two of them, mainly Ukrainians and, to a smaller extent, Ruthenians, turned from ethnoregional ethnonyms into ethnonational ethnonyms in the course of nation-forming processes in the 19th century. Other names (Little Russians/Little Ruthenians), which were derived from the names coined in the Middle Ages (Little Rus’, Little Russia), were disseminated in the 17th century since the Treaty of Pereiaslav concluded by Bohdan Chmielnicki and meant at that time the lands inhabited by the Cossacks and annexed to Russia. They became common at the end of the 17th century as a result of the establishment of the Little Ruthenian governorate and prohibitions to use the names “Ukraine” and “Ukrainians” in the 19th century. They were used as names of inhabitants of administrative regions: Kiev, Chernihiv, Poltava and Kharkiv governorates, in a relatively ethnic sense. After the collapse of Tsarism, they were used rarely and only outside the Ukraine. In the article, depending on the context of time and place, the author uses these terms separately or jointly. One of the aims of this article is to present and interpret the methods of use of terms defining Ukrainians in the Polish literature of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. 7 confrontational character of the contact. It resulted in negative tensions, antagonisms and difficulties in communication between societies and cultures. Apart from extreme situations, elements of confrontation and of understanding and reconciliation usually occurred alternately. Moreover, in most cases they covered only particular cultural and social segments rather than cultural and social issues as a whole. What usually remained beyond the sphere of confrontation, was the language and rites; the participation of the nobility and peasants, including the Ukrainian nobility and Polish peasants, in confrontations was usually varied. The awareness of connections between the two cultures and the observation of the possibilities of living in both of them or moving from one to the other: Polonisation and Ruthenisation caused a sort of ambivalence in attitudes of Polish archivists and researchers of the Ruthenian/Ukrainian culture of the 19th century. They are aware of the distinctness of this culture towards the Polish culture, but, knowing about mutual borrowings, they do not create models of two opposite cultures of the East and the West on its basis, leaving this kind of role to the Russian culture (cf. Kutrzeba 1916). I try to treat authors of texts being analysed as information providers in field surveys. As in the case of field studies, I am aware of the diversity of their experiences, beliefs and aims. Moreover (as in the case of field studies, again), it is not always possible to define to what extent and degree these aims and opinions are shared by others. One significant difference between the use of literature from a relatively distant past and materials from the researcher’s own field works lies in the fact that the researcher has no possibility of observing and comparing gathered opinions with his own perception of the reality and the limited possibility of asking additional questions. I have already mentioned Lubicz-Czerwiński, who collected and interpreted information from the position of an internal observer and an inhabitant of the village and the region being described by him on the one hand and an external observer – a Pole, an educated man, an advocate and, at the same time, the owner of a village with serfs speaking a different language and professing a different Christian faith, on the other hand. He was a researcher who respected peasants and recognised their importance as informants – “a simple man still has the traits of a living historian who teaches who his father and grandfather were; what they experienced; or what customs they ordered their children to hold on to” (Lubicz-Czerwiński 1811: IV). He analysed the mentality, morality and general social life of the rural population, including customs and rites described by him. Adam Fischer claims that Lubicz-Czerwiński had omitted songs and legends, but praises him for having noted down “many folk superstitions that are often lost or distorted today” (Fischer, no year: 1; idem, 1928: 163). He was an author with broad horizons, although his style of writing was archaic. In the work Rys dziejów kultury i oświecenia narodu polskiego (1816), which was noticed by Joachim Lelewel (Pietraszek 1995: 43), he was probably the first person to use the term “culture” in the title of a work issued in Polish and define it. However, it was not “culture” within the meaning adopted by Johann Gittfried Herder as a characteristic feature of peoples, but “cultura animi” understood by Cicero as a cultivation and improvement of the spirit. In addition, Lubicz-Czerwiński compared the socio-economic and ethnic situation in Rus’ to the situation in South America and Central America. “[…] the fear of losing Ukrainian Peru and Mexico did not allow Cossacks to reach even anything similar to the noble freedom” (1816, part II: 39). Thus, he was also the first author who presented the situation in the lands of the old Commonwealth in colonial terms. He refers to the Greek 8 sources of the Ruthenian culture, but does not over-emphasise its exotic nature, although he discovers some relic elements of paganism within it – “[…] some kind of respect for fire is expressed, particularly over the Dniester” (1814: 54). He criticises the Uniate Church and the level of “the Ruthenian clergy”, which, in his opinion, favours superstitions, and notices the “inexorable hatred” of the people “towards the Roman rite” (1816, part II: 59). He condemns “Ukrainian landowners”, who “combining their prejudice and pride with greed, dared to spread all of their violence in abuses onto the once warlike Cossack people, and, therefore, this people has become a ruin not only of the landowner’s property, but the country itself” (1816, part II: 88). He treats Ruthenians mainly as a “simple people” representing the peasant class in the stratified society, although he is also aware of their ethnic separateness, which is emphasised, for instance, by the association of their origin with ancient Roxolani (1816, part I: 11). He states that he wrote Okolica zadnieprska… in order to “describe the state of the peasant, or the Ruthenian farmer […]” and in the latter part he writes, in accordance with the ideology of the Enlightenment: “[…] the only aim of this work is to obtain a good knowledge of the peasant and to learn where he needs improvement and by what means” (1811: II). In the book Rys Ukrainy zachodniej issued in Krzemieniec in 1810, Franciszek Ksawery Giżycki, who had a good knowledge of the Ukraine, emphasises strongly the distinctness of its inhabitants, referring to them no longer as Ruthenians and the “simple people”, unlike in Lubicz-Czerwiński’s work, but as Ukrainians and the people – nation. This book is a critical and largely supplemented translation of the work Podróż w Polsce by P. (probably the equivalent of “Mr.” – Z.J.) August Friedrich Ephraim Hammard, about which the author informs the reader in the preface, pointing out fragments added by himself4. The author is aware of the low popularity of the term “Ukraine”, which is “[...] not adopted from geographers and popularised by custom” (1810: 3) and encompasses, in the author’s opinion, as the Western Ukraine, poviats5 between Dnieper and Dniester rivers that once formed the Bratslav voivoideship and the southern part of the Kiev voivodeship. He creates a stereotype of Ukrainians, pointing out their positive traits: “Bravery is a trait of nations, and a Ukrainian takes pride in it” or “Wonderful beauty is the natural privilege of Ukrainian women” (ibid.: 10, 13). The negative traits attributed to them are explained as follows: “The faults that some writers ascribe to Ukrainians, such as drunkenness, idleness or greed, do not originate from their national character, but are connected with the organisation of their society and are, to some extent, common to societies carrying arms” (ibid.: 13). In order to reduce the Polish-Ukrainian antagonism, he does not repeat information about the massacre of Uman after Hammard’s text: “it seemed unnecessary to me to recall painful memories“ (ibid.: 2). He indicates connections between the Ukrainian culture and the East: “the Slavic-Greek architecture […] borrowed characteristics from the oriental architecture” (ibid.: 45). “The closer to the East, the more distinct Asiatic influences are” (ibid.: 8). “The male costume is akin to the Asiatic one” (ibid.: 13). In contrast to both of the aforementioned authors, Józef Sękowski from the Vilnius Region was a traveller, which put him in the position of an external observer. This outstanding co-founder of Russian oriental studies, who wrote under the pen name of 4 The basis of this book is the work Reise durch Oberschlesien zur Russisch Kayserlichen Armee nach der Ukraine und zum Feldmarschall Rumanzew Zadunajski by A.F.E. Hammard , vol. 1, Gotha 1787. 5 Polish administration units such as district or county – editor’s note. 9 Baron Brambeus and assumed an anti-Polish attitude, left an interesting journal Dziennik podróży z Wilna przez Odessę do Sztambułu, which was published in Dziennik Wileński in 1819. The book is written in a matter-of-fact, non-moralistic tone. The author analyses the state of the culture. Comparing Volhynia and Podolia to Lithuania, he states that “the significant civilisational difference that exists between Lithuania and Volhynia”, which manifests itself in the “apparent obscurity in Volhynia and Podolia”, is caused by an insufficient number of schools (1819: 584). He notices the oppression of peasants and the low position of the clergy of the “Russian Orthodox Church”. He presents in a relatively detailed manner the architecture and agriculture of inhabitants of Volhynia and Podolia. He points out the importance of natural conditions, the climate and the soil, which make the situation of Volhynian and Podolian peasants slightly better than in the case of Lithuanian peasants, and the “fertility of the soil luckily compensates for the fact that farming tools of inhabitants of Volhynia and Podolia are so poor that they cannot ensure the proper cultivation of the soil” (1819: 588). A year earlier, in 1818, the Ćwiczenia Naukowe journal published an article which was so important for the development of Romantic thought and literature and an increase of interest in Slavic studies: O Słowiańszczyźnie przed chrześcijaństwem by Dołęga-Chodakowski (Adam Czarnocki). The ideological message contained in this work eclipses the scientific achievements of this researcher, which go beyond the folklore and cover other fields of contemporary culture, such as economic trends, and primeval history. He wrote Słowiańszczyzna mainly on the basis of materials from the Ukraine. He carried on research work in Volhynia, Podolia and the Kiev Region from 1814 and in Galicia from 1818. His rich collection of songs, which had been kept in archives for a long time, was published in Kiev only in the second half of the 20th century (see: Dolenga-Hodakovs’kij 1974). He is treated like a pioneer of Ukrainian ethnography, and the results of his works are esteemed highly in Ukrainian science (Boltarovič 1976: 24 ff.). When staying in the Ukraine, Dołęga-Chodakowski managed to collect the folklore material that became an important part of the Ukrainian national culture in the future along with the language as its substance. However, the main object of his interest were “Slavic things” – a manuscript of part of the songs written down by him in the Ukraine received the title Śpiewy słowiańskie pod strzechą wiejską zebrane (after: Boltarovič 1976: 29). He was one of the creators of the idea of the cultural community of Slavic peoples, which was inspired, among others, by Johann Gottfried Herder and James Macpherson, and accused the nobility and the clergy of having destroyed the ancient Slavic culture. This idea became the basis of Slavophilism, which, on the one hand, validated the people as the social stratum and Slavic peoples, built the common ground and defended them against Germanisation and Turkisation and, on the other hand, was used in order to maintain conservative structures in the village and as a tool of the imperial policy of Russia – the most powerful Slavic state. Dołęga-Chodakowski was not only a collector of folklore elements, but also a valuable documentarian of field materials. He contributed to the development of the methodology of ethnographical and archaeological research. He prepared plans of his scientific trips and provided the collected materials with accurate records; carrying out research together with his future wife Konstancja Fleming, he was probably the first person to acknowledge the benefits from the participation of women in field works. He regarded Konstancja as his most active assistant in the collection of materials and stated 10 that she “is faster at dealing with countrywomen when it comes to the analysis of legends and ritual songs – she manages to overcome rural shyness that can be a serious obstacle to a male researcher, as I know from my own experience” (after: MalašAksamitova 1967: 132). Ukrainian materials delivered by correspondents of Dołęga-Chodakowski and kept in the Manuscript Department of the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg are a valuable source. In the letter of Z. Koropaczyński from Kiev dated 28 January 1815, we can read: “As regards local songs that I collected, they touch me more intensely with their tone than content […]. Their structure is awkward. They tell about old robberies by particular Cossacks, their cases and end, unhappy love, ill-matched or constrained marriages and sad incidents connected with them. In one of them, the awkward verse tells the story of cruelty and murder of a young countrywoman who did not succumb to Starost Kaniowski feeling a strong desire for her. In another song, the neat rhyme describes the violence used by Poles towards Little Russians conquered by them. Although all of these songs are rural, they are not dictated to me by villagers. Slavery and huge oppression make them silent now, at least when it comes to singing. In the past, when you travelled across these lands, you could hear roars and singing; today it seems to be the moaning of an oppressed person or the fearsome shout of an oppressor. Once beautiful, these villages in the Uman Region now seem to be very desolate. The huts are stripped and partly broken down, without a fence and with surrounding trunks the remnants of once beautiful orchards. Stopping by at different villages and finding accommodation most of the time in villagers’ houses, I listened to many complaints about their present fate”6. Apart from scepticism towards artistic values of lyrics of folk songs, the letter reflects the author’s understanding of Ukrainian peasants and sympathy for their situation. Dołęga-Chodakowski not only collected a few thousand Ukrainian songs himself, but also inspired Krystyn Lach-Szyrma to do the same thing; the latter published an article Dumki ze śpiewów ludu wiejskiego Czerwonej Rusi in Dziennik Wileński in 1818. A few years later in Lviv, Pątnik Narodowy published an anonymous article O pieśniach ludu polskiego i ruskiego (1827), which was attributed to Ludwik Piątkiewicz and played an important role in the development of the methodology of folklore research. This article is interesting in the context of our analysis not only because it distinguishes two “tribes” that “divide into two main branches with respect to language” (1827: 100, 97), but because it puts side by side songs of Polish and Ruthenian people, “in which creative movement manifests itself” (ibid.: 91). In 1833 Pieśni polskie i ruskie ludu galicyjskiego was published by Wacław from Olesko (Wacław Zaleski). Inspired by ideas of Johann Gottfried Herder and works of Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski, Adam Mickiewicz and Kazimierz Brodziński, he regards “vulgar songs” as an important source and basis of nationality. He also emphasises the Slavic character of the “vulgar poetry”. He separates Little Russia from Galicia and treats Ruthenian songs as “songs of our people”, “the Galician people”. However, he is aware of the distinctness of “national” Ruthenians, which also refers to the language. He notes the difficulties faced by the publisher of songs: how to write those Ruthenian songs taken from the lips of the people who does not have its own grammar and in whose language only one primer is printed in more than one dialect” (Zaleski 1833: 6 Russian National Library, St. Petersburg, fond 588, opis 4, ed. khran. 74, listok 2. 11 XII). He regrets that he cannot follow the example of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and his work on the grammar and dictionary of the Serbian language and do the same favour to the Ruthenian people (ibid.: XLIX). He ascertains the abundance of Ruthenian ritual and historic songs in contrast with the Polish folklore. He tries to find out the reasons of this situation. “Here peasants were even poorer and subjected to harder oppression, but they were left to themselves to a larger extent. The lesser nobility was not scattered across villages as much as in Poland […]. In estates of great landowners villagers were oppressed from a remote distance, but nobody interfered directly in their celebrations and rites […]. What may have also contributed to the preservation of their rites, was the fact that Masses and ceremonies are held in the national language” (ibid.: XL). In anticipation of charges that appeared later, anyway, and are mentioned by Fischer (no year: 1), he explains why he put Polish and Ruthenian songs together in his collection:”I mixed them, because in Galicia Polish and Ruthenian people are mixed, too. It did not seem necessary to me to separate them radically” (Zaleski 1833: XLII). However, noticing the stability of national features and the distinctness and values of Ruthenian culture, Zaleski does not see the possibility of their independent development. He wants Ruthenians to be included in the Polish culture. “whom should Ruthenians join? Or should we wish that Ruthenians had their own literature […]?” (ibid.: XLIIII). This aspect of the author’s view, which has the form of confrontation and assimilation, is cricitised by Ukrainian folklore experts. On the other hand, they are keenly interested in Zaleski as a researcher making an important contribution to the collection of materials and taking up problems of large importance for the folklore (Borodin 2005; 2007). An exceptional manner of description and evaluation of Ukrainians and their culture is presented in the 2-volume work Lud ukraiński by Antoni Marcinkowski, which was published under the name of Antoni Nowosielski in Vilnius in 1857. It was written mainly on the basis of materials from the Kiev Region. The author uses consistently the name “Ukraine” and “Ukrainians”, avoiding the name “Little Ruthenians” or “Little Russians” used by the tsarist administration and stresses his bond with “the Ukrainian people, who is best known to me and among whom I was born and grew up” (1857a: 9). By writing about himself: “We are Ukrainians ourselves […]” (1857b: 7), he expresses the attitude that can be called “nativity”; it was based on identification with the country and its inhabitants and was particularly strong in Lithuania. He fully acknowledges the subjectivity and autonomy of Ukrainians and their culture by defining Ukrainian not only as a “people” – the peasant class, but also a “nation” – an ethnic group with its own elite – the “Ukrainian nobility”, centre in Kiev and outstanding writers. Marcinkowski was also the first person in Polish literature who expressed a favourable opinion on Taras Shevchenko’s works (cf. Boltarovič 1976: 65). Indicating the role of Zaporizhia and Cossacks – “Zaporizhian knights” in the history of the Ukraine, he states: “Zaporizhia was a conglomerate of population, but this non-homogeneous mass was organised under the guidance of two ideas: Ruthenian nationality and Ruthenian Orthodox faith (Nowosielski 1857b: 181, 182); it is the only fragment where the author refers to connections between Ukrainians and Ruthenians. The work deals with a wide range of issues. The first volume bearing the subtitle Misteriozofia słowiańska discusses beliefs, whereas the second one presents folk literature, rites, folk medicine, costumes, dances and games. The aim of the work was to “give an accurate image of spirit, fantasy and, in a word, the entire moral character of the people that has emerged in our land 12 from the general traditional thread of humanity” (1857a: IX). Thus, it can be regarded as the first ethnographical monograph of Ukrainians, even though its scope is limited to the Kiev Region. Marcinkowski was familiar with contemporary and older literature. He refers to French, German, Russian, English and obviously Polish researchers. He appreciated and emphasised the role of ethnography. On title pages of both volumes he put the motto: “After fulfilling its material mission, ethnography will soon feel the need to rise to a moral mission…” from the work De l’influence des Moeurs sur les Lois et des Lois sur les Moeurs (issued in Paris in 1832) by Jaques Matter. Marcinkowski recognised its significant role in the reconstruction of the past – “In the 19th century, the science of ethnography became one of the most important supplementary skills to the universal history of man” (Nowosielski 1857a: 86). He also defined the directions of its works: “ethnography has divided the human race into big family groups, into grafts of one tree, showed a threat connecting peoples’ languages and laid out routes of wanderings of peoples from its eastern homeland. Feeling its unity at last, humanity finds out … that everything in it is tradition and that similarities in laws, myths, rites and symbols are not only matters of pure coincidence, as was thought in the previous century” (Nowosielski 1857a: 8-9). At the same time, Marcinkowski regarded the Bible as a source of knowledge about the history of humanity: about the original condition of man, the flood and the fall of humanity – “Bible tells us the history of creation and God’s law” (Nowosielski 1857a: 4). He attached great importance to the comparative method, but he used it without restraint. He compared beliefs and other elements of Ukrainian culture to cultures of ancient peoples: Hebrews, Egyptians, the Chinese, Greeks, Romans and mainly Hindus. He was an advocate of the concept of the Indo-European community and interpreted cultural similarity mainly in accordance with it. “I expect that nobody will impute compilations from Vedas, Puran etc. to the Ukrainian people” (ibid.: 7). Marcinkowski tried to find out traces of Ukrainian tales in Herodot’s and Lukian’s works and analysed their similarity to Indian tales and tales of other Slavic peoples. He also went beyond the Indo-European community and compared Ukrainian rites to those from other parts of the world, including rites of contemporary peoples. He explained Ukrainian words by means of words from other languages, most often Sanskrit. However, he was aware of the deceptiveness of such comparisons: “I know that similarities do not always prove anything; that etymology can sometimes lead to the strangest conclusions” (ibid.: 81). Such an extensive use of the comparative method was taken over by Marcinkowski from contemporary trends in science. Apart from cognitive aims, he wanted to achieve another important aim in this way. It was the introduction of the people being described to the general history of humanity created by ancient civilisations and societies, the formulation of a message about the closeness of its culture to cultures of other contemporary peoples, its ennoblement and building of the community ideology. In the second half of the 19th century, many Polish ethnological works devoted to, or taking account of Ruthenians and their culture were published. Here, I would like to note only works by Wincenty Pol, including Rzut oka na północne stoki Karpat (1851); Izydor Kopernicki, the most important work: O góralach ruskich w Galicji (1889), mainly Ukrainian/Ruthenian volumes by Oskar Kolberg: Pokucie (1882-1889); Chełmskie (1890) and Chełmskie. Suplement (2004); Przemyskie (1891); Wołyń (1907) and Wołyń. Suplement (2002) and basic volumes published after World War II: 13 Sanockie-Krośnieńskie (1972-1974); Ruś Karpacka (1970-1971) and Ruś Czerwona (1976-1979) as well as Góry i Pogórze (1968), which contained also materials concerning the culture of Lemkos. Together with the extension and deepening of interest in Ukrainian lands, the cultural exchange processes occurring there and groups being subject to these processes became the focus of attention, which confirmed the intensity of contacts. Among these groups there were “Masurians”, who were treated most often like peasants professing the Roman Catholic faith and speaking “Ruthenian” (cf. Dajczak 1906: 14). Research on Masurians was proposed as early as the middle of the 19th century by Antoni Józef Rolle (1857). He was also the first person who put a question about the meaning of that name. Is it a trace of Masurian settlement, does it indicate Polish ethnicity, or is it a method of differentiation between Catholic, Greek Catholic or Orthodox inhabitants of the village? Did it encompass only peasants, or did it include the poor nobility as well? Pavel Čubinskij, the head of the ethnographical and statistical expedition of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society to the West Rus’ Land (1869-1870), treated Masurians separately from Poles. On the basis of data from the governorate statistical committee collected in 1865, he stated that there were 5,103 Masurians in the Podolia Governorate who lived in 987 farms (Čubinskij 1872: 318). He characterised them as follows: Although these Masurians have never lost their language and Catholic religion, their language is apparently influenced by Little Ruthenians. They wear Little Ruthenian clothes and, although they have not forgotten some of their songs, they sing also Little Ruthenian ones. What is unique about them, is the fact that they carry children on their back, not on their hands, in a big thickly woven cloth called rjadno” (Čubinskij 1872: 317). The term “Masurians” covered the entire bundle of meanings: it defined mainly the social character of the group (consisting of peasants and a small group of the lesser nobility), its Roman Catholic denomination and Polish origin (including not only Masovia). The lack of identification with the nobility (Poles or “Lachy”, as it was called in eastern lands) determined the ethnic autonomy of the group. Such meaning of the name, which denoted mainly the social position of its carriers, has been recently confirmed by Edward Pietraszek (2007: 49 ff.). The permanence of the ethnonym and the mixed Polish-Ukrainian culture of this group is confirmed by the fact that they survived even after part of the group was deported from the Soviet Ukraine to Kazakhstan at the end of the 1930s (Jasiewicz 1992: 18). The adoption of Ruthenian culture by the Polish population is mentioned also by Fischer, who refers to the lesser nobility from Dolejów known from the work Zaściankowa szlachta polska w Dolejowie by Aleksander Saloni and describes it as extremely interesting, because “Ruthenian ritual forms” can be observed in its life (Fischer, no year: 1). The issue of a great number of mixed Polish-Ukrainian marriages, which were so important for cultural communication and exchange, was not elaborated. The said marriages were concluded in spite of the isolation existing in that respect, mainly in terms of social class and religion7. Relatively speaking, Polish-Ukrainian linguistic relations were discussed most thoroughly. As early as 1970 in Cracow the dictionary Słowniczek prowincjonalizmów podolskich, ułożony w Kamieńcu Podolskim was 7 An interesting testimony to the search for a spouse within one’s own social class and, at the same time, ethnic and religious group is a photograph taken in 1874, entitled “Carters-butlers of the Galician nobility looking for maids with a dowry in Podolia” (Sztandara 2006: 159). 14 published; prepared by Aleksander Kremer, it contained words in Polish adopted from Ukrainian and was partly reprinted in Čubinski’s work (1872: 260-270). The matters of increasing importance in the second half of the 19th century were ethnic issues, which were recorded and interpreted not only as objective features, such as language, religion, folklore or ethnonym, but also as subjective determinants of identity, such as the sense of community and formulated common aims and needs. Three main ethnonyms: Ruthenian, Little Ruthenian and Ukrainian were still used, but their mutual relations were not determined clearly. The relation of these terms to the name “Russians” was not specified clearly, either. In his book on ethnology O plemionach rodzaju ludzkiego, czyli krótkim rysie etnografii (1852), which was translated from French (most probably by Pol), Jean Julien d’Omalius d’Halloy wrote: “Russians are simply divided into Great Russians and Little Russians […]. Little Russians, that is Ruthenians, settle Kiev, Kharkiv, Chernikin, Poltava, Podolian and Volhynian governorates. In Galicia and northern Hungary we can see all villages inhabited by Ruthenians […]. Cossacks constitute a military caste rather than a nation” (1852: 34). In successive publications the adjective “Ukrainian” is used gradually more often for defining the nation and the language. Ksawery Branicki stated: “As regards Ruthenian, or Ukrainian, or how they also call it – Little Ruthenian […], it has been used in conversations since time immemorial, and in more recent years Shevchenko and others have given it a partly literary character. We do not doubt that this language, which is spoken by as many as 12,000,000 people in Russia and Austria, has a great future” (1879: 29-30). He forecasted the formation of five big nationalities among Slavs, including Ruthenians with a capital in Kiev (ibid.: 31). However, two separate ethnonyms were used for a long time: the term “Ruthenians” was used for the population in East Galicia in Austria-Hungary and the term “Little Ruthenians” was used for the population on the other side of the Zbrucz river within the borders of Russia (cf. Czyński 1909: 52, 73). Fischer used the term “Russians”. When publishing the work Rusini. Zarys etnografii Rusi (1928), he gave priority to this ethnonym. Within “Ruthenian ethnic groups” he distinguished, among others, “proper Ruthenians” and “Ukrainians” and located the latter in lands “from Słucza and the eastern border of the Podolian upland to the Don River” (1928: 9). In his letter to Dymitr K. Zelenin dated 1 March 1941, he explained the use of the name “Ruthenians” by him as follows: “Ruthenians mean the same as Ukrainians in the official Polish terminology” (Jasiewicz, Rieszetow 2003: 45). He used the term “Little Ruthenians” only sporadically, e.g. when he planned the publication of a volume under this title in the Etnografia słowiańska series. Other volumes planned in this series were to be devoted to Belarusians and Russians, so we can presume that the ethnonym “Little Ruthenians” was to include all groups that were later covered by the name “Ukrainians”. The term “Ruthenians” was ambiguous and was used for various reasons and purposes. It could mean submission to the existing language custom and the conviction of the diversity and cultural distinctness of Galicia; it did not have to be interpreted as an attempt at discrimination. This ethnonym was used, among others, by Bernard Kalicki, an advocate of the dialogue between Poles and Ruthenians and the federation of Slavic peoples. He protested against the division of Ruthenians into inhabitants of Galicia and lands annexed by Russia, writing: The large space […], which stretches from the Black Sea in the south to Vilnius in the north, is inhabited by the Ruthenian nation” (1871: 2). The 1840s were a period of the development of Ruthenian literature 15 and history as well as education. According to Kalicki, the eradication of national aspirations of Ruthenians created a “separate Ruthenian martyrology, which is one of the undisputable features of national autonomy” (1871: 3). Thus, it was necessary to abandon all attempts to Polonise Ruthenians as unrealistic and unethical, as “no traditions of historical borders justify the refusal to acknowledge the existence and the holiest rights of any nation” (ibid.: 13). He argued that “it is difficult to find anything more inappropriate, unjust and destructive than the negation of Rus’ and the statement that Ruthenian nationality is only fiction without any grounds” (ibid.: 1). The name “Ruthenians” was also used by Jan Herburt-Heybowicz, who wrote under the pen name of I8. Snitko, in his work Zarys pojęć o narodzie, which was underestimated in Polish science (Snitko 1901). On the example of Galicia, he built there a model of an ethnic situation in which “we come across two nationalities in the form of social strata situated one over another in a given country or in a province” (ibid.: 470). He indicated that such a situation results in rapprochement – not necessarily denationalisation, but creation of new national categories. However, as the author postulated, it requires voluntary resignation of the dominant group from acquired privileges and any forms of violence, consistent introduction of the rule of bilingualism, full inclusion of the hitherto subordinated group in public life and disregard of accusations of national treason (1901: 476). The retaining and use of the ethnonym “Ruthenians” was based on the attachment of the part of the people to this term; they use this name for self-identification, are convinced of their distinctness, have their own political and national aspirations and create their own institutions in countries inhabited by them as well as institutions on an international scale. On the other hand, however, this term was often used for the purpose of confrontation and reinforcement of hegemony, in the hope of the maintenance of the status of Ruthenians as an “ethnic mass” which will not make an effort to transform itself into a nation and, in the course of time, may become absorbed by the group that already has the status of a nation. The thwarting of national aspirations of Ruthenians and the re-Polonisation of Ruthenised Polish peasants was demanded, among others, by W. Dajczak (1906). He was aware of the harm that was done to Ruthenians by the Polish nobility, which regarded peasants as a “livestock” and the intelligentsia – Polish clerks, which “treated these peasants like dogs” (1906: 4, 22). He accused the nobility of the class egoism that separated it from peasants, made Polonisation difficult and led to the situation when “a nobleman will never speak to a peasant in any language other than Ruthenian, even if he is deeply convinced that this peasant is a Pole” (ibid.: 11). He also wrote that “the concept of the Ukraine – homeland has never existed among the people” and the term “Ukrainians” meant for him followers of the “Young Ruthenians” organisation, which was supported by part of the Polish youth (ibid.: 21, 20). Representatives of the National Democracy party in Galicia also used consistently the name “Ruthenian” at the beginning of the 20th century and later. Barbara Stoczewska associates this fact with their refusal to acknowledge Ruthenians’ right to national existence and their fears of aspirations of the Ruthenian population to the status of a nation (2000: 240). The terms “Ukraine” and “Ukrainian”, which originally stood for a particular land and its inhabitants, became the sign and name of the forming nation. They replaced the name “Little Rus’” and “Little Ruthenians” and, after crossing the Russian-Austrian 8 I. Snitko is the pen name created from the initial of the first name (Izabela) and the surname of the mother. 16 cordon, restricted the use of the names “Rus’” and “Ruthenians”. The term “Ukrainians” as an ethnonym appertaining to all Ruthenians accepting it and their national rights were written about by Leon Wasilewski (1911). It is also worth mentioning the opinion expressed by Jan Niecisław Baudouin de Courtenay in the dissertation Kilka ogólników o obiektywnej i subiektywnej odrębności Ukrainy pod względem językowym, plemiennym, narodowym i państwowym (1925), which was published in the publishing house of the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv. The excellent linguist wrote in a manner adopted also today that ethnic and national groups are separated on the basis of objective and subjective features. The author referred to the language and other elements of culture as objective features and to the sense of national unity and national consciousness as subjective features. He thought that “the entire group of objective features creates the concept of a tribe (today we would say: ethnic group – Z.J.), whereas the entire group of subjective features creates the concept of a nation (1925: 2). He confirmed the distinctness of the Ukrainian language and criticised earlier opinions of some Polish writers and scientists, including Wincenty Pol and Franciszek Duchiński, which defined the Ukrainian language as the “Ruthenian peasant language” or the “Polish language, but with Ruthenian endings” (Baudouin de Courtenay 1925: 2). He found national consciousness among people speaking this language, which helped him to recognise the “separate Ukrainian nation with all consequences arising from this recognition” (ibid.: 6). According to the author, the interchangeable use of adjectives such as “Little Ruthenian”, or “Ruthenian” in these times was related to the recent popularisation of the term “Ukrainian”. Baudouin de Courtenay was convinced that “even the most conscious Ukrainian patriot should not be offended by their use, unless, of course, a given name of a people or nation is used with a shade of ignorance or contempt in the user’s mind” (ibid.: 3). In states that came into being after the collapse of Austria, Prussia and Russia, such as Poland or Czechoslovakia, he noticed the practice of regarding the representatives of only one ruling nationality as the main hosts of the country. In his opinion, it was a faulty and destructive policy; he demanded that all inhabitants of the country have equal rights (ibid.: 15). Polish texts from the 19th century and the beginnings of the 20th century, which constituted a basis of this study, are obviously a choice which is far from being representative. However, they give an insight into the diversity of attitudes: apart from the attitude expressing empathy, sympathy, understanding and the will of dialogue and reconciliation, there was also the attitude of confrontation. The latter was expressed through social distance, attempts to maintain a privileged position distinguishing the landowner from the peasant; religious differences: Roman Catholic vs. Greek Catholic and Orthodox; ethnic distinctness: Pole-Ruthenian; the assessment of the cultural potential – determination of the possession or non-possession of higher culture; ascribing the status of a nation to one’s own group and refusal to acknowledge such status of Ruthenians/Ukrainians. Although we must agree with the opinion expressed by Daniel Beauvois on the basis of the analysis of memoirs of aristocrats and the wealthy Polish nobility from Eastern Borderlands, according to which Poles from Kresy9 put too little effort in building relationships with cultures in which their own culture was immersed, it is impossible to accept his arbitrarily formulated thesis regarding that reality: “The neighbourhood of cultures is not accompanied by any mutual penetration” (2000: 197, 204). Foundations for cultural exchange and communication were created 9 Polish Eastern Frontier lands – editor’s note. 17 by various ideologies and attitudes formed within them, including physiocracy, which regarded the improvement of the peasant’s situation as an important factor of economic growth, romantic fascination with the folk culture, including the Cossack culture, Slavophilism, the sense of relationship with the country and its ethnically varied population and, finally, the recognition of social and national rights of Ukrainians. Polish literary texts with ethnological and anthropological contents regarding the Ukraine, which are created on the basis of various ideological and scientific assumptions, are interesting and important not only for Polish researchers dealing with the development of the Polish culture and science, but also for Ukrainian scientists reconstructing the process of formation and development of the Ukrainian culture and nation. Translated by: LINGUA LAB, www.lingualab.pl, Grzegorz Fik 18 LITERATURE B a u d o u i n d e C o u r t e n a y J a n N. 1925, Kilka ogólników o obiektywnej i subiektywnej odrębności „Ukrainy” pod względem językowym, plemiennym, narodowym i państwowym, Sumptibus Societatis Scientiarum Sevèenkianea Ucrainensium, Leopolis. B e a u v o i s D a n i e l 2000, Oni i inni: pamiętnikarze polscy na kresach wschodnich w XX wieku, Przegląd Wschodni, t. 7, z. 1 (25), pp. 185.204. B o l t a r o v i è Z o r i a n a E. 1976, Ukraïna w doslidzennâh pol’s’kih etnografiv XIX st., Naukova Dumka, Kiïv. B o r o d ì n K s e n i â 2005, Vnesok Vaclava z Oles’ka u rozvitok slov’âns’kogo narodoznavstva, Problemi Slov’ânoznavstva, vip. 55, pp. 116-125. - 2007, Koncepcijni zasadi peredmovi do zbirnika „Pieśni polskie i ruskie ludu galicyjskiego” Vaclava z Oles’ka, Visnik L’vivskogo Universietu, ser. Filologičnâ, vip. 41, pp. 88-94. B r a n i c k i K s a w e r y 1879, Narodowości słowiańskie, Drukarnia Polska A. Reiff, Paryż. C z y ń s k i E d w a r d [Merczyng Henryk] 1909, Etnograficzno-statystyczny zarys liczebności i rozsiedlenia ludności polskiej, Drukarnia Piotra Laskauera, Warszawa. È u b i n s k i j P a v e l P. 1872, Polâki ûgo-zapadnago kraâ, [in:] Trudy étnografièeskostatistièeskoj ékspedicii v zapadno-russkij kraj. Materialy i izsl’dowaniâ sobr. P.P. Čubinskim, t. VII, Imperatorskaâ Tipografiâ, Sankt Peterburg, pp. 215-330. D a j c z a k W. [sic!] 1906, Lud polski na ziemiach czerwonoruskich, Wydawnictwo Tygodnika „Ojczyzna”, Lwów. D o l e n g a - H o d a k o v s. k i j Z o r i a n 1974, Ukraïns’ki narodni pìsni v zapisah Zoriana Dolengi-Hodakovs’kogo, Naukova Dumka, Kiïv. D o ł ę g a - C h o d a k o w s k i Z o r i a n 1818, O Słowiańszczyźnie przed chrześcijaństwem, Ćwiczenia Naukowe, t. 2, nr 5, pp. 3-27. F i s c h e r A d a m b. r., Etnografia województw południowowschodnich, typescript in Archiwum Naukowe PTL, sygn. nr 125. - 1928, Rusini. Zarys etnografii Rusi, Książnica Atlas, Lwów. G i ż y c k i F r a n c i s z e k K s a w e r y (X.G.) 1810, Rys Ukrainy Zachodniej, Krzemieniec. J a s i e w i c z Z b i g n i e w 1992, Polacy z Ukrainy w Kazachstanie. Etniczność a historia, Lud, t. 75, pp. 11.54. J a s i e w i c z Z b i g n i ew, A l e k s a n d e r M. R i e s z e t o w 2003, Korespondencja między Adamem Fischerem a Dymitrem Konstantynowiczem Zieleninem. From: Archiwum Naukowego PTL we Wrocławiu i Archiwum Rosyjskiej Akademii Nauk w Sankt Petersburgu, Etnografia Polska, t. 47, z. 1.2, pp. 31-47. K a l i c k i B e r n a r d 1871, Kwestia ruska, Księgarnia Gubrynowicza i Schmitta, Lwów. K o p e r n i c k i I z y d o r 1889, O góralach ruskich w Galicji, Drukarnia Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków. K o r o p a c z y ń s k i Z. [sic!] 1815, List do Z. Dołęgi-Chodakowskiego z 28 stycznia, Rosyjska Biblioteka Narodowa w Sankt Petersburgu, Oddział Rękopisów, fond 588, opis 4, jed, chran. 74, listok 2. 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S z t a n d a r a M a g d a l e n a 2006, Fotografia etnograficzna i „fotograficzność” etnografii II połowy XIX i I połowy XX wieku. Studium z historii myśli etnograficznej, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego, Opole. Wa s i l e w s k i L e o n 1911, Ukraina i sprawa ukraińska, Sp. Nakład „Książka”, Kraków. Z a l e s k i Wa c ł a w (Wacław z Oleska) 1833, Pieśni polskie i ruskie ludu galicyjskiego, F. Piller, Lwów. 20 ZBIGNIEW JASIEWICZ BETWEEN THE CONFRONTATION AND RECONCILIATION. UKRAINIANS AND THEIR CULTURE IN POLISH ETHNOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL LITERATURE TH IN THE 19 CENTURY AND AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY. Summary This article presents and discusses descriptions and assessments of Ukrainians, known before also as Ruthenians, Malorosiyans (Little Russians) or Malorusiyans (Little Ruthenians), and their culture, that were included in Polish ethnological and anthropological literature in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. Analysing the articles and books of that period, the author focuses not only on ethnographic details, but also tries to re-sketch what and how their authors were thinking and evaluating the Ukrainian people and culture. He presents the whole scope of attitudes towards Ukrainians – from the attitude of confrontation to attitudes aimed at understanding, cultural dialogue and reconciliation. The author is especially interested in the Polish-Ukrainian cultural exchange and Polish researchers’ attitudes to the process of building of Ukrainian nationality.. He analyses works and writings of people such as Ignacy Lubicz-Czerwiński, Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski, Franciszek Ksawery Giżycki, Józef Sękowski, Wacław Zaleski, Antoni Marcinkowski, Bernard Kalicki, Ksawery Branicki, Jan Herburt-Heybowicz, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and Adam Fischer. This article was written in the course of the author’s research on Polish works focusing on the Ukrainian culture and their contribution to Polish and Ukrainian ethnology and, in the general sense, their contribution to the culture of both nations and their mutual relations. Abstract translated by Jarosław Derlicki; Revised by Grzegorz Fik This project is financed by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education as part of the National Program for Development of Humanities, 2012-2014.