Abstract
One of the curiosities of European history has been the ever-changing nature of Poland’s borders and its population. While the end of the First World War led to the rebirth of a Polish state following an absence of over a century, its borders had been set by a committee of victorious allies attempting to juggle Poland’s national self-determination, demands for access to natural resources and the sea as well as historical claims to regions which contained large non-Polish minorities, or even majorities.1 The result was a multi-ethnic state in which a two-thirds Polish majority attempted to ‘polonise’ the remainder, particularly those living in newly acquired Polish territory beyond the Curzon Line.2 Indeed, as the Poles had been subjected to aggressive Germanisation and russification during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries they were familiar with the techniques for colonisation which they themselves later employed to with the aim of creating their own nation-state.3
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Notes
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© 2014 Paul McNamara
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McNamara, P. (2014). Layered Colonialism: Colonisation and Sovietisation in Poland’s Recovered Territories. In: Healy, R., Lago, E.D. (eds) The Shadow of Colonialism on Europe’s Modern Past. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137450753_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137450753_13
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