Journeys into the Past - THE WORLD OF SYBIR

The shortest route to Poland? Repatriation of Polish citizens from the USSR in 1945–1946

Grzegorz Hryciuk: The Polish deportees who arrived from the USSR were condemned for decades to a kind of selective memory. These remained their personal trauma, which they could only share with their loved ones, who had experienced the same fate as them.

The dramatic fate of Zygmunt Sierakowski

Mariusz Kulik: Through his actions, Zygmunt Sierakowski put the good of the general public and his homeland above his own. His participation in the January Uprising shows the dramatic fate of many Poles serving in the Russian army at that time. Many of them abandoned promising careers and stability, choosing an uncertain future and, often, poverty.

Poles in Siberia in the Soviet reality of the 1920s and 1930s.

Sergiusz Leonczyk: After the end of the Polish-Bolshevik War, on 18 March 1921, a peace treaty between Poland, Russia and Ukraine was signed in Riga. Among the provisions of this treaty were points concerning the repatriation of the Polish population from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to independent Poland. This repatriation officially lasted from 1921 to June 1924, but the last repatriates arrived in Poland as late as 1925. Unfortunately, not everyone was able to exercise their right to repatriation to their historical homeland.

In memory of the wandering exiles of the Borderland. On the eightieth anniversary of the Repatriation Agreement

Wojciech Marciniak: Eighty years on from the end of the Second World War we ought to sustain the remembrance processes for our compatriots who arrived from the USSR as well as for those who aided them in enduring until the final chapter of their exiled-wanderings, also supporting them when resettling again in Poland.

Polish Siberiada: Geography, Myths, and Meaning

Karina Gaibulina: Although Poles did not initiate the colonial conquest of Siberia, the Caucasus or Central Asia, they nevertheless participated in the process of subjugating other nations and states.

Nobility of the Spirit – Julian Glaubicz Sabiński in Exile

Małgorzata Król: This honest Pole, an uncompromising convict, tried to remain free in conditions of enslavement, even though it may sound like a paradox. He remained independent despite his subjugation. Exhausted by the journey, ill, devastated by the news of his wife’s death and the orphanhood of his young children, he possessed extraordinary strength of spirit…

Subjugation of Communist Poland – first stage (July – December 1944)

Dariusz Węgrzyn: The Soviets’ crossing of the so-called Curzon Line marked a significant change in their repressive policy. Officially, on 22 July 1944, the Polish Committee of National Liberation, led by communists, was established. In accordance with Stalin’s wishes, a border treaty was signed in Moscow on 27 July, but the new authorities in Poland did not want to disclose this document to the public.

Poland, British Polonia and Bradford

Tim Smith: In the aftermath of the WWII over 160,000 Polish people displaced by the conflict made the difficult decision not to return to Poland and to live in Britain. Many of them were Sybiraks

Contesting Power in Women Gulag Memoirs: Larysa Heniush and Evgenia Ginzburg on Survival and Resistance

Tatsiana Astrouskaya: Why one story – Ginzburg’s – is widely remembered and celebrated, while the other – Heniush’s – remained nearly unknown for decades? Many individuals who had once supported or even helped construct the Soviet repressive system, but later suffered under it, have been recognized as its most prominent opponents. Meanwhile, many of others who consistently rejected the system and never participated in it have been largely forgotten.

Harbin – the Capital of Catholicism in Siberia. History of the functioning of the Catholic Structures and Parishes.

Left on the wrong side of the border

Viktoryia Kolchyna: In September 1939, the Polish city of Hrodno stayed exactly where it was. But by the end of the year, its people no longer lived in Poland. Overnight, they became Soviet – whether they understood what that meant or not.

Borovichi – Crime and Remembrance. Home Army Soldiers in NKVD-MVD Camp No. 270

Almost exactly 80 years after the deportation of Polish soldiers, in the early morning hours of December 8, 2024, local residents discovered that the memorial complex dedicated to the victims of Camp No. 270 in Jogola had been vandalized and desecrated.

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