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
Dmitriy Panto Harbin, a city located in north-eastern China, was founded in 1898 by Polish engineer Adam Szydłowski. He was also its first mayor. The city was established during the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway and became a place where people of many...
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.
Through the Lens of a Camera: The 1863 Uprising in Collodion Photography
Andrzej Górski, photographer, set out in the footsteps of the January Uprising. He photographed using a 19th century photographic technique – the so-called wet collodion.
From the Eastern Borderlands to Siberia. Voluntary resettlement of peasants at the turn of the 20th century.
Sergiusz Leończyk: At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, voluntary resettlement, also known as ‘Siberian fever’, began in the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth seized by Russia as a result of the partitions.
Deportations to the East in 1944–1945 as a Tool of Pacification in the Eastern Borderlands
Dariusz Węgrzyn: In 1944-1945, a total of approximately 35,000 Poles were repressed in the entire eastern territories taken from the Second Polish Republic. These figures are highly approximate and there are also estimates of 10,000 more. Given the lack of detailed research into the scale of the deportations, it is safe to say that we are operating with de facto data from 20 years ago.