Anti-Polish sentiment, Polonophobia, or anti-Polonism (),Thaddeus C. Radzilowski,, Anti-Polonism are terms for negative attitudes, prejudices, and actions against Polish people as an ethnic group, Poland as their country, and their culture. These include ethnic prejudice against Poles and persons of Polish descent, other forms of discrimination, and mistreatment of Poles and the Polish diaspora.
This prejudice led to mass killings and genocide or it was used to justify atrocities both before and during World War II, most notably by the German Nazis and Ukrainian Insurgent Army. While Soviet repressions and massacres of Polish citizens were ideologically motivated, the negative attitude of Soviet authorities to the Polish nation is well-attested.
Nazi Germany killed between 1.8 and 2.7 million ethnic Poles; 140,000 Poles were deported to Auschwitz, where at least half of them perished.Wojciech Materski and Tomasz Szarota. Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami. Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Warszawa 2009, . Page 9
Anti-Polish sentiment includes stereotyping Poles as unintelligent and aggressive, as thugs, thieves, alcoholics, and antisemites.
Etymology According to Adam Leszczynski, the term antypolonizm was coined by journalist Edmund Osmańczyk in 1946. Osmańczyk condemned anti-Jewish violence in postwar Poland, and concluded:
Features Forms of hostility toward Poles and Polish culture include: Organized persecution of the Poles as a nation or as an ethnic group; A xenophobic dislikes of Poles, including Polish immigrants; Cultural anti-Polish sentiment: a prejudice against Poles and Polish-speaking persons or their customs, language and education; Stereotypes about Poland and Polish people in the media and other forms of popular culture.
A historic example of anti-Polish sentiment was polakożerstwo (in English, "the devouring of Poles") – a Polish term coined in the 19th century in relation to the dismemberment and annexation of Poland by Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy and Russia. Polakożerstwo described the forcible suppression of Polish culture, education and religion in historically Polish territories, and the gradual elimination of Poles from everyday life as well as from owning property. Anti-Polish policies were implemented by the German Empire under Otto von Bismarck, especially during the Kulturkampf, and enforced up to the end of the First World War.Sebastian Conrad, Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany, Cambridge University Press page 171 Organized persecution of Poles raged in the territories annexed by Russia, mainly under Tsar Nicholas II.Liudmila Gatagova, "THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF ETHNIC IDENTITY IN THE PROCESS OF MASS ETHNOPHOBIAS IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. (The Second Half of the 19th Century)." The CRN E-bookMatthew F. Jacobson, Special Sorrows: The Diasporic Imagination of Irish, Polish, and Jewish ... Page 34, Social Science, Publisher: University of California Press, 2002; 340 pages. Historic actions inspired by anti-Polonism ranged from felonious acts motivated by hatred, to physical extermination of the Polish nation, the goal of which was to eradicate the Polish state. During World War II, when most of Polish society became the object of genocidal policies of Nazi Germany, anti-Polonism led to an unprecedented campaign of mass murder in German-occupied Poland. In the modern day, among those who often express their hostile attitude towards the Polish people are some Russian politicians and their far-right political parties who search for a new identity rooted in the defunct Russian Empire after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Anti-Polish stereotypes In the Russian language, the term mazurik (мазурик), a synonym for "pickpocket", "petty thief", literally means "little Masovian".Vladimir Dahl, Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, 1880 and later reprints, entry МАЗУРИК The word is an example how Vladimir Putin's liberal use of colloquialisms has been gaining media attention from abroad."The Government's Political Technologist, or the Secrets of Inter TV Channel's Information Policy", Ukrayinska Pravda, Monday, 25 April 2011
The "Polish plumber" cliché may symbolize the threat of cheap labor from poorer European countries to "steal" low-paying jobs in wealthier parts of Europe. On the other hand, others associate it with affordability and dependability of European migrant workers.
Before the Second Polish Republic, 1918
Anti-Polish rhetoric combined with the condemnation of Polish culture was most prominent in the 18th-century Prussia during the partitions of Poland. However, anti-Polish propaganda begins with the Teutonic Order in the 14th century. It was a very important tool in the Order's attempt to conquer the Duchy of Lithuania which eventually failed because of Lithuania's Personal union with the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Christianization of Lithuania to Catholicism. The first major thinker to openly call for the genocide of the Polish people was the 14th century German Dominican theologian Johannes von Falkenberg who on behalf of the Teutonic Order argued not only that Polish pagans should be killed, but that all Poles should be subject to genocide on the grounds that Poles were an inherently heretical race and that even the King of Poland, Jogaila, a Christian convert, ought to be murdered. The assertion that Poles were heretical was largely politically motivated as the Teutonic Order desired to conquer Polish lands despite Christianity having become the dominant religion in Poland centuries prior.
Germany, becoming more and more permeated with Teutonic Prussianism, continued to pursue these tactics. For instance, David Blackbourn of Harvard University speaks of the scandalised writings of German intellectual Johann Georg Forster, who was granted a tenure at Vilnius University by the Polish Commission of National Education in 1784. Heinrich Reintjes, Weltreise nach Deutschland, Progress-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1953. Note: Johann Georg Forster became Chair of Natural History Department at Vilnius University in 1784 thanks to generous job offer from the Polish Commission of National Education (Komisja Edukacji Narodowej) Forster wrote of Poland's "backwardness" in a similar vein to "ignorance and barbarism" of southeast Asia. Such views were later repeated in the German ideas of Lebensraum and exploited by the Nazis. German academics between the 18th and 20th centuries attempted to project, in the difference between Germany and Poland, a "boundary between civilization and barbarism; high German Kultur and primitive Slavdom" (1793 racist diatribe by J.C. Schulz republished by the Nazis in 1941).Susan Parman, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. (Book review) Prussian officials, eager to secure Polish partition, encouraged the view that the Poles were culturally inferior and in need of Prussian tutelage. Such racist texts, originally published from the 18th century onwards, were republished by the German Reich prior to and after its invasion of Poland.
Frederick the Great of Prussia nourished a particular hatred and contempt for the Polish people. Following his conquest of Poland, he compared the Poles to "Iroquois" of Canada. In his all-encompassing anti-Polish campaign, even the nobility of Polish background living in Prussia were obliged to pay higher taxes than those of German heritage. Polish monasteries were viewed as "lairs of idleness" and their property often seized by Prussian authorities. The prevalent Catholicism among Poles was stigmatised. The Polish language was persecuted at all levels.Frederick's "the Iroquois of Europe" in Polish liberal thought before 1918 by Maciej Janowski, Central European University Press, 2004,
After the Polish–Russian War in early 1600s, Poland was greatly blamed by the Russians as the cause of chaos and tyranny in Russia. The future House of Romanov, who would found the Russian Empire after taken power from the Rurik dynasty, used a number of distortion activities, describing Poles as backward, cruel and heartless, praising the rebellion against Poles; and heavily centered around the Orthodox belief. When Tsardom of Russia invaded Poland at the Russo-Polish war of 1650s, the Russians caused a number of atrocities, and destroyed most of Eastern Poland, sometimes joining destruction with its Ukrainian ally led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Swedes in the parallel Swedish invasion. The war was held as a Russian triumph for its attempt to destroy Poland.
Sweden, which developed anti-Polish sentiment due to previous Polish–Swedish wars in hope to gain territorial and political influence, as well as dispute with the Polish Crown because of Sigismund III Vasa, launched an invasion known as the Deluge. Swedish invaders, joined force with Russian invaders in the east, together destroyed Poland and took away many of the Polish national treasures, as well as committing atrocities against Poles. The Poles were treated very brutally by Swedes, and as a result, Poland lost its wealth and was reduced in its development. Similar to Russia, Sweden hailed the destruction of Poland as a national triumph.
In the 18th century, Russia as an empire attempted to make Poland disintegrate by using liberum veto, creating chaos and prevented reforms, as by Russian accords, was against the ideal of Imperial Russia's future plan to partition Poland. Russia often sent troops and carried out atrocities on Polish civilians. When Poland adopted its first ever Constitution of 3 May 1791, the first Constitution in Europe, Russia sent troops and brutally suppressed Polish people.
When Poland lost the last vestiges of its independence in 1795 and remained partitioned for 123 years, ethnic Poles were subjected to discrimination in two areas: the Germanisation under Prussian and later German rule, and Russification in the territories annexed by Imperial Russia.
Being a Pole under the Russian occupation was in itself almost culpable – wrote Russian historian Liudmila Gatagova. – "Practically all of the Russian government, bureaucracy, and society were united in one outburst against the Poles." – "Rumor mongers informed the population about an order that had supposedly been given to kill [...] and take away their land." Polish culture and religion were seen as threats to Russian imperial ambitions. Tsarist Namestniks suppressed them on Polish lands by force. The Russian anti-Polish campaign, which included confiscation of Polish nobles' property, was waged in the areas of education, religion as well as language. Polish schools and universities were closed in a stepped-up campaign of russification. In addition to executions and mass deportations of Poles to Katorga camps, Tsar Nicholas I established an occupation army at Poland's expense.
The fact that Poles, unlike the Orthodox Russians, were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic gave impetus to their religious persecution. At the same time, with the emergence of Panslavist ideology, Russian writers accused the Polish nation of betraying their "Slavic family" because of their armed efforts aimed at winning independence. Hostility toward Poles was present in many of Russia's literary works and media of the time. Wasilij Szczukin, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, Kraków. See comments by Szczukin to section on literature in the Russian language: "Literatura w języku rosyjskim," pp. 14-22.
Pushkin, together with three other poets, published a pamphlet called "On the Taking of Warsaw" to celebrate the crushing of the revolt. His contribution to the frenzy of anti-Polish writing comprised poems in which he hailed the capitulation of Warsaw as a new "triumph" of imperial Russia.Myroslav Shkandrij, Russia and Ukraine: Literature and the Discourse of Empire from Napoleonic to Postcolonial Times, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2001, 354 pages. Page 69.