Self-Government in Western Belarus: The Divergence between Reality and Intentions

Borka, A.I. (2011). Local Bodies of State Administration and Self-Government in Western Belarus (1921–1939). Hrodna: Hrodna State University, 139 pp.

Review prepared by Aliaksandr Vabishchevich.

Although the Western Belarusian problematic of the 1920s–1930s has already become a traditional field that has been developed in domestic historical scholarship for more than a decade, various “blank spots” still remain, awaiting inquisitive researchers. One such innovative topic has been developed by Andrei Ivanavich Borka, associate professor at Yanka Kupala Hrodna State University. In his monograph, published in 2011 and prepared on the basis of his Candidate dissertation, the author sought to trace the history of the formation of local bodies of state administration and county, urban, and rural self-government bodies in the Western Belarusian lands within Poland.

He also studied their structure, competence, specific features of functioning, the national and confessional composition of their employees and officials, and the normative and legal framework. As Chapter 1, as well as the bibliography, shows, the monograph is distinguished by a wide range of sources used. Among them, a special place should be given to diverse archival materials. Their geography covers not only the Republic of Belarus (the State Archive of Brest Region, the State Archive of Hrodna Region, the Zonal State Archive in Maladzechna), but also Poland (the Archive of New Records) and Lithuania (the Lithuanian Central State Archive).

In addition to archival documents, many other sources were used to ensure greater objectivity in the study. This largely predetermined the successful fulfilment of the tasks set by the author.

A separate Chapter 2 sets out the history of the formation, composition, and powers of rural and urban self-government bodies. In the course of analysing the actual practice of rural and urban self-government bodies on the territory of Western Belarus, the specific character of their activity is revealed. In particular, because of distrust toward local residents, the Polish administrative authorities resolved personnel issues mainly without their participation. Moreover, they exercised control over and limited the powers and competence of elected self-government bodies, effectively appointed (instead of elections) “reliable” people to the boards of gminas and magistrates’ offices (municipal administrations), and played a decisive role in the activity of urban self-government (in the composition of magistrates’ offices and in decision-making).

The author clearly demonstrates the dependence of local self-government bodies on county administrations and voivodes. Thus, they closely monitored the personnel composition of gmina boards in order to prevent “anti-state elements” from entering them; they carefully selected politically loyal persons, Poles by nationality and Catholics by confession, who had to be approved by the county starost office.

Local residents displayed a generally negative attitude toward the gmina administration. In 1933, restrictions were introduced for elections to gmina councils, control over them by the county starost was strengthened, and voivodes received the right to dissolve an undesirable gmina council.

The heads of gminas were also fully dependent on the administrative authorities. There were frequent cases in which only Poles and Catholics, who did not enjoy the trust of gmina residents, were appointed as heads of gminas. However, the monograph also cites cases of positive attitudes toward heads of gminas who were genuine managers (p. 43). In conditions of distrust toward the Western Belarusian population, real self-government at the local level became impossible.

The book also separately examines the specific features of urban self-government, which included magistrates’ offices (from 1933 onward, municipal administrations). Elections to city councils were held in 1919, 1927, 1934, and 1939. However, the general attitude of the Polish authorities toward urban self-government was unfavourable. The practice of appointing heads of gminas, mayors, and aldermen was widespread; their dependence on state bodies increased, and national, confessional, age, and other restrictions were introduced. As a result, residents showed little interest in the elections, especially in small towns and townships.

The ethnoconfessional specificity of the urban population of the Western Belarusian region (the predominance of Jews) led to contradictions between Jewish and Christian factions in urban self-government bodies. The factional composition of city councils often influenced the adoption of a number of important decisions. Discrimination against Belarusian representation was clearly visible there.

Chapter 3 covers the history of the organisation and the specific features of county bodies of state administration and self-government on the territory of Western Belarus. First of all, it reveals the legislative foundations for the activity of the first-instance administrative authorities, the starost offices. As the author correctly emphasises, forming them was not easy, because they were staffed with personnel sent in from outside, who for the most part did not know local languages and traditions.

People from central Polish regions were appointed to the positions of starosts, as well as to other responsible posts in Western Belarusian counties. The author reaches a well-grounded conclusion that county sejmiks (from 1933 onward, county councils) were never able to become real bodies of self-government, because they were fully dependent on the county starost. Such self-government is therefore rightly characterised as decorative: it was in effect replaced by state administration and was completely dependent on it (pp. 83–84).

Chapter 4 is devoted to the historical aspects of the creation of second-instance administrative bodies (at the level of voivodeships). The voivode was granted unlimited powers to direct and control the administrative apparatus and self-government bodies within the voivodeship. Like county starosts, voivodes were appointed by the Warsaw authorities from among natives of the core Polish lands, and only Poles were appointed. The same approaches were followed in selecting candidates for the positions of state officials in the voivodeship.

In characterising the heads of voivodeships, the author avoids emotional assessments. Thus, the Vilnius voivode Ludwik Bociański and the Polesie voivode Wacław Kostek-Biernacki, both ardent supporters of harsh methods in the struggle against the Western Belarusian national movement, are called decisive voivodes (p. 100). Regarding the latter (W. Kostek-Biernacki), who actively used police-administrative methods, the communist press did not spare the corresponding epithets: “Piłsudski’s faithful dog,” “hangman,” “executioner,” and others (Cichoracki, 2009: 232).

The orientation of Polish policy toward the colonisation of Western Belarusian lands and the Polonisation of the local population led to the expansion of the powers of administrative authorities and the corresponding narrowing of the powers of self-government bodies, as well as the establishment of comprehensive control over them. This “practically destroyed the implementation of the liberal ideas embedded in the Constitution of 1921” (p. 108). Polish legislation evolved toward anti-democratic and authoritarian tendencies.

From the early 1930s, the electoral rights of part of the population were restricted because of the raising of property, age, and language qualifications. The competence of gmina, urban, and county councils was substantially narrowed, and the already insignificant representation of Belarusians in them sharply decreased. The tendency toward the complete removal of non-Polish representatives from the state apparatus became clear (Vabishchevich, 2008: 142). The “Sanation” regime never carried out radical changes in its national policy, continuing in practice to use the coercive methods of its predecessors and opponents, the Polish National Democrats (Śleszyński, 2007: 176, 349).

The main principle of state administration in the Polish state, and in the Western Belarusian lands in particular, is identified as rigid centralisation (government structures, state authorities in voivodeships and counties). As A.I. Borka rightly notes, despite constitutional guarantees, territorial self-government was reduced to gminas, towns, and counties, while voivodeship self-government bodies were never created and were replaced by voivodeship collegial bodies (the voivodeship council and department), which were entirely dependent on the voivodes.

As shown in the preceding chapters of the book, the character of gmina, urban, and county self-government was decorative. This is confirmed once again in the concluding argument: territorial self-government in the Western Belarusian region was not implemented (pp. 109–110). This view diverges from the recurrences of social stereotypes that are often cultivated in certain Polish publications of a “nostalgic-Kresy” orientation.

Aggressiveness, indifference, and permissiveness were not uncommon among Polish officials in Western Belarus; they did not know the local traditional culture or language and displayed contemptuous attitudes toward them. In the selection of personnel, priority was given above all to Polish nationality, Roman Catholic confession, and the degree of political loyalty, rather than professionalism, authority, and respect among Western Belarusian residents. Hence it is understandable why, for Western Belarusian residents, the Polish state and its administrative structures remained alien. They perceived the Polish official and policeman as a “pan,” a conduit of the directives of the Polish government.

One of the main functions of the voivodeship and county administrations was to ensure public order and to combat “anti-state elements.” Police bodies (command offices and posts) played an important role in this matter. However, their work is examined in the monograph only in the general context of the activity of the Polish authorities. This may yet become the subject of more than one study by domestic historians and legal scholars.

The thoroughness of the study raises no doubts, nor does the author’s fairly high scholarly qualification. Nevertheless, it is worth drawing attention to certain inaccuracies and expressing some wishes. In our view, the lower chronological boundary should have been set not at 1921, but at 1919. In fact, this is present in the text, since the development of the normative and legal framework of state administration and self-government is analysed from the very beginning of the restoration of the Polish state in 1918, and the creation of Polish authorities in Western Belarus from 1919.

The author’s statement that at the beginning of 1920 the lands of Central Lithuania were annexed to Poland is not entirely accurate (p. 60). “Żeligowski’s Mutiny” took place in October 1920, and the annexation of the named territory occurred in 1922–1923 (after the decision of the Sejm of Central Lithuania that the Vilnius region would become an integral part of Poland, the corresponding decision of the Polish Sejm, and the Conference of Ambassadors of the Entente countries). However, elsewhere (p. 85) it is correctly noted that the Vilnius Voivodeship was formed on 22 December 1925, two years after the incorporation of Central Lithuania into Poland.

Some inaccuracies are also present in the terms of office of individual voivodes. For example, Stanisław Downarowicz held the position of Polesie voivode not until 9 September 1924 (p. 90), but until 9 October of the same year. He was forced to leave the post because of an unpleasant and unforgivable incident for him. On 24 September 1924, on the section between the Parachonsk and Łowcza stations, partisans attacked the train in which the voivode was travelling with officials and robbed him.

In addition, Zygmunt Beczkowicz was Vilnius voivode not until 27 December, but until 27 January 1933 (especially since the author correctly notes the beginning of his successor’s tenure). Likewise, Vilnius voivode Ludwik Bociański was appointed to the post not on 4 January 1936, but on 4 December 1935.

It is good that the author conducted a comparative analysis of the activity of bodies of state administration and self-government in central and western Polish regions and in the Western Belarusian lands. In addition to this, one may recommend that in the future he also turn to the results of studies not only by Polish, but also by Ukrainian scholars. For example, Mykola Ivanyk and Serhii Kondratiuk focused their attention primarily on the national and political aspects of the activity of self-government bodies in Western Ukraine (above all in Eastern Galicia) in 1919–1939, substantiated the stages in their development, and identified the specific features of government policy (Ivanyk, 2007). And in Yaroslava Martyniuk’s Candidate dissertation, devoted to the formation and activity of local self-government bodies in Volhynia, the main directions and forms of work, the foundations of personnel and tax policy, and the means and methods of their control by the Polish government were studied (Martyniuk, 2001).

Overall, the monograph is a thorough study distinguished by the novelty of its results. For the first time, a holistic scholarly picture has been created of the activity of local bodies of state administration and self-government in Western Belarus, allowing for a more objective perception of the life of Belarusians in interwar Poland.

 

Literature mentioned in the review

1. Cichoracki, P. (2009) Droga ku anatemie: Wacław Kostek-Biernacki (1884–1957). Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej.

2. Vabishchevich A.M. (2008) National and Cultural Life of Western Belarus (1921–1939). Brest: BrSU Publishing House.

3. Śleszyński W. (2007) Bespeczeństwo wewnętrzne w polityce państwa polskiego na ziemiach północno-wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej. Warszawa: Officyna wydawnicza RYTM.

4. Ivanyk M.M., Kondratiuk S.V. (2007) The System of Local Self-Government Bodies in Galicia in 1919–1939: A Historical and Legal Aspect. Lviv: Kompakt-LV.

5. Martyniuk Ya.M. (2001) The Formation and Activity of Local Self-Government Bodies in Volhynia (1919–1939): Abstract of the dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences: 07.00.01. Lviv.