P RUEBA S

In the present book, Eastern Poland will serve as the main case study of the mechanisms of center-periphery dependencies and their symbolic effects on regional level. The region of Eastern Poland is interesting for several reasons.

First, one can point out that its “Eastness” is itself questionable and highly relative, in particular, because of recent border changes. Despite the relative character of its Eastness there are numerous discourses that prove the strength of orientalist imagery in which it is inscribed. Below, I will analyze in more detail how this region has become a victim of “culturalism”, “psychologism” and

“historicism” and how these mechanism are involved in the networks of political and economic interests. As I will demonstrate, Eastern Poland is systematically stigmatized as post-Russian, post-Soviet, mentally oriental and assigned the guilt for its own ‘backwardness”. Here, let me only remind the reader that the region was a victim of several recent geopolitical breakthroughs including those in 1914–21, 1939–45 and 2004–7. All of these revolutionary moments considerably lowered the status of the region and, in particular, its economic standing. In a similar way, Eastern Poland paid a non-proportional price for Poland’s accession to the EU. The region was offered compensation in the form of regional funds, more precisely, in the form of the so called “Opera-tional Program Eastern Poland”. That compensation, however, consisted of subsidies, which may have further deepened the region’s dependence on public aid. At the same time, these transfers were defined as a voluntary “help”. In a similar way, transfers from the German budget to Eastern Germany were defined as “solidarity tax”, just as transfers in Italy from the North to the South were framed as “help”. In this way, images of southern and eastern regions as being “lazy” are being built. This can be seen as illustration of negotiating the terms of trade between regions and, in a wider perspective, negotiating of the definition of “laziness” and “work” and its price (i.e. what constitutes real “work” and how much it is worth). Because of the very unfavorable terms of trade for the region in the post-communist period, and especially after the EU expansion, Eastern Poland became a major exporter of cheap and relatively well educated workforce to Warsaw and to other metropolitan areas in Poland, as well as to Western Europe. This is just one of the examples of how discourses, stigmatizing Eastern Poland, are inscribed in

a wider web of economic and political interests, in particular those of actors located in core areas of Western Europe. In addition, the region allows observation of nested orientalism and its compensatory aspects.

Historical context of Eastern Poland’s marginalization

To understand the present day status of Eastern Poland within the national and European hierarchy of regions, it is important to see it in the context of a pattern that originates in the Middle Ages and seems to be a permanent structure of the Polish space until today. The east-west differentiation is characterized by gradually decreasing levels of economic development from West to East. It can be attributed primarily to the patterns of the process of diffusion of innovations in this part of Europe (Cipolla, 1972). This differ-entiation is probably most visible in the case of the density and patterns of development of cities (Fedorowicz et al., 1982), not only in terms of their number but also in terms of their character. In Eastern Poland, many towns had a “private” character, that is, they were not governed by burghers but owned by aristocratic land-owners. The same differentiation that refers to decreasing density from west to east, concerns also all kinds of infrastructure including roads, railways, sewage systems all the way up to foreign direct investments in recent years (Doman´ski, 2003). This important feature of the economic geography of Polish lands is an element of the general logic of the European center-periphery hierarchy. One can point to a similar mani-festation of this general spatial structure in the modern economic and social differentiation of the early Middle Ages, which can be observed in Italy. The most famous interpretation of the Italian economic and social geography from such a long-range perspective was presented by Robert Putnam (Putnam, 1993). One can notice that the North–South differentiation which Putnam describes as a structure in Italy, inherited from the Middle Ages, is an element of the very same pan-European centre-periphery structure, which is based on decreasing levels of development as a function of the distance from the Western European core. In southern Europe, including the Balkans, the differentiation has North–South logic, while in Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland, it has a very strong East–West logic, which can be found in several dimensions of the Polish space.

That European core, known also as the“Blue Banana”, appears to be one of the most persistent and stable structures of the continent’s space in modern history. Several contemporary geographers and economists confirm its persistence within the structures of European space over, at least, the last ten centuries (e.g. Heidenreich, 1998; Taylor and Hoyler, 2000). However, as Heidenreich (1998) argued, historians such as Braudel (1958), Tilly (1998) and political scientists like Rokkan (Rokkan and Urwin, 1983) should be creditedfirst with the identification of that famous axis of European economic development. As they have argued, it dates back at least to Medieval or even Roman times and reflects centuries-old trade routes (the Alpine–Rhine axis) as well as the

borderland between Roman-Catholic and Protestant Europe. One could probably link the tensions between the two branches of Christianity, con-centrated in this core region of the continent, to the core region’s capacity to be a major engine of creativity in the global scale. Additionally, along the same line the Industrial Revolution developed since the 1800. Until today, the Blue Banana stands out in demographic, economic, infrastructural and cultural-educational dimension of European space. It continues to be the largest single, most densely populated and highly urbanized continuous area in Europe. Most studies of European economic structures trace back the Blue Banana and respectively, the East–West differentiation in the Polish space, to approximately the eleventh century. The best known analyst of the heritage of European economic geography is undoubtedly Ferdinand Braudel (1984), who identified a “first European world economy” in the late Middle Ages. He saw it as a collection of “city centered economies” defined as an axis between “two poles”. The first one was the Northern pole around the Hanseatic League of cities, and the second one was the Southern pole around the city states of Northern Italy. Rokkan (Rokkan, 1970, 1980), at the same time, argued that such city-centered European spatial structure lasted through the Early Modern period and had a profound effect upon contemporary policies and economies. In his model, this dominant urban axis defines both the East–West economic division of Europe as well as the second cultural division that dis-tinguishes Northern (Protestant) from Southern (Catholic) zones. Taylor and Hoyler (Taylor and Hoyler, 2000) argued, however, that since the Early Modern period, these two geographical axes have been fundamentally altered and have even swapped natures. In their view, industrialization reinforced the North–South economic division, while, more recently, the Cold War reinforced the East–West cultural division. According to Taylor and Hoyler, one can’t assume non-problematically a continuity in the spatial order of Europe with major cities forming a core“spine”. This view seems, however, to not be very popular among the main analysts of European space.

Numerous Polish authors have identified and analyzed the East–West dif-ferentiation in the Polish economic and social geography (e.g. Gorzelak and Jałowiecki, 2002; Gorzelak, 1998). Zukowski (2004) emphasizes in this context that the Vistula river is the main dividing line between the more developed Western and Northern provinces (commonly labeled“Poland A”) and the less advanced Central-Eastern and Southern regions (known as “Poland B”).

Zukowski argued, moreover, about the importance of events between twelfth and thirteenth centuries when the European population doubled. This resul-ted in the migration of peoples in search for new arable lands. Western Poland was most affected by this process, since it brought important civilizational innovations with Western European settlers. Zukowski is convinced that before the twelfth-thirteenth century breakpoint, “all historical provinces of the early Kingdom of Poland were on the same footing. Thus, the initial conditions were roughly similar, and could not predict the subsequent divergent evolution. Probably, the only meaningful difference between the North–Western

and South-Eastern regions was the geographical location, which was more favorable for the former” (Zukowski, 2004: 966). This lead Zukowski to a conclusion that what happened at that time in Poland was the first turning point in its history. One can note here, however, that the debate on the sources of the historical roots of the underdevelopment of Poland, in particular of its Eastern regions, still continues (Sosnowska, 2004; Chirot, 1989). Therefore Zukowski’ view cannot be considered conclusive in this discussion.

Another important early transformation that deepened the East–West dif-ferentiation was the so called “second serfdom” in Eastern Poland, usually perceived as a result of the sixteenth century rise of Western demand for Poland’s grains. These developments, which arguably resulted in peripher-alization of the entire Polish economy in European context, have been exclu-sively discussed by Immanuel Wallerstein in his seminal World-System Theory (Wallerstein, 1974b). Zukowski (2004) argued in this context that:

the insertion of Poland into the international tradeflows in 16th century as an exporter of grains to the Netherlands contributed to strengthening the serfdom and the demesne economy mostly in backward eastern and southern regions. In contrast, the advanced Western and Northern area being much less export-dependent, underwent a further demise of feudal economic and social relationships.

(Zukowski, 2004: 960) This thesis may be seen as, at least, partly controversial if we take into account the similarly export-dependent character of much of the German Junker estates in present day Western Poland (Schoer, 1976). They were in fact considered as equally backward and reproduced some forms of the

“second serfdom”. Polish dominated Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) seems to be even more “advanced” in these terms, as it has been dominated by large estates to a lesser degree. In the case of the Junker estates-dominated parts of Prussia J. Perkins identifies a specific path of development, the roots of which can be traced back to the late Middle Ages. In particular, he mentions:

the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the region was first colonized by settlers from old Germany to the West of the Elbe and Saale rivers. In the process of colonization, the Slavic inhabitants, who had moved into the region in the wake of Westward Germanic migrations during the late Roman Empire, were largely eliminated or absorbed into a German ethnic identity.

(Perkins, 1986: 291) More importantly, beginning in the late Middle Ages, Eastern Germany, in Perkins’ view, experienced the above mentioned “second serfdom” or

“second feudalism” that we could see in Poland. In his interpretation it involved:

the expansion of the area of the manorial lords’ domains at the expense of peasant land and the corollary of the extraction from manorial pea-sants of an increasing burden of rents in the form of labor services for the enlarged demesnes. In the process, the peasant serfs became bound to the soil not only on account of their occupation of the manorial lands but also because of their personal status as serfs. In effect, the Medieval nature of serfdom, involving reciprocal rights and obligations on the part of lords and of peasants occupying lands in specific manors, became transformed in East-Elbia into a territorial hegemony over the area of the manorial estate.

(Perkins, 1986: 292) Karl Schoer concludes his analysis of the late Junker system by defining it as

“feudal in its superstructure, but capitalist at the base” (Schoer, 1976: 44).

During its development the economic basis did not have to be changed against the interests of the Junkers and the old feudal lords could merge with the new bourgeoisie. The main difference with the lands dominated by Polish ownership was probably that the Polish national bourgeoisie was always very weak and the landowning nobility transformed into intelligentsia rather than into burghers. As Andrzej Wyrobisz (1989) pointed out:

contrary to the rapid growth of population in the great urban centers in Western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the number of inhabitants of Polish towns grew very slowly or did not grow at all, except in Danzig, Warsaw, Cracow, and Lublin, which grew faster because of their economic, political and cultural roles. But only inhabitants of Danzig exceeded forty thousand in the seventeenth century, the population of most Polish towns did not reach one thousand. The density of the urban network in the Polish Commonwealth was very uneven: in Greater Poland (the Western part of the country) it was one town per 207 sq. km., in Little Poland (the southern part of the country) one town per 245 sq.

km., in Masovia (the center of the country) one town per 313 sq. km., in the Great Duchy of Lithuania one town per 322 sq. km., in Volhynia (the eastern part of the country) one town per 608 sq. km., in Royal Prussia one town per 546 sq. km. but in the same time there were the three big-gest and wealthiest Polish towns (Danzig, Elbing, and Thorn) so the region must be estimated as intensively urbanized.

(Wyrobisz, 1989: 612) Wyrobisz emphasizes the special role of the city of Gdan´sk/Danzig on the pre-partition map of Poland since it was the only port of the country, and, therefore, a key window to the world for the export of corn and wood, which were the main articles produced by the Polish nobility. One could note that the city remains until today the most important metropolis in Northern Poland, although in the nineteenth century it has lost most of its links to

former Polish territories. At the same time, the presence of Polish culture in the city has been marginalized. Even in the pre-partition period, however, the relationship of the city with Poland has been restricted to the economic domain, despite the fact that it was given many charters by Polish kings since the beginning of the fifteenth century. Thus, Gdan´sk was not involved in exerting pressure on the nobility to concede some of their political right to the burghers, as Wyrobisz narrates. In effect, the nobility was practically the only group who enjoyed full political and civil rights until the end of the existence of the First Rzeczpospolita. Their number among the total population of the country was considerable; most probably the highest in comparison to that of any other country in Europe during that period (Davies, 1981).

The partition of Poland started in 1772 with thefirst wave of annexations of Polish territory by Austria, Prussia and Russia. The second wave took place in 1793 (Austria did not participate this time), and the final one came in 1795, when the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth finally ceased to exist.

However, only at the Vienna Congress in 1815, stable border between the three empires have been established. They lasted in an almost unchanged form during the following 100 years until 1914, when the First World War suddenly erupted and Polish territories became the theatre of the Prussian–

Russian and Austrian–Russian confrontation. Thus, during the nineteenth century, Polish territories were peripheral areas in relation to the states of all of the occupying powers. This peripheral status was probably the least extreme in the case of Russia, since Polish lands occupied by the Romanovs’

Empire became Russia’s Western borderland, they were closest to the European core and constituted an important transit zone. As Jacek Kochanowicz even argued,“for a time being – in the last quarter of the nineteenth century – the Polish Kingdom was one of the most industrially developed regions of the Russian Empire” (Kochanowicz, 2006). At the same time, however, it would be difficult to say that Russia treated them in a privileged way. Rather, the opposite was true: it punished Polish territories several times with harsh measures, especially after failed uprisings. Russian war doctrine treated them also as a“buffer zone” in case of war with Prussia. In effect, the development of transport infrastructure in the Congress Kingdom has been severely restricted. Polish lands, occupied by Austria, which formed the province of Galicia (named by Austrians after the ancient Ruthenian Dutchy of Halych), became the poorest region of the entire Austro–Hungarian Empire. Greater Poland also appeared to be one of Prussia’s most peripheral regions.

From such point of view, all these countries could be seen as equally restraining the economic development of the Polish space. However, it is also true that the occupying states were on quite different levels of economic development. From this perspective, the influence of the Prussian economic and administrative system is usually considered as more positive than that of the Russian one. On the other side of the border, Russian Poland, as it was already mentioned, was the most Western province of the Romanovs’ Empire.

This fact appeared to be an advantage for the development of the industrial

centers in the region.Łódz´ is the best example of such a large industrial city.

It became an important center of the textile industry in Europe, famous for its industrial boom in the second half of the nineteenth century, and remained as such even in present-day Poland.Łódz´ developed mainly because of its location near the Prussian border. This allowed investors from Prussia to build factories close to their native country and, at the same time, to have access to the enormous Russian market. In other words, the sudden emergence of the industrial grow pole inŁódz´ was possible only because of the division of Poland and the tariff policies of the Russian Empire. Most authors agree that the Russian sector experienced the most pronounced impact of the industrialization process during the nineteenth century. One has to note, however, that it was restricted to a small number of centers (primarily Warsaw,Łódz´ and Da˛browskie Basin) and depended heavily on foreign capital. In general, the contrasts between urban and rural areas are much higher in the former Russian region than in any other part of Poland. This seems to be related to a more general pattern of contrast between Germany, with a low urban-rural tension, and Russia, with a high polarization between large metropolises and rural areas.

The development of industry in the Russian zone started in the late eighteenth century under the so called relatively autonomous Kingdom of Poland. The Kingdom lasted until 1830, that is, until the first anti-Russian uprising. At that time, a considerable development of the so called Old-Polish Industrial Basin (Zagłe¸bie Staropolskie) located north of the city of Kielce (based on mines of iron, copper, lead) took place. It is usually considered as one of the

The development of industry in the Russian zone started in the late eighteenth century under the so called relatively autonomous Kingdom of Poland. The Kingdom lasted until 1830, that is, until the first anti-Russian uprising. At that time, a considerable development of the so called Old-Polish Industrial Basin (Zagłe¸bie Staropolskie) located north of the city of Kielce (based on mines of iron, copper, lead) took place. It is usually considered as one of the