Poles in the Ukrainian Provinces of the “South-Western Krai” From the Perspective of the Tsarist Administration’s Political Surveillance Documents on the Eve of the First World War

This article examines the social situation of the Polish community in the South-Western Krai (the Kyiv, Podillia and Volhynia provinces) through the prism of the tsarist administration’s system of surveillance and punitive measures on the eve of the First World War. The study is based on the analysis of documents from the funds of the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv. The specific historical content presented in this article will contribute to a deeper conceptual understanding of the Russian-Polish national and cultural confrontation and the nature of the repressive and surveillance measures implemented by the tsarist administration against the backdrop of empire-wide processes of Russification, as well as the particular ways in which the Polish community was perceived by representatives of the centralised Russian bureaucratic apparatus. The nature of the surveillance and punitive measures taken against Poles within the South-Western Krai (the Kyiv, Podillia and Volhynia provinces) was determined by the strong Polish cultural and historical influence within the region. Consequently, expressions of Polish identity – such as the cultivation of the native language, customs and rituals, spiritual symbols, and the commemoration of the historical past and significant events in the national liberation struggle – were interpreted by the tsarist administration as a threat to Russian state interests and security. In view of the 50th anniversary of the January Uprising of 1863–1864, an event of great symbolic significance for the historical memory of the Polish people, Russian secret agents gathered information on how Poles within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy were commemorating it, as within the Russian Empire the authorities regarded this date as a trigger for political instability. In the run-up to the First World War, against a backdrop of deteriorating international relations, the role of the national factor as a foreign policy instrument in inter-state confrontation grew. Consequently, within the domestic policy of the Tsarist regime, the perception of Poles as a source of separatist tendencies and a threat to the state order of the Russian Empire intensified. The Tsarist administration perceived a particular danger in the development of ties between the Polish population of the South-Western Krai and Poles abroad – particularly in the context of the worsening of relations between Russia and Austria-Hungary.