Polish Intelligentsia as the Enemy of the German and Soviet Totalitarianism - Instytut Pileckiego

How was the new intelligentsia forged (or how did it emerge) after the Second World War? Who shaped its structure and characteristics? What happened to the prewar “old” intellectuals? As part of this project, we seek answers to all the above questions.

The Second World War had far-reaching consequences for many communities of its victims, and Poland was the first to experience them. Throughout the occupation, our country suffered immensely as a result of the criminal policies pursued by the German and Soviet invaders. Selected social strata, particularly the Polish intelligentsia, were decimated in a planned and
murderous manner by both the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. We are still feeling the effects of the war today. The irreversible tragedy of the far-reaching extermination of the Polish intelligentsia continues to affect the Polish state. It is estimated that as a result of the criminal policies of the German and Soviet occupiers, 30% of researchers, 20% of teachers
and representatives of culture, 21.5% of judges and prosecutors, 57% of attorneys and 39% of doctors perished. However, the data are incomplete, and as such require verification and supplementation following new research.

The German policy of the extermination of the Polish nation involved the execution of Poles who held high public or local government office in the Second Polish Republic. As soon as regular military operations ceased in September 1939, the Third Reich began implementing its criminal plans against the Polish community. With the beginning of the occupation, arrests of
mayors, aldermen, and people connected with the Polish local government and socio-patriotic organizations commenced. The majority of those arrested were brutally murdered or sent to concentration camps.

Polish communities within the territory of the Soviet Union experienced the criminal policy of the totalitarian Stalinist state even before the outbreak of the Second World War. Deportations, resettlement, repressions, and Soviet crimes after 17 September 1939 irrevocably destroyed the pillars of Polish statehood and culture in the Eastern Borderlands, paving the way for their Sovietization.

What then? Near the end of the war, Polish and Jewish citizens of the former Second Polish Republic “discussed” the need for a new intelligentsia in the pages of the placard newspapers published by the Union of Polish Patriots. They “discussed” in the most remote corners of the Soviet Union in preparation for a new communist Poland. If there was a “new” intelligentsia,
then what had become of the “old” one? Although ruthlessly and systematically exterminated by the Germans, it survived. The question now was just how ready they were to face the challenge of another occupation, this time by the Soviets. The Soviets, in turn, having destroyed the pillars of Polish statehood in the Borderlands, began to create a “new” intelligentsia that would be loyal to them. How did this process unfold? When did it begin?
What did it consist of? We will try to answer these and many other questions, which are of key importance for Poland’s modern history and for understanding our current position, as part of the Pilecki Institute’s research and publishing project.

Research and archival queries conducted as part of the project will result in a publishing series devoted to the above-discussed questions. The main publication will be a multi-volume monograph titled Polish Intelligentsia as the Enemy of the German and Soviet Totalitarianism. A part of the project will be devoted to the popularization of these topics in the form of regularly held debates, discussion panels and conferences under the heading
“Death and Birth of the (New) Polish Intelligentsia.”

Project coordinator: Prof. Witold Stankowski

Coordinator of the Soviet component: Dr. Jerzy Rohoziński

Research team: Prof. Włodzimierz Jastrzębski, Prof. Zygmunt Woźniczka, Dr. Tomasz Ceran, Dr. Marcin Przegiętka, Dr. Karol Makles, Dr. Markus Krzoska, Dr. Marcin Panecki; Prof. Jakub Wojtkowiak, Prof. Dmitriy Liogkiy, Dr. Kairat Alimgazinov, Dr. Manara Kalybekova, Dr. Dmitriy Panto, Dr. Zmicer Drozd, Dr. Oleksandr Majewski, Dr. Piotr Olechowski, Dr. Adam R. Kaczyński, Dr. Danuta Kaczyńska, Dr. Kamila Zacharuk-Łukaszewska.