Kresy (Borderlands)

Poland's Eastern Borderlands. A term used in an almost mythical fashion to describe the lands which were once part of Poland and lay between the Bug and Narew rivers to the west and the Dnepr and Dvina rivers to the east. The term encompasses Wilno and the regions of Lithuania, Polesie, Białoruś, Podole, and Wołyń. The meaning of the term has changed with time as more and more of Poland's Eastern Borderlands were lost, initially at the result of the First Partition in 1772, then during the Second Partition of 1793 and finally in 1945 at the end of World War II. Graphically, this best rendered by the sequence of three maps below showing sequentially the territory of Poland, shown in white, as it existed in prior to 1772, in the period 1920-1939, and today. In each case, Poland's contemporary bordersare superimposed in red.

Central Europe pre 1772

Central Europe 1920-1939

Contemporary Central Europe

Conceptually, the following quote, translated from an essay by Zbigniew Warpechowski, provides a measure of the meaning "Kresy" has for many Poles. "I come from the Kresy, where the tombstones of my ancestors have already been leveled with the ground, from the lands that after the Second Partition were incorporated in the Russian Empire. There Poles who continued to adhere to the Catholic Church, condemned themselves, their families and five generations of their descendants to humiliation and poverty."

Historically, the lands in question changed hands many times so that many of the localities have a plurality of names: Polish, Russian, German, Ukrainian etc. These were lands populated by people of many ethnic backgrounds, often living in close proximity to each other in a multiethnic mosaic that, for the most part, did not survive the rise in nationalism and the massive population displacements that took place during and after WWII.

• Mapservers covering the whole country
  

• Map of the Polish State including the "Kresy" regions - Streching from sea to sea
  

• Kresy - An introduction
  
• Halychyna (Galicja) - A website which reflects the multiethnic history of the region
  
• The Poles of Lithuania
• Websites on Polish-Lithuanian History and Genealogy
• Poles in Belarus
• The Poles of Belarus and Lithuania in the 19th Century
• The Fortunes of the Military Settlers During 1939-45
• The Military Settlers in the Eastern Borderland during 1939-1945

• History of Berezhany

• Lwow - a large website partly in English, created by a Polish emigree born there.
• The National Ossolinski Institute - From 1827 to 1945 the Institute was housed in Lwów
• Lwów's Cemetery of Young Eagles - and the remain of the unknown soldier
  now interred in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw

• Four Centuries of Enlightenment: A Historic View of the University of Vilnius, 1579-1979

• Under the Soviet Regime

• Studies in Polish Jewry