Full title: Borders and Bordering after Riga: Internment Camps and the Sorting of Poland’s Post-Imperial Population

Author: Keely Stauter-Halsted, Ph.D.

Abstract/summary:

In the spring of 1921, after the Treaty of Riga formally ended hostilities with Bolshevik Russia, Marshall Piłsudski visited a POW camp near Kalisz. Piłsudski apologized to the internees for their continued incarceration, pledging a “speedy liquidation” of the camp and a quick return to normal life for the 67,000 prisoners. But for this last remnant of former soldiers housed in Poland’s carceral facilities, returning “home” was not so simple. These Russian monarchists, Cossacks, soldiers of the now defunct West Ukrainian Army, and other sworn enemies of the Soviet state could neither safely repatriate nor easily assimilate. What was to become of these and other “enemy aliens” who remained in Poland now that the country’s foreign wars were concluded and its borders finalized? How could former battlefield opponents become legal residents and what did this mean for the character of the new Polish state?

This paper examines the process by which the population of the Polish Republic was “sorted” in the aftermath of the Versailles Treaty. It looks specifically at the fate of thousands of former residents of Polish internment camps who appealed to remain on Polish territory. Founded by peacemakers at Versailles as a nation-state, I argue that the new country’s self-definition was constantly challenged as officials arbitrated the future of former internees. Yet surprisingly, in the early years of the Polish Republic, these decisions were neither consistently bio-racial nor consistently hostile to those of foreign birth, but rather reflected the cultural hybridity of earlier imperial situations.