Zmiany własnościowe jako aspekt polityki narodowościowej na pograniczu polsko-białoruskim w świetle dziejów majątku państwowego Dubnica
Ownership Changes as an Aspect of Nationality Policy in the Polish-Belarusian Borderland in the Light of the History of the Dubnica State Property

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to analyse the effectiveness of Russian and Polish nationalisation policies on the example of ownership changes taking place in the Dubnica state property over two historical periods: the post-uprising period and the Second Republic of Poland (1865–1939). The forestry estate Dubnica was situated in a multi-ethnic Polish-Belarussian borderland (in Sokółka County). Russians and Poles planned to populate these forestry areas with homoge- nous communities regarding their religion and ethnicity. They were to use legal limitations in trading in state property for this aim. However, Russian authorities and the Polish government chose different strategies to expand their ownership. The method of the tsarist leaders was based on populating western gubernias with officials and military elites of Great Russia that were supposed to form an opposition to the dominating Polish landlords. In the independent Republic of Poland, the authorities would Polonize Eastern voivodeships, using state land that was resold at preferential prices to indigenous Roman-Catholic Poles from central and western regions of Poland. The nationalisation policy of the Russian regime did not bring the expected results. The Kurlov Family – gubernia’s high dignitaries – did not settle in the Dubnica estate for good. In 1905, after the tsar introduced the law on religious freedom, Russian lords started to sell property bought from the state to Roman Catholic peasants. The Polish authorities, in turn, populated the remaining part of the Dubnica estate (which was earlier confiscated from the Orthodox monastery in Grodno) with Kurpie inhabitants brought from Warsaw Voivodeship. Although in the end, almost the entire forestry state Dubnica estate (88.5 per cent) became the property of Polish citizens, the policy conducted by the authorities of the Second Republic of Poland did not contribute to increasing Polish land ownership across Sokółka County.

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