Chłopscy aktywiści polskich organizacji w Prusach Zachodnich w XIX i na początku XX wieku
Peasant Activists of Polish Organisations in West Prussia in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Summary/Abstract: The participation of peasants in the Polish national movement in the province of West Prussia (Pomerelia) during the period of Prussian rule has so far received only limited scholarly attention. Existing studies have rightly emphasised the role of the landed gentry and the clergy and have examined the mechanisms of Germanisation, yet they have largely overlooked the growing involvement of the rural population in Polish organisational life. This engagement intensified in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, alongside the social and political emancipation of the peasantry within the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire. The analysis presented in the article seeks to address this gap. The study draws on a wide range of sources, including files of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, the Supreme Presidency of the Province of West Prussia, district offices in Danzig (Pol. Gdańsk) and Marienwerder (Pol. Kwidzyn), and county and municipal administrations. These archival materials are supplemented by published as well as handwritten memoirs, programme pamphlets, journalistic writings, and both Polish- and German-language press sources. The analysis demonstrates that, following enfranchisement and the acquisition of full civic rights, peasants, now formally equal to other social strata, engaged in a wide range of activities aimed at preserving Polish national consciousness and sustaining national identity within a foreign state. They sought, among other things, to participate in the leadership of Polish national organisations, despite their comparatively weaker social and economic position vis-à-vis the landed gentry, whose representatives frequently viewed such aspirations with suspicion. Although peasants constituted only a small proportion of the governing bodies of Polish organisations, their presence nonetheless testified to the ongoing formation of a modern Polish society during this period.

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